And just like that, things moved forward down the court, just slighty.
Yesterday, when talking with Jay about buying plane tickets now or later, I said: "Whatever is best for you."
And when I said it, I meant it.
I didn't feel anxious or angry or have a flood of thoughts to suppress such as:
- Here I am, being taken advantage of again
- I'm the only one that does mindless chores like this
- Of course, we have to do this now; it's important to you
I guess these seem like small things. However, if then the rest of your day, your mind is consumed with thoughts of being a victim, and every single following interaction with yourself and others is viewed through that lens, maybe then it doesn't seem so small.
Victimized people react differently than people who feel confident and safe. The only real benefit I've been able to see from it over the years
I'm consistently working out, doing my stretches and adding it some upper body as well. Last week, I was at the gym five times I think, mostly in the later evening after dinner.
I have more energy. I'm sleeping better. My odd pains everywhere are subsiding as I do the exercises the PT people have said I need to do.
In short, I'm adapting to what it takes to be healthy and live less in a rubber band state of magical thinking, bouncing between extremes of unreality and ill health.
It's kind of boring at times to be healthy. It's not exciting or attention-grabbing or adrenaline-producing to go do another workout. It's not super exciting to eat the same, healthy breakfast and lunch day after day.
In one of my Examen exercises, there is a challenge to see if you have allowed yourself small entitlements. Allowed myself? Small entitlements?? That's how I've existed! When you feel like all of life is against you, it's the frequent, small treats and outs you give yourself that keep you going. And yeah, all of this adds up to an extremely unhealthy, unstable life.
Finally, when we had a misunderstanding this morning, a major misunderstanding, I tuned into my body to see where my frustration was. My heart? Head? Mouth? Stomach? Entire body? Where was the anxiety and how bad was it?
I sat there for quite a while as we processed the conversation back and forth. I tried to reply while listening to my body and not reacting. It took for me to formulate words more than once. I felt awkward, but more confident. I didn't feel the need to attack or flood. I did feel frustrated and feel like I acted proportionately.
In war, there is a concept of proportionality. When you are attacked, you respond accordingly.
I've thought of this a lot with relationships where there is pain. It's helped me understand what kind of relationship I can have with my mother. With our kids. With my husband. With friends. With more distant relatives. With colleagues. With strangers.
When you feel constant, psychic pain, it makes maintaining relationships challenging. Most relationships, we ourselves, have annoyances, disagreements, differences, changes, challenges, upsets, surprises, you name it. Especially if you maintain relationships over time and in close proximity, these negatives feelings will occur.
I have found a lower ability to handle these things in relationships due to feeling so much pain on a regular basis, pain from past events. I has taken considerable energy and effort to manage my emotions all these years. That effort has taken its toll on my body and soul. As a result, I have less bandwidth for bullshit.
How I handle this says everything about my beliefs and about whether they make a difference. It speaks to whether I'm healing or not. It speaks to my ability to have boundaries, which implies, I stay in some relationships that have pain as an element. It means sometimes I end relationships.
I know I'm healing when I take the time to check in with my body when I'm frustrated. I am bypassing the highways of groved patterns in my brain that tell me to react, flood, attack and withdraw. How well have these served me?