15 months – waking up to the world

Well, 15 months sober yesterday. A lot has changed in the last 15 months. Good passed, bad stuff passed. As said before, even though I drank, as a standard, 12 units an evening for the last year of drinking – I do not miss it. I am actually happy that I quit. 🙂 And a NEW life is emerging. 🙂

The best NEW thing of the last weeks is contentment. Coming home from work, being absolutely tired, wasted, nackered but content. The only thing I have to do during the day is assemble, clean and learn. I do, so I can be content. Also the ‘What would a women who loves herself do?’ question brings a lot of change and contentment too. I either do stuff or I don’t worry about not doing it. Gone are the shoulds and the inner berating of me when it comes to having to do stuff. 🙂

Another NEW thing is the continous feeling of being on my path. No idea where it is heading but NEW to this also is that I can wait how life plays out and that I can trust that it is going to be all righ. That would be VERY NEW. 🙂

I wrote most of this text yesterday, so this is actually a re-read post which has not been published. I mentioned: Guessing next up, some day, is sugar addiction. Yesterday I ate so much sugar in the shape of 1 bar of chocolate and several dates that I woke up this morning and could not remember what I did before going to bed. I found all the cat food unfrozen kitchen, could not find my glasses – had taken them off at a wrong place and I felt just out of whack; slightly depressed, tired (which, yes, could also come from working double targets yesterday) and heart palpatations.

Today, thank you Karly from Growing Human(kind)ness for your post on Sugar, love and longing named Sugar’s secret message about holiday longings. Thank you Universe for putting this on my path right now I can finally read and understand it with my cells. It is, wow, well heart opening post for me. Having my vertebra’s ‘reset’ by a osthepath-like doctor is nice, it helps with my shoulderpain. But the vertebra at heart height helps with love. It is scary and it is marvellous. For years now I have had the idea that my heart is not functioning as an organ, that the, well, if you want to call it chakra, is not doing its thing. I keep my heart locked up saying “I am not going to let anyone walk over it again.” But that is not sufficient for real, healthy life because, as said before: life wants to live and a heart just wants to love.

The post from Karly helped me to get another view on longing. I guess my upbringing has told me that longing = desire and is a dirty thing. With reading Karly’s post I found I view upon longing/desire with pitty, find it a little pathetic and unclean. So, obviously not something acceptable or desirable. My ‘therapeutic’ view of longing is that it is a feeling which arrises when needs are not met. And that there is a clear difference between needs and longing / desire. My new view now is more accepting and includes Karly’s view: longing has a function of sending us out into the world. 🙂 Which I think is beautiful.

I have been developing this idea of Life whiche is pretty binairy if you like: there are things that drive us and things that stop us. Longing would be a drive to go out and develop. Desire now seems a longing that is misplaced. So I long for love, can’t deal with that due to unresolved issues so I desire chocolate. Turn longing into desire and it becomes, in the short or long run a force that stops us, like alcohol.

On matters of the heart in practise: the night before last I dreamed about the bookstore man. I finally came to the place where I think I can stay centered no matter what reaction he gives after 2 months and 2 weeks no contact. I had Facebook messaged him before but he did not read that – I would guess that sort of indicates that he does not want contact. But I still have borrowed books so, well, I thought to drop them by yesterday. First I pulled a tarot card on information on my state of being. Worked out to be 2 of crystals and in my deck, I got two of crystals, which is called equanimity. That would be a good state to walk around in. Somehow the universe thought differently: store closed due to circumstances. Well, this gives me more time to practice my equanimity :-). First thought was ‘Ooh, what would be wrong, hope he’s ok! Blablablablablaa.´ Ghegheghe…. ok, practicing equanimity. 🙂

I hope to come to a state where I can see what is going on in this (non) relation. What (tf!) I am projecting, what I think he has that I need and I actually do hope we can be friends. But that can only happen when/if I clean up my own shit and do NOT get into the desire mode. It is difficult. Working on it because I think he is worth it. Or not, but I can only find that out when I sort out my own shit because of me. And not because I secretly want to secretly, secretly force things. Sometimes this pops up. Not easy. I need to learn to forgive myself. 😦

Well, 15 months, 1 day. 🙂 Also NEW is that there is something more or less waking up to the world again. Not sure how to call it. I do not feel like I need to hide professionally anymore eventhough I have NO clue what and where I do have a sense of something big emerging somewhere. I do feel that there is no time and space for e.g. a relation and that bugs me because I am slowly, slowly starting to realise that I do not want to be alone anymore. However I am guessing that realising I do not want to spend the rest of my life alone is also a much needed step towards the world and a step which needs attention. I need to set my intentions correctly, keep a good check on those. Still reading the Jung book on anima and animus in relations but J…z, it is slow….. and repetitive and not clear and…. :-D.

On the subject of ‘love’ and ‘relation’: I have been, well ‘monitoring’ my reactions to the guys at work and I found I do a lot of dissing myself. For instance, somebody hands me some rubbish thingy and jokingly says “For your trousseau.” (Yes, I had to look that word up :-D) Obviously that was  hurtful humour to cover up his nice deed but I top it off with; “I already have one, got it at my graduation from my mom. She said: I don’t think you are ever going to marry so I just like to give you this now.”

These tiny, tiny remarks, just, teasing but they also mean so much more. Like I’m warning people off. Well, I feel like I have to now my boss accused me of flirting with the guys. I don’t want to flirt. I think to be able to pride myself for keeping a very good check on what vibes go in and out. Flirting at a job is against my professional protocol – specifically when being a selfemployed professional I do not want to confuse people. I only have 1 reputation and the branch I used to work is is small. Also and I will not be able to substanciate any flirting so that would make me a tease if I would flirt. I found her comment and irritating projection.

The other day my boss was speaking with her favo cleaner and making obscene guestures of licking a well…  The whole set up smells like trouble. If she was a guy I would have kicked him in the balls 10 times over by now. 😦 Sexual intimidation by superiors. Not my problem. Or… not sure. I don’t want to focus on it too much because it all seems to be happening in good cheer and I have enough problems of my own but these stories never seem to end well.

She kept on asking him why he thinks women can’t do adultery while men can and if he ‘would with her’ saying, shouting, she has lust. Yes!  We noticed! 😀 It is amazing that I find ALL my work issues on one plate in this function and the Universe set it up so nicely with a woman in charge that I did not recognise it. 😀 I keep on telling me that it is not my problem. Then again, if the cleaner were a women and the boss a man I would have intervened already. And yes I am sorry to be showing you this underdeveloped side of our country. PC-ness is not in our genes or culture. 😦 Rereading this after writing it yesterday I think I can come to the conclusion that I am looking to fault her because I find her too overwhelming. Being critical of her behaviour makes me feel more secure of me. 😦 Ok now, let’s try another path. Not sure which yet. We will see. 🙂

I am happy that I quit. Just like that: I am happy that I quit. I discover new things to living and I find it good.

WWAWWLHD? She would quickly finish this post and go outside because the sun is shining and she needs sun and light and air.

I want: life is ok as it is. More money would be nice :-). And no shoulder problems. Slowly the pain is leaving, it also has a lot to do with relaxing, settling into life. Ooh, yeah, my therapist, who is a haptonomic (? is that the word) man too said: existential crisis brings on frozen shoulders. Well, that would tie in nicely with the conversation I had with my shoulder a few months ago (“You let me carry all your money worries while I am not made for that!!!”)

3 Things: Karly’s post on sugar, nice weather outside, the dream course which started last Tuesday, follows tonight and next Tuesday and Thursday. :-).

I take: Ayurvedic medicine but I forget them often. I try to eat better but that only works 2 meals a day. I find that after a day of hard work it is difficult to get up and cook so (yes, shedding some light on some dark secrets here…) I often end up eating a bag of chips and/or a bar of chocolate (100 gram, 72% – I keep on mentioning that so you don’t think that I eat like 200 grams of 50% :-D. Oooh, this is so addicty….. :-/)

On discipline: work discipline is developping and I am loving the organisation in my brain. At home I am slacking a bit but that is ok, I’m learning a LOT.

What else did I have. Dunno. Memory is still bad. That worries me. It also worries me to find out that from (almost) all the sober blogpeople I know and follow here I am the one who drank most. There comes a time that I need to look into that because it is starting to hurt. Not sure why. Possibly because that makes it real? There is this fleeting thought that continues to say ‘Well, because you could quit so easily, you weren’t all that bad.’ And then I read that ‘others’ ‘only’ drank one bottle of wine a night. That would be me working up an appetite…. 😦 I think one day I need to go do AA to put things into perspective. But not now because the sun is shining and I need to catch it before it goes under. 🙂 So, no spell check either. I think I will drop WP a line, asking them to put the spellcheck back.

Hope you are having a nice time. 🙂 Take care with all the festivities. If I may: please do realise that alcohol is NOT an answer to ANY of your questions, needs or longings and that drinking will ONLY make things which are wrong worse. End of speech.

Love and hugs,

Feeling

Sugar’s secret message about holiday longings

This post on sugar and longing made me cry. Insight, love, healing. Many thanks to Karly for writing it. ❤ Have a read. 🙂

xx, Feeling

Sugar is not the enemy, but a mirror that reveals our relationship to our human neediness. It beckons us to heal the shame we carry about needing love.

Source: Sugar’s secret message about holiday longings

Life as it is and sadness

Things are changing so basically and rapidly hat I feel I need a lot of time to catch up.  Loads of NEW!! 🙂 Loads of basic repairs after years of drinking. 🙂

The doctor who is alligning my vertebra’s has done one at the heigth of the heart twice now and all kinds of heart issues pass by. Physically the area of my heart has become more sensitive the first days after the treatment. I’m thinking, assuming… the muscles are more relaxed but the muscle memory still thinks ‘stress!!’ and wants to return to the old state so I have had some cases of irregular heartbeat and stress which seemed to come out of nowhere and had no mental images to it other than me thinking; ‘Looks like my body wants to return to how it was.’ Because, shit yeah, on the one hand it is very, very, very scary and real to have a heart that is opening up and on the other I finally start to feel like it is working as it should. Sometimes it is an effort to not to step into the scary again. Like my therapist said: never underestimate the power of wanting to hang on to bad things (just because it is familiair – which is my own addition).

I’m thinking life wants to live just as a heart wants to love. I cherish the thoughts that these are laws of nature; our life, body and energy system wants to do well and when we or life’s happenings do not put anything in its way (like drinking, abuse or war to name some) it will eventually (want to) balance out to a healthy state. It is like those movies of dogs with no hind legs running in the field in their specially made carts, playing with other dogs; they are happy, not frustrated or sad like me, or moody, just happy. I always find that so intriguing.

I am starting to understand that I can be happy too. Not the kind of happy where I have to work hard to be happy but the one where I deserve to be happy just because I am alive. 🙂

I work 3 days a week now and will be working 4 days a week in the upcoming weeks if all goes well. It is still physically taxing because of the lifting, standing, carrying, walking and loud noise. And my boss ofcourse. I came to the conclusion that she is my karma. She is EXACTLY what I need to deal with, she represents the negative, berating mother that I have inside and I need to learn to deal with that.

Guess what? Well, it is early days but I think it is working. The OD of berating and yelling makes me want to stand up for myself instead of lay down and be trampled. It’s a harsh way to learn but part of it, in combination with the therapy makes me think it is working. Funny thing is: the other day I did something profoundly stupid, which, well, was not entirely my fault because nobody actually informed me that there were several checklists for quantities and that I had the one of the day before – with the day of the day itself….. Yeah, complicated… works out, I am gathering particles for the next day and get loads of them. Boss walks in and asks what the hell I am doing. Well eh…. what you told me to?

A lot of shouting and asking questions and not waiting for the answers continued at which I need to quit the work and continue scrubbing the plinths, on my knees, on the partially wet floor, behind machines. Yes. This still happens in 2015. I don’t mind, they needed cleaning, so from the moment she’s gone I whistle my way through this like any good Cinderella would. The building has great accoustics. And during that hour of cleaning I realise that I don’t care, that how I value myself has not changed. Somebody has got to clean stuff, I’m fine with doing so. After an hour she comes back on the floor and asks ‘Who the F! has got me to scrub those plinths?!!’ Like it was some sort of joke people pull on the new one. I am perplexed and say ‘You did?!’ (sitting on the floor, in a puddle…) She looks surprised and walks off. I did not get what that was about. I did not mishear her. It is a little strange come to think of it.

My (male!) collegues got very angry over me having to do this cleaning but I told them I don’t care. There is this little internal shift going on where the guys are backing me now against my boss and I don’t like it. That backfires immediately where my boss, in the afternoon drinks says ‘Feeling flirts with the guys.’ I don’t. I keep a neat track of the vibes coming and going and put a halt to them either way with a non responsive fake polite smile. Flirting at work is against my protocol. I’m new, can’t afford controversy and I don’t want to hurt people. Most of these guys are lonely and will do anything to be not alone. They are not my type so I will not be able to substanciate flirting any how so there is a no-go road. So at that moment I asked every guy by name if they felt I flirted with them and they all very nicely replied I did not. Next my boss ‘jokingly’ asks the (very handsome, very cute, very funny and assertive) cleaner to go steady with her. Sigh. CONFUSING. Power and sex games. Don’t want to burn myself. Need to keep in the clear.

Also, some of the guys are looking for a saviour and mistake my fight with myself and my boss as something which proves I am a warrior who will, I don’t know, save them? Loads of power games going on. I DON’T WANT THAT! But I need to change my fighting mode in order to step out of it. That is difficult because she is me is my arch-enemy. (That sentence is correctly written) That’s the whole deal, when I look at it compassionately she also is very lonely and working so hard to find approval, succeed and do well. Just like me. 😦

So, obviously I am walking in a ‘lonely’ projection phase. Last Saturday at after work drinks a lot of things happened. I, again, plainly stated that I don’t drink alcohol. Better to do that upfront I thought when I am new enough for people not to ask weird questions. Then one guy admitted to having to quit drinking.

Next we got introduced to the idea of receiving a bottle of prosecco for Christmas at which I said; ‘Well, I don’t drink so there is no need to order one for me. But I would be delighted with getting some tea – oooh, if I am still here that it.’ With which I referred to me being on probation (is that the word?). And she said ‘??? Is there something you want to tell me? Do you have reasons not to be here?!’ Which was a kind and sponteneous reply. I started stuttering saying ‘Eh, no, but I’m here on probations and I was assuming so… eh… (blush)’.

At which my boss said: I’ll get you as much tea as you want, what was it, no green, no black, no licorice?’ How attentive is that?! She remembered that from day 1!  :-). NOBODY, not even my family remembers what tea I drink. (Ok, A, you do 🙂 <3) My mom still thought I drank coffee at age 35. After 1 cup I NEVER drank coffee in my whole life!!! So yes, I was astonished and happy. 🙂

I have been living alone for so long that I start crying internally, and sometimes visibly too when people just make me a cup of tea. Being surrounded by so many men and women at work who are so lonely really gets to me. I guess it works like a mirror. I think maybe that trusting people and letting them in might be a next step in sobriety for me. I am surrounded by lovely friends and still I have bouts of real loneliness. I assume it comes with the strangeness of my character. But hey, that was another topic at the Saturdays drink: I said ‘Well, I guess I’m just strange when it comes to food and stuff.’ At which my boss replied seriously: ‘You might think you are but I do not think you are any stranger than any of the other people working here.’ Which was meant comforting.

So why am I writing all these tiny details down? Because they teach me how I deal with stuff and the dealing is in the details for me. Last paragraph taught me that my boss is very nice and accepting of people when the pressure is off. Also, that I keep on presenting myself to the world as weird. I still devaluate myself upfront. Let’s see how that turns out. A women who loves herself would not find any need in doing that. 🙂

Oooh, on the works screw up and the scrubbing of the plinths: after work at leaving I said ‘Sorry for the screw up.’ And I meant it. She looks at me and says ‘Aah, don’t worry, we all make mistakes.’ And she meant that too. I was flabbergasthed. I don’t know what I was expecting. I guess I thought I was doing the adult thing and btw, also taking the sting out of the situation because the guys who want me to be their fighting hero against the mean witch were present when I said this. I realised I expect people to look down their nose derisively and not forgive or forget, hold a grudge and well, what have you? So much to learn. And so important for me to keep on finding my centre from which I respond because wow can this go wrong if I don’t. I guess that finding my centre, holding on to it and returning to it when I get upset is what this whole job is about.

The Saturdays drink also introduced me to some other collegues. A father of one of the guys died suddenly and he had to fly back to a country in Africa for the funeral. Collegues are worried that he will start drinking again. Showing up under influence or hung over is forbidden at work because of the dangerous machines.

They guy who stopped drinking and said so has a father who lives at the Salvation Army because ‘He can not take care of himself very well.’ These kind, simple words, spoken by a son, they hide so much pain from the past.

One of the guys comes from Sierra Leone, his parents were killed when he was 8 years old and he took is 2 little brothers and fled. One of the brothers did not make it. The collegue sometimes does not show up because he has PTSS and does not sleep and hides in bed. My boss insists on keeping him in the firm though, she says ‘We are his family, he has got nobody else.’ She has a very humane side to her.

Another collegue comes from Vietnam, she fled with her parents for Viet Cong at age 14. ‘I was in a boat. I sat nex to the water. The water was here. A bomb fell. Next to me. It fell in the water. I am not smart. I do not understand things. This was a bomb and it fell in the water. If it would have been on the boat, we would have been dead. My sister went on another boat. She came under the water. We think she is dead. We had no water and no food left, we all lay in the boat. We thought we would die. Shippes passed, we waved, they passed. A ship from the USA, a ship from France, a ship from the Netherlands. They all passed. We were sure we would die. And then the ship from The Netherlands stopped. So we came here.’

I don’t know why I tell you all this. It is very emotional for me to be there, to work in this environment. When this collegue told me her story of coming to Europe tears welled up. I am very teary since I got sober. Things ‘get’ to me easily, different from earlier I seem to hear what people have gone through in their words, see it in their posture and expressions.

Well, another messy post on the happenings in sobriety now I step into the world. 🙂 One day, one day I will clean up these posts. 🙂

I am happy that I quit. I feel that somehow things are falling into place automatically now and I well, this sounds strange but I feel I am EXACTLY where I need to be. I have this feeling of being carried into time, into the future. I do not have a clue what it is about but it feels like there is a big energetic wave happening. Maybe it is about my heart opening up, energy, chi, qi, starting to flow again. Maybe I am imagining it. I am curious to find out how things evolve from here.

Wwawwlhd: go to bed ;-). A women who loves herself actually does a lot of things which are very good for me and she enjoys what she is doing. That is most of the time the answer I get. ‘She would enjoy walking here and let go of the stress.’ 🙂

I want: hmmm, to be less afraid of things in general. And I want my clear head. I easily make mistakes with counting and that worries me. I want to do well at my job. I need my clear head, not only for the company, my boss and my collegues but also for me. Being addicted had a lot to do with not wanting to be in my clear head.

I take: Ayurvedic pills but I forget them often. Starting to eat healthier though and really feeling the difference. Still high on chocolate though. I am afraid I need to cut out the sugar for getting the clear head. I am not ready yet. It would feel like I have nothing to hold onto anymore. Yes, I know it is a replacement addiction. And I feel I can currently not do anything about it apart from monitoring it and waiting for a window of opportunity.

On discipline: love conquers all 🙂 The WWAWWLHD? is for me the best entry in retrieving ‘discipline’ and ‘doing the right thing’ and letting that what I don’t feel like drop just like that without guilt. 🙂

I must make a list of the things I was going to write about because I can’t remember. Don’t feel like looking it up so this is it.

Hope you have a nice sober time!

xx, Feeling

PS: No spell check today. WP seems to have thrown it out. Hope I did not write anything strange, apart from, well, writing about strange stuff. 😀

 

Learning, learning, learning

Wow, never knew there was so much to learn from (still!) having this tiny 3 day job. I am still flabbergasted by the fact that I noticed last week that feelings which seem very solid and true and important and well, what have you, can change overnight. Yeah, yeah, I sort of feel like ‘you all knew that’ and  ‘I am the only one being in the dark about this’. In my mind I hear you say things like;  ‘what do you expect with the blog name you chose’ and ‘should have gone to AA, she would have known by now that ‘this too shall pass”.

It’s a-ma-zing what pops up with this new job. But first: I applaud everybody who got sober while working. I don’t think I could have done it.

So I seem to berate myself over not knowing this and feel stupid for it and now accuse others of thinking that of me. Which, well, you could be thinking I am stupid, but how am I to know? (Ooh please please please please please don’t go confirm my thought that you think I am stupid, I’m just learning not to think for others here… 😉 – and should not in the process start telling you what to or not to tell me. Gosh, traps everywhere!!!)

So, it is all about projecting again and again and again and again. For those who are not familiar with the term: it stems from psychology and it refers to behaviour where people who have difficulty with something but are in denial of that, sort of spray paint the difficulty on their image of somebody else or even on whole groups.

So I berate myself, am in denial of that and now think you berate me. This is where the ‘What you think of people says more about you than about them’ comes in.

I went to see my therapist, had a big big big cry over being ashamed towards my (now 8 years deceased mother) about drinking and wasting almost all her inheritance money on bad business and life decisions. The last 20.000 I spend on getting sober. That would be a good thing, possibly.

I got to the point where I had an internal conversation with my mother, asking her forgiveness, asking her to love me and not be stand offish. And with that I realised how much I needed her acceptance, how much I had been keeping up a fence just not to get hurt, not to be disappointed. While realising that her defence collapsed and I saw her not as the criticising ‘force of nature’ I had always taken her for but as a real person with her own difficulties and her own character. Ooh mom, I’m so so sorry.

I notices that through my projection and possibly counter projection we had gotten stuck into this power duel. Ooh mom, I never wished this. I am sorry. I don’t know how it happened. I was mad. At you, for becoming sick and not being able to give me what I needed. I was too young mom to live with the fear of having to let you go. That’s just it, when the one person you need and love falls away and you want to, go to the one person you need and love to be comforted.

I was confused, I was hopeless; I became mad at the world, mad at me, felt like I failed because I was so miserable and there was no one to comfort me. I was angry that I could not get out of the horrible situation we were in. All this pain and later, all the arguments, the tension, the never know when you were going to blow up, have a tantrum, start cursing. It was so scary. I wanted out. I know you had no other way. I seem to have had no other way. I hope you find another way in your new life.

I don’t know why we met. I don’t think I have finished learning what I need to learn from you. And maybe, maybe I was only there to show you that it is a good idea to buy flowers for yourself when you need them, when you want them, to not wait for somebody else to bring them.

I can’t deal with criticisms, and in order to prevent it I became a perfectionist. My mother, being a perfectionist herself never let go and I internalised an über critical internal mother who berates me constantly. I berate myself constantly. Nothing is ever good enough. For a few minutes in that session with my therapist I could hold on to the image of my mother as a real person and I was me, and not me berating myself. There was peace within. Restoration of humanity. Things to learn.

…… things did not end there. Within minutes after being (temporarily) released from the berating internalised mother I adapted my fathers issue thinking ‘Well, it does not really matter whether or not you find peace in this because the world is blowing up anyhow.’ About the addiction to issues. About ‘how far do I take it to be exactly not happy’.

Back to real life: I’ve got myself a boss who blows up whenever, over the tiniest details and is correcting everybody with every breath she takes. And it makes me feel very insecure in what I do. Sigh. Karma; that what has not been ‘solved’ will continue to pop up. Guess I need to deal with this some day. 🙂

I have a male colleague who is very laconically towards my boss. He says yes in her face and then goes and does what he wants. But in a way she does not see or notice it. Funny thing, so far it does not feel sneaky somehow, it feels respectful of her over caring and responsible towards the job he needs to finish. This is a weird thing to see. As long as I have the chance I will continue to watch how they play this out. I do not think it is my way but there is a learning experience in it for sure. 🙂

So I have difficulty with accepting that my moods seem to change quickly and that makes me feel shifty and shady and stupid. However, as a real human and possibly, as a real addict, I am in denial of this but the energy of the difficulty is still there and needs a way out. I sometimes feel these energies are entities by themselves and they want to be born. If the can’t be born in me, they amazingly pop up in my environment. In the text above I spray painted them on you and my mother. 😦

Next week I’ll be working 4 days, and looking to continue to work 4 days from there on but I want to keep a 2 day weekend and with the company being closed on a weekday and Sunday that takes some planning and I am not sure yet if my boss is into adjusting her schedule to me. We will see. 🙂

I am happy that I quit although I noticed something strange which worries me a little. One of my colleagues is a real party animal and while cleaning up together we were exchanging party stories and having a laugh about them. I forgot all about me not drinking. When I realised I was I said: ‘Well, that was. I don’t drink anymore.’ And he started telling me I should. ‘Not too much, but you should drink, in moderation of course, everything in moderation.’ Well, as in the reply I posted on Sober Mom’s post today: There are people who drink and people who make you drink.

This ‘you need to drink’ attitude is so typical for people who are hooked/addicted to alcohol but have little awareness of that. You need to drink. Pffff. Haha. NO I DON’T. But I still wished all my troubles would be over and I could. So, 😦 to me that is a worrisome reaction. Maybe I should not stay after work this Saturday and then there is this pull to want to fit in, not stand out. I actually felt myself wanting to agree with my colleague who said one should drink. Specifically him adding ‘in moderation’ really spoke to me. Slippery slope. I am getting cocky because I feel I am dealing sooo well with the difficulties I am having at my work. Yeah, sorry, childish reaction. But that’s just how it is. 😦

I notice this behaviour in me which I call very addicty: as soon as I have done something difficult I find that I need a reward. Everything is reward based. Oooh, and the reward is never ‘go to bed on time’ or ‘eat my vegetables’ just in case you wondered. 🙂 I will add this to the list.

Reward exchange: the thought popped up that when I had this job, I might drink a beer so now and then with my colleagues, just to not stand out. Ooh yeah, and the subject ‘man’ is in my life again by desiring 2 of my colleagues. Both very unsuitable but I am just going to see how this develops in me. And there is chocolate….

The bookstore man still has not replied to my message to him and FB indicates that he has not read it since Saturday. So I guess he’s just not that interested? Whatever, one of these weeks I will return the books and hope some parts of the puzzle fall into place. I feel the issue is that I do not want to see him as human. I keep on idolizing him and that brings a smoke screen between me and knowing what t F is going on.

Wwawwlhd? Funny, can’t think of anything currently. That probably means I am in some sort of funny state because it is pretty close to bedtime, I am tired but not going. Maybe, if I can’t answer this question I am not really feeling myself. Like the other day where I had a panic attack and asked myself wwawwlhd? and all I got was a blank. I guess that is because I could not imagine what it was like to love myself.

I want: aaaah, well…. Hmm, now I want to go to bed.

3 Things: 1 lovely coaching session with an old intern today, I have spent 3 hours coaching him with technical info for his new business. That was cool, he is such a great guy. 🙂 Happy. 2 A friend coming over. 3 There is a storm like weather here, the clouds move like crazy quick, i find it very impressive and beautiful.

On discipline: something funny, I needed to clean the house today for visitor and I did it, but not at the speed I would normally do. I was tired and just did not feel like rushing myself because the minutes I would save would not add up to the stress I would get. NEW thought.

I take: starting to forget to take my ayurveda pills, also because I am not eating well. Too tired. But I hope to get back into eating well tomorrow. Missing my veggies. Although, technically chocolate is a veggie too… or? Something is moving on that field though, I am starting to feel a little, but continuously, nauseous after eating chocolate. Guess my body is preparing for change. 🙂

Bedtime. Hope you are having a good time. I have noticed that I am not online a lot anymore. And my WP timeline is very full because I signed up for all the 20 award winning blogs of the other day and some of them are really productive. But I don’t read them so maybe, maybe….. 🙂 Decisions, decisions. Ooh yeah, that is funny; time is getting a scares thing because of work. 🙂 NEW! And when I buy things I start to relate back to how many hours / minutes I need to work for that. NEW. It is a realisation I need in my life. 🙂 I think some day it will stimulate me to look beyond my current horizon. So that is good.

Where did the spell check of WP go? 😦

xx, Feeling

Who said repetitive jobs would be boring?

Life with a tiny job is NEW! So much NEW, it takes a lot of energy. 🙂 Which, I guess, is the whole idea behind working, possibly…. 🙂 And, wow, wow, wow I realise day in day out, minute, sometimes second in, second out why I drank; everything I used to drink away is crossing my path saying ‘Hi, I am your life’s trouble, your karma, your inability to take life as it comes, your inability to deal with people, your inability to guard yourself, to stand up for yourself, to value yourself. And guess what? I am not going until you deal with it.’ I even dream about stupid issues which need to be solved before I can move on. 😀 Who said repetitive jobs would be boring?!

This post starts off ranting about my boss and I hope it turns into insight in my own behaviour. No promises :-). I think I have again chosen uh, a ‘challenge’. 😀 It somehow feels like I need to deal with my standard reaction of not being good enough every second of the day. I will try to be objective (haha), not point fingers or sulk and tell only what happened and how I feel but no, no promises.

I currently work 3 days including Saturday in a production facility. I do some assembling, a lot of weighing, packing and wet and dry cleaning of machines, tables and floors. It is physically taxing because of the lifting and cleaning – everything is timed and one tiny mistake can lead to loss of goods, damage to bodies, goods or machinery and/or overtime for the whole crew. I find it tough, even though I got the ‘compliment’ of my boss: ‘I’ve seen a lot of women go down in that department but it does not seem to get to you, does it?’ Which, she spoke publicly in the Saturday afternoon drinks get together so that I guess is another compliment. 🙂

I had already told her that I need to start with 3 days, not more because I ‘need to keep my clear head’ but she keeps on pushing me and then ‘taking it back’ by saying: ‘Let me know when you decide to work 4 days.’ Her comment on me ‘not going down’ sort of confirms my feeling of being under constant surveillance and continuously being pushed to do more, lift heavier stuff and work quicker. So we combine well: she does the top dog, I am ready to jump into the under dog position. 😀 Ghegheghe. It is not nice to realise this about myself but very informative. These feelings of inadequacy were feelings I would drink away.

I have not yet learned how to deal with this and it is a CONTINUOUS struggle for me NOT to feel anxious, be scared that she will correct me or yell at me when she is walking around or working in the production area. And no matter what happens on the floor, if it is out of the ordinary I lose focus immediately and my constructing goes wrong or I forget where I am. Compare it to knitting, I forget what row I’m at so I need to feel and check back or weigh stuff. Well, with all of that I am still quicker than the guys who don’t do this regularly so that is ok but still. It feels like I am shaking in my reinforced boots continuously. So yeah, I am getting the NEW life experience I was looking for and hell yeah I’m tired at the end of the day. 🙂

Opposite the expectation that I would be losing weight I have actually gained weight because I eat cantine food and in the evening a quick dinner with a bar of chocolate (100 grams, 72%, eco). Maybe the weight gain is all muscle ;-).

One of the things that bother me is that my boss does not give instructions but does tell people (me!) off when they do something different from how she planed it. I have worked in a production plant before and am used to scrub machines and then hose them down. My colleagues do so when she’s not around. 🙂 So I thought….. lets get da hose and soak da house. NOT! 😀 ‘What do you think you are doing!!! That equipment is NOT made to be soaked!!’ Well, eh…. now is not the moment to tell her that I just copy my co-workers…. 😀 Gheghegheghe….

And with carrying heavy stuff: the girl who got fired seems to have accepted the job and only afterwards tell the people that she is not willing or able to carry stuff. My boss and the whole floor got really frustrated because that meant that everybody was expected to stop their work to help the girl. Which is not possible when you are on a tight schedule. I feel that pressure is on me now. I am being watched like a hawk in lifting and if or not I am asking for favours from the guys. I don’t ask, I sometimes do get them though, which is nice, specifically when it has to do with hot and heavy stuff that is stored above shoulder height. 🙂 So I feel I am sort of being looked after by some of the guys.

On the feeling of being watched like a hawk; that actually popped up in the Saturday after work drink. Somebody commented loosely ‘Yeah, and then this went wrong and I start to look over my shoulder thinking ‘hope she’s not there!’ And my boss laughed her head off and replied ‘Yeah, bwahahaha, well, that’s one of the things I seem to have, this eye for things that go wrong. I mean, the four of you are standing around that machine and I, standing in the OTHER ROOM am the only one who notices something is wrong! Haaahahahaha.’ 🙂 That was an eye-opener for me. I mean, people came up with tiny stories on how they deal with her piercing eyes and ‘everybody’ laughed wholeheartedly. I chuckled along because it was funny and I was relieved to hear that I am not the only one experiencing these laser eyes.

My boss is in continuous fight/flight/freeze mode and her favorite is the fight mode where she literally yells at people to tell them their jobs ending any ‘conversation’ with a derisive remark like ‘or don’t you want to work?!’ And on top of that she is forcefull in asking inappropriate questions about people’s sexlife which is a topic that pops up every so many days.

I do not think she is really racist as but she does say racist things; ‘He’s late for work, he does not answer his phone, no need to fool me! He’s black so I know for sure we won’t see him again at least not today.’ Which…. well, is indeed a racist conviction Dutch and German people tend to have about well, practically any foreigners because ‘we’ are convinced we are the ONLY people in the world who can actually be on time for an appointment. All foreigners can not, blablablablablaaah, the darker the skin, the later they arrive. I realised I live in that conviction too and know it is racist, but it is not nice to hear this actually being spoken out loud about and to a black co-worker.

Btw: I hold a possibly funny view when it comes to racism, I know I am subconsciously racist following the ‘unknown is unloved principle’. But I don’t want to be racist or in any other way discriminating anybody for colour, sexual direction, gender, age and what have you. That is why, in situations I tend to try to keep a check my reactions. Does not always work unfortunately, it is work in progress however. I’ve added in this ad to show you how widespread the idea of the inability to be on time is; so much that people found it ok to turn it into a desirable trait and make the on-time people the laughing-stock. 🙂 Which they did well, ghegheghe… Not sure if this add ran outside The Netherlands. Please let me know when you have seen it. ALERT: it is a booze ad.

So when she left I asked the black colleague: ‘That comment makes me feel very uncomfortable, what is your opinion on it? And he shrugged and said ‘She always says things pretty blunt. That’s just how she is.’ Which… is another way of looking at it. And very NEW!

I’m not sure if I am ok with it though, she is the boss. Does he have a choice to address it? She treats the black guys ok even though there is more stereo typing going on like giving all the black guys a nick-name and the white guys not. Attributing sexual prowess and heightened lust to them is another one of those things I find ‘hmmm….’. The whole company is actually very sexually laden but she seems to be in the middle of it. I am so HAPPY that my hair has gone grey and that feel that gives me a perfect excuse not to partake in this.

And…..sometimes I feel sorry for myself because it also confronts me with what I think I have lost due to alcohol: confidence in my attractiveness and ability to find a partner. I mean, who would want an ex-addict who has got nothing but a renthouse, a possible or not (1st month probation is not over yet) smelly, low paid job, is overweight, grey haired and well, a prickly, stand-offish, black and white reactive character and too much wrongly focussed IQ for most man to actually like :-(? And then I put all these thoughts aside because the only thing I have to do is do my job well and deal with how to do that without damaging myself.

I have difficulty with my boss, and then again: I have enough on my plate as it is and possibly, very likely, I am INTERNALLY exaggerating these negative traits of her to find a power balance. What I write about her is as true as true is, how I deal with it is my own choice. Hahahaha, well, it should be my own choice, I’m not there yet. Friday I called my friends saying I was done and I would be looking for another job. I had promised myself to find another job before I would give up this one but for a few days I was totally convinced I would be leaving.

Saturday worked out to be a nice day and I really got to appreciate my colleagues AND my boss who took some time to tell me about her upcoming holiday in December. The first one in several years of setting up this company (she is not the owner but well, it is A LOT of work). To that she added a few personal troubles as losing her boyfriend and illness in the family which had hit her severely. Pfffff, not easy. 😦 We spoke about her holiday destination and the fact that she is going alone and feels insecure about that. It was a nice conversation. 🙂 So, yeah, there is a totally different side to her. I am glad I got to see that and felt my hostility fade away. She asked me if I could take over some of her tasks during her holiday. Which I guess is a good sign.

This roller coaster of emotions, it is so overwhelming and I am not proud of my reactivity and readiness for war. I am a little proud of the fact that, for the first time in my life I can actually, sometimes, look at it and see how very reactive I am. NEW!!! I mean, as I blogged earlier in the karma in the job: these issues I run into are exactly the issues I have run into all my life so possibly, most likely…. I need to do something with it. 🙂 The only difference with my former nasty bosses is that he is a she now. And maybe this is more clear in my karma story because I attribute the criticism to ‘Mother’. My mother was critical, my internal mother possibly even more so.

So, what, what if I am actually good enough? I cannot carry that feeling yet but it does pop up sometimes as an answer to what I feel and that brings peace. ❤ NEW!!

So, all in all: learning a lot by doing difficult stuff. Tomorrow I’m going to visit my therapist again and getting my vertebra’s realigned again. My arm is much better. It still hurts but continuous movement improves it and obviously the alignment did. Happy :-).

Other subject: I finally, after 2 months and 2 weeks contacted the bookstore man through FB. Wrote him to tell him that I am not not contacting him because I am offended or feeling sorry for myself. But that I feel I did not yet learn what I had to learn from the whole situation. That I would obviously return some books he had borrowed me but that I would appreciate to do that when all the pieces had settled back into their place. I have not had a reaction yet but he generally does not check his FB on Sundays. And, yes, that was important, I have waited to contact him till I was sure I could, if he were not to respond, be ok with that. So I don’t sit in front of this screen waiting for an answer. 🙂

I am not sure what I should learn from the situation but I can park that for later, I’m guessing insight will come some day. There’s a block on the road, it is not moving. We’ll see.

The other day I went to the give away store, met up with a guy who works there and spoke a little. He haha, told me he was an ex-addict and that he was working on his co-dependency issues. Yes, yes, how very much on cue, thank you Universe, exactly when I am reading The Alcoholics guide to alcoholism most interesting posts on co-dependency and starting to discover my own issues in determining my worth by how others value me. Does that eh, ring a bell after me speaking about my boss?

Ooh, on openness and things ‘coming out’. At the Saturdays drink somebody asked me if I wanted a beer. I said ‘No, I don’t drink.’ And he started laughing and said ‘Hahaha, another one who doesn’t drink anymore! Hahahaaha…’ I laughed with him, he and his drunken stupidity and knowing how bad it is and still drinking and thinking it is funny…. Oooh, I have been there long time. I have another guy-colleague who does not drink and somebody of whom everybody knows he needed to stop and he did. But since his father died this week everybody doubts if he ‘will make it’. Turning up drunk or intoxicated from the night before will get him fired of the job according to the house-rules.

So yes, I see this as a sign that I am still carrying around this ‘vibe of addiction’ which attracts these situations but by now I am starting to see the fun in it. 🙂

I am happy that I quit because again I can say that I am exactly in the place where I need to be to be learning what I need to learn. And wow would this job with waking up at 6:00 be difficult if I were to still drink. Brrrrrrr….

Wwawwlhd? I have asked myself this question repeatedly in the last weeks although not so repeatedly as in the first days. It works out that a women who loves herself actually does more instead of less, makes a lot of good choices and is happy to follow them up. It is however confusing that the wwlh would quit the job on Friday while she is content to stay on Saturday. Teal Swan says about the wwawwlhd system: it is a projection of your own ability to love. So I guess that is where the glitches happen :-). (Not so) funny thing: Teal Swan is in Paris this weekend.

I take: Ayurvedic medicine but I forget them 1 out of 3 times now. I ‘take’ a lot of chocolate too, 1 bar of 100 grams a day in the struggle of trying to deal. Not good. Then again, I am going to let it go and see where it takes me.

I want: dunno, a quick tarot lay promised Death – which I will take as a ‘new beginning’ and ‘changing of old habits’ rather than something bad. I guess. I hope :-). I realised that I have no idea of the future other than one that feels impossible to reach: a cottage in a spiritually sound place with a large vegetable garden, a fireplace, a warm kitchen, a large book room, some livestock, a dog or possibly 2 and some cats. I should have bought this when I had the money. 😦 But I ‘decided’ to drink it all. Funny to notice that I tried to fit in this man in my life and he ended up living in a rebuilt shed. Gheghegheghe….. guess it’s no time yet. 🙂

On discipline: more where it is needed, like going to bed on time and less where it is not really, really necessary like cleaning the house if I’m tired.

3 Things: 1 my job, 2 the fact that I have a house and 3 that I am learning so much. Like time, time totally has new meaning right now. When I am not working I am really free. Not ‘not-working-but-feeling-guilty-because-I-don’t-do-anything-with-my-life kind of free but really free. And money: when I pay for something now I know the value of it. I earn less on a day than I would for working 1 hour when being a consultant. Ghegheghe… it’s ok. This is what I need to learn so this is where I am, taking it slowly.

Ooh, strange dream. I wonder about my animus (male part of my character according to Jung). He is supposed to turn up in my dreams as a wise guy but my guys are ALWAYS these cool, almost criminal, obnoxious, handsome twenty something guys that irritate the hell out of me. The last one was laying in a corner puking – while doing a low plank position by the way. He just lay there puking his guts out because he had been drinking or whatever partying. Hmmm, I realise now I could have helped him. Ghegheghe… hmmm. Oh ooh… I just left him there. Well, better next time.

So, another long post. One day I might go through all my posts and edit them. But not now. 🙂

I am wishing you a good new week in which love and light may shine for the world.

xx, Feeling

Saying no

Friday I went to the therapist and again I am astonished by me saying ‘No!’ when he opts that I slow down a little in my speed of talking. Ghegheghe, I have always thought that I was such a confident women. But only/already 14 months into sobriety I am starting to notice that the word ‘No’ was not in my vocabulary. With my therapist I noticed that I have always felt like ‘not good enough’, that I needed ‘fixing’ and ‘better listen’. It is funny how I, after learning to set boundaries in booze land, find that the concept of boundaries is spreading through my life. So I said no to the therapist on needing to slow down. I did listen to what he had to say, however I kept my hands in front of my face and said ‘no promises’ first. Funny thing, those hands. Just noticing it for logging purposes but I found that listening is easier when I do not have the feeling that I am checked for facial reaction. Which is not important in the story, the important thing is that I knew I had to learn something and found a way to learn it with my hand shielding my face.

It was a Feeling – medical care – day Friday so I also went to a osteopath (type of person) who pushed some vertebra in my back and neck in place. The result was GOOD! I went from 45 degree angle of lifting my arm from my frozen shoulder up to 135 degree. Good :-). The result is lessened now after a few days but I will be repeating this in 2 weeks. I find it a very scary treatment. I cried because I was so scared, but I do know I need to do it in order to improve my shoulder. I also asked her to wait with the treatment until I could relax. That took longer than she had expected but I took my time whatever. Because that is the only version of how I can do it without damaging myself. There are a lot of versions I can do something, there are only a few which are without damage.

I never knew my self-care was so low. Yesterday I cancelled an appointment for today because ‘I did not feel like it’. I have never ever done that before in my life. I actually told my date ‘I miss calculated the time this weekend and I would really appreciate to postpone the meeting. He was ok with it. ‘That’s ok’ he said and he meant it. NEW!!!

I find it important to think, feel and write about this because I think that a lot of my drinking was related to the yucky feeling of somebody breaking my boundaries of me letting somebody break my boundaries or me not setting any boundaries or me breaking my own boundaries. I think the concept of boundaries was never even there. The right to say no, the right to care for me, I was ‘not good enough anyhow’ so why would I have the right to have boundaries?

Something funny: I was staying at my SIL, she cooked onion soup so I questioned: ‘Are you going to put alcohol in that?’
‘Yes.White wine but the alcohol gets cooked out.’
And there was this split second where I decided; maybe, maybe I should be a little firmer. So instead of saying ‘Oooh, gosh, eh, could you maybe make a wine-free soup for me, possibly?’ I said: ‘I don’t want that. Can you make a second pot for me?’
‘But the alcohol gets cooked out, the children eat it as well.’
‘Yes. But I do not want it. It is not a problem to take some out and put it in a different pan is it?’ (That was still a question but a firm one.)
‘No, no, it is not.’
Same conversation at the table with the kids around. ‘Why do you have another pan with soup?’
‘I do not want the wine in the soup.’
Kids reply: ‘But the alcohol is cooked out.’
‘Yes, but I do not want it anyhow.’
‘Oooh.’
‘I do not even think I would like the taste.’
At which my brother replied: ‘I can imagine you do not want it.’ Which was funny because I never told him I had to quit. But I guess my SIL did. I never asked her not to, and I guess her need for solace lead her to speak with him about it. Which I can imagine.

It is strange, all in all. Specifically after being there the last time where my SIL offered me a glass of wine. I feel that I am somehow being sabotaged but there is no bad intent, and I do not feel subconscious bad intent either. It is just strange. And maybe I should leave it at that. The only thing that could possibly cause this tiny clash of intent is her feeling awkward with me ‘being an addict’. So the subject is still ‘in the air’ attracting situations that ‘play it out’. Or is that explanation too vague for your liking? 🙂

I don’t know, I have to learn to deal with it. My first reaction is that it makes me feel unsafe with her. That hurts and makes me feel scared and doubt whether there is a safe place in the world. It makes me feel very alone because the one person who ‘should’ (?) understand and care is the one person who is offering me booze. 😦 Last time I was angry, now I have the possibility to stay with the feelings that pop up. This is what it is, loneliness, unsafety, betrayal, hurt. Not big time, but…. well, it is there. I assume when I ask her or tell her she would feel very stupid.

Is it stupid? Yes/no, the stupidity is not in the action, the action is the result of not being able to deal with it and the tension which this creates. The ‘stupidity’ is in the running away from the feeling of unease my ‘disease’ creates in her world. Then again, it is not on a daily base that your SIL and one of your best friends come up saying ‘I was addicted to alcohol’. I can imagine that takes some getting used to. It took me 30 years to admit it so … Maybe one of these days I should take some time to speak with her about it. Ask her what she thinks, feels. I would guess she feels betrayed but I am guessing that betrayal is part of her standard feel/mindset so she does not notice. So yes. I should speak with her at an appropriate time.

I am happy that I quit. I very much appreciate becoming less reactive to my feelings. NEW> Being able to sort of notice ‘Hey, I feel hurt now.’ instead of ‘THIS HURTS SO MUCH I CAN NOT DEAL!!!’ Also, there is something moving in me which I think is important where my inner world becomes more important. NEW! I guess I can see some of you look surprised at this text wondering ‘How can this navel-staring blogger get even more into her inner world?! But I can, it is strange. It is this world that when you fall asleep you (I!) enter into. I am scared that I ‘go nuts’ because this world is, well, obviously not the world where the normal people are. But I also feel a big, big pull which says ‘The Answer’ is there. Not sure what the question is yet, something to do with Life and my destiny. I want to go there, I feel one leg of mine is in the normal mental world an the other leg is in the other world. It also feels like a sort of process which will work itself out. No action needed, just recognition, acknowledgement.

Aah, also: my therapist is very skilled in walking the metaphysical world. I am not sure what that means in official psychological terms but I translate it as ‘he can feel through the air’ and ‘he uses his existence (?) to feel where the other is’. I can actually feel a non obtrusive, intelligent ‘cloud’ of energy investigate my ‘aura’ / my existence. Yes, sorry to those who know what this is about for the possible unprofessional description of this. It is about that which is between people and taking that seriously. Most people do not pay attention to it but it is that feeling / knowing that you (I!) have when picking up ‘vibes’ from others. I think I’m pretty sensitive to those vibes and that I am a sort of radio for them without having the ability to tune. Which is not good. Need to learn there.

I take: Ayurvedic pills. I spoke with my brother by the way and he had an awful self experienced story on the Ayurvedic doctor I am visiting which really makes me doubt the character of the man. But the pills and the dietary thingies are really making me feel better. Let’s see how this develops.

What would a women who loves herself do: she would hahah, go to the toilet instead of wanting to write this all out. 🙂

I want: no wants. 🙂

On discipline: I find that I have more energy now I set my boundaries a little better and that makes it easier to do chores.

3 Things: having a lovely weekend with my niece and nephew, visiting some more family. Being really relaxed because I ‘have a job’ so I have real free time. :-), writing this blog.

Hope you are having a nice sober day / evening.

xx, Feeling

Karma on the job

Hello,

Life has been changing continuously since my last post, well since the ‘What would a woman who loves herself do’. A woman who loves herself does not set the bar so high when she continuously feels she can fail that bar so she gets herself a job at a place where she feels ok and in a function she likes and feels she can do. So far so good with my re-introduction into society after years of drinking feelings away. 🙂

It feels like herewith I do a ‘admit that we are powerless’ thing. There is this change in attitude where I do not want to force myself into a mold of a job with the ‘usual’ status, I just do what I feel I can do.

Having said that, ghegheghe, it took me 3 days to get into HIGH levels of anxiety. Funny thing was that I actually slept badly over worrying about something I had done wrong – I can not even remember what it was anymore (!) but it was bad. It was all over the place, it was going to crush me, my fierce and powerful boss was going to crush me and rip me to pieces. All of it. And obviously I did not sleep well. I realise again and again that the emotions I go through; being tired after work, being scared of doing something wrong, being scared of being despised, being scared of lacking physical safety: all of it are reasons for me to drink. It is so strange to deal with this sober. I actually never did. And I notice there is something else I never do: check this panic with reality. No check what so ever. Well, I guess that cutting out the brain and only ‘thinking’ with the amygdala is the essence of panic 🙂

What also interested me is that all the issues I had at other jobs pop up in the first days, first week of my new job. Makes me seriously doubt whether I do not create them by myself. I mean, if I run into THE SAME ISSUES everywhere…. maybe, maybe…. I need to find a way to deal with it? Well, eh, I HAVE to find a way to deal with it be it by not sorting them out as my favorite problem – defusing or guiding the energetic mechanics in it. Or, when it is something that comes with groups of people for instance, learn to deal with it. I get a very, very clear picture of my perfectionism now. How it combines with a person of authority – my new boss is very bossy, snappy and direct and has a very bad mood in the morning. So bad that she not even warns me but tells me of and says not to give smart replies or even react to her when it is morning. Yeah, I did it again: find a boss who thinks it is ok to take their mood out on the underlings.

I would like to add here that I made it my thing to try to never do that because I have lived with somebody who did this to us for years. Now I let go of the resistance to the concept I think I am starting to feel how I am not moody, but do like to determine the energy in the group. So not moody but otherwise forcefully present. Hmmm, control issues somebody? 😀

This makes me so curious of the workings of life and karma, if you will: how can I AGAIN!! find a boss who thinks it is ok to take her mood out on people. It is soooo unprofessional and sooooo illogical to work in a place where you start at 7:15 if you are bad with mornings. I have one funny thing: you can wake me up any time of the night and I am bright awake and capable of doing anything I normally do without moaning. Much to other people’s horror I am even chatty in the morning. 🙂 Luckily this job is too high paced and it needs constant attention so I could not worry about her snide remark for a long time. Looking back I guess I did take it home however.

I notice during the day how I can be submissive, even subservient and rule myself out under her influence. Not very elegant, don’t feel like thinking about it.

Add to all of that a strapping young men and an older men (well, my age) showing signs of interest in me and I have got all my issues back again in one basket. 😀 I am thinking now indeed that because of people’s specific build we run into the issues we have not solved long enough until we solve them. That is my idea of karma; we project our inner issues onto the others untill it irritates us enough to deal with it. I mean, why other would I encounter the same issues in a workplace ALL OF MY LIFE? That can not be the outside world only. It has to be me too. 🙂 I hope for now that I learn to deal with it / let go, that the message is not: learn to fight or run. 😀

By the way, just want to put it in here because it has a function although I am not sure how exactly. My boss is very bossy, and she very sternly tells guys what to do. She can come in and literally shout orders, put in a jest and/or demeaning remark and leave. I am intimidated by that, I heard from a guy who works there longer that the girl who was fired last week was very much intimidated by that and did not rise above the water again after having been thrown in. I think he was telling me this to help me see that my boss can be intimidating. He finished with casually saying things like ‘She does not bite’ and ‘You’ll get used to it, don’t worry.’

Next to that the guys that got assigned to the girls squad I work in were speaking about my boss to as in ‘Ooooh, it is yep yep yep yep this and yep yep yep yep that again.’ – by which they meant dog barking. I found that a little, hmmm, demeaning at first because they would not react like that if she were a guy. But then again I think they would. In this work situation there is ‘nothing’ wrong with shouting orders, but there is always something wrong with being demeaning. All in all it made me feel like I am not the only one who has issues with her behaviour – so that is eh, comforting in its own wrong way. 🙂 I guess this is how groups (can) work. I have this ideal where people start with a work meeting and from there on work in a flow and instead getting orders fired at them and work under pressure. I guess that is not happening here yet and I should let go of this idea because I use it as a sort of spiritual – intellectual ‘I know it better’ shield against my boss’ fierceness.

What I find intriguing is that nobody ever asked me why (tf) I want this job and not go do something that is more inline with my level of education. I’m guessing my way of applying tricked her into setting me up for a trial day and I did so well that she just skips that question and wants to keep me. Hey! I even got a locker and safety shoes without having to ask for them. 🙂

I am happy that I quit. I don’t know where this road will lead me but I have enough to take care of right now I can say. Happy that I am not so awfully tired after a day of work anymore. I do not try to adjust my day schedule yet. I still struggle with getting my food in in the right portions at the right time. The work is physically taxing and I don’t want to fall over but I don’t want to overeat myself either. And after work I am too tired too cook. And I did not clean my house for a whole week so it is a mess in the kitchen too.

Currently I am set up for 3 days a week: Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, but my boss wants me to work more. I need to make really sure that I keep my clear head and downtime in order to process stuff and not fall into the same mistakes I have been making all my life. That to me comes first. Well, I can’t rule them out all of them but I have to be able to process stuff.

I want: ghegheghe, for time to slow down a little. Ooh yeah, time has gotten its meaning back now it is restricted. That is cool, that also makes me feel more alive and part of society. 🙂

I take: Ayurvedic medicine but I feel they are not very helpful anymore now I do not combine it with good food. I also took some Bach remedies because I had no way of getting past my lack of confidence, it was overwhelming. Aah, that’s why they did not work, I took something for the lack of confidence while I was already in total panic.

What would a women do who loves herself?: finish this post, have a shower, clean the house and go to meet friends.

On discipline: it works real funny, the wwawwlhd makes me not do stuff I ‘think’ I should and not berate myself over it when I don’t – so it makes me more ‘lazy’ but happier. Yesterday it also made me open a letter which I would normally not have opened in a years time! Because a women who loves herself does not want to put herself through the stress of stalling and the stress and shame that come with that. How is that for a plot twist? 🙂 I like it! 🙂

3 Things: 1 beautiful small and big, daily and deep conversations with on- and offline friends which, dunno, just make me happy. 🙂 2 My job and the learning I do and the path I feel is opening up. 3 I am actually experiencing contentment and also the concept of being part of something bigger. Both are new! I had missed that for a long time. 🙂 I never noticed so much but I guess I have lived a lonely life the last years. To me I see this step back into society as a piece of the sobriety puzzle that was still missing. I guess that is why I did not often experience pride. Because this work-money-house puzzle piece was still missing. Well, I strongly feel this path is the next step into finding my destiny. 🙂 Aah, another missing part of the puzzle. 🙂

Hope you are having a nice sober day. I am happy that I quit, I hope you are happy too 🙂

xx, Feeling

Online Ayurveda summit

And another one…. an Ayurveda online summit. Free, well, online…. 🙂 I think I’ll be following this one. 🙂 It starts at the 9th of November but you can already see some interesting vids now.

Ayurveda is the ancient Indian way of healing or more: of keeping balance and restoring the body to the position where it can heal itself. I am particulairy interested because my mother who was diagnosed with cancer 3 times over in her life finally chose for Ayurveda as a way of staying / regaining health. According to the regular (!) doctors she there with prolongued her life with 4 years on top of the 2 they said she would have. Of those 6 years she stayed active and e.g. driving for 5,5 years and only had to stay in bed in the last week of her life. I was grateful for these extra years because it gave us time to grow towards eachother.

It is the 2nd of November here, All Souls day. Pay attention to your dreams these days, maybe somebody will visit. The veil between this world and the next is thinnest around the 2nd of November.

I am happy that I quit. Don’t know what and where but I guess my path will unfold.

And it is time for bed. 🙂

xx, Feeling

Deepak & Oprah meditation experience

For those who would like to continue to be mindful and meditate here’s the link to the Deepak & Oprah meditation experience running 21 days from the 2nd of November. You know: online, free, good for the soul, better than drinking or Netflixing 😉

So…. register, open mail, click link to confirm and enjoy! 🙂

xx, Feeling