Re: Moving past the WAW to a stronger me Pt. 3

[Davide]

Good evening,

Some journaling:

I have been a bit more disconnected from the internet since I returned to my parent's home. It has been a bit of a shelter from the storm. I have been able to recuperate from all the time on the road, to relax a bit, to spend time with my parents, to visit some friends in xxxxxx. Importantly for my mental well-being I have also been able to resume my exercise regime. I have been able to start every morning except today (I spent the night at a cousin's house in xxxxxxx) with an hour of yoga. I have also been going out for 20 mile bike rides every day but one. Yesterday I did a long 42 mile bike ride with a close high school friend along the xxxxxx river out to xxxxxxxxxxx I have still been practicing mindfulness, and spending at least a short amount of time each day meditating. I have been journaling a bit and writing in a gratitude journal as well as trying to start each day with a few thoughts of gratitude. All of this has contributed greatly to a broad sense of calm. I do worry that this is a calm before the storm of returning home at the end of the week, but I also feel like I should take advantage of it and enjoy it while I can. I was having trouble sleeping and needing to take NyQuill almost every night, but the last two or three nights I abstained and was still able to sleep in relatively short order.

I feel like I am more capable of taking my emotions and thoughts and handling them gently, looking at them almost from an outside perspective without getting caught up in them. Of course, they aren't very strong emotions. I worry whether I am repressing them just so I can claim to have a better handle on them. I do feel sadness, nostalgia, longing, resentment, anger, but they are more fleeting emotions, not the raw, jagged things that have so wounded me before. I don't try to banish them from my mind, but I do allow them to pass and float away. I feel like surrendering to them and allowing them to either pass or stay with me is healthier than either forcefully trying to deny them or attempting to grip them strongly in my mind and mire myself in them.

Last night I had dinner and drinks with my cousins and it was a great night. I can't remember laughing so hard in a long time. It was pure, unadulterated joy in the moment. It was great to experience that again. The last time I felt that good was 6 weeks ago when I met with my former students. It was a great reminder of what it felt like, and what I need to keep myself open to.

One of the questions that has been pressing upon my consciousness is that of having a family with children. I spent Sunday afternoon at a friend's beach house surrounded by his large extended family, with over a half-dozen children under 10 years old, and then last night I spent the night with my younger cousin, his girlfriend and their 2 year old. That was always something that I thought I wanted, something that I thought was part of being a complete adult, or complete family. My thinking changed with W, since she didn't want children, but I wonder if that was pressing on my subconscious and contributing to my unhappiness or neediness. At the same time, I wonder how much of that desire comes from a place of emotional neediness, that I felt the need for a child as yet another form of external validation to make up for the lack of internal validation. My parents have made numerous references to that, and are very clear in their desire for grandchildren. I had a good conversation with my father on a bike ride about this, and I expressed my concerns about the need for external validation. He sort of pooh-poohed those concerns as he said that my brothers and I brought him and my mother a great deal of happiness. However, I am still unconvinced. I think I need to sit with that question some more.

I return home in 4 days. Hopefully, I can bring the practices and perspectives that I have worked on back with me.