New year’s resolutions

Pffff, walking on this path where I’m not good enough. Where everything that had value now looks ridiculous. Yesterday I was content with how I do sobriety, now it feels utterly useless.

So what’s going on? Having difficulty with how Christmas went down. Happy with visiting the bookstore man, unhappy with being disinvited by a friend (hi). Can’t even speak. I don’t want to have to realise that I can not live this life on my own. And next that living with others comes with getting hurt.

My mother once told me that she, at a very early age had decided that she could not depend on her parents and she remembered closing herself off for them as an emotional/physical/energetical act. At that moment she was actually (still?) sort of proud of having done that. The arrogant misunderstanding of life is what I think I need to deal with now. I’m thinking every addict has to go through this since I read (snide) remarks of old-timers like “Hahaha, yeah and it is just me, myself and I, not?!” So that obviously says that there is a problem there. And the standard test I had to do for the detox center intake (which I did not go to because I did not trust them …) asked if I had trust issues. So I guess there’s a thing with trust and addiction going on.

I remember an early post where I claimed not to have trust issues but stating that other people were not trustworthy as a fact “So who has the trust issue?!”. 😀 Nope, not lacking arrogance.   Come to think of it, maybe, maybe, the toughness, the hardness and the elevation I find on arrogance has to do with not wanting to feel how fragile we are (I am!) without it.

And then, walking around in while being fragile, while being open, while experiencing the hurt and not drinking it away. Pfiew. THAT is the real tough part. I realise that over the last weeks I have turned aggressive towards people who drink or use pot and the damage they do to others because they don’t realise the severity of emotions because they can drink or smoke it away. Guys at work, more than half of them, ‘have’ women on the side, like having sex with other women next to the woman they have children with and live with. Obviously this makes me curious so I asked if their women had lovers as well. “Totally not possible! I would kick the slut out!” The worst of them, a guy having ‘had’ 200 women or more downs a bottle of whiskey on an evening if he can and, well, hats of for the stamina (?) still sticks it in somebody else.

Noticing I am building up anger to reorganise myself. Not good. Need to stay with the original situation.

Wwawwlhd? She would have a shower and clean the house, read in a book and only then return to write about New Year’s resolutions. 🙂

Aaah, back. Did some basic cleaning, enough to have some friends over so that is good. Went for a bike trip, get some farm eggs and eco apples straight from the tree. Yes, this is the middle of winter and it is warm outside, grass is growing, daisies are flowering. Not good. It really gets to me. A lot of people do not seem to mind but with reference my fathers Sundayafternoon hammering on our teenage souls with the book of revelations and all kind of other end of time theories I find it difficult to keep a clear head. In the book of revelation it says that before the end of times the seasons will all get mixed up. Baba Vanga and I believe Nostradamous say the same. Next to that is, well, there is a shitload of predictions all running nicely and scaring me. 😦

Destruction is a big theme in my life. As long as I can remember the threat of destruction has been ‘out there’. My therapist says it is a projection of my own fear of dying. And with taking that projection back I get a visit from Kali. Thank you. While biking today and observing nature I tried to not get lost in my panic but take a look at it. I believe it is called awareness. I think I’m starting to understand how it works. There’s me, my ‘centre’ that what is aware and then there is the physical en energetic body which has emotions and impulses. I’m thinking the me, the body and the emotions are separate things. Guessing Kali showed that perfectly. 😦

Continuing that line: I’m thinking the idea is to not by definition be overwhelmed and taken on a ride by the emotions and impulses but to be able to be aware of them and see them as, well, information? Like I did with the ‘cravings’ I had for drinking: noticing them and then sidestepping this oncoming train of want. So I guess becoming more aware / being able to separate myself from impuls and reaction is something to strive for in the new year.

How will that help me? Well, I hope it helps me to be less anxious. And less anxious = good. 🙂 I also hope it will help me deal with other people better in, like, learning to listen better, not jump in with my own story seconds after (or before 😦 ) they finish their last sentence. And possibly both of these traits will help me be more aware of what is going on outside me so I don’t end up in somebody elses rollercoaster of emotions or worse; vibe of addiction.

I think I have skills in the feeling area and I am not using them to my full potential because, because, because…. hmmm, because I am scared to feel. But when I practise with my therapist doing the center -ground-breathe excercise it feels like I can deal with a lot more than I actually think I can. Because I do not center, do not ground, do ‘not’ breathe I get thrown all over the place by my own emotions and those of others and I stay ‘reactive’ – I believe the word is. I guess it is time to start using the egg-timer again to remind me off trying to be aware. Or meditate. Haha, that would be the 3rd, 4th, 5th or gazillionth time I would be thinking I should start meditating.

You know, I don’t like myself laughing at my tries to meditate. Why do I do that? Thinking….. because I want to intercept the projected ridicule I expect from readers? I think I have wayward energy, is that the word? Whimsical energy. My mind can not focus easily if I let myself go. My natural tendency is to be all over the place. At whatever moment in time I want to do 10 things at the same time. And when I live in that feeling I experience the freedom. Pin me down doing one thing and I get frustrated and anxious in no time. I’m feeling this needs to change because it is part of the addictive personality; this ‘not wanting to be here and in the moment’ mode is not constructive and I suspect therefor even destructive.

In the Ayahuasca ceremonies I did years ago the Ayahuasca spirit said: “You are so scared that you live outside of your body, trying to scan for all things dangerous to try and spot danger before it finds you. When you live inside your body you are more in contact with your intuition, are grounded more/have more stability/are stronger/less likely to be thrown off your feet/less likely to be attacked and you will still be able to spot the danger. You will spot danger even better because you are more in contact with your body.” These ‘conversations’ were happening in my head.

So, meditate, center, ground and breathe. I’m thinking it must pay off to be more aware and it might outweigh the pain of not being aware. Not sure yet. But I actually realise now that I don’t have a choice. If I want to continue in sobriety and develop I NEED to become more aware and need to learn to separate impulses from ‘me’. Oooooh shit! Pffffff. 😦 Moaning. Why tf did Life get to be so complicated? Why did I not learn this in school? (Or did I?) And I mean, I can be complaining but I’m guessing all of what I complain about is just a 1st world issue. 😦 Imagine living in Syria now. 😦

By now I’ve got so many funny words in my post that the NSA will read this too. Hi!!! 🙂 And now you are at it: could you please pull some strings and tell WordPress to reinstall the spellcheck? 🙂 Please, please, please???

I guess I could ask the bookstore man why Life wasn’t designed easier. And why awareness is needed. I mean, most good path have a logical reason. Don’t drink because it gives you headaches and destroys your health. I also read that the avarage alcoholic ‘takes down’ 8 people with him/her 😦 Don’t hurt people because they will leave you. Don’t kill all the trees becaus then you can’t breathe anymore. I mean, there is a lot that makes sense. Apart from ‘become aware’. Becoming aware will, what? Make me not get thrown around by feelings. Guessing that is good not?

Nah! I already feel like I’m not really part of this society. Need to learn to find aware friends too if I go that path. For that I need to learn to socialise, not be self-centered and learn to listen better. Ok, 2016 is already full and it hasn’t even started yet. Sigh. Moan. 😀

Anxiety: my hair is definately getting a lot thinner, today I walked the stairs of the building and I saw my hairs everywhere. I’m thinking the amount of chocolate I eat depleats my vitamin B supply and, who knows, turns my body acidic and blablabla. I need to quit the amounts of chocolate I eat. That is on my list for 2016.

I actually started this post because I had a bad case of not liking myself these last days and no matter what subject came up I went self destructive. Most likely an after effect of my ‘how not to celebrate Christmas’ this year. So I planned to write it all out and see what I demand of myself if I am a WWDNLH (Woman who does not love herself). Here it goes.

• I should quit eating chocolate and dates so I can lose more weight.
• I should be fully vegetarian by now AND pay more attention to eating healthy – no more cantine food.
• Did I say I should lose weight? When I lose weight everybody will see that I am utterly succesful and I they will really NEED to say that I did so well with quitting alcohol. Blablablablabla.
• Obviously I need to excell at my job and in that excelling there is only place for me to shine. Next I realise that this is SO antisocial and anti team that I berate myself over it and force me to be social and pro team while not paying attention to the skewed position I am in. I could love me and e.g. ask why I would like to outshine everybody. I would get the answer that I only feel safe if I do. Which would inform me that obviously I feel very unsafe. From there I could explore that. But no, I’m going all self destructive and what, find that I need to excel at my job. I mean, if I even can’t excel here, why would I even look for a job at my level of education? Or dare to continue/start up my own business? When I’m in this mode I experience life as an excercise where I can choose between being lashed with a whip, beaten with a club or EXCEL but DEFINITATELY NOT be me. Practicing awareness now. Ha! F! awareness. I never know how it works but this forces getting me down suddenly go into hiding when I get mad. I need to get mad bigger than the forces otherwise it does not work. Pretty explosive stuff. Trying to eat dinner at the same time – that is not a good combination. :-D. Ok, so when I am aware I can investigate and learn and hopefully get stuff sorted out. When I am not aware I lose myself in my emotions. Think I’ve got the reason why it might be a good idea to be aware. Ha! Cool! 🙂
• Obviously I need to fix my finances. I prefer to do that by winning the lottery but doubt if I can afford the ticket. Naturally I do not have the guts to check out my bankaccount for that so I will either, in a spurr of an unaware moment buy a ticket or not.
• Oh yeah, on finances, I think I should learn to ask for help but blegh! I’m not good at that which, berate, berate (but true), probaly means that I still somehow look down on asking for help otherwise I would not have a problem with that. So there are two ‘fails’ that needs ‘fixing’.
• Did I say I think I should fix my shoulder pain? FIX IT!
• My livingroom is currently, well, has been for the last 3 years now, a atelier where I produced the consumer product I was trying to market. I find that I need to decide on wether or not to continue living in this shed or somehow do things differently. Like, have a house.
• For having a house I need to fix my finances. Did I say that? 😦
• I also think I should go looking for a partner but shit I am in no state and haha, can’t really let go of the bookstore man yet. Ooh, did I tell you I think I am REALLY stupid for liking the bookstore man? 😦 This weekend I thought I was really stupid for liking anybody anyhow. 😦 Back to wishing I was perfect and better than everybody and more pretty and slimmer and sexier and more intelligent so nobody would ever hurt me again. I remember meeting this neighbour woman, I must have been 4 or 5 years old. She was all dressed up, made up, walked with confidence, she looked untouchable and I saw the older guy kids from he street who were always after me looking up to her and I thought: ‘if I become like that they will never hurt me again.’ The roots of that thought are still there. Ooh, ooh, if I become aware I might be able to realise that this is a pattern, cry and let go instead of cry and hold in. Aaah pfff….  They never told me getting unhooked from booze would take so much work. How do you do that? Yes, you?
• Obviously I should also work out how I can ‘fix’ my sagging boobs. My ayurvedic doctor says massaging with olive oil works. I don’t do it. Schuessler cell salts have a salt somewhere. I don’t search for it. So I am back in the berating and making up all these shoulds and not liking myself. Wwawwlhd? She would cry and say she is hurt and confused and call her friend and try to work stuff out. 😦 (hi friend) And….. 3 seconds later the friend is on FB message and says I miss you and I miss her too and everything is ok again – apart from things not being ok in her life. 😦
• On my list of things to berate myself over is doing sports. I should do yoga now my shoulder is less stiff and painful.
• I should read more and Netflix less.
• I should be more social.
• I should go to AA to learn the extra stuff I am not learning by myself. Possibly to make some extra sober friends to party with on NY eve without feeling like people don’t invite me because they would feel funny downing a Magnum bottle of champagne with me around.

Well, you got it. Not good enough. 😦

What would a woman who loved herself do? She would look at this list with compassion, learn to separate the feeling from the being (become aware), try to sort out where the self-destruction comes from and learn from that and hopefully, hopefully from there learn a little about letting go. Not all the pain needs to be held on to :-/. But that is another chapter and it is late and I need to sleep.

So, no spellcheck. Guessing the NSA is must be a little too bussy. But let me finish by saying: I am HAPPY that I quit. 🙂

Wishing you all a beautiful, eventful, festive end of the year and a happy, healthy, sober 2016. Remember what a women who loves herself would do. 🙂

xx, Feeling

Sober second

Yeah, today is my sober 16 monthiversary. 🙂 Trying not to remember the angry posts I wrote last year around this time. Ouch. Glad I did write it though because it shows how much can change over a sober year. By now I am starting to see how the detailed honesty of my post not only help me in the moment but also can help me in the future in seeing where I came from. And yes I know I should be happy about the things which have changed in my character but shit, today hurts. It hurts to look back into the tightness and stress of the holidays at home in my family, by now I have done a lot of crying over that. And writing this post, well now, it hurts to look forward, or well, anywhere.

Don’t know how to proceed other than barching right in with saying that the people around me start saying things like I should ‘not be so self absorbed’, ‘learn to listen before I start speaking’ (bookstore man on me not checking the ‘shopmood’ before starting to speak) and that ‘how can you make this about you?’ a nice but stern reaction from a colleague when I said that if people had an issue like the one they were talking about I would like to hear about it from them straight. Guess becoming less self absorbed and listening before I speak should be on my list. Haha! 😦

Brrrrrrrrr, not looking forward to learning about this because I fear it is not going to go naturally and pain free. Being self absorbed has given me the possibility to focus on every detail of sobriety that has popped up over the last 16 months. I think that has been good. I still can not imagine how I could have had a job and go through those first months. On the other hand, haha, maybe…. I would have been less self-absorbed if I had. 🙂 Well, thinking it goes hand in hand.

These last two days have been eventful so to say. I was invited for Christmas and then got disinvited for reasons I totally understand – and that part is OK. And I am not big on Christmas anyway, still fear the stress in other people which surrounds the holiday season. The other day I read a blog on a parent lashing out at her kids over unmanaged holiday stress and it send me reeling.

Christmas for now just reminds me of all the dysfunction we as a family have put each other through. However, guessing in sobriety things change and I got to feel real sad about missing my mother and feeling deeply through the memories of the dysfunctional family gatherings at which we used to drink our self into oblivion. Happy for me it was not the moaning kind of sadness but the letting go kind of sadness. And I’m happy with my job because I had to work yesterday and I can just literally cry while doing it and nobody even notices me. 😀 Yes it is strange, and yes that is how it is.

So, well, I guess I tumbled in the ‘shit, I don’t have my own family.’ My brother and SIL have their 20 headed family over and I have been invited but this gathering is way too busy for me, too much noise, too much speaking of nothing.

After work I visited my favourite chocolate shop in Amsterdam. Spend an hour’s work of money on chocolate. Life is so strange. I used to spend like 100 Euro’s per Christmas in this shop getting presents for all the caring and cooking woman I would be meeting during the holidays. Spending the same amount now would mean I would not eat for 2 weeks. Well, that is in the past, together with my depressions and suicide thoughts. Guess what I like better? 🙂

Next I visited the bookstore man. We matched moods since he was crying behind the counter when I came in and that mode did not really change during the afternoon and late evening. Both of us cried our eyes out over hurt that came up. Again, not the moaning type but the feeling and realising type of crying. He had had a flue so he had not smoked pot for 5 days. It is my thought that the horrifying youth experiences he worded came up as a result of that. I had a lot of those in the first days, weeks and months of becoming sober. I guess my drinking had the function of keeping the lid on a can of worms. I hope he really quits one of these days, he’s at his wits end but somehow he does not connect the one thing to the other.

A lot has changed from last Christmas to this Christmas. I have found more peace. I have learned to take care of myself better. I like myself better. I think I have learned to deal with stuff better although there are still big holes in my functioning. I think the tiny job I have has brought some instability but more stability. There is a need of developing my socials skills now more too. Aaah, it is difficult to list what has changed and what I am happy about without going into a wish list immediately. Let’s say I have learned a lot about myself, a lot about how addiction works for me. I also think I have gotten an inkling of how to disconnect from addictive behaviour but I’m not totally sure about that. Specifically because I still tend to take ‘the easy road’ and address those things which I feel I can while not addressing the things I feel I can not. Ha, and there I go again, turning it into a wish list.

Physical changes of late: I have developed quite some muscle in my whole body and specifically my arms. My skin and muscles are easier to distinguish, sort of sharper defined. Makes me happy. I build up muscle pretty easy because the farmhouse living as a child and the physical labour we got to do made me an extremely strong child. I still don’t lift comfortably above my shoulders because of the shoulder pain but that is slowly getting better. Practising more and I sometimes speak with my shoulder. It says it stays stuck because it does not want to move on. Things are changing too quickly and she (I!) can not catch up, it is putting its ‘heels in the sand’. Guess I need to pay attention to me more. Not sure why I don’t. Self care, I guess I am taking it for granted or only skipping through the big parts because there are so much things to deal with. How do other people do that? I do not have a clue.

My eye bulbs have changed too, due to less screen time they have drawn back into my head. This must have happened over a month time or so after starting to work. It feels good so I guess it is ok.

I have lost an extra 2 kilo’s in the last 2-3 weeks, so down to 76 now, liking that too. I wonder how much I would lose if I were not eating 100 grams of chocolate and about the same amount of dates every day. Yes yes, sugar addiction has kicked in fully. Letting it go for now. I obviously need another entry / to understand something I do not / it does not feel like I can deal with thinking about it now.

On the body: last summer, in a desperate attempt not to jump the bookstore man (haha, that is, if there would be a chance) I reigned myself in by letting my body hair grow. Let self imposed body shame reign in my combustible heart (loins?). Yeah, yeah, I know it sounds funny, but if I learned anything in sobriety it is: Whatever it takes is what it takes. Well, on not shaving armpits and bikini lines, upper and lower legs. I must say: I feel way better about my body with the hair than without it. And I feel healthier; like my body likes the hair better that it likes the shaving of it. Also, the fine ‘nest hairs’ I had on my cheeks are slowly disappearing so it looks like the longer my pubic hair is, the shorter my facial hair. But it might also have something to do with the Ayurveda pills. Not sure.

Might be a funny subject to speak about but with my professional background the phenomena of pubic hair has always interested me; how people think and feel about it, what this says about the position of women in society. The Dutch word for pubic hair is ‘schaamhaar’ which translates in to ‘shame hair’ in English. And as we all know there is a lot of energetic power in shame. :-D. I’ve just been using that not to blow up a friendship I find important. As I said, whatever it takes is what it takes.

Psychological changes going on concern different subjects. Even though my ‘clear head’ is slowly developing in my work I still do not take action concerning my admin and finances at home. I have no clue how much money I have, how much on rent I am behind and what I need to do to fix things. I am growing into a position where I do think and feel that it is OK to ask for help in this. Feeling the physical / energetical reactions in my body while thinking about this, feeling it through if you will is the very informative. A lot of fear there.

Speaking of fear… I’ve had a visit from Kali, Hindu goddess of destruction. I had heard of her but somehow she managed to step into my life while I was just of the brink of falling asleep. It was horrifying. I do not think I have ever been that afraid. Her presence made me feel like my body was dying / transforming. It felt like all the energy that keeps the atoms together was stripped. I want to say ‘stripped from me’ but with the stripping I realised that my body was not me. However, I can’t even describe how horrifying it was and all during this experience I saw the figure of Kali in front of my mind eye. She was blue which was somehow very important (she is also pictured in black) and had many arms, not ‘only’ the 4  – which is how I was able to check on who had visited me. Around her, through her, around me, within me destructive fire was burning and burning and burning. Like on the picture, but also with flames in front of her. It was devouring and destroying,  utter destruction and darkness but funny to realise and say it was not personal. It just was.

In the experience I tried to ‘keep myself together’ and realised that I am not my body. Within and without the boundaries of my body there is an awareness which I call ‘I’. I hung on to that, trying to solidify it like I have learned in dealing with addiction and in the detox center dream.

I spoke about it with my therapist and the bookstore man. Can’t remember what the therapist said, yeah, he did give me the name of the visitor. Which is handy. :-). The bookstore man congratulated me, saying that ‘If you had Kali you’ve had the worst of them’ and something like ‘What a beautiful experience to teach you the difference between Self and body.’ Which haha, I guess is another way of looking at it. I did remember too ‘If I get scared now I lose it. You can be scared but you NEED to keep your head together.’ Learning to be brave while laying in my bed. 🙂

There was something on how the Self, still not sure whether to call it Soul or Spirit, is connected to the body. And in how ‘we’ (I!) think that bond is important because otherwise ‘we die’. And yes we do, and severing that bond is horrifying, but it feels like  there is also something like ‘awareness’ or ‘Self’ staying, continuing. I have no clue what the next phase would be, for all I know all the Selves get canned and put on a shelf somewhere but… well, food for feel.

How am I connected to Indian gods? Not. I have only seen a few of the statues in the bookstore so not sure why she dropped by. Hmmm, should mention something else too, a thing which is connected but not sure how. I was thinking of the bookstore man just a few seconds before she showed up. And obviously there is a message in her appearance just there and then but hahahaha, I can’t read it. My thoughts don’t want to go down the obvious road of ‘well, that is a sign you should give up on being in love with him’. Guess time will tell.

On the bookstore man: he is in love, obviously not with me. It’s really cute to see how he behaves. I sometimes get the feeling he puts it out there between me and him as to make a fence and sometimes it is just genuinely in love. I am happy for him. And sad for me obviously although going through the process I have been going through in unaddicting from ‘love’ addiction makes it very clear that it takes a LOT of work to deal with this. It must be like food addiction, one of the most difficult things to unlearn because a person needs food.

I sat at the table yesterday and well, funny thing is, I’m used to be not in love with him when we are meeting. Maybe that is like not drinking a lot while being with friends? Well, since the last visit this has changed a little and it cost me more effort to leave those thoughts and feelings out of the conversation. At some point I sort of had to stop my heart from running around because I did not want to like ‘go there’ and get into trouble over something I would not be able to uphold anyway so I stopped my heart from jumping up and down and saying things like ‘Tell him! Tell him now!! Why not tell him? Hi!!!!!!’ I got irritated and confused over that and I stopped my heart by, well, I don’t know. It literally faltered and was off beat for several moments, heart palpitations, skipped beats :-(. Might need to go look for a healthier option to deal with love addiction or maybe allow myself somebody who does reply :-(. Aaah, shit. Can anybody tell me?

We were drawing tarot cards all during our conversation that day and they were very informative. At one moment I thought, can you give me some info on the status between him and me and hahahaha, fcuk it I drew Lovers. Pffffff… Thank you, universe. So I threw it on the table and said ‘This one is for you.’ While making it sound like it was for his new love. I’ve started lying to the bsm and I do not like it. Things about honesty had popped up in the conversation yesterday and I told him again that at one point I had decided to not lie to him. We spoke about our personal  definition of lying and I told him that since my last visit I had changed. Ghegheghe, at which moment a customer walked in so, well, the conversation never proceeded. Wanting to tell him that I am still not done with my infatuation. I would be very much surprised if he were ever to like me in partner way, and even if he would, I would not know how to behave but I value him as a person and would like to learn to be friends so it is all work in progress. And hmmm, truth be said, there is some calculation in my behaviour too: I need to learn to ‘moderate’ on love, might as well try that on him since I do not think for me challenges come bigger than he does. Or he must be really interested in me and filthy rich instead of flat broke, maybe then. However, I don’t want to lie to him. But I don’t want to be hurt either. And I don’t want to be the child who confesses everything either. Let’s see.

Aah, in the back of my mind: He’ll like me if I lose weight. Pffff. Not true. Guys at my work told me the other day I have a very good figure. Guess that means that I have a very good figure. Can’t believe it though.

Health anxiety: my health anxiety has shifted from whatever it was last to an upcoming treatment at the dentist. Afraid it will turn out in a root canal thing. Don’t want that. Not that my assumption it is linked to anything physical, although I do feel some tooth ache, it is just this continuous feeding of energy to not trust my body, not really daring to live that has found another way to express itself. Oh yeah, and feeling things in my breasts of course. Could be logical with the losing weight, could be all kinds of horrible cancer. Don’t want to know. And I am afraid I my hair is thinning; for safety reasons people with long hair need to wear hairnets to keep the hair away from catching in machinery etc. I have developed this thought that my hair does not like that and is growing thinner.

Aah yeah, that is a change: a year ago I would be all over the place with all kinds of illnesses, real or assumed and now I am starting to doubt my some of these thoughts and feelings. All in all feelings have become more than ever experiences which I look upon as information. The idea that they should be ruling me is something I start to doubt and experience as not true. I am thinking this must be the first days of the concept of acting instead of reacting which I am walking in now. It is a slow progress. I don’t understand how other people do this. Obviously I write in detail about what I experience and a lot of people in the sober blogosphere are gheghe, more polite. I would wish I got to understand this concept of the difference between acting and reacting quicker though. Sometimes, specifically when being open about the funny (boring, tiny) details of my path I feel childish, incomplete, unfinished, reactive and downright stupid. Still I note them down because I think, assume, have noticed (?) that for me being sober is in paying attention to the details.

It is the tiny things that build up to big things. For me it is easier to sit down and write about the tiny difficult stuff than it is to have to deal with emotions running out of control when passing a bar or being at a party. So, again, whatever it takes is what it takes and yes shit I am tired of being pushed forward in this process on the one hand and having to work and run to catch up with all the things that I have not ‘under control’ or figured out yet. Guess that comes with wanting to do it ‘all’ on my own. I do speak with one friend (hi!), the BSM and with my SIL about addiction and how I deal with it but those are not people who either went as deep in alcohol or, as the BSM, he thinks he can moderate, tomorrow. 4 Months ago I planned to visit AA and never thought of it again. Hmmm… guess I am starting to be in need of sober friends.

I don’t want things to go like they do. I guess the information there is to make me realise that I can not do without other people and that the alcohol has made me think I could. Now this hard shell around me is becoming more flexible and I feel I go through an adjustment period where I need to change, need to notice that I need to be more social, more active in the field of socialising, meeting up. And with saying that there are a lot of buts popping up in my head: I need my energy to work. I cannot energetically deal with more than 2 social appointments in a week. I cannot this and I cannot that.

I believe it is time that I start really working on my progress. Not Netflixing and chocolating. And yes, I do not have a clue how to change that without forcing myself and that lashing back at me. Let’s see what I think I can do? Hmmm. Nothing much. I can do the laundry today. Much in need of that, don’t want to sleep in the same bedding anymore. I think I can cook today. I can finish this post and spell check it. Maybe I can put my books in the book cabinet. Dunno how to deal today, guess I lost my structure and need to find it back. Very happy that I have a job because that brings structure.

About work, I assemble stuff, pack stuff and clean. I have responsibility for one specific product at which I feel I need to excell. Trying to excell teaches me a lot about me. It used to be so that I would feel my heart racing / blood pressure rise 20 points when the boss would walk in the room. That is now only 10 points. 😀 I used to fear that she would get at me for not doing it right but I guess she is starting to realise that I do well and that I am human. And that makes it possible for me to realise that she is human too. The other day I let out a growl about something which frustrated me. Aaah, yeah, being able to do that is a VERY NICE perk of non-office jobs :-D. But the boss just walked into view from around the corner so she asked ‘What’s up with you? Are you ok?’ I was astonished so I blurted out ‘I’m frustrated!’
‘Why?’
‘Dunno, just very tired.’
‘Hmmm, that does not sound like your usual self, are you ok?’
‘I guess I am? Just very tired, things not going as I like them.’
‘Ok, well, there’s only an hour left, so hang in there and let’s see what tomorrow brings.’

I mean that does not really sound like a bitch boss from hell does it? Learning, learning, learning. 🙂 I am happy I did at least one step out of this defensive she-against-me mode. Looking back it is amazing how scared I was and how I was unable to grasp all the processes that were going on around me. Not that I tried, I had difficulty enough doing the simple job which I do. Understanding the machines, understanding assembly, understanding the packaging. Again, it takes time to realise it takes time. 🙂

Now I am settled in a little and the things that go on around me do not stir me as much I am practising letting my body do the work and relaxing within. There is a thing, I noticed that my body’s capacity for doing things is much bigger once I trust it and let it do its work without me interfering with fears and doubts. So now I try to not interfere / disconnect and that works very funny. Where assembling 12 pieces an hour was the top I thought anybody could do I did 14 an hour the other day with my special ‘disconnect and let go technique’ – and the right music. It was cool. It was like my sing yourself free course: let go of the fear and let the music out.

I wonder if and how I can extend this. In this line of thinking I tried to play the recorder again the other day. I have not played anything from paper since 36 years. At looking up some music on YouTube (your best friend) I found that I could play Christmas songs without sheets, just by hearing it and copying. The ability of the body to do stuff is marvellous; I am really starting to enjoy that. (The cat was NOT amused though :-D) I used to take it all, everything, from health to, well even the ability to walk, see, touch, for granted, destroyed it on a daily base. And now it is coming back and well, I enjoy it. 🙂

One graphic thought on sobriety I would like to share:

I am happy that I quit.

3 Things: talk with the bookstore man yesterday. That I actually went there instead of not. Being able to switch of my ‘need’ for him. Maybe I should do that more, might make life easier, get over my Florence Nightingale complex.

Wishing you a nice sober weekend.

xx, Feeling

Unchaining Yourself From Your Limitations

I’m thinking this post from Sadhguru, well, for me, explains why being happy that I quit / that you quit, is important and good and makes life easier. 🙂 Hope you enjoy. 🙂

Sadhguru answers a question on staying peaceful and joyful even in the face of adversity.

Source: Unchaining Yourself From Your Limitations

Wisdom on the workfloor

Conversation with a colleague:

‘Well, I don’t think you will be here for the rest of your life assembling stuff?’
‘I really enjoy it. This might actually be the job I enjoyed most in my life.’
‘Yeah, well, I’m thinking you could achieve anything if you set your mind to it.’
‘That is what I think, if I did not have me to deal with. I am a star in being in my own biggest obstacle. And I have NO clue in what to do. At all.’ 😦
Jokingly: ‘Well, if that is what you are good at make your money with being your biggest obstacle.’
‘Yeah, I could write difficult books on how to do that.’
‘Why difficult? Why does it always have to be difficult?’
‘Well, well, eh, well, I guess you have a point there.’

So what’s up? Sitting in the dark here, typing, screen on and a candle. Rumours from Fleetwood mac in the background. New birthday coming up this week. More than last year I realise that at age 46 I will not be having kids of my own. Am I allowed to cry over that after not wanting kids for 44 years? I have always thought that having kids one of the most selfish deads we can put out there. And now I realise that selfish or not, it does not matter because Life wants to live.

I was angry with my parents, putting me out there, all unprepared and then taking off, leaving me to face all these unseen difficulties on my own. Not responding. Drinking kept me in that anger.

Also I have always known that I would get into trouble with booze, I did not want to put any kids through that. And.. haha, I did not want to quit yet. So yeah, booze won and I guess I pay for that now.

So what’s going on? Nothing. A lot. Work has been good this week, boss is on holiday, lowers my bloodpressure with 20 points ;-). I FINALLY went to see a fysiotherapist for my shoulder, the ostheopath said she can push my vertebra’s back in line but I need to practice and get it loosened up. So I finally did so. I feel like I need take care of me too much, can’t deal with another medical appointment. Going to the dentist next week aswell since that stupid tooth that has been bugging me since early sobriety is still bugging me. Nothing major, just there to remind me how much worse it could be. 😦

In addition to the dream I had the other day on going to the detox center I had an experience of what I would like to call pure, natural, possibly spiritual sexuality. Where Sexuality and Life were mixed in one (fleeting second) spiritual experience. That was beautiful. It made me realise how much I do not know and how synthetic the greedy, needy affection was I used to surround myself with.

Having said that, The Universe is playing another trick on me with the bookstore man. I have this theory about life that everything I have not dealt with will be dished up in one form or the other until it is played out, sorted out – till the subject is not energetically charged anymore. And when dealing with stuff the next bone thrown by the Universe will be smaller, and when I don’t deal it will be bigger. Like it takes having 3 asshole/bitch bosses in a row to make me realise: it is not me, it is you.

So it is with the bookstore man, still unsorted. I think we’re sort of, well, dunno what we are. Just when I get the idea that I might enjoy working in a bookstore for the rest of the week that I do not work, he puts up an add for a store person because he can’t deal with being a store man anymore. It IS a taxing job. Imagine a shop for spiritual growth where everybody walking in will inform you of their progress whether you want to hear it or not. Ghegheghe, that’s like worse than being forced to read blogs and comment ALL DAY, for 7 years, 6 days a week.

Also, bookstore man 2 has asked me to come fill in for when he’s not around. Shame that he needs me on days that I am already working :-(.

Well, bookstore man. Went there yesterday and shit, the whole air of the shop filled with anticipation when I walked in. Neighbour making smart remarks on me being back, sending investigative looks at the bookstore man, trying to read the situation. This man and his wife think we’ll get together one day, it is so obvious that it is disturbing. It disturbed me. Just when I thought I had peace of mind The Universe sends me this. And the bookstore man was even worse, dunno what has gotten into him. He has lost a few kilo’s and was all suited up (jummy!) so I finally got to have a look into his modelling career. Shiiiiiiit…. I had never seen that he is in fact quite handsome. And shy. Aaaahrg, it just went all funny in the air from there. Me noticing his good looks and NOT wanting to pay attention, the bookstore man showing off and then getting shy over realising that he was showing of and the fact that I was not responding. Patterns are so much easier when the other plays along, aren’t they?

The neighbour seeing the bookstore man turning shy, finding that very interesting, checking with me how I dealt with that. Me needing to contain myself and keep a nice friendly intention and a no-I-need-to-learn-to-deal-with-this-and-not-jump-into-addiction-transfer-want-mode-trying-hard-to-center-and-ground-myself pokerface and not let my heart jump out of my body saying ‘Hi! Hi! Hi! Here I am!!! Hi! :-)’. In the sideline of my strugle to contain myself was the bookstore man noticing all of it and me noticing all of it back. Aaaaaaahrgggg!!!!!  Akward!!!! Lucky for our social skills we were able to keep polite conversation during this. Sigh. Or in Heya Monsters words LeSigh…

I am guessing this is the point where I start lying to the bookstore man. Not good. Why: because, dunno, it is all too akward. Don’t want to not speak everything. Don’t want to be a child either. And, well, games? I don’t know if I am being played but now I withdraw my heart (hahaha, dream on girl 😦 ) he starts to lean towards me. ‘Yeah, I’ll order this book for you! For Christmas! It’s a present.’ 30 minutes later: ‘Ooh, I’ll order this one too, a very good read for you on this subject. Don’t worry, present. No pressure, I’ll just keep it here if you don’t like it.’

And when I left he came running after me with another book ‘To read but bring back in a few days.’

What did I learn? I learned that I am MILES away from being able to control my feelings. FUCK! I sat through the whole afternoon thinking What the fuck is happening here? Why can I not center? Why can I not ground myself? Why can I not contain myself? What the fuck is going on here? Where am I anyway? What happened to me between that beautiful detox dream and this?

Somehow the bookstore man kept on pushing my buttons on sadness and needing to cry in order to let go. And I was thinking ‘Let me go, please don’t go there, if I start crying I can not stop.’ And I did not say anything like that. Where was I? Before we got upset with eachother months ago I would have said so. Now I don’t anymore. You know, I think I am really scared. Being in love is all very ok when nobody responds. But I would not know how to deal anymore. I feel so vulnerable. I have this wild heart if not lustful loins since yesterday. Both have the ability to send me all over the place. And I am afraid to lose control. Not that there is anything going to happen cause, I mean, I guess I’m still a ‘coaching project’ as he so nicely put it several months ago. 😦 Which is ok, I mean, I can’t ‘afford’ him, no matter how much I would love to be able to. 😦 I’ve got me to take care of and he’s dangerous for me. Ha, Fleetwood mac phrases it nicely right now.

 

What else. Nothing. Birthday jitters. Finally told one of my closest friends who has stood by me for the last 2 years now what trouble I had really been in. First reaction ‘Ooh dear, so proud of you that you quit.’ 🙂 And ‘But you did not drink a lot when with us?’ 😦 No girl, I drank on my own, in the dark. Screen on, possibly a candle on and Fleetwood mac in the background. 😦

Still, lots has changed. I am happy that I quit. God, I am soooo happy that I quit. Damn. Imagine the mess I would be in with the bookstore man if I would have been drinking now. Yuk. I would get selfdestructive over it. I would dislike myself because he does not fancy me. I would think that would devalue me. 🙂 Now I can see that I obvious have reasons to pick unlucky. And yes I am sad, I wish it would be easier and haha, no need to fool myself: even if it were easier I would not be able to deal. 😦

wwawwlhd? Cook some dinner and quit eating chocolate and dates. It’s really getting out of hand and I seem to not want to contain myself. Aaah yeah; because I am practising to contain myself in other areas I let go of these. Hmmm, ok, one day it will come together I guess. Even with the OD-ing on chocolate I still have lost several kilos from working. Building up muscle I am very proud of too :-).

Wwawwlhd when it came to the bsm? Hmmm, now there are two paths there. Hmmm. Need to feel into that.

Discipline: still improving in small things. 🙂 Not worrying about things that I ‘should’ have done. That is what the wwawwlhd changed. 🙂

3 things: knowing the bookstore man, my friends, being sober. 🙂

Ooh, just in case you had missed it: I am happy that I quit! 🙂

Hope you are having a nice (sober?) day.

xx, Feeling

18 Things to Remember When Your Heart is Breaking

Beautiful post of Marc and Angel on a broken heart.

It’s hard to give you advice when you’ve got a broken heart, but some words can heal, and this is my attempt to give you hope. You are stronger than you know!

Source: 18 Things to Remember When Your Heart is Breaking

Discovering go to places

Following the dream I wrote about in the former post, I have been struggling with the vibe of addiction and I am starting to really get an idea of how it works within me. How it connects and what I do energetically. When I look at myself I have been not drinking for 15 months something and that has been ok. My issue has never been with the not drinking but more with the do living. And I thought I missed something in the understanding of addiction that kept/keeps me from living fully. So I askes myself for a dream with an answer to that. Yes that is possible. 🙂

In the dream I went to a detox center to learn more about addiction because I had done it without professional addiction guidance. In the dream I got shots with all kinds of drugs and they blew me away. The idea was that it would teach me how to deal with it. I started fighting them by refusing to take off to cloud 9 and get high/stoned/whatever. In that struggle I learned how to pull myself back into my center and well, condense myself if that makes sense? What I feel about addiction is that it sort of turns my ‘essence’ if you will, into fog. And in the dream excercise I learned to condense the fog into what I experience as ‘me’.

Very uncomfortable all of it. One of the ideas in which my addiction is based is the assumption (true or false?) that I will get killed, or more likely, raped, when I become visible / solid / when I show myself. So this solidifying practise went right against the flow of my fear of living but the joke of the dream was that I HAD to solidify otherwise I would die or get into a state where I would not be able to defend myself. And ooh boy did I distrust the detox group guy.

Solidifying, does the concept of that mean anything to you when it comes to being foggy and/or in relation to the vibe of addiction? To me it is part of the concept of ‘being clear’ which is my ultimate goal that started with quitting drinking. I want to, hope to, work towards a situation where in life, in contact with others I can be totally clear and transparent in what I want, need, give, take, add, build, speak, hear. I don’t want the lies that have been stimulated by addiction to be between me and others. I don’t want the self hate, the people hate, the world hate, well, the addiction induced hate to be there. Neither do I want the pain of former life experiences to determine the size, shape, colour, feel, what have you of my existance, of the way I view new people. I want to unbreak my heart.

The neccessity with which I was shown in that dream that I NEED to change is almost as big as that I NEEDED to stop drinking. The guy in the dream told me or made me realise that I had not done enough and will die of addiction if I do not change. This gheghe, neccessity ‘coincides'(?) very well with the Puer Aeternus book I am reading; it tells about people with a the Peter Pan attitude, people who don’t want to grow up, in my words: don’t want to solidify, want to stay (in) the fog. And also, how their attitude towards life tends to make them die young. So yes, the word ‘coincide’ has been put between brackets because in hindsight I see how the neccessity to change which showed up in the  dream has been fed by the book.

And/but, not sure if I did write it down but I have been living in this fear of death for quite a few days, if not several weeks now. I somehow feel there is something coming up. And yes, obviously ‘all’ the signs point towards it. Not sure if I mentioned this either but the other day after the company dinner I had flashes in which ending my life would be really, really a good idea. No, no need to worry, for me it is just a sign of something internal which does not want to deal with reality. But still, death is in the air, a sentence which keeps on popping up in my mind.

Which is….. a sentence which I had been popping into my head for several days now and part of my practice in solidifying and centering is to NOT go to that thought. However… aah, these odd things which happen when I do odd dream courses and read odd books…. Yesterday I walked away from work and suddenly stepped back years in time thinking: I dreamed walking here in the rain. This was years ago. I am having a dejavu of a dream – it felt so real and so dreamlike at the same time. I tried to retrace the dream and it, well, in the dream I had gotten into an accident with a truck a few blocks away.

And this or a little before, would be the part where I go off-track. I know that what I am writing is odd. But it is how I experienced it. And true or not true, it is how I walk through life now. Well, I would like to continue to defend my odd-ness, specifically because I have the idea that less and less people are interested in following (I had planned to never let myself be upset by that but I am 😦 ) my odd-ness, but I will stop here. This is how I do it. And that is odd. Or maybe I am the only one who speaks of the oddness. Don’t know. And I do not know if what I experience is True True, or just my truth or just my current truth or that I am projecting anything and everything. But even if that were true :-), that would be a way to learn then. Can’t have my therapist 24*7. To me, I think, feel, the odder I get, the saner I get. But that will most obviously classify me for some DSM 5 thing I think. 😀

Well, I stopped on the pavement, not knowing what to do. It was pooring down and I did want to get home because I did not have an umbrella and only a thin jacket and cotton leggins with a cotton skirt – no gear to stay in the cold rain with. I was afraid, afraid that my dream would catch up with me, afraid that all my efforts to become sober, to incarnate, to not be another Peter Pan had caught up with me and that I would die an untimely death. And low and behold, from accross the street comes this little tiny, tiny man with a beard and a pointed hat. NOT KIDDING YOU! His legs and arms twist like something is violently itching and the thought “That is the Joker” springs to mind. Second look, closer: it is the bookstore man number 2, the old one. How odd can it get? Well… more odd.

We exchange pleasantries and decide to haha, walk into the secondhand bookstore that is close by. Do you know where you ask “How are you?” when you meet and then a little later in the conversation repeat the question but now with meaning? So did he and I answered “Well, actually really weird, I just stepped into a deja-vu of a dream. And I am glad you showed up because in the dream I would die in an accident around the corner.” And he says: “Yes, death is in the air.”

Death, death, well, it can mean anything, does not have to be physically and I do have quite a list of nasty character traits I would not mind ‘killing’ so maybe I should hand in that list first if Death comes along. Still, it is not nice. And I do have this conviction that what I focus on grows so there was a whole lot of cutting off thoughts and focussing on other things going on. Practice, practice, practice.

So yes, it have been a uncomfortable few days. During daytime I have practised to unfog and solidify almost every 5 minutes, trying to keep me in that space for as long as I could hold on. In real action I have (again?) quit chocolate and added sugar, still eating dates and I have cooked meals full of veggies because my body screams for them.

The dream and the process of solidifying and centering has really given me insight in where I use addictive behaviour; where I transfer feelings or take in external stuff to fill a void or calm a mood. A list:

• chocolate, chips and fatty foods
• internet, social media and Netflix to numb feelings. WordPress sometimes does that but I hope to use it to become aware.
• being sad, yes, well, I knew that because years ago, before I even knew what addictive behaviour could be the Ayahuasca spirit had already told me that sadness is my favorite emotion. Now I realise how I use it as a go to place when I do not want to be confronted with reality.
• The bookstore man and well, practically any man I fancy. Fancying takes me away from myself, puts me in this world of hope and togetherness where everything is fine. It’s not. It is an illusion. In one night all guys I was wondering about lost their charm. It is A-MA-ZING. I very much hope this clarity stays with me.

Good thing about the guy-fascination dropping (no promises for the future): I got to feel how it is to not to have that needing, wanting and reaching influence me and what was left was beautiful. And… funny enough: it was sexual. But not greedy sexual but lively sexual, like connected with Life sexual. That was amazing. I think I have seen a glimps of how it was meant. 🙂 That is good. 🙂 I am happy that I quit.

No promises for the future: exactly after I dropped the guy fascination I got overwhelmed with bookstore man 1 (young one) needing, wanting and reaching feelings from the outside – as in: coming from him. It was overwhelming and fun for 2 seconds until I felt the vibe of his addiction seep through. Wow, awful! Not sure if all this is real. But it does not really matter, what matters is that I got to practice to close up and solidify and center. And I got some insight in (how somehow my mind projects the idea of) a real relation with the BSM would be and that was, highly entertaining and also very sick.

I am happy that I quit. These last days I have had the feeling that I need to grow up quickly or otherwise I am done for and pffff, practise, practise, practise. I feel there is urgency. Which is also why I need to finish this post and go to bed. There is urgency to really take care of me. Not only think and want it but execute it.

Wwawwlhd: she would press it a little more, this urgency, I can’t get it out of my mind. Aaah, last meeting with my therapist (hi!) he explained ‘fear of destruction (of the world) is fear of your own death turned outward’ and apart from that there is some rather nasty stuff going on in the world. So when I understood that in my cells, I let go of the end of the world fear. I am guessing maybe, maybe, maybe I have therewith arrived at fearing my own death. Like unpeeling the onion of psychological problems. 🙂 Several days after I met the bookstore man and we spoke 2 sentences about the world. I said “The world is changing quickly these days.” He confirmed: “Really quickly.” It is a feel thing, not a read the papers thing.

On discipline: need to steal myself. Need more actual action. Working on it but thinking baby steps? Comfort? I need to push a little beyond comfort, that is my idea now. I feel as if there is a baseball bat in my neck ready to strike if I don’t speed up.

I take: boring

3 Things: knowing both bookstore men, knowing my therapist (hi!), this process I go through. So f@cking happy that I am sober. My God. Aah, well, back to the subject: I would have been dead by now if I had continued drinking. I did not! 🙂 And I am not! 🙂 ❤

Hope I did not bore you with my vague developmental thingies. Maybe you would like to do a ‘support Feeling action’ and write about your own vague stuff? 😀 Insecurity, another go to place. Stand tall women! Center! Ground! Breathe!

And smile :-), don’t forget to smile.

Again, no spell check. Still haven’t mailed them. Hope you are ok out there. Have a nice evening/day.

xx, Feeling

How you deal with this will show you how you deal with sobriety

Now there is some beautiful synchronicity going on in sober blog land. I feel it happens a lot but I found this one very remarkable. Unpickled put up a beautiful post on unwinding without booze here. And the Tom Waits quote that accompanies it is exactly the message I got from the rehab guy who visited my dream last night.

Tom Waits: ‘How you do anything is how you do everything.’

Where 2 days ago I said I don’t don anything with dreaming I suddenly got curious last night. Before I went to sleep I asked for a dream which would show me what my status of sobriety was / how I could develop myself in sobriety and there were 2 dreams.

The first was one where I drove off with my grandmother to bring her home and because I felt responsible for her and also because we were having a good time I ignored all the signs from the outside world on messages of war. There was also a neccessity to me driving because the rest of the family had been drinking. While leaving my parental house I saw jets flying by and one circling back to get us. I pushed my grandmother out of the car, told her to hide and continued my way because if I would leave the car at that same place we would both be death.

A few hundred meters I put the car on auto pilot (what is that called?) and jumped out into a ditch as well, realising that I should have done that earlier because the pilot had seen me. The first rocket hit the car and then the jet circled around to fire at me with an automatic something weapon. He missed and left. I realised that I had not, second by second, minute by minute been taking care of myself by reading the signs of the outside world because I did not feel like it. While (in my dream) it was actually known that cars would be bombed.

So because I was having a good time and not paying attention I almost got killed. Yes, yes, that would be quite dramatic but I guess would I return to alcohol I would not be far off, would I?

Secondly was a dream where I went into rehab to learn stuff I had not learned on my own and weird, weird, weird rehab guy thought we should detox from EVERYTHING so when I said I was not on anything but sugar he injected me with anything and everything druglike – but sugar. Saying ‘How you deal with this will show you how you deal with sobriety.’

How is that for synchronising with Tom Waits? 🙂 And shit it was awfull, it combined years of drunk nauseous spinning in bed together. And funny, funny, funny, he played me and fired up my vanity and my need to be seen by saying; ‘I will show you how we do this here while taking Feeling as an example because she has most sober experience and is doing really well.’ Which is why I did not protest against this methode.

I felt how I wanted to let go and get lost in the drugscocktail to not ever come back to serious living. And then I caught myself and hung on to my consciousness and tried to center myself ‘through the middle’ of my body, keeping in touch with my spine. I was laying down. During this practise of not losing myself the rehab guy was telling the other girls what was happening and commenting saying things like; “You see here she wants to let go but she realises that she can not do that without getting addicted and she has learned that not getting addicted is easier than detoxing. So that is good. But see how she would love to just leave? She is hanging in there, this is her responsibility on earth. She knows that but still she is not doing the full excercise. If she was she would not be nausseaous and the poison would just leave her body without it touching or affecting her. So there is still a step she has to make. ”

I guess, in the dreamworld it would be very true that I would not be sick from the drugs. I felt I had the power and I did not want to take it because shit that requires organisation I don’t want to do.

So that is that state of my sobriety. It allignes beautifully with the Puer Aeternus book I am reading (from Marie Louise von Franz) – it is a solid explanation of Carl Jung’s depth psychology insights on well, people with a Peter Pan character like I have. Can’t adult, please don’t make me adult.  I’m only 11 pages into the book and it is all about males, and Jung has a big differentiation between male and female psychology so I’m guessing there will be some other part on the female reaction to this but for now I recognise a lot of the Puer Aeternus in me and it is not comfortable. 😦

I am happy that I quit. Obviously something in me thinks it is time for another step; getting organised, incarnating fully. Ooh, Jung’s ‘solution’ to the Puer Aeternus was ‘work’. Which I guess is what I am doing with my tiny job and focussing on getting my clear head back again. It is funny how all the puzzle pieces of life seem to come together now I let go of thinking that I can control stuff. And even though I have this tiny job where I do simple things I find it difficult enough to actually organise my live again in a new way. When I look at my bank account and house and well, being single and overweight and well, what have you (I!) I feel sad. But when  I practise compassion I know that I am EXACTLY where I need to be and learning what I should. Now with the message to take it a little more serious too. 🙂 Ooh shit. 😦 I sooooo don’t want to take that extra step.

Yeah, I’m going to ask for a dream to show me what would be good / better in my life if I were to take that next step. 🙂 That is a good idea. 🙂 Let’s see if it works. 🙂

For those of you thinking is is all a load of BS; it might be. But when I asked a dream and then do not take the dream seriously I do not think I will get an answer the next time I knock on my (sub?)conciousness or whatever place that dream came from. And yes, I am easy to influence, so when I read a book I take the information in on, not sure how to explain what goes on, but on energetic or ‘cell’ level as I call it so when reading I live in the (energetic?) world of the writer. If a book can’t make me do that I take on the arrogant idea that it is not a good book, or not timed well. 🙂 So I am not at all surprised that I asked and got an answer.

Look and you shall find.

Knock and you shall be opened.

Ask and you shall be given.

I take: Ayurvedic pills and some Schuessler cell salts against the heart palpatations I had the other day. I need to start to take care of me again seriously because I would really like to move my arm normally and start doing some yoga to excersise some muscles which I could benefit from at my work. But, ha, as the dream says, I don’t. Maybe I should do yoga and maybe that will improve my arm. Gehgehgeghe…. maybe it is a same thing with not drinking: if my life improves I can stop drinking or…. if I stop drinking my life will improve. So why don’t I try? Hmmm? Because I don’t go that extra mile.

Wwawwlhd? She would finish this post and go make some soup.

3 Things: my dreams, the post from Unpickled which stressed the importance of it, I was on the verge of wanting to not write and not think about all of this. And the Puer Aeternus book which might actually have the answer in it to the question why I think I am not fully incarnated in this life. Let’s see. It is eh, very uncomfortable but I can’t go asking for answers and then spitting them in the mouth can I?

On discipline: guess my dreams just told me I need to up it a little. Oooh… sigh…. I don’t want to adult.

Well, here I go. Wish me luck. 🙂

xx, Feeling.

Trial period

Well, I ‘made it’ through the trial period of my tiny job. I am sort of doing fine but realising every day why drinking was my go to place and how unaddapted I am to this world. That is tough sometimes but for me an extra motivation to not even think about drinking.

My boss was out of town so time just passed and that means under Dutch law that I just automatically roll into a 6 month contract. Not actually sure what that means because she promised to change the contract to a 3 or 4 day solid thing instead of a ‘being on call’ contract. I should work these things out but I guess it will be fine. Or maybe I am hiding. Not sure. Ghegheghe, I checked on my trial period time with my boss and then jokingly congratulated her with hiring me which made her crack up. 😀

I’m really enjoying the work part of my work, wake up singing, sing during the day and go home singing. Apart from when I have an encounter with my boss. That raises my blood pressure 20 points in seconds. She keeps on pushing me to assemble some products 12 pieces an hour while 10 is normally feasible and brings me to the end of the day alive, 11 is real hard work and 12 is extremely hard work, a lot of luck and not feeling that a break of 30 minutes is enough to recover. The girl who got fired when I arrived did 5 in an hour. I did 8 in an hour after my first trial day so she got fired. The standard was 8 at that moment. Then my boss realised I did 10 an hour without breaking a sweat and started pushing me. Some products I do on my own. Not sure how to interpret it all and if I should go along.

The other day she and a colleague cracked up when I did 12 an hour while she was still saying things like ‘Move it, you got to be faster!’. I replied ‘Hey, hey, hey! I’m going plenty fast here!’ So I though she was teasing me, checking boundaries. Now I am no so sure anymore. Guess I could check with my colleagues.

Yesterday I asked my boss how she thought things were going. She replied: ‘No, things are going well I think, the guys like and respect you, the girls adore you, you get your stuff done. So I guess things are ok.’ Funny how people start with the word ‘No’ when they sort of yes or no mean yes but can not speak that.

What I try to do currently is to keep a clear head when working, so I keep track of the number I have done and how much are left, the stock of available raw materials, and working towards a time frame where I align with the next colleague who finishes my product. And, while doing that, I try to let my hands and body do the work and not worry or stress about it so my heart does not get taxed over it. I experience some heart flutters lately.

The other night we had a company dinner. I looked at the menu and saw there was no 2nd course without alcohol so after fretting about that I called the restaurant and asked what dish they could serve without alcohol and how I should phrase that when ordering. I hoped to team up with my colleague who also does not drink. I got really anxious after I called, the restaurant guy kept on explaining to me that the alcohol is all cooked out. At the third time I told him that ‘Well, sometimes that is not enough.’ That shut him up ok.

What happened next is that I internally got into this fight with the whole world and everybody about not drinking and defending that in my imaginary fight… with again, the whole world but specifically my boss and her favorite cleaner.   Well, there is information in it. I realised that I am scared of the teaming up they do and their like for drinking. The cleaner used to drink 1,5 bottle of whiskey a day. That is eh…. quite a lot.  He drinks less no but did not appear at the company dinner because he was already loaded. I called my SIL and we got to speak about my un-rest and she complimented me on calling and on quitting and again and again confirmed my choices. This helped. And I am very happy that she has (finally?) shown in her reaction that she is (trying to) understand what I am going through. She has been watching documentaries on addiction too. 🙂

My boss still thinks I’ve got the hots for the cleaner guy and it feels like she is jealous of his attention for me – which is just friendly. And I don’t, he’s slept with 200 women and even though he is black and should know about being discriminated against he is soooooo despairingly (is that the correct conjugation?) towards women, bwaah, A-MA-ZING!

I don’t know why I am rambling. I find it difficult. The team is very nice but yesterday my boss enquired after the size of the cleaner’s penis.  Yes, you read that right! And today she called me a whore because following a dinner conversation I had e-mailed somebody from the team with some background info and YouTube movie on raw materials. And you know, it just does not feel good even though she does this laughingly. I must not make too much of it but it feels rotten. Funny that after the penis incident which was rather awkward for everybody except my boss who kept laughing and pushing him to answer, I have decided to keep a diary of these things because, I mean, sounds like it can only end bad somewhere for somebody and I don’t want it to be me or the cleaner. Well, with his 200 women sexual history and his actual despise for women’s sexual rights he’s got it coming, sort of…. but still. Well.

And… synchronicity or shear necessity, who knows: today one of my colleagues said that he and somebody else keep a diary of ‘things’; appointments, promises, instructions because things seem to go the way my boss likes, not as has been discussed. Well, I will keep a diary but I do not plan to use it to build aggression within. It is, difficult for me to understand what is going on. Am I a sissy? Is she the bitch boss from hell? She is also very sweet sometimes. Yeah, that is what she does: with her mood she controls her environment and she likes that.

The atmosphere in the company has suddenly become very boozy now the popular cleaning guy works out to drink a lot and my boss accompanies that. A lot of people making drinking jokes and I notice that I sometimes join in – which is strange. The other day (weekday!) the cleaning guy actually drank 2 bottles of beer in the time frame others drank one and then took a 3rd one with him for ‘on the road’. Well… it takes one to know one. 😦 I am happy that I have grey hair so I feel I am more or less excused. 🙂

My dream course is still continuing, I am starting to notice that my dreams become more meaningful but I do not make a lot of effort to remember them. Not sure why, it’s not time yet.

Today is the 5th of December which is Sinterklaas, a day for celebration in The Netherlands. It used to be the most beautiful day of the year at home, the one and only day where there would be no fighting in the house and everybody would be happy. Since my mother died I go to my brother’s to celebrate which will be next week. It just feels so lonely now. Missing the old times when the whole family was still together and (dis)functional.

I cry a lot lately, don’t know why. There is sadness which floods me and it, well, has no name, seems to have no origin, no direction, just sadness. And next to that (?)  I have picked up the fear that I will be dying in a few days, weeks. Low and behold there is synchronicity to ‘prove’ the thought everywhere. It scares the shit out of me. My heart flutters every so now and then and I woke up last night having pain in my chest. I feel my heart is tired. Tired of not being loved, tired of not loving, tired of being scared. Since my vertebra’s have been realigned there is a lot of motion going on in my ‘heart chakra’ or whatever you want to call heart related stuff and I realise how immensely lonely I feel. Mentally I am fine with loneliness, there is no such thing as being bored on my own. But currently I have big difficulty dealing with it on a social level, or more on an energetic level.

Last night I dreamed I broke into a house which looked very homely just because I felt so homeless. Somehow in my dream the idea was that it was setup for sale and that the owners were gone. They came back and I started crying and crying and explained her why I did it – I had nothing left to hide behind, only the truth would do. She looked, and I guess behaved, like some cross between an angel and a Kardashian girl she came over, hugged me long time and slipped me rouble (?) worth a few hundred dollars to organise myself a nice day or place or get me some treats.

Funny thing in-between: with my heart becoming ready to wander into the world I actually notice that I have little trust in people. I feel my heart wanting to open up and then next, not be able to make that step. Like when speaking with my SIL on the phone. I wonder why I don’t trust people. Although that might be a funny reaction. If I read this blog as being somebody else’s I would not be surprised that I would have trust issues too. Gheghe, but internally I can not put a finger on it. New concept.

What I don’t understand is that I don’t go to friends. Well, tonight would be strange since it is a family day. But other days would be possible. Oh, yeah, I am really tired when I get home from work. Don’t have a lot of energy to go places or see people, need time to myself to reorganise myself e.g. before the company dinner and also after the company dinner. But still. My go to place is home and alone. Like I think I repair better when being alone. I actually think that is true. But what about the 4 days that I have off in the week? I see very few people.

Other thing: I went to see the bookstore man, return some books and bring some that I had collected for him at the give-away store earlier. Some for him, some for his daughter. 2-3 Weeks before I have contacted him through Facebook. We are still FB friend even though I still have him on ‘unfollow’ and ‘no chat’ because I don’t want to see his face when I’m online. Also I don’t read his personal posts, I do read the bookstore posts every 3-5 days. It looked like he had not read my messages but I’m not sure exactly how that works. Well, that was ok because I had waited till it did not matter to me anymore how he would react. That took 2,5 months.

I bike to the store, late in the afternoon so I would arrive shortly before closing time. There is something crooked in this ‘relation’ because when I go to the store he can not not see me. That is a strange concept. Would drive me crazy! To not be able to not see people or refuse them because there is this business claim they can make upon you. Aaaaaaahrg!!!! Works out my thinking is exactly opposite from what the BSM would appreciate, before I decided to not go there anymore he said ‘I can’t do this.’ and I did not know what he meant. I told him then ‘I do not understand.’ And he had no energy to explain. We spoke about it the other day. I go late so he can politely leave if he is not interested in speaking. He is absolutely knackered at the end of the day and can not deal with anybody anymore, friend or foe.

Thursday I found out how I do not understand it. He started smiling when I walked in and well, all the darkness of the world disappeared and I was happy and yes, relieved. Guess I pretended to be a little braver than I actually felt. And yes, guess the roots of me being in love with him have not been pulled out. Or maybe I’m currently so lonely that I fall for anybody who smiles at me. Well, he started of saying that he was happy to see me and apologised for not replying to my message. Which I said was ok, which was ok, I mean, can’t work out for myself that it does not matter how he reacts and then make it matter how he reacts. Or maybe, maybe I had made it so that I had decided that I would not fall apart over any reaction he would give. There is a difference in that. Hmmm.

Well, anyway, we had a few minutes of nice chat after which I returned my books and some extra. He was very happy with what I had found for him and his daughter. I guess I have a good nose for good books. And somehow it made me sad to see how happy he was; only people who do not get a lot are so happy with something. That hurt.

Well, still need to get to the part where he says: “I am very tired and can not speak right now.” I did not understand that because seconds before we had been laughing and smiling and making merry conversation. So I said “We might see if we can work this out because you have repeatedly said this and it is important but I do not understand what you say.” At which he got a little irritated and dropped his mask. Wow, I saw tiredness…. So he explained how tired he was and then again we stumbled upon some joke and laughed and smiled. Soon after that he returned to the tired mode and I got worried about that. Wanted to save him. Note to self: this is ALWAYS the mode where things go wrong. So again and again I started speaking, joking, and trying to pump some life into him and again and again that worked till a certain moment where again he said “I can’t do this.” I replied: “This is a serious issue, again and again you say ‘I can’t do this’ and again and again we are speaking and joking, what goes wrong?” He got irritated and repeated “I can’t do this! I am very, very tired at this part of the day; I really like you to drop by but not at the end of the day.”

“I drop by at the end of the day so that, if you don’t feel like speaking with me, you can easily close the shop. But why are we speaking when you don’t want to speak? What is happening here?” (surprised question)

“Yes, I don’t want to speak.” (determination)

“But why are we speaking then?” (open question, little despair)

“Because you don’t hear what I say.” (tired polite explanation)

“I know I don’t hear what you say. I get the words but I can’t hear it. I don’t want to be disrespectful, I just don’t understand.” (despair)

“It is VERY simple, I am very tired, I can not speak right now. I am very much introvert and I go past all my limits in this shop during the day. When you drop by at the end of the day I have nothing, nothing left.”

“I know that, but I can’t hear you. I really want to understand but I don’t know why I can’t hear you. Something is blocking.” (crying now)

He understood there was something funny going on so when I left a few minutes later he hugged me and told me ‘not to sulk/fret over it’- in a nice way. 🙂

On the bike on my way home I repeated the conversation in my head and within seconds this sentence popped up: “But mom, if you don’t listen to me I know you are going to get depressed and you want to kill yourself!!!!”

So I guess I know now why I ‘can not’ grant his wishes. I feel he is leaving the world and my warped instincts turn on and I need to save him.

My mother was overworked, in a bad marriage with a lot of fighting, big financial difficulty and then her dad who lived with us left the house and died of refusing to eat and pulling out his intra-whatever feeding just so long that they could not find an vein to stick it in anymore. Shortly afterwards, when I was 12, my mother got breast cancer and she got really depressed. I always tried to lift her up. Keep her in the present; keep her responsible in both the meanings of the word. Years later she confessed that she had been thinking about suicide in that time but that she also sensed that I knew from the panic behind my continuous pulling and well, I guess, nagging. So yes. Save people. I can’t hear you does not mean I can’t hear you. It means: I will not listen to you because I am afraid you will die when I don’t speak and you don’t laugh. 😦

Well, another point sorted out? Oooh mom. And there was nobody to share with because the person I would like to share it with was exactly not available. And I got angry with that.  Wow. Desperation and rage of a pre-adolescent.

That would not be one point though on the speaking alone, it would be trust and control. And long long replies to posts online? You know, I don’t want to do this on my own anymore.

Ooh, low and behold synchronicity working: the Monday before the Thursday I visited the bookstore man, my therapist advised me to read ‘Puer Aeternus‘ from Marie Louise von Franz. It is a book on the archetype of the forever young boy / Peter Pan complex / the complex any guy I fall for has. I don’t fall for men, I fall for boys. And… haha, my therapist thought it would be a good idea that I get some clarity in that. So…. the bookstore man, who was very pleased with the books I brought him, asked me what I wanted to read or have in return. And I mentioned: I am still looking for Synchronicity of Jung. He answers… I don’t have that, what I have now (second hand for give away) is Puer Aeternus, from Marie Louise von Franz. 🙂 I wonder why I even bother to look for the synchronicity book from Jung. I mean….. it’s happening. Following the wise / evasive / Peter Pan like advice from my favourite intern of all times: ‘Why read about it when you can live it?’

I am happy that I quit. Only because life is difficult now and imagine what a mess it would be if I would be drinking. Shit, I would be in a bar trying to hook up. Ooh, happy, happy, happy that I’m not in that situation.

Wwawwlhd? She would make some tea and watch Masterchef and go to bed. She would also put the sign up in the house to be reminded of it.

I want: guess I am back to wanting a shitload of money so I don’t have to have to work anymore but I guess the growth is exactly there where I don’t want to go.

I take: I should be taking Ayurveda pills but they don’t appeal to me anymore. I should be eating better. Sometimes I am so tired that I don’t cook and just eat rubbish. Need to get back to that.

On discipline: well, not when it comes to food but ok with sleeping, being on time and cleaning.

3 Things: connecting with the bookstore man. Ooh, he kindly informed me that his heart has taken another flight. He’s in love with a woman who lives in Russia and he claims they have contact through the air. 🙂 Yes, mate, you’re in love. 😀

I noticed it did hurt. Well, I’m happy for him even though I don’t understand how he loses himself again and again in other women (besides me obviously ;-)). We spoke about me having been / being in love with him where I mentioned that there was an also (not only, just also) and addiction transfer going on. Hahahahaaa, the vain youth was arrogant enough to be slightly insulted by that, getting all huffy. Ghegheghe. YOU HAVE GOT NO RIGHT TO REFUSE ME AND THEN GET HUFFY OVER ME TRYING TO DEAL WITH THAT (in whatever way of denial I will do so) 😀

Well, even after that he invited me to come by some time soon and that he was looking forward to catching up. And this is The Netherlands so this can be taken face value. 🙂 Only foreigners here ‘lie’ about things like these. Very confusing. 🙂 I am happy the bookstore man and I are on speaking terms again. Not sure how to continue AND keep my heart safe because it wants to jump out and mix and mingle. I guess, hope reading the Puer Aeternus book will be of some help.  🙂 / 😦 There are 3 choices: love, hate and knowledge. Can’t do the love, don’t want the hate so I had better get the knowledge.

2nd thing: eh, my shoulder hurts less. 3rd thing: the dream course I did. It was good. 🙂 The dream guy actually introduced a technique of walking in the 4th dimension. He did so by inducing an out of body experience through staying awake while falling asleep. Like I tried a while earlier and found pretty scary. :-). Well, one day. Now the focus is on remembering dreams, if I feel like it.

Hope I did not bore you with my long long post. Wishing you a nice sober Sunday and equally beautiful week. 🙂

xx, Feeling