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Love the tape deck! Love the black halter and black nails!
I’ve had to cut myself off from listening to anymore Susan Tedeschi today. Love her too but you see I’ve made this playlist of 5 of her songs that talk about being left, lost lover blues, having fallen in love with a sturdy man that she thought would always be there, oh, and the best one for crying is about she can’t reach him because he’s wrapped in the arms of another. OW OW OW OW OW
I know it’s not entirely about me. He’s going through about one of the worst things he could be going through. If I could take that away I would. If I could re-do some of the corporate values that I imagine got him in the awful situation, I would.
A friend told me yesterday, “Beth, you got kicked in the gut. It’s okay to just feel that now. You don’t have to be totally spiritual and accepting. Have your feelings about it.”
There is a program exercise to identify:
“Why is this the best thing that has ever happened to me?”
F***** hell. Oy. Okay might as well. I wasn’t expecting this post to go there.
1) The pain had me reach out to TONS of people and reconnect and be reminded that I’m loved and appreciated.
2) I had a divinely healing experience back on the edge last night, which I will write about separately behind the Silver Curtain. (Oh, and the password issue should be fixed now. Shoot me an email if it still doesn’t work for you. beth@unconditionalserenity.com)
3) The title of this post. Oh my lord, am I feeling those back taxes of relationships that I left immediately and without feeling it at the time. I have SO much gratitude for the ones who made it through and we are still friends. I want to be that brave. E just sent me a Happy Birthday text, for example, and the way I cut him off back then was, now I know, practically unforgiveable. And he forgave me and we’re not the closest of friends but there’s love there that we get to express.
4) Last night FriendHusband was my birthday chauffeur extraordinnaire. At one point in time, the plan was to see Cadillac last night after seeing FriendHusband for an hour or 2 where I probably would have been anxiously awaiting the time I could go get face and body time with Cadillac. Instead, FriendHusband and I had some really sweet rich adventures. One of them, a small but significant one. I returned a due book to the library. I hadn’t finished it but couldn’t renew it. I took a few moments to thumb through it in the car. Oh wow, wouldn’t you know the part I hadn’t read happened to be about grieving the end of relationships. Not the linear total end, that was the interesting thing. It talked about how each phase in the relationship when you get more reality that it’s not perfect, it may not work, it’s not the be all end all, that health is grieving those at the time. Well that’s interesting and I never thought about that. It helped me understand some of the back taxes phenomenon I was talking about paying. Not only were there relationships I jumped ship from without giving them the proper respect, there have also been these losses along the way that I didn’t feel because either we were still ostensibly together, or I didn’t think I “should” feel them or something like that. It also said it’s impossible to grieve the loss of 1 while you’re moving on to another person. Yep, learned that through experience, too. Hope to be more disciplined about that this time around.
5) I’ve been willing to ask for more, for whatever reason. I guess with a cracked open heart and a psychic and emotional place that was vacated by a best friend and lover, there is more willingness on my part to maybe hear No when I ask. And to hear Yes. Example. My roommate asked me this morning if I had any special birthday requests. It culminated in her brushing my hair (one of my favorite treats), French braiding it, and leaving her fabulous essential oils collection in my room to enjoy today. Fun!
There’s more but it’s time to go for now. Thanks again everyone for reading. My critical voice tells me “You just write about yourself. You’re so self-absorbed.” But I know some of the themes are universal. OH! And part of the last night experience that I don’t want to forget is that I consider part of my life’s purpose to be giving people permission to be exactly who they are. That has always been important for me, I just didn’t have words for it until adulthood.
So I pray for today to include myself in that.
I pray that Cadillac travels safely and has a wonderful time.
I pray to engage in my re-exploration (Now behind the Bodily Spiritual Practice header; formerly called Medi) in healthy and conscious ways.
I pray that you know how special you are, and that you express your gifts.
I pray that people get free to be sane and connected and nourished.
I pray that you’ll tell at least one little truth today that you may not otherwise have dared. (Example for me. Morning with Charlie’s Angels included a conversation about my edge play that I had assumed they couldn’t handle. But they did and it was beautiful.)
I pray that you listen to your body well today. Do you need to hydrate? Do you need a hug? Do you need to rest your eyes for a few minutes?
I pray that you welcome every little part of you that wants to speak up.
I’ll leave you with this inspiration from a meditation book.
“One must not lose desires. They are mighty stimulants to creativeness, to love, and to long life.” ~Alexander Bogomoletz
My Darling,
It’s hailing, thundering, and lightning right now in San Francisco. It’s the first time in 11 years you’ve seen them all at once and just the third time of seeing any of them individually in that whole time. When people ask you if you miss the East Coast, you tell them a thing you miss a lot is watching thunderstorms from the porch. You saw a bright beautiful rainbow from your back porch this morning while you were eating a quiet breakfast.
Your relational life shifted a whole, whole lot today. Well, it had been going that direction but the deep punctuation came today. It’s kind of like that part of you that was suffering was an animal with a compound fracture and it got a mercy killing today. You send him with love and you’re doing the thing you didn’t know if you’d be able to do. And importantly, you reached out for positive healthy appropriate support when the news you didn’t want to hear came through. That’s how lasting healthy changes start….just one little action. You’re also on the receiving end of a version of the disappearing act you pulled on so many men before. Karma, my love…sometimes you put it out there and it boomerangs back to you. Oh, and don’t forget you did that to your family, too, for a while; oh yeah. Sometimes it’s the human way. Sometimes it’s the best we can do to head for the hills. You even pushed him away a lot in the beginning and you’re doing a great job of remembering that now. Bless you, Karma, for keeping nature in balance.
How perfect is it that you are on a juicy Step 2 revisitation right now? You’ve been getting so much insight from working this step lately. Some of the AA literature is now planted in your mind and you’ve been able to call on it now, specifically this passage:
“The girl we wanted to marry had other notions; we prayed God that she’d change her mind, but she didn’t. We prayed for healthy children, and were presented with sick ones, or none at all. We prayed for promotions at business, and none came. Loved ones, upon whom we heartily depended, were taken from us by so-called acts of God. Then we became drunkards, and asked God to stop that. But nothing happened. This was the unkindest cut of all. ‘Damn this faith business!’ we said.”
But you haven’t damned it this time around. You know it’s for the best. You know that you’re held and safe and protected in the Flow. You caught it that sometimes when you’re out of acceptance with something, that you’re thinking God perhaps made a mistake and you’re waiting for it to be corrected, and promptly. With restitution. Not this time around, my love. Good catch, though!
You’ve grown tremendously recently by writing on the following exercise, and then sharing it with others.
“Write what he actually said. Then write what it feels like he said.”
You have felt the listeners cringe and be kind of mortified at how your mind talks to you. You are not the weak creampuff your mind tells you that you are. You’ve coped with an abuser that happens to live between your ears and you are doing the work to turn even that over. And you know that everything inside of you wants SOMETHING to live, and that part of your work is to choose what things should be fed and get to survive and grow.
You reached a turning point of a crapton of personal work this week, actually just 2 days ago. You noticed in his absence still wanting something from him, which you rationally and evidentially knew he was not able to or willing to provide. You wrote it out to yourself, what you wanted to hear. You finally got it what other people have said about your projecting your own superego into the seeming voice of other people. WOW, what a breakthrough! (No, I’m not being sarcastic. That’s a huge deal.)
4 people you hold dearly in your heart had their positions eliminated this past week, 3 of them seemingly entirely out of the blue. F O U R. That’s a lot of loss. You knew it was “out there” but it hadn’t hit so deeply home for you until this. They are all dealing with it differently, and what a gift to be able to hear what at least 2 of them are going through around it. You remember seeing the book title when you were a little kid, “When Bad Things Happen to Good People” and you couldn’t understand for years why bad things would ever happen to good people (and you somehow internalized that if something bad happened then YOU were bad….maybe you should read more than the title of that book!)
You wondered if Agent could be a good job for a Projector (from Human Design). The fabulous experience with that was completing the marketing letters for the children’s book illustrator. AS YOU WERE WALKING TO MAIL THEM, a friend you hadn’t heard from in months happened to call you. When you told the friend what you were up to in that moment, he said, “I’ve written a children’s book, and have been looking for an illustrator! Would you put us in touch?” Wow wow wow wow wow
You had a wonderful experience yesterday babysitting 3 little girls, 6, 5, and 2 years old. When you were playing the White Winged Dove of Peace Queen game with one of them, you asked her if she would share with you her magical powers and give you the ability to use them on other people. She thought about it, and then carefully said,
“No, I can’t do that. When you give your power away, then you only have half a heart. If you were able to find one of those people with 2 hearts who could give you an extra one, then I’d consider it. Otherwise, I need to keep all my heart so I have power to help other people.“
You heard a great share of someone’s early recovery and what helped them. Before she did the addictive thing that she couldn’t stop, she would take at least 1 healthy action. So even though she was acting out, she was building the muscle of taking healthy action. Nice!
You had your first directly professional writing experience this week, which felt wonderful.
You remembered and got solace from the program axiom,
“I don’t have to like it to accept it.“
Your birthday is on Monday. You are going to work your damndest to not focus on what you DON’T have and instead focus on the gratitude of what you do:
-loving friends
-spiritual practices across a wide range that you can do any time
-willingness and ability to sit with feelings
-people who read what you write on this thing (thank you thank you thank you, readers!!!!!!!! you’ve already given me my gift, to be seen!)
-physical health
-renewed love of tennis and motion
-mended relationships with family that feel wonderful
-business and clients that have come your way with ease
-interesting future business partners in a range of fields
-active volunteer position that directly impacts an issue of large significance to you
-massage trade partners
-people to be “real” with
-a home in your favorite city
-and most importantly, connection to spiritual guidance
Bless you at all ages.
You are loved, and wonderful, and you are exactly where you are supposed to be.
Upon meeting the four year-old boy I’d be sitting for this evening, he says to me,
“ARE YOU A TEENAGER?”
Ha! How droll. No, dear boy. How refreshing for you to be at an age where you can ask a woman about her age as the first question. (Don’t get used to it, kid.)
“WELL, ARE YOU A MOM?”
Okay, that one put slightly more ice in my veins. A direct hit! Fine work, young captain!
Nope, not a mom.
“WELL THEN WHAT ARE YOU?”
I had just left a good friend a message on my way to sit with these little ones that I’ve been thinking a lot about the role of women “of age” who are unnmarried and without kids. How fascinating to have that reflected back immediately.
You of course have not forgotten that it’s my birthday on November 22.
I’ll be 35. Mid-30′s. Next major milestone, 40 (God willing).
Whenever I’ve leaned in to my spiritual wisdom about the will-I-or-won’t-I have kids question, the answer has truly always been an unequivocal,
Hmm. Remains to be seen. Check back later.
I tried on the Definite No for a while just to see if I could get a sense of clarifying closure.
I tried on the Definite Yes for a while just to, well, same thing as before.
You know the saying I quoted earlier? Well, if you missed it, I’ll refresh you.
“This being the case, how shall I proceed?”
These seem to be the case now: I run out of energy quickly. I get frazzled and melt down. I absolutely adore most every kid I’ve ever met. I love to play. I have character defects out the ying yang, and that’s after years of deliberate intentful addressing of removing them. I’m selfish and self-centered. I’m creative. I’m in love with someone who is patiently fond of me, yet who also told me openly he hasn’t really told more than a handful of people about me. I’m cagey about trusting. I have a fiercely generous nurturing side.
So what wins in this jumble in order to know best how I shall proceed?
Recently I heard a great speaker define his version of spirituality. I’ll paraphrase. If I step off the side of a 20-story building, I can pray all I want on the way down but I’m still going to die. If I pray before I jump over the edge for guidance, then something has a chance to help me not jump off the ledge. I don’t have to know how that thing works, I just won’t be dead like I would be in the first scenario.
Okay he said it much more eloquently but it applies to this situation. I can pray and pray and pray and THIS BEING THE CASE is that my body is going through a natural aging process and after a certain point I will no longer be able to, I say this lovingly, breed.
**oh wow. I just looked over in the midst of writing – I’m at the home computer where I’m babysitting and being neither a teenager nor a mom so what am I – and the same pillow my therapist has in her office is sitting next to this computer. I hold onto that pillow for dear life every other week. okay that’s just beautiful enough to get me out of my head about this.**
I’m grateful that a James Brown song is playing at a house nearby and I can hear it but it’s not disturbing the kids.
I’m grateful that I watched a fun movie (Spiderwick) and listened to sweet nighttime music with the kids as they fell asleep tonight.
I’m grateful that I have on my client plate for next week ALL tasks that I want to do and am excited about.
I’m grateful that I’m developing deeper friendships from choice.
I’m grateful that every day I learn more about healthy boundaries.
I’m grateful that while it does seem I’ll be moving in the coming months, the 3 Charlie’s Angels are intending to stick together and move together.
I’m grateful that you’re reading this.
I’m grateful that my body today is healthy and that I’ve learned to love her after years of war.
I’m grateful for kids and adults and everything in between, around, and outside of that range.
Texas cheerleader suing – didn’t root for attacker
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
San Francisco Chronicle November 5, 2010
If you’re a high school cheerleader, you cheer for the whole team. The stars and the scrubs. The nice guys and the jerks.
But what about a player you’ve accused of raping you?
You’ve got to cheer for him too, according to a federal appeals court, because you’re really speaking for the school and not yourself.
The court dismissed a free-speech suit by a Texas teenager who was kicked off the cheerleading squad for sitting silently, with her arms folded, while her assailant shot free throws in a playoff game.
The former cheerleader and her family are appealing the ruling by the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, which includes an order to pay the school district’s legal fees on the grounds their suit was far-fetched and frivolous.
A case that has gripped a small town in southeast Texas also provides a window into the diminishing state of free speech on campus.
More than 40 years after the U.S. Supreme Court declared that neither students nor teachers “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech … at the schoolhouse gate,” the former cheerleader’s judicial rebuff reflects a shift in perspective that has the courts showing more deference to school authorities.
“What I want out of the whole thing is for somebody to admit they were wrong,” the 18-year-old woman, identifying herself by her initials H.S., said in an interview last week. After undergoing therapy and graduating from high school, she’s taking a semester off before college, where she plans to study forensic science, partly because of what happened to her.
The basketball player has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge, received a suspended sentence, and is making plans for college and “going forward with his life,” his lawyer said. He has denied raping H.S.
Court’s backtracking
The Supreme Court issued what appeared to be a declaration of free-speech rights on campus in 1969, when it allowed high school students to wear black armbands to protest the Vietnam War and said schools could clamp down only if students disrupted the educational process.
The court started to retrench in 1986 with a ruling allowing a high school to censor a student’s sexually suggestive speech at an assembly. Two years later, the court upheld a high school principal’s authority to prohibit articles on pregnancy and divorce from appearing in a student newspaper.
The Constitution does not require a school “to promote particular student speech,” the court said in a ruling that became a precedent for the H.S. case.
In 2007, the justices allowed a school to suspend a student for carrying a banner that read “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” at a school-approved parade near campus, saying the message could be interpreted as promoting drugs.
These days, “student speech is not given the respect it deserves. …There’s a mind-set that school officials are in total control,” said David Hudson, a Vanderbilt University law professor and scholar with the First Amendment Center who has written about the H.S. case.
Incident at party
H.S., then 16, attended a party in her hometown of Silsbee, Texas, in October 2008. She said she was dragged into a room, thrown onto the floor by several youths and raped by Rakheem Bolton, a star on the school’s football and basketball teams.
Bolton and a teammate were arrested two days later, but were allowed to return to school after a county grand jury declined to indict them. They were later indicted on sexual assault charges, but in the interim came the February 2009 incident on the basketball court.
H.S. joined in leading cheers for the Silsbee High team. But when Bolton went to the foul line, and the cheers included his name, she stepped back, folded her arms and sat down.
“I didn’t want to have to say his name, and I didn’t want to cheer for him,” H.S. said. “I didn’t want to encourage anything he was doing.”
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/11/05/MNDQ1G1R78.DTL&tsp=1#ixzz14imYxHww
Cadillac loaned me the Crucial Conversations audio companion CD’s. I liked the book a lot. I’ve been slowly downloading the discs and there was one disc that got really stuck. I’ve never seen this happen, but iTunes didn’t recognize it and various tips I followed for getting a dislodged CD out didn’t work for days. Finally today I found online a nifty program trick through Terminal. Once I finally got the disc out, I almost put it right back in the package thinking, I don’t wanna go there again! But once my sweet eyes rested on its titles, I knew it was probably a good idea to persevere with this one. Maybe it just really really needed to get my attention.
“How to Stay in Dialogue When You’re Angry, Scared or Hurt”
“Master My Stories”
“Path To Action”
“Separate Face From Story”
“Downward Spiral”
“The Rest of the Story”
Okay, if I stopped all other personal work and just focused on those topics, I’d STILL have a lifetime of work to do!!
So it’s burning into my consciousness….I mean, my iTunes, now.
(Postscript: When I took it out this time, it somehow flew out of my hands and onto the floor. Hot Potato Disc.)
****************
Note to self: Remember the Dwarf of Forgetfulness from today.
And if you forget again, that’s okay, you’re just being human.
The question I asked Google is “How did Peter Pan end?”
Wikipedia describes Peter Pan’s personality as:
“Peter is mainly an exaggerated stereotype of a boastful and careless boy. He is quick to point out how great he is, even when such claims are questionable (such as when he congratulates himself for Wendy’s successful reattachment of his shadow).
Peter has a nonchalant, devil-may-care attitude, and is fearlessly cocky when it comes to putting himself in danger. Barrie writes that when Peter thought he was going to die on Marooner’s Rock, he felt scared, yet he felt only one shudder run through him when any other person would have felt scared up until death. With his blissful unawareness of the tragedy of death, he says, “To die will be an awfully big adventure”.
In some variations of the story and some spin-offs, Peter can also be quite nasty and selfish. In the Disney adaptation of the tale, Peter appears very judgmental and pompous (for example, he called the Lost Boys ‘blockheads’ and when the Darling children say that they should leave for home at once, he gets the wrong message and angrily assumes that they want to grow up).
In the 2003 live-action film, Peter Pan is sensitive about the subject of “growing up”. When confronted by Hook about Wendy growing up, marrying and eventually “shutting the window” on Peter, he becomes very depressed and finally loses the will to fight.”
Okay so I’m getting it why people go to business school. Why they go to law school. Why they work a fulltime job that may feel soul-sucking and they may complain about it, yet they do it every day.
I’m looking for the gray. Having let go of the shore of party-party-fun-fun-assume-someone-else-will-always-take-care-of-me, I drifted for a few days in oh-I-guess-it-does-have-to-suck-and-I-have-to-pretend-it-doesn’t. There is something else, right? And I can find the gray beautiful, right?
I guess you have to admit to being lost before you can let yourself feel found.
Dan Miller is inspiring the heck out of me with his podcast 48 Days. Yay Dan Miller. He comes to us from what he calls his Sanctuary in Tennessee. It’s so wholesome to listen to him. He loves apples. I mean he is really passionate about an apple a day in some form. Dan’s in the gray and he finds it beautiful.
My prayer this morning went something like this:
God, I’m stumped. I can’t hear you. I thought I had gotten the message to Love and that doesn’t seem to be going so well. What am I missing? Could you please make it more obvious to me because I sure feel confused. Thank you.
This morning some truth tumbled out with Client A. I’ve been grappling with what I “should” do in that situation, professionally. I feel very called to serve the family, yet I could also feel him pushing me away. (Was nothing personal, he just went down and when we’re down The Light isn’t usually welcome in there.) By talking a little he and his very supportive wife agreed to give me one month’s notice if they choose to end our non-contract contract. Oh wow. That’s generous. Okay, thank you. Much more clear. No need to bolt immediately.
After talking with both of them about Life After Landmark, and getting some great support to keep going, I headed to meet with an old friend. Someone who had almost moved in to OneTaste but never did so we never went all that deep (relatively speaking). She saw me on LinkedIn and then also some of our mutual acquaintances told her I was doing financial counseling and that we should talk since she’s getting into it, too, so she reached out to me. Yay! There have been 2 guys from 12 step lately who need my services yet didn’t want to cross that line and work with someone they already know. They asked if I knew of anyone who did what I do but I didn’t. And now I do. So, deep breath, letting go, and I’ve put them in contact with each other. If she succeeds, I succeed. (*thereisenoughthereisenoughthereisenoughthereisenough*) It was phenomenal to connect with her. We have a lot in common in our life stories right now. Another one of my prayers has been to make friends with peer women. Booyah.
While she and I were sitting at the outdoor cafe in Hayes Valley, one of the beautiful spirits I met at OneTaste walked by. It was like no time had passed. That felt like a blessing. She just instantly smiled and said, “Good?” and it was so warm and I felt enfolded. Why Hayes Valley, and right at that time, and after so many years? Neat. Okay, got it. Thank you.
Then, you may recall that I’ve been on a mission to get touched more. While RediscoveredFriend and I said good-bye, another person I knew from OneTaste who used to give me massage walked by. At that moment. And he said right away, “I miss touching you! Will you make time in your schedule for me? Please? You are so fun to touch! I can feel you are doing your work! Wow, you feel great!” OMG, music to my ears. Very sweet. Okay, got that too.
I posted for tennis partners on Craig’s List. I have plans to play with 2 already and am trying to find time with another 2. So I get the reminder of what it’s like to have ease around something.
There’s a saying I like:
“I have what I want and I want what I have.”
Like that.
So Much Goodness
‘Bout to burst with it!
I contacted an ex, someone who friend-divorced me when I moved to OT. I emailed him after 5 years of mutual silence and asked if I could have 5 minutes of his time to share with him a way I realized I behaved in our relationship. I was nervous he wasn’t going to write me back. Not only did he, he said he also felt embarrassed at how it had ended, and he looked forward to hearing from me. We had a great, clean 20-minute conversation today. Wow, we’ve both grown a lot and it was a blessing to witness that. My jealousy was outrageously out of control when he and I were dating. If he breathed around a woman I wanted to scratch some eyeballs out, maybe one from each of them. And today we just kind of laughed with some distance and humility, and it was enjoyable to catch each other up on our current careers and partners and how it’s going with everything. **applause** A window re-opened where a door had closed before.
***********
From Julia Cameron’s Money Drunk Money Sober
p 95 “For the way out of poverty addiction, it is very important that we begin to focus on what delights us and let ourselves have a little bit of that. All too often, a recovering poverty addict remains addicted to being sensible. As a result, the new purchases are often as unattractive and unappealing as the old. Poverty addicts need to unhook their sense of virtue from having no money and stop blocking their creativity with worry.”
I am going to buy a bed.
My room with the door open is approximately 84 inches wide.
Standard Queen: 60″ × 80″
Bring it.
Next step: if going the Craig’s List route, find transportation and a helper. If going the store route, find some more money in my spending plan for it.
HoneyG, I also want to publicly acknowledge that your trip to Portugal TOTALLY inspired me to be able to say yes to Hawaii. Thank you for helping me increase my delight!
And Cadillac, thank you for being so fun and for knowing that I would be soothed by talking about our luggage plan in advance. My mom used to pack for trips weeks in advance. Bless her heart, the packed suitcase would be sitting there, just waiting to be shipped out. I think she’d tell you that so I can put it up here. Apple not far from the tree.
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So there’s this guy David Wood. solutionbox.com is his website. Really neat kismet led us to reconnect and I had a hunch you might enjoy reading the email exchange. I choose to be out alongside my friends! (Yes, I am the spiritual intelligent woman in his article.) So, the ‘no thinking or analyzing part’ is not in the least true. Those of you who know me know that I would have to be comatose to not analyze something. It leaves out that I had to get to a mental hospital before agreeing to accept western medical treatment for my clinical depression and raging anxiety, but, okay, yes, in the moment of speaking with him I was able to present it in a straightforward way!
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On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 11:50 AM, david wood <david@***> wrote:
hi hon
are you not on facebook anymore?
where are you?
just posted this article on facebook – it mentions you
tks
RED PILL OR THE BLUE PILL?
Should you take medicine or not?
Firstly I have to be clear that I am not a Doctor nor a therapist. So you should definitely consult with who you consider to be a qualified professional when making your decision. And – I’d like to offer you some viewpoints that may help you come to the decision that’s right for you.
On one hand – a Doctor friend of mine was begging me to take the medication. He said “that’s what it’s for! Your brain is out of balance, and this can help it come back into balance. Without the medication you can go further off center. Plus, it’s harder for you to take care of yourself while you’re in that state”. And he had a point – sometimes the odd sleeping pill at the right time could stop me going into a spiral which ended in a real anxiety condition. And things WERE getting out of hand…I was miserable, sleeping 20 minutes to 3 hours a night, and spending most long minutes of the day just trying to get by.
But on the other hand, I had a lot of spiritual friends – who believed taking medication was bad. One friend of mine, a recovering alcoholic, said I’d get addicted and should ‘heal naturally’. Another AA member said my psychiatrist was my ‘pusher’ and got really angry at me. Another friend – a Doctor – said my central nervous system needed to be ‘clean’ so I could heal, and that he wouldn’t work with me if I was taking the medication because it would slow my healin.I knew of people who were on drugs for years, some for life, and I wanted to be able to handle this myself. I was worried my spiritual friends would think less of me. In truth, I thought less of me – that taking the pills meant I was weak.
So what to do?
The turning point for me came when a spiritual intelligent woman who I respected mentioned that she was taking medication for depression. I was surprised she would do that and asked her why, to which she replied simply: “I like myself better when I’m taking the pills”. To her it was simple – end of story! She didn’t make a big thing out of it, she didn’t talk about it – she just took her medication like anyone would take supplements and her life was better. No thinking, no agonizing, no judging, just a better life.
As I thought more about it, I realized that I had certain coping skills for a certain amount of stress. I had a certain foundation. I asked myself: “If I took anti-anxiety medication for the next six months, what could I improve about my foundation so that at the end of six months I would be a stronger person and no longer need the assistance of the medication?” And then I answered it: “I can exercise 4-5 times a week, learn meditation, practice yoga, improve my diet, strengthen my support network, get some counseling, and remove the stressors in my life.”
This question and answer was key to my healing. It allowed me to happily (almost) take the medication knowing I had a plan, and I was getting stronger.
And, it worked.
Here’s how I would choose whether or not to take medicine regularly. If I have capacity to push my edge, to feel everything that’s coming up, and my foundation is strong enough to handle it, then I’ll push myself. I’ll handle the lack of sleep, I’ll cry a bunch, I’ll exercise, I’ll journal, and the other coping and healing modalities I’ve learned. But – if this fight feels to big for me and I feel I’m past my edge, I’ll happily take medication for a fixed period of time while I build my foundation and take care of myself.
Beth Crittenden
to david
Hi sweetheart…..great to hear from you!
I pulled myself off of Facebook because I consistently used it for not good but evil. “Compare and despair” as I’ve heard it called is what I would do, and I didn’t like that quality of life. I’d get so jealous and lose my basis of gratitude, which to me feels like a form of death.
I’m living in San Francisco now, specifically in Noe Valley. One of my roommates is a gardener and she hatches butterflies in our living room. It is super sweet!
Thank you so much for sharing what you wrote. That will positively impact a great number of people. Thank you for being “out” about it. : )
It’s also beautiful that you’re writing to me since I recently had a David Wood experience that I hoped to tell you about someday!
I do financial counseling now for individuals and businesses. My friend R has started with a partner a “spiritual publishing company”, and I was helping them put together a plan. We met at her house and your book was sitting on her bed! She said she really liked it. So I got a book for myself, also! : ) Yes, I still need to read it but I know so far I really like the title.
Big hugs and I’m glad to be back in touch with you,
Beth
My blog: unconditionalserenity.com
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(His book I reference is called Get Paid for Who You Are, FYI.)
Thanks for reading.
Thanks to the precious 4 of you who entered your own response in the money poll.
Thanks for having done something that was 100% entirely You today.
Thanks for pulling your head off the pillow and interacting somehow in the world today.
Thanks for being another limbic system to ping and find connection with.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128721757
Hi!
I listened to that rock-the-bluebells concert tonight (link above, in case you don’t see it now) on the way home. The scene: 80-degree-ish weather in SF, looks like a full moon, bare feet, calm mind. Nice night, glad to share it with you.
I’m inclined to think I don’t have anything to tell you.
- Yet, I made total peace with my parents this weekend while I was in the Landmark Forum.
- I’m letting go of monkhood and will be getting a real bed again. (Have been sleeping on thick foam. Seemed like a wise idea at the time in case I needed to move suddenly. Then somehow I keep creating that I need to move suddenly!)
- Cadillac and I are going to Hawaii. I’ve been thinking that would be a nice ‘someday’ idea for a while. And we’re going. In September.
Enter head noise: ButIcan’tafforditbutwhatwillIeattherebutit’ssowarminSanFranciscowhygointhenicesttimeofyearbutwhatifhejustgolfsthewholetime
ButIneedtowaituntilbusinesspicksupbutwhataboutTempelsbirthdaypartybutwhatifIhaveabadtimeagainbutI’vebeentherealreadyyaddayaddayadda
Yeh. Book it. Carpe aloha-em.
- I’m going back to Virginia in October to visit for Dad’s birthday and avoid-travel-on-major-holidays purposes. I was so nervous to tell my mom that I’d be paying for my Hawaii trip, yet had asked her to pay for my trip to visit them. The first scenario I imagined was to just literally dodge the whole issue, not tell her I was even going to Hawaii, and I was already calculating the time difference in my mind so I could successfully fake still being n SF when I called her for our usual weekend chat.
The exhaustion of being tricky.
I sent her an email and told her flat out. I was kind and straight and offered her the opportunity to decline paying for the VA trip now that she had this new information. Her response:
“I love and respect your honesty so much!!! I’m so excited for you to have the trip to Hawaii and of course we will sponsor your trip here.”
OMG, reality really truly rocks.
I hope you told someone today the real straight truth.
I could get used to this.
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I’m gathering info and trying out this nifty little polling mechanism at the same time. Would you pretty please pick the best answer for you, or I think you should also be able to add items. I’m focusing on what I offer in terms of basic financial education and support, so the realm is truly for the money that is actually coming in and going out.
Thanks for taking the time to respond!
