Hurt

I'm having a hard time. A couple days ago I spent the night on the exes couch, as he had made plans to go out late. I agreed. In the morning when he woke up and came downstairs, he thought he would try to cuddle or something and sat on the couch next to me... right on my fused wrist. I yelled as it crunched and I involuntarily kneed him. Yesterday I was walking across some grass and slipped, dislocated my surgery knee. It hurt. Bad.

I'm covered in bruises and swollen injured joints and just feel broken.

I'm in a flare and my body is failing left and right. I cant pretend it doesnt hurt anymore. My whole body hurts.

I feel like a burden. A twisted, dysfunctional lump of unworthiness.

And there is nothing I can do about it.

Healing

Our being has a tendency towards wholeness and health. If you fall and scrape your knee, your body will heal itself. But first we have to clean the wound, and get all the dirt out, so our body can properly repair. In a similar way, our consciousness wants to heal itself, but it has a tendency to be overactive. Like dirt in a wound, the active mind prevents us from healing and coming into our wholeness. When we meditate and quiet our mind, and see things objectively, we begin the process of untangling our thoughts and cleaning our mental space so our psyche can begin it's healing process. As Rachel Naomi Remen once stated, "Silence is a place of great power and healing." So look to your practice as a restorative place, where you can start to heal wounds, new and old. Get silent, go within, and let the body and mind repair. 

I'm beginning to really understand how much healing can take place within silence. Often, I hide from it. This week I'm learning to embrace it. Rather than fussing and fretting about what everyone else is thinking or feeling, I'm focusing a little more inward, and pondering more on what I'm thinking and feeling! Crazy, I know! Now that I've identified some pretty toxic behaviors I subject myself too, I'm working on breaking away from those behaviors. Stepping away from the need to put myself down. Setting down the angry rocks labeled "abandonment" or "betrayal" that I have been hurling at phantom figures in my mind. Those figures just swirl away into mist as my stones wiz through them, simply a mirage. I'm expending energy STILL on being upset, angry, and hurt... and for what? It doesn't make me feel better. 

"It hurts because it mattered..."

Well I wish it didn't matter so much. I want to just let it all go. Release the negativity into the universe and have it fucking stay out there!! But that isn't really healing then, is it... I have to scrub the wound clean before it can really begin to heal. I've been stuck in the swearing because it fucking hurts phase long enough. Swearing and being mad and flailing around and poking at it doesn't heal the wound. Scrubbing it out, giving it time, and not fucking picking at it is what heals the wound. 

I have the rest of my life to look forward to. I'm not going to let a few minor setbacks derail my progress. I am the master of my fate.

And it's going to be incredible. 

Autoreactivity

Imagine for a moment, you've traveled up north for a family reunion. As you mingle with distant relatives you haven't seen in years, you're on your best behavior. Interactions are warm and polite. There may be awkwardness, annoyances, or differences in politics, but everyone keeps the conversation cordial. But it's a different story on the 3 hour car ride home with your partner of many years. Each of you can trigger the other into irritation or anger with the slightest thing. Perhaps their tendency to switch the radio station frequently or a habit of singing loudly and off key. In our closest and dearest relationships our patience dwindles, our reactivity heightens, and our worse behaviors come out. When our sibling or best friend pushes the wrong button, whether intentionally or not, we often react without thinking. We become defensive, impatient, or angry, and snarl back with a curt remark or a fuming email. And it can happen so fast it doesn't even feel like there was a millisecond to consider our reaction. Perhaps they'll forgive us, but if we keep this us, we risk damaging the relationship. Through mindfulness, in essence, we're training the brain to be less reactive. We're learning to become aware of our emotional responses and then to regulate them. So when we're triggered and about to react, there is an opportunity to tap into our practice. We can slow our breath, calm our simmering emotions, and find a more peaceful state from which to respond. As Ariana Huppington said, "We have little power to choose what happens, but we have complete power over how we respond." At first we might create only a sliver of a space between our trigger and our reaction, but over time this sliver becomes a crack, and then and inch, and then a space wide enough to stand. And from this space our response is calm, thoughtful, and wise. 

I've been avoiding writing. I've been avoiding thinking and feeling and grieving and growing. I've been avoiding holding myself accountable. I have been a listening ear, a coach, a support, to those around me, and I have been avoiding taking care of myself. It has been a relapse of sorts, but more so a surrender into my current state of depression. I have so many options ahead of me, and breaking free of my codependency means having to make those decisions for myself. It's a little daunting to be back in this space again, but I feel more comfortable this time around. More aware. More accepting. Its time to refocus on responding to my life from a place of calm. Releasing the chaos and negative autoreactivity...

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