keeping myself small

"why do we feel that we have to have small bodies to have big lives? what feels good about feeling bad? and where do we turn for nourishment when it's not in the places we thought it would be?" - Geneen Roth

i have kept myself small for many years. large in physique and small in my life. i have diminished my accomplishments so as not to make other people feel bad. i worry about how my accomplishments will make other people feel, so i diminish my achievements thinking that will make other people feel good. 

my parents had their problems; both in their relationship and in their own lives. and i learned that by being small, i could blend into the background. i didn't share my report cards. i didn't share my writing. i kept it all to myself. keeping my life small and meaningless. keeping myself from being the centre of attention. 

"we believe we are not enough, we also believe that if we had more or were different, we would feel nourished." - Geneen Roth

i have spent my small life believing that i am not enough, that i don't do enough, that i don't have enough. believing that if only i were thin, if only i were smart, if only i were ______ i would feel nourished and fulfilled. not knowing that what i need to be nourished has been right here inside of me all along. 

for years i turned to my addictions: food and pills. using both to try to fill the empty spaces inside of me. 

"what did i want that i could never have, which made me feel like an endless pit of need?" - Geneen Roth

what did i want? i wanted to fit in with the other kids. i wanted to feel part of a group. i wanted to feel belonging and connection. instead, i felt like "an endless pit of need." and i tried to fill that pit with food. 

but you cannot fill an endless pit. 

"when you hide [eating] you give yourself the message that who you are is not acceptable, and that you must pretend to be someone else to be loved." - Geneen Roth

i spend way too much of my life hiding my eating. i would sneak to the store, buy a chocolate bar, and eat it as fast as i could. when i was 9. 

and i continued to hide my eating well into my 30s. in public, eating "healthy" foods, in private consuming vast quantities of "unhealthy" foods. making myself bigger to keep my life small. 

"when you sneak food, you perpetuate the belief that you are too ugly, too needy, too intense to be seen and loved for who you are. the same is true when you sneak feelings." - Geneen Roth

sneaking food and sneaking feelings are one and the same in my life. afraid to tell people how i feel. afraid to show people what i eat. afraid to live a big and full life. afraid to show people who i really am. 

"there is no such thing as enough because we believe that our very being is not enough. [...] to have enough, we have to believe that we are enough." - Geneen Roth

believing that i am enough is the most difficult affirmation i have ever tried to tell myself. that and a line from an article by nosy nora, "i love and accept myself deeply and completely." ... i have that as the screen saver on my phone and though i see it a zillion times a day, i find it hard to believe. hard to accept as my truth. believing that i am enough means loving myself deeply and completely. believing that i am enough means accepting myself for who i am. believing that i am enough means sharing my feelings, sharing my eating, and letting people know me for who i really am. 

"wanting things that could easily be given, be gotten, rather than wanting what i knew i couldn't have from either of my parents: being seen, being met. being valued for the fullness i already embodied." - Geneen Roth

it was much easier ... is much easier ... to want to be thin, to want new shoes, to want the newest indigo girls album ... than it is to demand to be valued, to be seen, to be heard. it became easier to keep my life small than to accept that i wasn't being seen or heard. it became easier to make my body bigger, to protect myself. 

at 13, i became noticed for my body. and that noticing led to events that i would rather forget. some that i have forgotten. and at 13, i began to make myself small, to blend into the background, to not be noticed. at 13, i learned that to lead a small life meant to have a large body. 

this is all subconscious of course. i never set out to be fat. but i have kept myself fat for many years. keeping myself big as a way to protect myself from living a full life. 

i leave you with this thought ...

"the world will not fall apart if we let ourselves express our vastness. it is more likely the world will stop falling apart when we do." - Geneen Roth

be kind to yourself, 

xoxo

...

owning your feelings

it's easy for us to admit and own our kindness, our happiness, our helpfulness. but LES suggested i write about owning our anger, our frustration, and those emotions that we think of as "bad." to own your feelings means to admit that you have those feelings, to accept the feeling, to feel it, and to express it in a healthy way. 

“We think too much and feel too little.” 
― Charles Chaplin

i have written before about there being no such thing as good or bad emotions, there are just emotions. and they ebb and flow. and they are all okay. 

but how do we actually own those emotions that we try hard to pretend that we don't have: jealousy, rage, frustration, anger, disappointment ... 

... as a child, my family didn't talk about emotions. but if i expressed any of those "bad" emotions, i was taught to bury it and be a good girl. good girls don't get angry. good girls aren't jealous or disappointed. good girls smile and accept what life hands them. 

“Emotions come and go and can't be controlled so there's no reason to worry about them. That in the end, people should be judged by their actions since in the end it was actions that defined everyone.” 
― Nicholas Sparks

in my life, i have faced experiences that have left me feeling lonely, and empty, and i didn't know how to handle those feelings because i was taught to suck it up and be good. 

“Many of us spend our whole lives running from feeling with the mistaken belief that you can not bear the pain. But you have already borne the pain. What you have not done is feel all you are beyond that pain.” 
― Khalil Gibran

good girls don't express their feelings, they hold them in. 

i have been thinking a lot about loss lately and my reactions to the losses i have faced in life. 

i shut down years ago and found ways to numb myself from the pain of loss. one of those ways was food, another was sedatives, and another was to shut down part of my heart to protect myself from further loss. 

had i been taught how to own my emotions and to express them in healthy ways, i think my life would have been very different. 

now, i blog. blogging is how i sort out my thoughts and my feelings. 

“Never apologize for showing your feelings. When you do, you are apologizing for the truth.” 
― José N. Harris

so how do we own our emotions? what can we DO with those emotions that scare us?

yell
sing
run
walk
jump
scream
do yoga
breathe
mediate
talk
write
call a friend
listen to music
make music
draw
sculpt
cry
take a bath

find something to do that makes you feel good. allow yourself to feel the emotion. there is nothing wrong with feeling. there is nothing wrong with being jealous, angry, hurt, disappointed ... there is nothing wrong with feelings. 

how we act upon our feelings is a whole other story. i am not suggesting you take out your rage on someone else. that isn't healthy. neither is it healthy to take out your rage on yourself. and yet, it is okay to FEEL rage and to express yourself in healthy safe ways. through writing, for example. and then tearing up your writing. 

the truth is ... i am telling myself this as much as i am telling you. 

be kind to yourself, 

xoxo

...

CRBDAC 6 months later ...

i'm proud of me, 

sometimes, 

some days. 

i told radical t today that it's been 6 months since i abused sedatives. i told her that nosy nora suggested i write about it. i also told her that it's no big deal. i believe i said "it is what it is." 

radical t suggested that perhaps there was more to it than that. that if it wasn't a big deal i wouldn't have told her. that perhaps there was something deeper there. 

am i proud? 

sometimes. 

to be honest, it feels like 6 months was a lifetime ago. 

6 months ago i was terrified of the word "addiction" and preferred nosy nora's description of "continued repetitions of behaviours despite adverse consequences" or CRBDAC. 

6 months ago i was sneaking gravol, or whatever sedative i could find to help me sleep, to help me feel numb, to help me turn off my brain ...

i no longer think about where there might be gravol hiding ... like under the couch cushions or stuffed in an old suitcase. and i also know that there aren't any in the house anymore. 

even though there are nights i lay awake wishing i was sleeping, there are nights where i do sleep and i know that i don't need sedatives. 

if you don't know what i am talking about, go back and read this post: http://aprilgigiangels.blogspot.ca/2014/03/sobriety-and-numbness-aka-crbdac.html

but mostly, i have learned that it is okay to feel things. even when those feelings are difficult and painful. 

feelings come and go. 

as captain stressy pants likes to tell me, feelings aren't good or bad, they just are. 

nosy nora says feelings are just feelings and they will pass. and she also says that it's okay to feel them. 

i have been given permission to have those nasty mean feelings that i never let myself have before - like being angry, and jealous. 

feelings are hard. i spent 30 years trying to avoid feelings. and 6 months learning to allow them. i had to make a list of feeling words. there is nothing worse than when i'm asked how i feel ... because i often don't know. i wasn't taught to talk about my feelings. i wasn't given the vocabulary. 

i couldn't have gone on this journey without the help of SC, my friends, and nosy nora. so thank you to all of you who have listened to me, who have guided me, and who have not judged me. 

be kind to yourself, 

xoxo

...

feeling deeply

feeling. 

feelings are hard. 

now that i am no longer finding ways to numb myself from feelings, i am experiencing emotions more intensely than i ever have before. even the happy and joyful emotions are intense. 

"you learned to run from what you feel, and that's why you have nightmares. to deny is to invite madness. to accept is to control." - megan chance

you can't have control over your emotions. but you can have control over how you react to the emotions that you have. you can control your behaviour. 

"but feelings can't be ignored, no matter how unjust or ungrateful they seem." - anne frank

i tried to ignore my feelings for many years. i did everything i could NOT to have to feel. but as robert frost wrote:  

"the best way out is always through" - robert frost

working my way through the emotions, instead of trying to avoid them is my biggest challenge. but it's important to remember that, as nosy nora often tells me, they are just feelings and they will change. feelings will pass. 

"feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky." - Thich Nhat Hanh

and it's hard. hard hard hard to feel so deeply and so intensely. 

then there is the sharing of feelings. not only do i have to feel the emotions, but i am learning how to express them to people. 

"never apologize for showing your feelings. when you do, you are apologizing for the truth." - jose n. harris

i am learning to tell people how i feel. but more importantly, i am learning to tell MYSELF how i feel. to name my feelings is a challenge for me. but i am learning all sorts of words. i actually made myself a list of feeling words that i can turn to if i am having trouble identifying my emotions. 

learning to feel, and learning to express how i feel is an ongoing goal. 

be kind to yourself, 

xoxo

...

the real deal

nosy nora asked me if my positive blog posts were reflective of how i was feeling these days, or if i was projecting into the future of how i want to feel ... 

... i think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. i am a different person than i was a year ago. i feel different than i did a few months ago. and i write my blog in a positive tone because i feel like no one wants to hear about what depression really feels like. 

so ... here i am, writing about where i am at right now. 

i wake up in the morning and i drag myself out of bed. i go to work because i want to have structure and routine in my day. but i am not "into" it. i plan my lessons and i teach my class. and the kids are sweet. today one of them gave me a jar of paper stars that she made for me. 

after 3 hours at work, i am exhausted and i head home. i try to stay awake, but end up napping. then i sit on the couch and try to convince myself that i need to get outside, get some fresh air, and go for a walk. i try to convince myself that i will feel better if i move my body, mostly because nosy nora thinks i will. but i lack the motivation to DO anything. i flip through channels on the tv and never settle on anything. so i end up putting on some music. i try to read a book, but i can't concentrate for more than a few pages at a time. i can't crochet because my hands hurt. i don't like talking on the phone, and even if i did, most people are at work or out doing things besides sitting on the couch. 

i want, more than anything, to go to the gym. and i keep planning to go, and then when the time comes, i have a panic attack and just can't get there. the longer i put it off, the harder it becomes to go. 

eventually i will find something to eat. maybe. and then i flip through the channels again until i end up on music and read a few more pages. 

depression is energy sucking. the only thing that i am interested in doing these days is writing. it is the one thing that helps me to get out of bed in the morning. i love knowing that when i get up, i can write. and knowing that after work i can come home and write. 

writing is my way of coping, of organizing my thoughts and feelings and packaging it all in one place - the page. 

so i hope that you will continue to indulge me as i write each day, sharing my thoughts, ideas, and feelings with the world - sometimes positive, sometimes negative, but always speaking my truth.

be kind to yourself, 

xoxo

...

emotional harm reduction

harm reduction is a set of principles used in addiction support. it is strategies for supporting people, in whatever stage of their drug use, to make their use safer. 

today LES suggested i write about emotional harm reduction and what that means to me. for example, if you have a list of things to do and you feel completely paralyzed, picking one thing and focusing on that and doing that one thing can make it easier to accomplish something.  

i thought a lot today about harm reduction and how it could be applied to emotions and to our responses to emotions. and i decided that i would write 8 principles of emotional harm reduction, based on the principles of harm reduction as it relates to substance abuse. 

1. accept that emotions are part of everyone's daily lives and that it is better to minimize the harmful effects of our responses to emotions than to ignore or suppress these emotions: each day we have various emotions flow through us. the emotions themselves are harmless, but can cause duress. we need to find ways to minimize our harmful reactions to the emotions that we feel. for example, when you are feeling overwhelmed your response to that feeling can often be to do something harmful to yourself instead of self-care; i.e. choosing to do something soothing and calming like taking a bath/shower, making some tea, taking some deep breaths, playing an instrument, going for a walk etc. 

2. emotions can elicit all sorts of responses in individuals, and some responses are more appropriate than others. it is important to acknowledge that there are healthy and unhealthy ways to deal with our emotions: unhealthy ways to deal with emotions include self-harm or harming someone else, purging, suppressing, or taking it out on someone else. healthy ways include practicing self-care, talking to a safe person, or even meditating ... it's okay to stop and take care of yourself when you are experiencing an emotion that feels "too much."

3. successful intervention of our own responses to our emotions involve creating safe ways to express emotions, not ceasing to have emotions altogether: learning to allow myself to have emotions and to find ways to say to someone "i feel ..." has been the most challenging and also most rewarding and liberating experience of my life. for me, a safe way to express my emotions has been in writing (either this blog, emails, texts, and even facebook chats) and also in therapy. being able to express emotions safely makes experiencing emotions more comfortable (or bearable). 

4. finding ways to work with supportive people to explore our emotions in a way that reduces our negative reactions to these emotions: therapy. good friends. compassionate and loving people. finding a support system.

5. empower ourselves to be the ones to understand our emotions and to know what we need: only you can know what you are feeling and what you need. only you can know whether or not meditation is right for you. getting suggestions from people is fine, but only you can know WHAT will work for you and what wont. you need to be empowered to be able to stand up for your needs. 

6. recognize that social inequities, personal identities, past trauma, and our vulnerability affect our capacity to effectively deal with our emotions and how we react to having them: we all have a past. we all have things in our life that have made us who we are. and some of us have not learned how to react to having emotions that throw us into a tailspin. it's okay to ask for help. it's okay to admit that you don't know how to react in a safe and supportive way to your own emotions. and it is okay to seek help. 

7. do not minimize or ignore the potential harm that we can cause to ourselves based on our reactions to our sometimes difficult emotions: self-harm or harming someone else, purging, suppressing, or taking it out on someone else, can all be dangerous reactions to difficult emotions. it is important to recognize that this is true, so that we can create ways to safely and healthfully deal with our emotions. 

8. ensure that our own voices are heard when we seek help to understand our emotions: if you have taken the step to go to therapy, and you don't feel heard, then find a new therapist. seriously. i am not making light of a serious situation. i have been in various therapeutic settings over the last 17 years and only in the last year and a half have i been in a setting where my voice is heard. you are the only person who knows how you are feeling. your voice matters. (click here for my post on why i support the experience of going to therapy)

so what does this mean when we are dealing with our emotions? sometimes fear and anxiety can rule our lives. we are afraid to try things, afraid to put ourselves out there, afraid to be vulnerable. sometimes showing up is the most that we can do. LES said, "... you can do nothing for fear of failure or you can try, and see what happens ... time is going to pass anyways ..." 

for 30 years, i suppressed my emotions. i found ways to numb myself so that i didn't have to feel anger, hurt, sadness, longing, loneliness, despair, fear ... i found ways to push those emotions aside ... and to not FEEL anything. 

but in doing so, i made it impossible to feel joy, bliss, happiness, excitement, pleasure ... 

as i explore my own emotions, i am learning ways to "handle" my feelings. i am learning ways to feel the emotions without having a total and complete breakdown every time a feeling passes through me. it isn't easy. Nosy Nora says, "it sucks," and it does. but feeling is so much better than not feeling ... believe me.

as always ...

be kind to yourself, 


xoxo

...

crying gets the sad out of you ...

crying. 

i feel like that's all i do lately. 

i cry. 

a lot. 

and i often have a song stuck in my head while i cry. it's a song from my childhood from the movie Free to Be You and Me written by Carol Hall. it's called "It's alright to cry." 

It's all right to cry

Crying gets the sad out of you

It's all right to cry

It might make you feel better - Carol Hall

crying empties me of my sad and of my happy and of my everything. because i don't just cry, i weep. and weeping is different. weeping is loud and your body shakes. i don't just weep, i sob. sobbing is when you are inconsolable. 

Raindrops from your eyesWashing all the mad out of you - Carol Hall

sometimes i cry because i am mad. i am not much of a yeller, as SC can attest. and nosy nora says i "give up the mad" too fast. but i find it easier to cry when i am mad than to face the anger. 

Raindrops from your eyesIt's gonna make you feel better - Carol Hall

i think that the sky and the earth need cleansing, and that rain is part of the water cycle. rain is essential to our survival, even if we don't like it. i think that crying is the same thing. crying is essential to our survival - it is a release of emotions that would otherwise eat away at your insides. 

It's all right to feel thingsThough the feelings may be strangeFeelings are such real thingsAnd they change and change and change - Carol Hall

nosy nora was the first person to give me permission to have feelings. i can't tell you how many conversations we have had about feelings, and about how much i hate them. i numbed myself from feelings most of my life. and having them all now is challenging. my biggest problem is identifying feelings as well as naming them. nosy nora asks me how i feel and i stare at her like i was asked if i want a chocolate-dipped pickled anchovy ... how do i FEEL? ummmm ... i don't know. "good" "bad" ... my solution was to look up feeling words and write them in my journal so that i can refer to them. 

Sad 'n' grumpy, down in the dumpySnuggly, hugly, mean 'n' uglySloppy, slappy, hoppy, happyChange and change and change - Carol Hall

now i can name some feelings when i have them. it is getting easier. 

nosy nora also tells me that feelings change. that the feelings ... the intensity of the feelings that i have now will not always be the same. 

It's all right to knowFeelings come and feelings goIt's all right to cryIt might make you feel better - Carol Hall

the intensity of the feelings that i have now is overwhelming, so i am really hoping that nosy nora and Carol Hall are right! 

because i am doing so much crying lately, i have been thinking a lot about crying and asking other people about their experiences of crying. i asked Zed about her experience of crying. 

Zed said: "sometimes i feel silly crying. like it's wasted emotion. but most times i feel so much better. like it's a mental hiccup and the crying gets rid of it. like it washes away those feelings of frustration and madness and guilt. i'm rarely ever sad when i cry, plus it's hell on your makeup. but makeup is easily fixed, and sometimes the feelings - not so much." 

feelings not so much. it's not easy to "fix" feelings because they aren't meant to be fixed. they are meant to be felt. and i learned this the hard way. i am still learning. 

It's all right to cryCrying gets the sad out of youIt's all right to cryIt might make you feel better - Carol Hall

xoxo

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