Now I am allowed to exist, what is next?

A few weeks ago I wrote about having found a, well, basic believe that I have a right to exist. Feeling that. Not only knowing it but really feeling it. And that is GOOD.

The rest is a long post on how I get thrown about by ups and downs, what I am learning and what not. I am having the shittiest time of my life but still think 2018 is a fantastic year. :-D. On the verge of a breakthrough every day. If it weren’t for me I would be fantastic already. 😉

So what is next? Next is: overwhelming selfhate and overwhelming self-love and sometimes switching from the one to the other in seconds. Not sure how it works but I’m thinking my system does not want to let go of my old habit. Also, it looks like the selfhate has found an object (me) to focus on. Sometimes I get dragged into it, sometimes it is like a passing train: as long as I don’t stand on the tracks I’m ok. It is funny, not sure how to describe it but my daily me is angry at my daily me. And then there is the part which is watching this happening. And the difference between my daily me and my Self is getting clearer. That is good. Hopefully I will get to learn that all this emotional feeling stuff is information. And information only,  from where I stand there is no particular need to get lost in it unless…. the lessons are not learned. And that’s when the shit hits the fan.

Life has been difficult, I am really struggling to keep structure in my life. Ha, not even the struggle is working. 😦 My house is ok-ish and so are the contacts to the outside world but my eating habits are bad and I have let go of admin. Which means that I do not open e-mail or post from the organisation which will, or will not give me money for not begin employed / sick leave. Guessing they will not give it when I do not reply. The inability to live to somebodies rules still gives me extreme panick attacks followed by a strong urge to not live. And then comes this inner voice: “It is ok Feeling, you do not have to be able to do everything. You do no have to be perfect, you have been here before, it is obvious that you can not do this. Yes it is strange in other peoples eyes. Yes it is in no comparison to whatever you can do but could you possibly face the fact (ooooh, panick) that you are not able to do this on your own? You keep on saying that you will do it ‘tomorrow’. But have you not seen this behaviour before?”

“Nah! This is different! I will really open all the post tomorrow!”. Or so I said for 7 days. And it is still tomorrow. 🙂

I believe that until I deal with the what I call my destructive treats, it will shift from subject to subject to subject no matter what. Either it is alcohol (self destruction in a bottle), sugar (selfdestruction in a bar of chocolate), Netflix, internet, procrastinating, not living up to my full potential (assuming this sometimes worn out life has a potential – and also: I sometimes believe that I have, not sure what and how, but I have).

Strange things are happening. Not all of it is my own doing. The woman I met on FB and gave me an energetic healing a few weeks ago asked me this morning how I have been the last days. I told her I had been really bad and then ‘poof’ it was very good. We spoke about that.

I know this is going to sound crazy and I am not sure how and where I stand in this but… the FB group sort of fell apart and the woman whom I befriended online has left the old group she had started due to unrest between the 5 moderators. And she started a new group. Obviously that causes mayhem in the beginning. I kept out of it because, well, I’ve got nothing to add but I followed the woman to her new, more exclusive group. Since then all hell broke loose in my life: darkness like clouds rolling over me, through me, as being in a maelstrom of darkness. I really had the idea that even I could not be THAT black. Hell like never before, worse than rock-bottom earlier. And I had little energy left to do anything but watch and be amazed where the F! all of this was taking me. Or, well, as it felt; where I was swept away to.

And then ‘poof’ it was all gone from one second to the other. No darkness, no dark feelings, no wish to jump of the building just, peace. And internal voices telling me I was ok.

So this morning the woman came onto the chat asking me how I had been the past days and if I knew voodoo. I said: ‘Very bad, had no clue what came over me. And then it was gone, as sudden as it came.’ Well, she said: I am checking with all the members because one of the former group ladies practises voodoo and it seems like she is attacking the new group members.

Now, I am sceptic. But I really think this might have been exactly what was happening. Or not. I don’t know. Anyway, very educative it is because the darkness within, mine or not, does bring me to my knees where I have to accept that I can not do stuff on my own. How non addict that acceptance would be :-D. And also, by learning the opposite of the bad energies; the love, the peace, the acceptance teaches me that there is a choice. That I have a choice. And so I continue on the path I have been walking, and fall off on a daily, hourly, minutely (is that a word?) base; of practicing not being unhappy. Practising not being sad. And with writing that I see that I must make a change there because I should be practising to be happy possibly, and not the ‘not being sad’. It is the same with drinking: practising ‘not drinking’ leads to tension, resistance, misery and finally drinking. Practising ‘being happy that I quit’ leads to not drinking. 🙂

In short, ok, not so short: now I am allowed to exist next thing that pops up is selfhate. Obviously because not it can not float freely anymore because there is an internal boundary that says: “Hey, what are you hating at. I AM here.” Because there is a right to live now, the selfhate becomes very obvious. And on the other hand self-love and compassion are introduced by ‘just’ somebody I met on the web. I have reservations there, I am normally not so keen on associating with people who have friends that bring trouble. But I can not let go (yet) and also: could it be that perceived hate by others is just myself masking my own self hatred? Not sure, but I will proceed with caution.  Possibly making sure I love myself would be a good place to start recognising hatred from others. 🙂

Time to read the book Lucy recommended about self-hatred. And time to do my admin. Tomorrow I will call them. 😉

More and more I notice that if I do not do what is good for me I end up feeling bad. From putting on socks when having cold feet (which I often forget when I dislike myself) to eating the wrong things. Self destruction knows so many ways. Self love too. I feel I have almost 50 years of (self)conditioning to work ‘against’ in a society where hatred against people and specifically against women is big business.

But I exist. So I seem to have a purpose.

Funny, how the feeling of ‘being able to exist’ and possibly having a purpose (existing + future + embedded in this world) takes a few seconds to turns into feeling unworthy again and from there to the other side of feeling that I must have a greater purpose than others if it feels this good. How addicty to go from high to low or from low to high while staying in the middle with acceptance that all people have the right to exist is difficult. 🙂 How the conditioning of judging immediately brings me away from the beautiful, peaceful experience I was having.

Why do I write this down? I have read other people’s blogs, very few as direct, dark and, if I may say ‘strange’ as mine. I don’t bake cakes. I write this down because THIS IS HOW MY LIFE IS – how I experience it. I have an addictive personality, that means that I prefer not to like to experience and live life as it is. That I want to a spiritual bypass of life by redesigning my experiences with substances and addictive behaviour.  And it is not working.

]I did not have the spiritual strength to set that right so alcohol happened. And then life happens and rock-bottom comes along to break down all that was wrongly put together in order to rebuild again from there. Hitting rock-bottom is a very natural process and a solid foundation. And as long as I do not listen to hints of life, I’ll keep on hitting it. 🙂

Spring is coming 🙂 I’m gonna check it out. 🙂

I am happy that I do not drink alcohol anymore. I find my travels interesting but very tiresome. I wish I had more stamina to actually stick to things. But I also see how letting go of judgments on how I should be (sereen, peaceful) and what I should do (yoga, cake baking, running) helps me to let go of the layers which for me are associated with that: judgement and the need for perfection. I am experiencing improvements.

But it could also be like ending up in the gutter and then trying to prove to the world I can still love me. 😀 Dunno :-). As of yet I am financially still 6-10 months away from the gutter so this leaves me some time to float.

I’m off, I hope you get something from this post. If nothing else than the comfortable feeling that you are way more structured 😉 and how not doing the right thing like structuring ones life leads to unstructure.

xx, Feeling

Now running: free online addiction summit

Heya!

FYI: there is a new free online addiction summit in town. Check it out here: https://healingaddictionsummit.com/  🙂 (improved link!)

I am happy that I quit. Currently sorting stuff out off-line. Very thankful for those who replied to my former post – but I do not yet have the strength to actually confront that subject again. The good thing is though: even though I do not totally ‘agree’ with the dark voice of the demons inside…. I do feel SO MUCH lighter. This works the same as denial: once denial is ‘undenied’ (is that a word?) the healing can start. 🙂 Currently healing small parts, eating Iodine pills on which I guess I was low, waking up singing again and taking part in a ‘unclutter challenge’ for February: take 1 thing out on Feb 1, 2 things on Feb 2 etc. So cool! 🙂

I am happy that I quit, I am happy that I am on a path to at one point in life be able to call myself sober. (no not drinking, just not comfortable with the amount of socially acceptable but addictive behaviour I have.

Hope the summit brings you something. 🙂

xx, Feeling

The issue of issues

My fight with sugar has brought me to what I feel is the main issue of my addictive personality; self-hatred. I feel so awful that I have difficulty leaving the house because I feel everybody has the right to hurt me. This is comparable to the mode I walked around when experiencing what I call my rock-bottom before quitting drinking.

A lot of my behaviour is comparable too. Not opening my mail, not taking care of stuff, not taking care of myself. Hiding for other people. Cancelling appointments with friends over a ‘headache’. The headache is real all right… I just wonder why it leaves immediately after I cancel the appointment. No actually, I do not wonder.

I think that I, even though I have 3 years plus of sobriety, have not made certain steps. Haha, no pun intended but actually, this is what it comes down to: I have not worked through issues which would have been addressed if I had done some sort of program. I think to know by now that I would not have succeeded in staying sober if I would have had to deal with others including mentoring. So in a way that is good. But now I feel I need to do more. It is time to do more.

On the interwebs I read somebody protesting against the idea of being powerless towards alcohol. I have always very much disliked this notion and in a rather slippery way transformed this thought to ‘I am powerless when alcohol is in my body, I am not powerless over it getting into my body’. Which is very much true. It also is a way for me to exactly NOT realise that I have experienced powerlessness in my life and I do not want to be reminded of that again. People who push the issue of powerlessness therefore are immediately archenemies. Because that is what any person did who violated my boundaries; make me feel powerless on purpose. So 12 steps was never considered.

Not sure how to bridge to the following paragraph but I have written illogical stories before so here I go. 😉 Today I FINALLY tried an excercise called ‘feeding your demons‘. The title might be a little misleading, it is about feeding and, well, hugging lost parts of the self which have turned against what we consider to be our daily self. Aah, here is the link: I felt so powerless that I stood with the back to the wall and could not do anything else but face the facts.

It is difficult. I do not want to accept I hate myself. I prefer to deny it so I can experience it less. But the shadow walking next to me has become too strong. Even now my heart is pounding like crazy and tears are streaming. Thinking of you reading this. Feeling like you would all be saying: “I knew she was not worth it. Being all stuck up and know it all, ha! Now look at how miserable she really is.”

No, I do not expect you to really say that. Or if you do, you do. These are ‘just’ projections of mine. It tells me how I think and feel about myself. I had a short talk with that part today. Here is how it went.

“I hate you! I HATE YOU!!! YOU RUINED EVERYTHING FOR ME!!! My whole life! Ever since you were born I hate you. You are exactly what makes my life unbearable. You are so unfinished, so incomplete, so utterly boundaryless, so disgustingly physical that NOBODY LOVES YOU! And because of you they do not like me either!!! I HATE YOU!! You are one big open wound, everybody sees that you are strange and everything can touch you and hurt you and I have to live with that! It is all your fault!”

“I am listening.” (and crying, can’t breathe, throwing up)

“You think everybody has hurt you but it is because you are so stupid!!! You do not listen to yourself!!! You always knew when the trouble came and you never listened. It is your own fault!!! You hurt me!!!”

“I had no clue….”

“That is NOT TRUE!!!”

“I, I don’t know what to say, I always knew. But I did not know how to act. I was scared. I thought that if I stood up for myself they would hurt me more. I knew that if I would run they would like that.”

“But you knew up front. And you were curious.”

“I was in love.”

“You mixed up love with power. You fancied the darkness of them, that is what attracted you.”

“Yes. And then I got caught up in a destructive game which I did not know how to end or escape.”

“I warned you over and over again.”

“I heard you. I did not believe it. I did not want to believe it was this dark.”

“You are stupid. You just emit sex because that is who you are and everybody knows that. They see it, they feel it. That is why you got harassed 5 times on an evening. That is why the women at your workplaces were after you. They pick up on that. And because you do not recognise it they will make you.”

“What can I do to change this?”

“Close yourself off for fuck’s sake and shut up!!”

And then the ‘other me’ let me feel my lack of energetic boundaries to the outside world and it is painful. Somehow my control issue popped up, the part where I intervene in other people’s life no matter if something is my issue, no matter if it is relevant. Tried to feel through that. It is difficult. I realise that I do so to control my surroundings. Again experiencing that I put myself out of my core, continuously scanning my borders for dangers. While if I were to stay ‘inside’ myself, I would feel way more grounded and most likely would not have to be so aggressive and intervening towards others.

I did not get further than this. The idea behind feeding your demons is that you get to talk with them and then come to integrate them. Obviously that did not happen but I now know better what parts of me dislike about parts of me. 😦 I am still fighting the idea that I myself am responsible for what happened to me. Not sure if I should go along with this thought; if it were somebody else saying this I would answer that it is blaming the victim. On the other hand, I should not deny the fact that I often knew upfront things would go wrong. I ‘just’ got so sucked into it and did not know how to refers it. It is like a black hole. Aaah, like being born; nowhere to go but into that painful tunnel of life and death.

Like the time my brother and I got threatened to be killed by a guy with a knife. I was 4 or 5 I believe. I knew from a distance which felt like 500m (550 yard) that these older kids were trouble. I just did not know how to stop it. Sucked into a black hole. And my brother would not believe me anyhow. Looking back the distance must have been no more than 200 m (220 yards) because the park was not that big, but still. These vibes. I was like a rabbit looking in the headlights of the oncoming car. Does anybody with situations of abuse/aggression in their past recognise this?

I wonder why the word ‘just’ pops up so often… there is something about this, I have written something about it somewhere, it is important. It might be because it is dismissive, or in speech I try to jump over something by using the word ‘just’. I can not understand it now.

Things are sore at this end of the wire. My whole body feels like an open wound. But somehow some of the weight is off my shoulders. Funny.  I would not have thought that. Parts of the first paragraph of my conversation with the demon are gathered from things my mother expressed to me. She did so publicly. My father then dragged him away and she scratched his face open. All my fault. She blamed me for developing cancer. I must have been 13 or 14, possibly 15. My heart hurts. Years later, when I threw that back at here in the same company as earlier she denied everything fiercely while my brother and father backed me up. She totally panicked. I remember we had all been drinking, not sure if that is true. It has been true for a lot of bad family gatherings though.

And now, here I am, partially feeling sorry for myself, partially happy because I faced this part of me, let some air in even though I realise things are still festering. Not knowing how to continue. Well, ha, I do know how to close myself off actually. Or I know I can learn because I know I can get to the feeling where I prefer to live in this openness. I ‘just’ don’t want to. I feel locked up. Trapped. It makes me realise I am alive. I don’t want to be alive. When I am alive I need to be responsible and I can get hurt and criticised. Shit I’m lazy…. This eternal heaven of being in the womb calls to me.

Ok next thought: I try to perfect my work mode so I do not have to work on me internally. I ‘just’ (?) forced myself to live with the idea of working on this difficult part of closing myself energetically and guess what: “If you want to do that, that is ok, but then we move to a place where this is possible.” Meaning a natural place in a natural society with… nature, not a crowded city which only develops neuroses  and unhealthy coping mechanisms in people. Interesting. Funny what comes up when I listen. Not sure how to change this in my life though.

Well, that was quite an experience.

The business plan contest people do not pick up the phone (called about 8 times) and do not answer my e-mails. According to the online program the first group of possible winners has already started a boot camp so I guess… I’m not in. Shame. Possibly. I have not been working on my project or anything these days. I have been crushed by self-hatred. The issue of issues. 😦

I am happy that I quit drinking in a very dark way. I would not have lived anymore. Not sure if that is such a loss but imagine if I had been drinking and felt so bad there would be no way out at all. Currently I also think there is not much difference between being death and alive. I fear that dying just (?) means I have to do the same stuff somewhere else, but without the body.  Aah, bother. And now, no matter how hard it is, I could possibly find a ‘way out’. 🙂 Said the addict. Always, always looking for the way out. 🙂

It is time for progress because this trampling in the dark is making my heart wear out.

I hope you are happy that you quit. 🙂  A woman who loves herself would possibly show compassion. I also think she would help the little kid to learn boundaries and self-preservation. My mother did not allow me boundaries when it came to self preservation. Literally not. That time where she said she would protect me from the friends of my brother and then forced me to undress in front of them. And later, when I asked her for help when they attacked me again, with the special words we had worked out between the two of us, she brushed me off, telling me not to bother her. How do I live with that? I feel very destructive currently. No wonder I think people ridicule me when I ask for help. That has been the real experience. And it has all settled as patterns in my behaviour. And, like my mom, I learned to take the only way left out: becoming ill, becoming soft, weak, depressed, overworked and alcoholic. Patterns.

Ha, this is a very uplifting post, not? Ghegheghe…. sigh…. so….. who am I without my story? Without all the patterns I looked for, accepted or got put on me? This immense need for drama, the eternal continuation of fight-flight-freeze patterns in my life. Can I do without? I’m guessing they give me an idea of boundaries. The fog around the black hole. Which, in practise is not possible but, well, as an image it suffices.

Ok: I actually do think that patterns and the related e-motions (that what sets me in motion) have been uncovered. And no matter how dark this post, actually, within that darkness I feel more free and more safe because I do not need to live in denial about my self hate anymore. I do not have to use all this force to ‘not know’. Not sure how to continue but I guess thing will enfold. Let go and let god. 🙂 And work on what I can do. Like meditating. I have been doing so for 20 plus minutes every morning for 1,5 months now. Guess all this darkness turning to light stems from that.

There ar loads of things I can do. Trying to empower myself here, never works somehow 😀 Aah ja, again, I can only do stuff with my back to the wall. Well, rock-bottom is a solid ground to build on and I guess I will choose this way of learning untill the pain of doing it so gets greater than the assumed advantages. I still can not force me to do stuff. Will power = zilch. Aaah yeah, I can try the ‘what would a woman who loves herself do?’ track more often. Things went well for me when I did that.

Ok! If you got this far: thanks for reading and being with me in my dark hours. If you skipped to the last paragraph: I understand. :-D.

A woman who loves herself would allow herself to love herself.

“I am sorry I hate you.”
“I am sorry I did not take better care of you.”

xx, Feeling & shadow

Hole in the soul

I want to write but somehow I do not finish a post and when I do I re-read it (NEW) and start changing stuff (NEW) until I get lost and then start a new post. That has been going on for a few weeks now. So I’m trying again. See what comes up.

In short: I have been all over the place since I left my job 2 weeks ago but things are settling down now and my last official working day finished 8 hours ago.

The wife of my boss whispered another ‘you really need to get laid’ in my ear when we parted. And I do not want to go into this feeling again but I need to list it for future reference because I want to inform you and myself that really this is how people are. #Metoo and me telling her 4 times over that I do NOT want her to discuss anything sexual about me did obviously not reach her. So again I leave a workspace not because I want to but because I am not able to deal with the (stupidity of) other people. (Arrogance much?) Guess this needs to change at some point. She also said that she had never in her life met somebody whose personality was so alike that of her husband (my boss) and that it had astounded her again and again: ‘You seem to be the same person, you think and act alike.” He and I differ 3 days in age so I guess there is some proof for horoscopes. 🙂

I took her up on the needing to get laid and I started ‘dating’ one of the workfloor guys. Ghegheghe… there I was thinking it would be easy. Had a sober-first kiss (NEW), had a sober first bra taken off (NEW), the girls fell down (NEW 😦 ) and got a sober first fright like “WHAAAA!!!! Not sure if I am up to do this.” I had a lot of flashback to unhappier sexual activities. Not nice. I was afraid that would happen now when trying to have sober sex and being more aligned with my senses. But I had not thought it would show up so quickly with so little trigger. One hand lustfully groping instead of holding and feeling set off all the alarm bells. Well, well… yes, I had seen it coming. Yes I did not listen to me (he is gorgeous, like drooling from the corner of my mouth gorgeous – when I first saw him I had this surge of ‘I want’ going through me – psychiatrist say you need to quickly run away when that happens but, hey, I do things the hard way…. I am entitled to stupidity so Thou shalst not deny me more stupidity and misery 🙂 ).  Lucky me he is as complicated as I am so I guess now we are not fuck-buddies but hug-buddies with a tiny hint of sexy. And that is actually really really nice. 🙂 I just found 2 Tantra books in my cabinet and I’m thinking I should work through these to see if they can help me with this. Letting go is another important possibility.

I notice that I am loud about stuff which is important to me. I do not want to be like that anymore. I miss my more considered self. Not sure why I need to be all out there. I guess it is another state of addiction of not wanting to feel. 😦 I am so tired of living. So tired of being me. When addiction goes untreated things go wrong in a person. I guess that has been happening with me over the last 1,5 year or so. I don’t want to write about it. And it is not all bad, although I am so very tired of, well, yeah, being me. Lately I also noticed that my whole body, my energy system is starting to function again. I can laugh again sometimes, relax, enjoy and joke again. I am cleaning my house, just sorted out a meter of books to sell or give away. I am cooking again. I helped out my friend a few days with his shop. So, I guess that is all good.

This new liveliness might have to do with the homeopathic medicine I am taking. I am still on the medicine  Vernix Caseosa which is (diluted, diluted, diluted!) waxy stuff from a newborn baby. It is meant to create an extra layer around a person. I guess I could do with that. 🙂 And obviously the hug-buddy is of influence on my kundalini. 😀

The homeopathic medicine does however bring all kinds of things about my vanished twin brother to the surface. So much that I did not want to involve myself with the subject anymore and turned off FB to read a book. Ooh, gosh, this is about twins. Hmm, let’s watch a movie. Aaaah, movie about twins. Well, might as well turn Facebook back on. Look a cute movie about two girls, one black, on white and they, oooh, they think they are twins. Aah.. well, I’ll just take the train to my friend and gosh, this men sitting opposite me starts talking to me about his lost sister and twin-sister. Right….

My heart had difficulty beating those days, it literally hurt, it was so heavy, so sad. I spoke with a friend and she said, if it were her issue she would go to a shaman and then she mentioned one. (She also told me to go to the GP btw but I feared I would be on intensive care an hour later if I would, so I did not.) Did not know there were shamans in the Netherlands! So I googled him; the google maps photo of his practise has a woman with a twin pram in front of it. I can’t even think this shit up.

 

In continuance of the twin brother issues: I have dreamt of my boss walking around in my dreams trying to find me and tell me that he misses me. There is this glass layer between us and I think he can not see me, he is just searching while I am standing there. Frozen in time. I can not react because if we would connect we would both explode with all the built up energy and things unsaid. No, don’t worry, nothing sexual – but I guess there is a weirdness over the closeness we had which would normally be worked out sexually. But that would have been an absolute no-no. It would not work either, I energetically zoomed in once on him once trying to find his sexual energy and all I found is that he’s not my cup of tea. I felt him energetically zoom in at me several times and slammed the door shut. Hmm, did I tell you that was after I let him appraise me several times while I was being brainy and al managerial. In order to be effective it is better to slam the door shut when he thinks he can enter, not? 😀 Ooh, sorting out what is true in this is so confusing when in the situation. Guessing here denial is a tool for survival too.

I don’t know, well, I do know; the moment we first met he mentioned that we differ 3 days in age and at that moment I projected this ‘You are my lost twin brother!’ thing on him. He was my brother, I was his sister. My brothers always need taking care off even before they know that themselves. The die, so I need to save them, I needed to save my boss. Not sure what his issue is. Ooh, I do know! It is exactly what is going on: he can not be in contact, he can not find ‘me’ (his sister) She is there, all is well, and then she leaves. Oh my god. How sad! His wife says he is an autist. That is not true, he just can’t find her. He is living his trauma. Oh my god. This is so sad. (Well, projected sad but I think I’m right here). My former former boss (the woman) said about him: ‘He can not hold onto his staff’ – that is such a typical vanishing twin thing: not being able to hold on to, well, anything. Always, always on the road, searching for I don’t know what. Well, I do know. 😦 Looking for the person who is not there. To feel whole again. To fill this hole in the soul.

Ever since we have been in this brother-sister bond where we assume to understand each other completely, take that for granted as if we have known eachother for years and are angry when this in reality does not seem to be so. And as in any brother – sister relation sex sometimes pops up by accident and is banished immediately too. And anger builds there because anger is a solid foundation to base a decision on. So I guess, looking back, it is not strange that I left. Looking back I think the alternative was an enormous falling out. To those not familiar with Vanishing Twins, there are some education vids on YouTube if you like. Mainly it is about people who were created as twin or multiple of which one or more died in the womb. Funny in a not so funny way this influences the personality a lot. Almost all things found in addiction can also be found in the life of a person who is a half twin. I see the connection there within me. Does not have to be, but I’m thinking there is. For me there is truth in it.

Well, I have started to meditate. My hug buddy is from somewhere Middle-East and he says: “If I have problem I sit down and think of nothing. It is good. You think too much. Relax.” 🙂 ❤ How is that not good for me :-). So I sit down and think of nothing. 🙂

My birthday falls in this period before Christmas. I always cry a lot the days before I have my birthday. Again and again I feel like I failed at life. While actually I did an amazing thing this year: got the company I worked for to a hell of a high score on their certification. Learned that I could learn and manage an enormous load of new information in a short time and make company policy out of that. Aah, well, I can try to be grateful for that but mainly I am sad because I had to leave to make myself safe again.

I did realise one thing: I have several things which are repetitive, the thought of ‘I have to leave anyway’ and ‘They will destroy it anyway’ and ‘If it is nice it will go away.’ have stuck with me for all my life. No idea who They are but in my life I can always point out some ‘they’s’. Well, at some point in time the last week I realised that the assumption that I have to leave anyway comes from having to leave the womb. This theory just aligned for a few seconds with all my cells so I guess it is one of those personal truths. My mother said I came into this world SCREAMING with anger, no, rage. My mother, baby/kids nurse for I think at least 4 years, had never in her life seen such an angry baby. I found it all very unfair to be born (this way?). Guess that is one of the ‘childish’ notions I have about this life: unfair. I’m thinking these notions stop me from doing what I need to do. And obviously Facebook helped me along with this beautiful tile:

I think I should write a post on answering that question for myself. Things are ‘separating’ within. One second I can be in an emotional hell and the other moment I think: ‘mwoah, let it go, let it go, it is not now.’ Which often works. But then I can step back into the ‘drama’ (?) easily too, like with the trying of having sexy action.

For a while I have been thinking that I (we humans?) tend to hold on to experiences too long. Letting go would make life so much easier. Not there yet but it is starting to happen. Need to keep on meditating. 🙂 The cat LOVES it when I sit down. She climbs on my lap and sleeps within no time. No tail wagging which is her normal restless situation. 🙂

A woman who loves herself would pay more attention to herself but shit I have so much I need to hide from. I can not do ‘this life’ on my own. It just often hurts too much to be aware off. I prefer Netflix then. But I guess I have to sort out how and where to work. No inspiration yet.

Yesterday, when the hug buddy came along I had bought some clay as an inspirational act which I thought: let’s follow that. I started making a little baby, my brother. With whatever part of the body I was claying I had these flashbacks to his health. Somehow I think that if I know why he died I do not have to blame myself.

The man I met on the train was mentally handicapped (is that how you say this?). He reminded me a lot of my brother. I wonder if my brother was mentally handicapped too. Thing is: in the womb that does not matter yet, the womb is about existing – well, moving in and out of existence sometimes but building up a connection to the body, settling, incarnating. And awareness of the world and body slowly grows and is there. From the experience in which I relived being in the womb and seeing, feeling my brother die I know that awareness was already there. We as people in this life just don’t remember it because we are trained in mental and physical skills in this world, not in awareness. The overstressing of the importance of mental skills diminishes the awareness. And then later, after we all got addicted we go do yoga and meditate to get the awareness back 😉 .

The clay puppet is not done yet. Can’t finish anything these days. So I left it under a wet paper. Now the bottom side of the puppet is soaked and feels as yukkie as the body of my brother did when he died. I’m thinking this clay practise is a good thing because it gives me a canvas (well, clay) to project on. Things just ‘pop up’. Like folding and bending and forming and then suddenly: the neck was not like that, the head was (still) bend forward. I guess tiny things like these will at some point enable me to find the age range in which he died. But I don’t want to look at fetus photo’s now because that could influence my process.

Well, that is a long post again. And another one for me more than for you possibly. I am not fully selfish if you think so. I worked in my friends shop for 1,5 days, helped a lost and crying woman at the train station, ha, found another cat and got it back to its owner (this time all online, but still). Cooked for a friend, for neighbours, for my family. Gave some spiritual advise to a friend of mine. And I gave some Dutch lessons to a Middle East man but, well, that turned into something totally different. 🙂

A woman who loves herself would really really really start to take better care. I have no clue how to incorporate that other than through not feeling ashamed for outside sources. Ooh, that is called accountability. 🙂 So, I guess I need to keep on inviting a certain person to my house in order to clean it well. Or…? Isn’t it funny that biology can fix in one afternoon what I myself could not do on will power for half a year? vacuuming my floor and cleaning out some rubbish. 🙂 If that is the way, that is the way.

I’m off to bed. I wish you all a nice, sober, aware holiday season. Remember whatever shit you might find yourself in: there is no problem that does not get worse with drinking. 🙂 And for those who are still on the fence when it comes to drinking and whose mind does not want to compute the double negative here is the simple version: alcohol always makes everything worse. Just so you know. I did not for years. I thought alcohol made things better. That is a lie you have been fed by the alcohol industry and society and now your own internal addict might be telling you the same lies. That is nasty. But for me, realising this statement is true will made it easier to fight urges. Well, it quenched the urges. Or helped me to see them as a passing train. Standing on the track trying to block the urge train with will power is tiring and in the end pretty destructive. Stepping away from the track to a safe distance and just letting the urge train pass is way nicer. And easier. 😉 Wishing you strength and wisdom if you need it. I will most likely not be doing anything with Christmas so feel free to mail or comment.

I am happy that I quit. I would have made such a huge mistake with the hug-buddy otherwise. 🙂

xx, Feeling

3 years!

3 Years ago today was my first sober day in at least a year. Now reading my first blog post on this blog ever. Amazing to read that I was so proud of having quit: “I did it! I did it! I stopped!” As if it was an event. 🙂 Well, I guess at that moment it was. I thought I just had to stop drinking. Which, in itself, in all its simplicity is true.

It took me a while to find out that there was more to it than that. 🙂 All in due time. Baby steps.

Thank you all for reading this blog. Things have been easy and difficult. I know for sure that I would not have made it to 3 years without your support. With reading about your ups and downs, about how you deal with that, what the traps are, how to prevent them. I learned a lot. Mostly, I guess, I learned that sobriety is a process, not an event. (If I may quote Robert on that.)

I have all kinds of thoughts about how my next year will be but I refrain from speaking about that since I have learned that changing habits is difficult.

I am happy that I quit. I can say that and all the cells in my body are singing. Being happy that I quit has for me proven to be quite a good practices. Whenever I close a post, whenever I remember to think about the subject, I try to come to a spot where I am happy that I quit. When I am happy that I quit, I am strong against drink thoughts and other nastiness. When I would be unhappy the idea of ‘might as well drink since life is shit anyway’ pops up. That is a trap. There are many traps out there. Being happy that I quit steers me away from most – makes that I do not even have drink thoughts. The realisation that anything that tells me to drink comes from the addict within is another one. Whatever it takes (to not drink) is what it takes. 🙂

And if I am not happy that I quit I have the opportunity to work on it till I am happy that I quit. I have not drunk since the 25 of August 2014, I hope I never will. I hope so mostly because I do not want to be enslaved. And by now I think addiction is a spiritual misunderstanding which I have used to not take responsibility for myself. As it worked itself out: I could not at the time and addiction to anything ‘helped’. I know I have been born with an adversity against living life to the fullest, still, there is this voice saying ‘I would rather not be here.’ In real life this expressed itself as a newborn who screamed at the top of her lungs with RAGE within seconds of being propelled into this world.  Maybe that is a good theme for this year: incarnating in this life.

I know I came into this well, personality / life, with little foundation on which I can build responsibility, and I have the gene and the physical issue with sugar sensitivity, and blablabla…. But there is no problem that does not get worst with drinking so I’d better not. I have little control over alcohol and myself when it is in my body. But I do when it is outside of my body and that is where I need to exercise my responsibility.

This week I have had a holiday and I have done next to nothing and worked myself through enjoying that. I notice that I criticise EVERY MOVE I MAKE. So there’s some work to do. Secretly (?) I am playing with the thought of seeing if I can get a sponsor but immediately all these ideas about ‘how she should be’ pop up and they are not respectful. So I guess I need to work through that before I engage. Prejudice.

Feeling my way back into life has proven succesful to my process 😀 of not drinking. The idea was that I have been avoiding emotions by drinking so if I do the opposite I am walking the straightest line away from where I was. That is true-ish, ok, true-ish-like. By now I am starting to see that being thrown about by emotions is not the most handy way of living. Separating my awareness from what the body and emotions throw at me gives more peace. But then I would be aware and that, is still pretty scary. Maybe it were not the emotions I was scared of but the awareness. Awareness might actually have to do with being responsible while emotions happen. Hmmm. Food for thought. Not taking responsibility for emotions, that is IN the situation, but being aware, there is a separation between the ‘physical’ emotion and the awareness of it.

Funny this aversion against awareness. While I know, when I take the time, I really appreciate it.  Food for thought. I guess the activity of my job takes me to other places a lot. Difficult to come down from that energy into rest. And…. I have not really needed it. I ‘get by’ so to say. I am aware that I am not shaping my life, that it is sort of happening to me and that I a am reactive in it. I am guessing that this will last untill I am done with it. Or relapse. That would be a possibility too. I am very well aware that I am, and have been, on a path where I do not really choose. And if I do not choose, life chooses for me. To really choose, would mean that I would really want to be here. I guess the thing to sort out is why I do not. This was ment to be an upbeat celebratory post… chips, did not happen. 😀 Ghegheghe…. 🙂

So… 3 year present(s)? I did, I got myself a slowjuicer because I still do not eat my leafy greens – I don’t like the feel in my mouth, I like heavy vegetables like green beans and courgette, not the leavy greens. And since at work we often have a lot of those left-over from lunch I can take those home. 🙂 And OBVIOUSLY I got myself some books. And 17 boxes of tea. And some special cheeses. Tomorrow I’m off to the sauna. Oh yeah, got myself a new bathrobe too. Haven not been a whole long time. So I should be off to bed otherwise I will waste tomorrow morning in bed.

Wishing you a nice sober evening/day/weekend. I am HAPPY that I quit. I hope you are happy that you quit too. 🙂

A woman who loves herself would go to bed. Now. 🙂 This is my first post 🙂

Day 3

Hello, bloggers, readers, I’m new and out here, now. This is the third day after what was hopefully my last drink and I decided not to lurk around your blogs anymore. Belle, special thanks for the word ‘lurking’ :-D.

I worked myself through the first 60 hours of detox without withdrawal symptoms while quitting from about 12 glasses an evening 7*7 for a year and about 6-10 the 10 years before that. Hurray for the lack of withdrawal symptoms!

After I decided to stop, someday, sometime, fear of a Delirium Tremens was ‘what kept me drinking’. Or in other words, I placed the fear of a new, sober situation on the idea that I was going to have a DT and end up in the hospital, most possibly sweating, crying, undressed and with puke in my hair. It did not happen. I still have 12 hours to go to the 72 hour limit and I guess I’m going to make that just fine DT wise.

I was high on happy hormones this morning – those are normally depressed by booze and without booze come flooding through my body. Now utterly tired but I want to shout out to the world that I did it! I did it!!!! I stopped.

2 Nights, no drinking. It was actually easy, did sleep a lot, did keep a watchful eye on me the rest of the time. But according to Jason Vale’s book I could start right after the last drink to enjoy my freedom and happiness and celebrate with a glass of, ooh no.  So I’ll just do that, just be happy.

Pretty sure this is my first pink cloud and the traps are digging themselves eagerly everywhere around me, I’ll see, you’ll hear. Gonna lay down now, breathe, feel my way through.

Assumptions

Watching a kids TV show and it warns witches for keeping control of themselves otherwise they can not control their magic. Which (witch?) set me off to wonder about my own assumptions.

I assume that I will never fit in, will always be the odd one out.
I assume that nobody will ever really like me.
I assume that I will always have to fight for a job.
I assume that I will die of a horrible disease at young age.
I assume that I will never have a partner who really cares about me.
I assume that I am batshit crazy but have learned to act ‘reasonably’ normal.
I assume that I will never find my true calling.
I assume that somebody finds this blogs and outs me in my professional life.
I assume that friends are only friends untill they really get to know me.

Of the above never finding my true calling is the worst by the way. I have built pretty steep fences around my heart against the rest.

Due to all this assumptions I think I never really try. I don’t try to be nice, be careful, I don’t lose weight because, well, because.

I am happy that I quit but in real life it often doesn’t matter to me and I would prefer to not have to live the life I have. Not to be who I am.

The other day a person I hold dear told me he did not really need to be alive. That really hit my heart because of the casual way he said it in combination with the quick check back to me to see how I would react. Somehow it suddenly really gets to me. Not sure what happened between this afternoon and now. I suddenly just have the feeling that it doesn’t matter and I am not going to go places anyway.

I have posted this before, but I guess it is time again:

 

Maybe the upcoming 3 years of not drinking bugs me. I though, hoped I would have been ‘further’ ahead. Like ‘have lost weight’, ‘be more sensible’, have my finances in order (which by the way, I almost have), be more compassionate, carry (and transfer) less shame, have read more books. Well, have worked it out all. But I notice that in between writing posts, working and 1 or 2 social things a week I do not ‘improve’ a lot if you will.

Guess I need to really start doing stuff, make it happen. Netflixing is taking its toll. I have learned from sobriety (just to get it be quoted back to me today here online 😉 ):

If you do what you did, you get what you got.

I guess I myself need to change things if I want things differently. I do not want to hold on to this old believes of being unloveable and weird. I do not want to make those into my trademark even.

I am happy that I quit, again is a sort of obliged way but I am happy that I quit because I would not have been able to see that these believes, these assumptions limit me. Well, maybe I am really unloveable, I do not believe in unconditional love anyhow (unless we all suddenly got enlightened…) but I don’t really really think so. BS. I do, but I calculate that this is not true.

Took some Schuessler salts, gheghe, most of them actually. 😉 I can breathe again! Throat infection gone-ish, sinuses back to unswollen position. Face looks funny though because I decided to

The other day I dreamed that I had signed up to do a personal transformation course and we had to walk up a really steep mountain of which all the steps looked totally different. I thought: “It is really, really important to take the time to do this. The goal is not to reach the top, the goal is to look at each step, to take it in and transfer the knowledge which is in it.” At the top was Buddha waiting for us disguised as a monk. He was young but way way older than I. He and I had some wordless communication. I woke up wondering  “I know it is true but why are the steps so important?”

Denial is BIG ;-).

It is time to go to bed. If I do what I did, I get what I got; restlessness. I know this can turn around even with a few days of really doing things. Does not have to be big. Cooking, taking care of me, cleaning, being consciousness, reading.

Thank you for reading. I’m fine-ish. Guess I have to learn to take the next step and not wait my life out.  I am happy that I quit. Every day of not drinking takes me one step further away from the abyss – and no matter, even if I do not ‘improve’ like crazy, I still practise sober time. And well, time will bring the answers. Either I get bored with me or the world does and in both cases I have to change my tune. 🙂

I am happy that I go to bed now. Bed = good.

xx, Feeling

Free online summit ‘Psychology of true happiness’

And another free online summit coming up. This one is about happiness. Looking forward to hearing what they have to say. 🙂

More info here.

Enjoy!

I am happy that I quit. Hope you are happy that you quit too. 🙂

xx, Feeling

On menstruation and periods – Teal Swan

Hello,

I found this a video worth sharing. Due to the ‘mine’ and ‘yours’ and hygiene you will not find me donating my menstruation blood to a vegetable garden but all other I am quite ok with. 🙂 But most of all she verbs what I have been searching for all my life: the idea behind menstruation and internal energy. And I know for a personal fact that getting moon ‘light’ actually changes stuff internally.

Teal Swan is an acquired taste but I like her very much for what I have seen of her. She is the woman who invented ‘What would a woman who loves herself do.’ So how could I not like her?

If you have difficulty watching her, what I had the first time I saw her, try to see if the way she shaped her eyebrows bothers you. They are (sorry, seem to be) not congruent with her, (to me) that is misleading. Not sure if it is on purpose or a left over of her modelling times.

Whatever. She has a way of wording things which I like and I hold her in high regard for finding her way in this world.

Hope it brings you something. 🙂

I am happy that I quit. Wow! I see on the calender that it is the 25th again so counting back I am 2 years and 10 months sober.

A woman who loves herself would put on socks (still an issue) and she would work out how to quit binge eating. I am getting out of control. Saw some photo’s of me and I have gone too far. I weigh 82 kilo’s again at length 1.65 so that is too much. I have weighed 48 at this length too. Which obviously was too little but just to show it it possible too without falling apart. I always seem to weigh at least 15 kilo more on a photo than I think I weigh. 🙂 I seriously think I have reversed body-dysmorphia. 🙂 Which is a BS description of it because the term itself says dysmorphia so there is no forward or reversed version of it but I guess you know what I mean: I think I am fabulous but as a matter of fact I am pretty overweight.

Note: from here on I move over to rambling, not writing. Wanna let the darkness out, see what it does. See what I do when I let go. Discover my intentions.

My food has gone out of control because my joblife has been too taxing in the last year. It is about this time last year that I had the concussion and that my former boss started getting downright nasty. I have been in stress about work ever since. I make about twice as much money now which makes it easier not to have financial stress. That is good.

What it comes down to is that I have an addictive personality; I want out but take the wrong way. I want to not feel, and I mistreat my body with sugar to stay quiet. I am waiting for some insight to change all this. Like with alcohol; in hindsight I did not have to do a lot for that, I just read a book, did some online training and quit on the insight that alcohol is bad (mkay?).

I feel that all my determination is reserved for not drinking, that I can not do anything else with the same resolve, not even working. And in between I keep on gathering information to answer all the 10.001 questions I have about life and work and I do not read more that 10 – 20 pages of one book. Can’t focus, don’t want to be still. Monkey brain running. At work I can better, but sometimes not either. I’m gonna take my egg-timer to work. I’m gonna use my egg-timer to do anything and remind me of:

• focus
• what would a woman who loves herself do?
• how do I treat my body right now?

That should be enough to ponder on for the oncoming years. 🙂 I noticed in the last months that a women who loves herself would drown herself in chocolate because reality was too difficult. But it is really getting to me now.

I need to change and I seem to not be able to do it. I had added the word ‘alone’ to it and then I deleted that. 😀 Gheghegheghe… still can’t go there.

What do I think I need to lose weight / to stop binge eating chocolate?  (and dates btw)

Edit: the below answer comes from the deep. Maybe it is only today, maybe this is how I think about the world for real. Not sure. Will find out in the future I guess. It is weird. Even for me to ‘hear’ this.

I want the world to be different. Totally. I find this world stupid and it is in the way of what I want. (Whoah! How about talking with the inner demon?). The world frustrates me and is in the way of what I want. Most people are. (WTF?!) I can not let my energy out, everything keeps on getting blocked. I keep on being put on an energetic sidetrack. There is this path and it goes straight from my core to what I am and where I need to be and I keep on getting blocked. I keep on getting side tracked. I keep on side tracking myself. I do not take that road as serious as I now think it is. I keep wasting my time. To walk that road is to walk in my destiny but I do not dare to because the powers there are BIG. Or maybe I just need to  get to the center of the storm.

I have the right to be happy. I have the right to be whole. I have the right to make myself whole. I have the right to be me. I have the right to be me inclusive of all the weirdness that I have, that I am. I do not think I am more weird than other people, I just think other people do not (dare to) know it of themselves. I am brave.

So how come I am so not brave when it comes to food? How come I panick and have difficulty to write about it. Actually I am not writing, I am rambling and seeing what shows up. Letting the tantrum out to see what lies underneath.

I have a feeling overload now and my reaction to it is to go buy stuff. I have long suspected that I have a buy-addiction but I sort of manage it by buying tiny stuff like matches if I do not feel satisfied with the normal groceries. I also buy and collect books. This week was an all times high: I bought a historic book on practices and products which were related to my consultancy job (from 5 year-ish ago) but I would not even have bought then because of no use now to me. I just bought it because it is historic and therefore has value. To someone, somewhere. I just want to have it.

I tend to want to collect information before I act. But I never finish.

My eyes see a card on the wall, it has a text and says: “Whenever you got all your ducks in a row, beware of the domino effect.”  🙂

Ghegheghe, monkey mind taking me away from what was. I was overwhelmed by the megalomanious answer of the what, obstructed toddler in me? Not sure where that answer came from. Feels true 😀 but it is not always around. Going to full rambling now.

I have been thinking that I should re-read ‘Kicking the drink easily’ and put the word ‘sugar’ where it says alcohol. Does sort of the same for me anyhow. I’ve been thinking all kinds of stuff but not wanting to pursue. I do not want to do difficult stuff anymore. I feel I have been doing enough difficult stuff in the last years. But I also feel I am trapping myself in addiction again and again and again. If not with food, it is with Netflixing, if not with Netflixing it is with falling in love with yet another person who does not answer. And most of the time I do all 3 at the same time. Ooh, and I include berating myself. And overfeeling. Feelings are indications. Feelings are tools. Feelings are not meant to blow me away continuously. But I’m not living by that. I let everything happen. I have gon lazy. Or tired. Not sure. Overwhelmed for sure but I am not picking it back up. My boss needs me to go pick it back up.

I need me to go pick me back up. I want to live consciously. I do not want to be thrown about by addictive behaviour. I want to continue my path. Not stall in just another chocolaty corner I found to hide in. Another Lala-land, another Candy land.

I believe at one stage in this blog I told you about the Ayahyasca experience I did years ago. While being under the influence of this (natural) drug I had this vision of a city made of man-sized candy. It started of with a kaleidoscope of the brands of Coca-cola and McDonalds and I was SO OFFENDED that this took place in MY head. In hindsight it is pretty cool to realise that the brain can in fact produce a perfect, perfect, moving kaleidoscopic movie of 2 brands both of which I would not be able to draw with my conscious mind but my drug induced brain turned it into perfection. F! I was mad. Obviously both the sugar village and the coke and McD where metaphors for my drinking then. Or possibly my binge eating now. 🙂 When looking at the above picture of sugar land I feel nauseous. And still: that is what I do to myself. Again and again and again.

And I do not want to wake up. Or possibly I am struggling to wake up. Hmmm,  more like it: I do not want to realise that I am struggling. That would mean that I do not have control. Aah…. haha, trap. Admit that we are powerless. 🙂

As you might know I never did a 12 steps thing. I do find it interesting that a lot of my endeavours entail the same experiences / learning things as a 12 steps process but not necessarily in the same order. When quitting alcohol I had troubles with the admitting that I was powerless over alcohol. I think I am close to realising that now. In order to deal with it I changed it into: “I am powerless when alcohol is in my body which is why I need to make sure that it does not get there.” There is also another trick to that: whenever I keep it out, I do not have to admit that I am in fact powerless. So as a matter of fact it is a pride thing which keeps me sober. 😀 My fear of having to go to AA is and admitting that I am powerless is so big that I stay sober. Ghegheghe, whatever way works. 😀 (But yeah, this attitude does not sound sustainable I would say. Pride and shame never are – but it is not only that, it is also that I want to be done with the moaning and the destruction.)

Yeah, that is it. I want to be done with the moaning. I use moaning, confusion, addiction as means to not be. To not stand in my power. I am afraid of me when clear. I am afraid of really seeing. It is overwhelming. So I sabotage me.  I am done.

Gonna do something with my life. I am sooooo sick of sabotaging me. Blegh. I’m gonna have a shower, put on some socks, do some healthy shopping.

See you later.

I am happy that I quit. And if you are still reading this rambling text (hurrah for your perseverance!) I hope you are happy that you quit too! 🙂 No matter the obstacles I put in my way, it is worth it because now I can learn that I do that. When drinking I did not learn a lot. Not learning is killing. Choosing life is good and it is rewarded. Ha! That makes it easier. Choosing destruction is not so good, and it gets answered too. Which makes it nasty. Which is just a warning. 🙂 That’s how simple it is. I think. Need to go put that into action. 🙂

Thank you for reading. 🙂 Hope it brings you something too. 🙂

xx, Feeling

28 month sober – 1 week new job

Just wanted to post this because it somehow very much reminds me of my life.

Work is good, I am happy that I quit because I could never ever have done this job while drinking. My boss told me yesterday that he was very, very, very happy that he had hired me. I guess that is a compliment which also stretches out to me. 🙂 So that is good.

He has the same name as the nice guy I fell in love with at my former workplace. Sigh. And then the gods started playing with my head by sending in 2 other guys with the same name this week. So every morning I meditate and in that meditation discover if and how I am attached to the nice guy and let it go. In that letting go, which actually looks a LOT like what I did while quitting drinking, I realise that I am alone and can stand on my own two feet. Also: that the sort of addictive way I have in dealing with guys is, well, addictive. It is mist I create to not be clear, a ‘get away’ from what is. And the funny thing is: when I cut all these energetic threads I actually feel better so I do not understand the ‘need’ for it. Apart from me having an addictive personality and having difficulty with being at ease. 😀

So yeah, happy that I quit. Spending Christmas on my own. Need to really take 100% care of me and me said: not going to visit the family because I don’t feel like it and I need all my energy to cope with this new function. It has nothing to do with the function before. I did half a day of production work this week, just to get an idea. The rest was office/procedures/speaking with consultants on the trajectory we’re setting up. Not sure if we will get the certification.

From what I have learned discipline and procedures need to be way tighter than they are in this new factory. Which is why I asked my boss to set out a vacancy to try get two of the employees from my former work in the company. It is a bit tricky: that would be almost half of the former companies staff and the former company is a customer of my current company so… tricky. But then again, these guys have been looking for an opportunity to leave and now it is here. Not sure if they will follow, I have the feeling things have changed there since I left. But is would be good. Would safe me a LOT of work in training and get them the job they were looking for, not sure if they like the colleagues though, the whole company is so diverse that about 20% speaks Dutch, 30% English and the rest something Englishlike or another European language. German I speak, Spanish I can follow to understanding what it is about, Italian a little less but Polish? Pfff…. Not sure if it is going to work, my intentions are not entirely selfish so I feel I am being manipulative so, well, that is never good.

My head/concussion has not been bothering me but I need to really take it easy in the evening, back to having no evening appointments otherwise ‘the light turns off’ in my head. Lucky me: I have flexible working hours! And a day extra to spend because I started working a day before my contract started, and… a 36 hour workweek. So! Hey! I can sort of have 7 hour workdays and that = good for me. Still I have about 4 kilo of certification procedures to read over Christmas, getting paid for it though, not gonna do free overtime for this salary. He’s got my consultancy brain for 500 more than a production worker. Well, I should have stood up when he offhandely offered that. In hindsight it was sooo clear that he was open to negotiating. Ghegheghe…. my head was somewhere else: can I do this job, is it not too early, is it not too difficult? Actually I’m fine with the salary. I also realise that I do have to really keep a tight grip on my priorities and focus otherwise I will drown in the procedures, rules and fear of not being able to do it.

Just now that I am writing it has turned the 25th of December and I am 28 months sober. Happy that I quit. With the meditating I experience a lot of progress again in myself, I needed that, I was getting worried about the lack of clarity I was experiencing, the addictive mind was looking too much for distraction. I meditate till my mind is still and then a little longer. I got into a daily routine, then the job happened and now I need to incorporate this routine in my every days schedule again. Working on it. 🙂

Sending holiday greetings from The Netherlands. I am happy that I quit. I am happy that you quit. If you did not, I would really appreciate if you will consider quitting (again).

Now that I am back in a job which is more at my level I am feeling less ashamed about my drinking and what I ruined with that. Still pissed off about wasting away a lot of money by not working and living of my savings/inheritance. I have difficulty looking that in they eye. 😦 I actually feel I can only be totally cleaned of ‘this’ when I earn back that money. I am thinking this prolonged shame is something which going through the 12 steps might change. But I am not ready to let go, know that too. I feel the shame is some sort of ‘security blanket’ in a negative way. Well, by the time it is time to let go, it will go. 🙂

xx, Feeling

15 Kinds of Verbal Abuse

I wish to share with you this beautifully insightful article of Berit Brogaard D.M.Sci., Ph.D  based on a book of Patricia Evans on verbal abuse. I have put all kinds of links in here as not to be stealing anybodies work.

The article has helped me a lot to get clarity in the extreme stressful work situation I have found myself in the last year. I am SO happy I quit. It has been 2 days and I am slowly finding myself back, whoa… I can not even find words for the relieve I feel and re-reading this article now, while the stressful, damaging work situation is not present anymore helps me to get the situation clear and regroup myself. I feel I have been hiding like a small scared child in a corner, only to come out to scream and cry.

Sobriety is all about what you take in and leave out. Since I could not moderate in what part of her (destructive) communication I let in I needed to leave.

Reading through the list I have memories of the way my parents communicated and how I was brought up. I think, if I want to summarise (is that the word?) the situation of my childhood, of the marriage of my parents, of the family situation I would say that in the basis we lived in a continuous battle with each other. I was once given two questions by my therapist; “If the other exists, can you exist?” and I had to answer “No”. “If you exist, can the other exist?” and the answer was “No.” again. That is how I grew up, thinking that people have to fight continuously for their spot in this world, thinking that if somebody took the right to live, to be, they needed to be taken down because it was seen as a threat. Possibly siblings envy but then on a family scale. The execution of fight-flight-freeze mode in a group. Obviously that does not work in a group when one/people execute this to the max so there was a solution which is called hierarchy. My father was the top-dog and we all had to follow. He overruled and undercut my mother where ever she went only when she did that to herself he would support her and be the nice guy. I followed and supported that behaviour. I am sorry mom, I am so sorry. But why the FUCK DID YOU NOT STAND UP?!! Cut his balls of and shove them down his throat? Why not? (excuse my French)

I guess for the same reason as I let my boss bully me: because you somehow felt you did not have the right to do so. Because I somehow felt I did not have the right to do so. Because of the (family) dynamics we grew up in. Because I agreed with the dynamics at work because the look familiar to me. That is where I blow off steam to the outside world but my inner Feeling is saying: “Aaah, there is me being put down. Wow, that really makes me feel at home. I like it here. :-)” Masochism? Not sure how those dynamics work. She’s a sadist though, I know that. And I did ‘analyse’ the rest of my colleagues and found traits of masochism in all of them. Some of them even literally said: “I like dominant women.” Karma just pulled a joke on me by making the asshole a woman instead of a man. If it would have been a man I would have seen it earlier. 😀

“Karma is a BITCH!”

“Projections, projections.”

Soooo…. verbal abuse, below is the article of PSYCHOLOGY TODAY a site I find very read-worthy.

If we look at verbal abuse as a means of maintaining control and power over someone, we can think of the types of verbal abuse listed and explained in this post as being ways that someone tries to dominate or control their partner.

Does this mean that the abuser actually feels more powerful when he (or she), for instance, subtly puts down his partner’s interests? Yes, as incomprehensible as this is to some of us. Does this mean that their partner feels put down? Not always. He or she may feel a twinge of sadness because they cannot share this interest. Or he or she may feel a twinge of sadness that their partner can’t enjoy, say, a particular artist or composer. Does this mean that the abuser can’t (or doesn’t) enjoy this pleasure? Not always; he or she may simply find greater pleasure in feeling that they have power over their partner.

We will also see that verbal abuse prevents real relationships. This seems obvious, but the partner of an abuser may live under the illusion that he or she has a real relationship. This may be for a number of reasons; an important one is that, as a couple, the abuser and their partner may function adequately in their respective roles. Verbal abusers generally experience many of their feelings as anger. For instance, if a verbal abuser feels unsure and anxious he may simply feel angry—possibly angry that he is feeling unsure and anxious. Yet part of being human is the ability to feel. The ability to feel, like the ability to think, is universal to humanity. Unfortunately, the abuser is generally unwilling to accept his feelings and unwilling to reveal them to a partner. He builds a wall between himself and his partner and maintains that distance.

In The Verbally Abusive Relationship, Patricia Evans identifies a number of categories of verbal abuse. Some are obvious, while others are more subtle:

1. Withholding.

Withholding is primarily manifested as a withholding of information and a failure to share thoughts and feelings. A person who withholds information refuses to engage with his or her partner in a healthy relationship. He or she does not share feelings or thoughts. When he or she does share anything, it is purely factual or functional information of the sort their partner could have looked up online, read on his or her Facebook wall, or figured out on their own. Examples of withholding communication that fail to engage the partner include: “The car is almost out of gas”; “The keys are on the table”; and “The show is on now.”

2. Countering.

Countering is a tendency to be argumentative—not merely in political, philosophical, or scientific contexts but in ordinary contexts as well. The victim of the abuse may share her positive feelings about a movie she just saw, and the abuser may then attempt to convince her that her feelings are wrong. This is countering, or dismissing the victim’s feelings, thoughts, and experiences on a regular basis.

3. Discounting.

Discounting is an attempt to deny that the victim of the abuse has any right to his or her thoughts or feelings. It may come out as criticism—but criticism of a particular kind. The abuser may tell the victim on a regular basis that he or she is too sensitive, too childish, has no sense of humor, or tends to make a big deal out of nothing. The abuser thereby denies the victim’s inner reality, indirectly telling a partner that how they feel and what they experience are wrong.

4. Verbal abuse disguised as jokes.

The abuser may say something very upsetting to the victim of the abuse and, after seeing her reaction add, “It was just a joke!” Abuse is not OK in any form; jokes that hurt are abusive.

5. Blocking and diverting.

Blocking and diverting is a form of withholding in which the abuser decides which topics are “good” conversation topics. An abuser practicing this form of abuse may tell the victim that she is talking out of turn or is complaining too much.

6. Accusing and blaming.

In these forms of abuse the abuser will accuse the victim of things that are outside of his or her control. He or she might accuse a partner of preventing them from getting a promotion because the partner is overweight, or ruining his or her reputation because the partner dropped out of college.

7. Judging and criticizing.

Judging and criticizing is similar to accusing and blaming but also involves a negative evaluation of the partner. As Evans points out, “Most ‘you’ statements are judgmental, critical, and abusive.” Some abusive judging and criticizing “you” statements are: “You are never satisfied”; “You always find something to be upset about”; and “No one likes you because you are so negative.”

8. Trivializing.

Trivializing is a form of verbal abuse that makes most things the victim of the abuse does or wants to do seem insignificant. The abuser might undermine his or her work, style of dressing, or choice of food.

9. Undermining.

Undermining is similar to trivializing, which consists of undermining everything the victim says or suggests, or making her question herself and her own opinions and interests.

10. Threatening.

Threatening is a common form of verbal abuse and can be very explicit, such as, “If you don’t start doing what I say, I will leave you.” Or it can be more subtle, such as, “If you don’t follow my advice, others will find out that you are a very unreliable person.”

11. Name calling.

Name calling can be explicit or subtle. Explicit name-calling can consist in calling the victim of the abuse a “bitch” or other hurtful words. But it can also be more subtle, such as when someone says things that are implicitly hurtful, for instance, “You are such a victim,” or “You think you are so precious, don’t you?”

12. Forgetting.

The category of forgetting covers a range of issues ranging from forgetting a promise to forgetting a date or an appointment. Even if the abuser really forgot, it is still abuse, because he ought to have made an effort to remember.

13. Ordering.

Any form of ordering or demanding is a form of verbal abuse. It falls under the general issue of control. (Insert from Berit Brogaard: See my previous post about controlling people.)

14. Denial.

Denial is abusive when it consists of denying one’s bad behavior and failing to realize the consequences of this behavior. An abuser will always try to find a way to justify and rationalize his behavior. This is a way of denying that he has done anything wrong.

15. Abusive anger.

Any form of yelling and screaming, particularly out of context. Even yelling “Shut up!” is abusive. No one deserves to be yelled at.

Reference

Evans, Patricia (2009). The Verbally Abusive Relationship (pp. 84-85). Adams Media. Kindle Edition.

Berit “Brit” Brogaard is the author of On Romantic Love

Back to my own writing: I AM HAPPY THAT I QUIT!!! I have done this job for a year and 2 days. It is autumn now and today the sun is out, another moment it rains like crazy. This sort of sums up my mood but I have seen several rainbows today and that is GOOD! I am trying to be aware of the swings I make, so I try to be a witness to what is happening instead of being thrown all over the place by my emotions. I like it. This is what I need more of, this is what I want to be able to do so awareness is what I need to practise.

A woman who loves herself would love herself. 🙂 ❤ What I am fighting with currently is that something within me says that I need time to process what has happened but that would be the old Feeling. I think I would feel way better if I make this day,  every moment of the day the beginning of my new life. 🙂 I worked till the last day of my notice so I did not ow her anything. HR offered me paid leave, I refused. I actually even took some time off to see a doctor and to attend a funeral. All of that could have been paid with me not working. I did not. Now I am free. I need to behave as such. And I will! Nature is showing me the rainbows!! Who am I to sulk? I AM FREE!!!!

This, but with less tension in the shoulders and hopefully a little more regard for the rest of the world. 🙂

Wishing you a beautiful sober day!

xx, Feeling