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In intriguing news, my colleague recommended that i would make a great business analyst for our project. We have an opening (in O hi O). There is an issue of not knowing whether the opening requires moving to O hi O (or flying once a month) and the pay grade, some discomfort around whether i'd be accepted in the role (not enough library experience?), and the whole thing of leaving the crap in my boss' lap to go do the fun stuff.
Also, i really want to dump a great deal in the business analyst's lap. I know how much work lurks there.
On the other hand, this is what i've been talking about: i miss that work. But there is a full time job there ... and then there's the question of who would manage my team (and me) if i went to that role. Would they hire to fill that?
I'm trying to figure out how to discuss with my boss.
--==∞==--
I'm currently skipping a seminar that looked really interesting, but yesterday was exhausting. I was home well after 9 pm.
I haven't written much about my therapy this round: i've been learning a great deal. I think in the past week i had actually been practicing praising myself and giving my self approval. This is ... amazing. We tapped into the "controlling voice" (the critic) towards the end of the session, and i found the voice in myself that thinks i've gotten too giddy with being able to say "That went well," and that i'm manipulating myself, and probably going to get far to full of myself. It's the same voice that criticizes me any time i try stopping listening to the Song of Need. Christine laughed when i described it to her, "N-- meet Ma--," she said, introducing my therapist to my mother.
It's true: my therapist had described something about that voice and had mentioned that mine wasn't that bad, that the controlling voice can be violent and horrible, and i explained i knew. My mother lives with that voice. My sister and i diagnose it as a learned from her father, a mustang submarine commander who came home to a passel of kids after WWII. I've witnessed that voice drive my mother to the limits of her mental and physical health, listened to her use it to drive all of us. I think i was lucky that i have a particularly analytic mind and would try to pull apart the "must do" to get to the "why." My mother is also analytic, but the voice of Must Do is irrational: when pressed with logic the voice panics and the emotions of fear and anger and pain completely overwhelm any rational analysis. I had a small buffer of unsatisfied "whys" that helped protect me from internalizing the whole voice. However, i offer me and my depression as evidence that the voice did affect me.
The work my therapist and i have done in the past has been far more physical and integrative: we're now fragmenting my sense of self more than i've been aware of in the past. We've worked with my right and left hands, watching them gesture as i talk, watching my right hand as i talk about my professional self, a gesture illustrating a boundary further out from myself, and i become aware how i have to project this larger self into space, into the future. My right hand has a planning, segmenting gesture -- chop, chop, chop, this, this, this. There's a demand for discipline. Is this also the controlling voice? I don't think so. This self can articulate why and when and is not reactive, but active and planning. My left hand showed up as we were talking about that right hand's actions. Nurturing gestures! Clearly associated with the part of me that chose to override Right Hand's desire to spend a vacation day planning and instead used the time to develop photos! As we talked, i sensed that left hand as stronger and more resource-full than my right hand, just less articulate and less "visible" to my decision making. (Also, yes, i see it: hello, traditional right & left sides of the brain. We didn't bring that up)
Yesterday's work divided myself along the controlling voice and uncertain child self.
I suppose all self growth happens in cycles. I think of the work i did, motivated by the need to finish my dissertation. That was work that identified me and not me aspects of my interior life. Depression was Not Me. Certain "Must Do" issues were Not Me, and in the end, it was clear that the physics degree was motivated by a strong need for approval, not because i found any joy in the physics community.
So here i am again, listening to fragments. This time though, most of these fragments of divided self seem authentically me. Indeed, i'm creating a new fragment of self, a self-voice that can praise and affirm.
--==∞==--
I hope i can use Joy to help me balance my response to a few places where i have needs and i have responsibilities to others. Mr Stood Me Up on Wednesday gets a very narrow chance. Then there is someone from Meeting who i had been caring for, who i thought i'd passed on into someone else's care, and that someone had a brother become very ill. I need to reconnect and my guilt is looming: i will need to deal with a similar bundle of guilt that i'm supposed to be doing Everything when i try and find what i can do.
For my work around friends and family? My aunt's and brother in law's birthday fast approaches and i have some missed birthdays of the nephices.
Also, i've been thinking about going to the Meeting's workday tomorrow morning. (I miss that community.) But i think i should take Saturday morning and connect with that particular meeting member and the other meeting member support i need to do from last night's committee meeting.
Also, i really want to dump a great deal in the business analyst's lap. I know how much work lurks there.
On the other hand, this is what i've been talking about: i miss that work. But there is a full time job there ... and then there's the question of who would manage my team (and me) if i went to that role. Would they hire to fill that?
I'm trying to figure out how to discuss with my boss.
--==∞==--
I'm currently skipping a seminar that looked really interesting, but yesterday was exhausting. I was home well after 9 pm.
I haven't written much about my therapy this round: i've been learning a great deal. I think in the past week i had actually been practicing praising myself and giving my self approval. This is ... amazing. We tapped into the "controlling voice" (the critic) towards the end of the session, and i found the voice in myself that thinks i've gotten too giddy with being able to say "That went well," and that i'm manipulating myself, and probably going to get far to full of myself. It's the same voice that criticizes me any time i try stopping listening to the Song of Need. Christine laughed when i described it to her, "N-- meet Ma--," she said, introducing my therapist to my mother.
It's true: my therapist had described something about that voice and had mentioned that mine wasn't that bad, that the controlling voice can be violent and horrible, and i explained i knew. My mother lives with that voice. My sister and i diagnose it as a learned from her father, a mustang submarine commander who came home to a passel of kids after WWII. I've witnessed that voice drive my mother to the limits of her mental and physical health, listened to her use it to drive all of us. I think i was lucky that i have a particularly analytic mind and would try to pull apart the "must do" to get to the "why." My mother is also analytic, but the voice of Must Do is irrational: when pressed with logic the voice panics and the emotions of fear and anger and pain completely overwhelm any rational analysis. I had a small buffer of unsatisfied "whys" that helped protect me from internalizing the whole voice. However, i offer me and my depression as evidence that the voice did affect me.
The work my therapist and i have done in the past has been far more physical and integrative: we're now fragmenting my sense of self more than i've been aware of in the past. We've worked with my right and left hands, watching them gesture as i talk, watching my right hand as i talk about my professional self, a gesture illustrating a boundary further out from myself, and i become aware how i have to project this larger self into space, into the future. My right hand has a planning, segmenting gesture -- chop, chop, chop, this, this, this. There's a demand for discipline. Is this also the controlling voice? I don't think so. This self can articulate why and when and is not reactive, but active and planning. My left hand showed up as we were talking about that right hand's actions. Nurturing gestures! Clearly associated with the part of me that chose to override Right Hand's desire to spend a vacation day planning and instead used the time to develop photos! As we talked, i sensed that left hand as stronger and more resource-full than my right hand, just less articulate and less "visible" to my decision making. (Also, yes, i see it: hello, traditional right & left sides of the brain. We didn't bring that up)
Yesterday's work divided myself along the controlling voice and uncertain child self.
I suppose all self growth happens in cycles. I think of the work i did, motivated by the need to finish my dissertation. That was work that identified me and not me aspects of my interior life. Depression was Not Me. Certain "Must Do" issues were Not Me, and in the end, it was clear that the physics degree was motivated by a strong need for approval, not because i found any joy in the physics community.
So here i am again, listening to fragments. This time though, most of these fragments of divided self seem authentically me. Indeed, i'm creating a new fragment of self, a self-voice that can praise and affirm.
--==∞==--
I hope i can use Joy to help me balance my response to a few places where i have needs and i have responsibilities to others. Mr Stood Me Up on Wednesday gets a very narrow chance. Then there is someone from Meeting who i had been caring for, who i thought i'd passed on into someone else's care, and that someone had a brother become very ill. I need to reconnect and my guilt is looming: i will need to deal with a similar bundle of guilt that i'm supposed to be doing Everything when i try and find what i can do.
For my work around friends and family? My aunt's and brother in law's birthday fast approaches and i have some missed birthdays of the nephices.
Also, i've been thinking about going to the Meeting's workday tomorrow morning. (I miss that community.) But i think i should take Saturday morning and connect with that particular meeting member and the other meeting member support i need to do from last night's committee meeting.
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