![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
My therapist's office is shaded by a large sycamore. Yesterday evening as the front was coming in, the sound of the wind in those leaves made me focus on rain and rain and rain. Delight, pleasure was the first rain after months of New Mexico summer, fat rain droplets, and a thunderstorm moving across the valley.
Last week when i saw her i was so bubbly: this week i've been so down. There's the practice of centering, focusing on breath, being in the moment. N seems delighted how quickly i can drop into that centered breath. I found myself constantly going to a place of gratitude during the session, recognizing how well i've cared for my body over the few years i've worked with her, recognizing how well i've shifted caring for myself in the mornings and over time. When i first started checking in with my body -- good heavens, the complaints! Why should i bother, i asked myself, when i'm just going to hear all this?
(OK, it's really weird to have skype say Christine has come on line when she's sleeping next to me.)
But over the years, i have cared for my self and i can breathe, my stomach felt good ... and i was inquiring of my body as i was centering, "But wait, stomach, you were all out of whack this weekend, shouldn't you have something to complain about?" "Fine now," was the response, and i was delighted yet puzzled by how little memory my body carried with it. The "felt sense" is in the present moment, and doesn't carry all the history, worry, guilt, regret, wanting that my mind manages to have a hard time putting down.
We spent a great deal of time talking about how i take breaks, the difference between centering and settling in and breathing - -and how this is not distracting enough for the part of me that is worried to be quieted, how the worried part of me keeps looking at the Overwhelm and coming back to the centered self with a sheepdog's signaling, back and forth, back and forth. "The Overwhelm is still there, this isn't fixing it, how is this going to help, when are you going to be done, you can't runaway forever, do you hear me?" I realize how many of my breaks have a dissatisfaction to them, but at least they drown out the worry voice. I used the Usenet example from graduate school, but i can recognize the quality when i'm using that sort of break. The break quality has nothing to do with the break activity, except the activity must be mentally stimulating enough that i can drown out that voice worried about Overwhelm.
Sitting, centering -- resting -- doesn't drown out that worried voice.
Maybe the prozac will give me some distance from the worried voice, just like it used to give me distance from the constant thoughts of self harm.
There seem to be a qualitative difference from the Overwhelm and self harm, i want to argue, this moment. The Overwhelm is REAL. REAL REAL REAL. Look outside the moment, it's a monster coming to EAT ME.
And i think i've just illustrated the opposite. So maybe the prozac will help me hold the OVERWHELM at arm's length and manage to believe that i will get done what needs to get done and that the undone things .... i forget how i framed this in the past. But i will trust that the Overwhelm is an illusion, one that seems as real to me this moment as the tea and the candle light and the silicone protected keyboard, but an illusion nonetheless.
Last week when i saw her i was so bubbly: this week i've been so down. There's the practice of centering, focusing on breath, being in the moment. N seems delighted how quickly i can drop into that centered breath. I found myself constantly going to a place of gratitude during the session, recognizing how well i've cared for my body over the few years i've worked with her, recognizing how well i've shifted caring for myself in the mornings and over time. When i first started checking in with my body -- good heavens, the complaints! Why should i bother, i asked myself, when i'm just going to hear all this?
(OK, it's really weird to have skype say Christine has come on line when she's sleeping next to me.)
But over the years, i have cared for my self and i can breathe, my stomach felt good ... and i was inquiring of my body as i was centering, "But wait, stomach, you were all out of whack this weekend, shouldn't you have something to complain about?" "Fine now," was the response, and i was delighted yet puzzled by how little memory my body carried with it. The "felt sense" is in the present moment, and doesn't carry all the history, worry, guilt, regret, wanting that my mind manages to have a hard time putting down.
We spent a great deal of time talking about how i take breaks, the difference between centering and settling in and breathing - -and how this is not distracting enough for the part of me that is worried to be quieted, how the worried part of me keeps looking at the Overwhelm and coming back to the centered self with a sheepdog's signaling, back and forth, back and forth. "The Overwhelm is still there, this isn't fixing it, how is this going to help, when are you going to be done, you can't runaway forever, do you hear me?" I realize how many of my breaks have a dissatisfaction to them, but at least they drown out the worry voice. I used the Usenet example from graduate school, but i can recognize the quality when i'm using that sort of break. The break quality has nothing to do with the break activity, except the activity must be mentally stimulating enough that i can drown out that voice worried about Overwhelm.
Sitting, centering -- resting -- doesn't drown out that worried voice.
Maybe the prozac will give me some distance from the worried voice, just like it used to give me distance from the constant thoughts of self harm.
There seem to be a qualitative difference from the Overwhelm and self harm, i want to argue, this moment. The Overwhelm is REAL. REAL REAL REAL. Look outside the moment, it's a monster coming to EAT ME.
And i think i've just illustrated the opposite. So maybe the prozac will help me hold the OVERWHELM at arm's length and manage to believe that i will get done what needs to get done and that the undone things .... i forget how i framed this in the past. But i will trust that the Overwhelm is an illusion, one that seems as real to me this moment as the tea and the candle light and the silicone protected keyboard, but an illusion nonetheless.
Tags: