You Are ENOUGH

Gentleness is the way, harshness hurts. As my body recovers so too my ability to provide gentleness chasing the cruel critic away or shaking hands and calling truce.

The woozy feeling on and off through the day might be the after affect from Covid in September that took 6 weeks before feeling normal.

My new normal? This weaker physical self with shaky hands and woozy head due to long haul Covid, needing to rest, rest, rest?

Kindness. Kindness and care, now more needed due to these issues. Some relief comes from realizing why my body has changed this winter becoming less physically able.

The critic beats me up first thing, ‘You should be more social, see people, be with people.’

Yes, that’s true, yet I didn’t choose this solitary life, it chose me. Keeping distant from crowds, groups, or even outings is due to advancing age and my inability to cope with these things. The upsets caused by outside stimuli needs to be kept at minimum especially since the sleep issues erupted these past 15 years.

We do our best, and I am full force into doing that, often to the detriment of my emotional well-being because I push, push, push. Give yourself praise for all the good things you do and accomplish. That is enough. YOU are enough.

KINDER to SELF & LOVING

Waking at midnight my mind whirls and worries over things that do not matter, magnified in the dark as if they do.

Having to take a medication to sleep, it takes awhile to work, so late-night TV, then back to bed.

It saddens me this occurs, as if it’s my fault for not training my thoughts. Just as a softer voice is saying …. brain chemicals. Not you’re doing. Do not add to your challenges by blaming yourself.

That is growth, that is improvement. To be kinder to me, more understanding, LOVING.

KINDNESS & COMPASSION FOR SELF

Instead of spite, hate, or shame for needing medication in the middle of night, a new vision, a new way to look at it. Compassion.

Waking at midnight, 1AM, 2AM, my mind begins to whirl, no fault of my own, it is a mind biologically hurt by a life of repressed trauma causing damage that can be seen on a brain scan.

Toughing it out by staying up all the next day with such little rest to avoid taking medication causes a day of feeling sickened by fatigue.

What about doing what was is needed, what is kindest? Easing into it this way means changing patterns of thinking that began at age 8, so takes work, focus, persistence, but mostly gentleness.

photo by Patricia

WALK ALONE

Waking again at 2 AM, my body reacting to tiny issues as if its life were threatened when dark at night and alone. Though Samuel lay near it did not matter, my internal world felt cold, unwelcoming, and unsafe from worried thoughts. Badness permeated setting off alert rockets requiring medication if any more sleep were to come.

Two nights of lack of sleep is two too many. Yet this is my life. Today after a battled night there is still a feeling of gratefulness even as tears fall.

My ability to detect scents gets stronger. Wellness from Covid feels almost 100% though it took over a month. Now back to the usual challenges- lack of sleep.

There’s no gratefulness for that, only tears. Tears for no sleep. Tears for needing medication. Tears that why it happens stems from cruel hands in childhood taking whatever sexual pleasures could be ravaged from a child who loved and trusted the hands before they came upon her.

In the dark, laying on the couch, memories of my life… the strong, quiet soul that prevailed during all those terrifying times through decades later.

The years of the façade forced upon me by mom and the rest, to act as if not attacked at will by those that were supposed to love and protect me.

That damaged many systems; neural, parts of the brain rearranged to be constantly alert to threats no longer there, the lymphatic system which diminished in capacity causing glands to always be just a bit swollen, the permanently compromised immune system due to a lifetime of swallowing severe trauma because the wish of others to this day is not to speak of what they have done- the doers and the co-conspirators who kept quiet out of their own embarrassment while keeping ties to the enemies all along, as if to say- you don’t matter.

Had these perpetrators done to your daughters what they did to me, would you be so friendly?

What could be healed by my own persistence has been conquered as much as it possibly could be, though damage can never be fully repaired. It is still difficult to advocate for myself. I still take in blame for much that is not mine, and relationships dwindle to a select few who are known and loved. Trust impedes others.

There is no origin family, they stay away fearful of the strength in this new woman who will no longer stay silent. Friends made are not healthy friends, only chosen to replicate what was known from mom and the others- love with unhealthy toxic conditions, love laced with criticism, manipulation and control masquerading as kindness, all that severely affecting my ability to speak up and erect boundaries.

This new woman walks alone among the pines finding peace all on my own.

WARMTH & JOY

You make the difference, nobody else but you. That thought plays through my mind when my body feels cold and unwelcoming, a habit in my life.

You warm your own soul. React not by habit but go deeper where the soul opens to the universe without the restrictions of how you’ve been taught to feel about yourself.

That habit clings growing like mold since childhood, yet moments of breaking free make me crave more.

There is more, much, much more. Do not be reduced to a speck of dust reacting habitually with negativity towards self, but accept the truth that you too deserve peace, warmth, and a joyful life.  

Just one moment of changing that pattern of thought opens a new world of self-acceptance, warmth, peace, and kindness to self.

BE GOOD TO YOURSELF

One day enough energy to walk the magical meadow, today, not so much. Forcing things would hamper my improvement.

Going easy, listening to my body, really listening and not pushing (which is too often done), will help regain my strength.

Covid might have taken a permanent bite out of me due to already being comprised in some health areas such as a weakened immune system. That makes it more crucial to go gently in all realms; body, mind and spirit.

Be good to yourself.

KINDNESS

Yesterday morning went OK despite only 5 hours of sleep, but it was sleep unmedicated so that’s a start back to normalcy. This morning the hours crept up to 6 but I’m shooting for 8. By late morning exhaustion from meeting the challenges of traveling set in along with tears.

Sweet Samuel added words of support which meant a great deal, then the restart of challenging my critic began again. A float in the pool on an unusually hot day helped. Is it replicating the safety of the womb? Because my body totally relaxes after floating in circles for an hour or so. Going to bed early watching Fried Green Tomatoes also helped settle my soul. The movie, watched for decades, never fails to entertain filling me with good feelings.

That critical voice is harsh beating me up even while driving to Cory’s, telling a friend, “What kind of nutter needs to keep their eyes closed for 5 hours?” Yet any moment they opened my body tensed immediately while driving fast wedged between large trucks.

Her response was gentle, and more kind than mine sharing how she wears eye and ear cover while flying and many others do the same. What a comfort having a friend more kind to me than me!

Slowly the easy routine returns along with the work of kindness to self where all love stems from.  

GOODNESS GLOWS

Freedom from restraints others impose comes often, even if the restraints grow from my own beliefs of what is expected rebelling against it.

Round and round the critic bites, once my mom’s voice, or any from the origin family imposing a gag on me in case secrets making them look bad were revealed. It has molded an old woman (is 70 old?) who is still unable to set boundaries or speak up.

That is permanent. What can be challenged is self-hate for the brokenness causing loss of speech. It is not my fault or doing.

How could my voice ring out loud when molded and forced as a child to endure quietly. The damage is done.

Wrong doings by others, insensitivities, crossing boundaries, (the list goes on) curdles within till coming here writing words to make sense of the utter jumble inside of me, here, a safe place where authenticity rises once the chaos is sorted out. Growth occurs. The stranger within becoming known.

When the flashlight peers inside, goodness, not the badness consuming me since age 8.

Goodness glows when daring to look honestly, with gentleness, compassion, empathy and self-acceptance.

Love of Life

Photo by Cory (my younger son)

Each day there is a job to do, work on self-esteem. Though possible to improve on that front, the core of my being already formed is staying that way.

You cannot cut into the layers of a tree and remove its inner ring without killing the tree.

I am who I am, who was formed during childhood, with beliefs about myself that became embedded into my personality.

So, each day takes focus, work, and effort to counteract the life-threatening critical voice which thrives so dramatically inside me. To tell it, I do deserve life, equality, pleasure, and happiness, even amid all the other struggles and pain that life brings to each of us.  

The Cosmos Within

This ‘becoming’ of a new person, or the real woman within unknown to me till recently, takes time, a lifetime, and then some.

When responses, sensitivities, and guidance come from the soul, out of the head, and arising from that ethereal part of me without bones, sinews, or blood, the floaty misty presence that’s invisible is more powerful and wise than thought, and magical, miraculous, mystical moments occur.

Moments stretched into a way of living. Once the dust settles after torn in savage pieces due to C-PTSD (which visits regularly), a solidness internally can be leaned on, used, and best guided by. A mythical place that is real and has always been there, but parts were too shattered to connect.

People speak of the soul, what is that? Something floating around after we die? Or can it be a place that isn’t a place but an oasis of changing clouds that swirls within offering the heavens one dreams of a child?

Go there, be blessed with the uniqueness of you. Because like a snowflake, we are all different, unfathomable, and infinitely precious as every countless star.

Do not put your face in the pillow at night and have dark thoughts consume you, you are better than that- so much more.