Inside my chrysalis 7

[labug]

First I want to say, you are a very good writer! Such good clear descriptions and analogies. You also maintain your sense of humor. In my case that too was a defense mech but I think it's good when we can see the humor in our situation.

The concept of crawling out almost makes me want to fold into a fetal position and take a long nap. There's just so much... baggage... and blech.

I asked my IC many times, "Is there hope? There's so much, can people really recover and get better from this place." Her simple answer was, "Yes."

It has taken some time, but the pain was inflicted over a long period of time, so it follows that it's not an easy fix. Doable but not easy.

So with this too, we have to drop our timelines and our expectations of perfection for ourselves and realize no one has that expectation of us, but us. And if there are those that do, we can let them go. Detach. We don't have to cut them out of our lives completely but we can say or think, "I won't allow you to hurt me anymore."

Sometimes we do have to drop people from our lives. I found I made better progress when I surrounded myself with like-minded people. People who weren't content to just sit in the muck. I credit 12-Step meetings for pulling me out of that initially. I picture meetings as the wrecker and I was in that deep hole, being slowly wenched up. I could go, be completely anonymous, not say anything if I didn't feel it necessary but just soak up the recovery. At one point I was going to 3 meetings/week.

I also volunteered. Not a lot (there are a lot of volunteer hours in my job )but enough for me to focus on something other than my story. I'm the person who needs a schedule so I had IC on Mon, and went to 12-Step on Mon night, Thurs morning and Sat mornings. I did yoga and meditation at home. I also rode my bike (a little) 4 or 5 times/week.

I read a ton of books and online sources. That's how I've always tackled problems, read, read, read to understand. Initially some of the reading did depress me, thinking I had to o far to go but then it started giving me hope. Other people had conquered worse.

The process is like strengthening a muscle as we're building new neural pathways, so we need consistency and structure. My "structure" may not work for you. You'll find what works.

But it has to start with "I can" even before you believe that you can.

In a talk with my IC yesterday about my son, I said "I'm letting go" and then I looked at her and asked sheepishly "how many times have I said that?" but then before she could answer, I said "What I've learned is, letting go is a process, it happens in phases and stages and it's not linear. I let go, I hold on, I let go a little more, I hold on. It's not that I haven't let go in the past, it's just that now I'm in a different place and letting go."

This whole process is like that, a little progress followed by a little rest or what may appear to be "backsliding." It doesn't have to be negative, perhaps there was something we didn't learn when we were last in that spot, that we're now ready to learn. Our tendency is to chastise ourselves instead of saying gently, "Hmmm what am I to learn from this."

“People get into a heavy-duty sin and guilt trip, feeling that if things are going wrong, that means that they did something bad and they are being punished. That's not the idea at all. The idea of karma is that you continually get the teachings that you need to open your heart. To the degree that you didn't understand in the past how to stop protecting your soft spot, how to stop armoring your heart, you're given this gift of teachings in the form of your life, to give you everything you need to open further.

~Pema

(( ))