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

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metanoia

metanoia: the journey of changing one's mind, heart, self, or way of life. 

i am on a journey. a journey to learn my self-worth. a journey to unlearn everything i was taught about myself ... because intellectually i know that all i have learned is untrue.


this is me at 13. 

this is me when the children at school were calling me names and convincing me of how fat i was. they called me "whale woman" and "hippie the hippo" and told me i was fat every day. 

i believed them. 

i hid in the bathroom before and after school. i was sick to my stomach every day and i would throw up my lunch. i convinced myself that it was because of the torture that i was enduring (today we use the lame word "bullying" to describe the torture and terror i endured). but it had more to do with not wanting to be the fat girl that they called me.  

looking at this photo now, i looked like everyone else. 

looking at this photo, i can't believe how i saw myself. 

looking at this photo, i can't believe what an influence those children had on me. and i have to remind myself that i was also a child; a child easily influenced by the constant barrage of taunting and terrorizing that i was forced to abide.

i look at my legs, my arms, my straight back, my shoulders ... how tall i sat ... like i was daring them to call me more names. like i was immune to their harassment. 

at 13, i believed that i was more mature than all the other children in the school. i was treated like an adult and expected to behave like one - so i did. 

and now i am on this journey to rediscover all the things that my 13 year old self missed out on. 

i sent this post to CP to ask her what was missing. and she said, "what about the part where things were not her fault?" she said that the map of my journey can include the destination - where i want to go. even if i don't believe it yet. 

so ... this journey means getting to a place where i can say, in all honesty, that the things that happened to my 13 year old self were not my fault. that the 13 year old is not to blame. 

this journey means giving myself the right to be angry, to express that anger, and to speak my truth. 

13 was a time for exploring identity - for discovering a sense of self. and social relationships were the most influential. my social relationships at this time were not positive. and this carried over for many years. because i learned to expect the worst, and not to demand any more.

13 is when you begin to discover your sexuality - to experiment with your body. 13 brings on puberty, hormonal changes, mood swings ... 

13.

who knew that at 37 i would revert to my 13 year old self whenever things get rough? i swear that SHE is the one who has panic attacks and meltdowns. SHE is the one who cries. 

this journey that i am on includes having to forgive my 13 year old self for things that she did, things that she allowed, things that she didn't do. 

this journey means changing my mind, my heart, and my image of myself. 

i hope you have a map for your own metanoia - your own journey. 

be kind to yourself,

xoxo

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Pokey Sue's Plant Predicament

dear blog readers ...

today was a day of treatments, and lemons. it began with acupuncture and ended with a head massage and with a cranial sacral treatment. 

when i was with pokey sue, lying on her treatment table, she began telling me about her lemon tree that she bought on friday. she wanted to grow lemons so that she could make lemonade. well, it turned out to be a bit of a figurative lemon. she has had it for 6 days and it is already dying. 

i became instantly both intrigued and obsessed with the possible solutions of how to keep her lemon tree alive. pokey sue suggested that we need to work on bringing ME back to life, and not her lemon tree. but i became fascinated with the idea of trying to grow a miniature citrus tree in the winter in toronto. the idea of trying to nurture something that in the grand scheme of things belongs somewhere else. 

i became instantly wrapped up in the idea of nurturing this plant back to life. what could we do? other plants had died in the apartment, so the first thing that had to happen was a cleansing. obviously. then checking on the temperature and whether it was too hot, too dry, or if there was a draft. and then it was time for more drastic measures. the first thing i advised pokey sue to do was to go out and buy some lemons to put near the tree. for inspiration, of course. i then advised her to talk to the tree, and to play mozart for it. 

i think in my zest for livening up the life of the lemon plant, i may have suggested finding a psychic who communicates with plants. perhaps that could explain why the leaves were curling  ... yes ... i got very involved in the life of the lemons. 

now here is something interesting ... it was proven that plants have similar reactions to lie detectors that humans do. Cleve Backster, attached electrodes to plants in 1966 in order to measure the rate at which water reached the leaves. what he claims to have discovered that plants have a stress response. he tried burning a leaf and measured changes in the plant. he claimed that plants have empathy and emotions. his findings were never accepted by the "scientific community" because he did not follow the scientific method. however, it is an interesting idea - that plants can have emotional responses measurable with a polygraph machine. (check out this article) 

when i got home from my appointment, i got to work immediately, researching how to grow a lemon plant inside in ontario in the winter. i learned that she might be over-watering her tree, or she could have pests, or there could be a draft. 

right now, pokey sue's plant is a flower. and if she uses a paintbrush to pollinate, the tree could grow a lemon.

it made me think about myself. and how i am trying to make myself be something that maybe i am not ready to be. i am trying to be "better" to be "recovered" to be "healthy and happy." it made me think that i am like the citrus plant, brought inside for the winter. i am meant to blossom, but i can't force it to happen. maybe the conditions aren't right. maybe my leaves are curling. and in any case, i can't grow a lemon because i am not a lemon tree. but i can focus all my energy on saving pokey sue's plant and solving her plant predicament. 

i asked a friend to tell me about lemons ... and she shared a story. i can't steal it or quote it, so i have to introduce her as a guest blogger. this is CP and this is her story about lemons ...

i took a psychology class in university. i loved my prof. on the second day she brought a big bin of lemons and moved the desks out of order...like in a circle so, the goal was to pick a lemon and study it we each got our own well, i picked my lemon.she wanted us to study it. we had to memorize everything about it. did it have a funny dent, something about the tip? etc eventually, we were supposed to pick our lemon out of the whole class of lemons(it was a rather large class, 20 plus) so we started in a group of 4 people. we had to pick our lemon out of 4 that was easy. and so on, i think we passed the lemons around. no one in that room believed they would pick their lemon. we were all like, huh, right. so.. at the end we ended up all with our own lemons. she wanted us to take a couple things away from it:

1. something might seem impossible at the start, but it can be accomplished

2. believing in our own abilities I loved that, while lemons all seem to be the same, i picked one that was mine and i followed it to the end

3. we can follow through to the end!

anyway, i kept my lemon, we got to decorate them and mine sat on my desk in that vase with sage and some other trinkets from really hard things that i have done to remind myself that i can conquer things that most things can relate to the concept of going on a Journey at the beginning you are like, "yes, i am awesome, because I am doing THIS"then you reach a low where you are like, 'fuuuck, what did i get myself into"then there is another spike, where you are really like "woooo... i am on top of the world!!! i am so amazing for doing this"which leads to an even lower plummet: "oh my god, i am so stupid, why did i think i can do this. i fucking hate everything. nothing is cool, everything sucks"...then there is like a numb bit, where you just go in to automatic.where eventually, you find yourself coming out the other side and you feel a sense of pride and duty to self determination..anyway, apparently, i got all of that out of a lemon.xoxoxoxox

CP's story also made me think about myself. everything in life is a journey. and you can't skip ahead to the next summit (right KM?), you have to keep climbing the mountain no matter how steep. 

xoxo
...

vulnerability and putting yourself out there ...

“To share your weakness is to make yourself vulnerable; to make yourself vulnerable is to show your strength.” ― Criss Jami 

i am not sure what is more difficult; owning your story, or sharing your story. 

or perhaps they are intertwined. 

i have been "putting myself out there" lately - embracing my vulnerability. and it isn't easy. and yet, each time i share a piece of myself, it's like i have given away a piece for someone else to hold. 

"putting yourself out there" can come in many forms. it can be by telling a friend your secrets. by writing a letter. by starting a blog. 

“Vulnerability is the only authentic state. Being vulnerable means being open, for wounding, but also for pleasure. Being open to the wounds of life means also being open to the bounty and beauty. Don’t mask or deny your vulnerability: it is your greatest asset. Be vulnerable: quake and shake in your boots with it. the new goodness that is coming to you, in the form of people, situations, and things can only come to you when you are vulnerable, i.e. open.” ― Stephen Russell, Barefoot Doctor's Guide to the Tao: A Spiritual Handbook for the Urban Warrior

i'm going to tell you a story. 

a story about putting myself out there, being vulnerable, failing (not falling), and picking myself back up. as the incredible Brene Brown wrote: "vulnerability is not knowing victory or defeat, it's understanding the necessity of both; it's engaging. it's being all in."

last night i went to an audition. normally, i wouldn't be nervous. i am a singer. i put myself out there quite often. i love to sing. i love to perform. singing is my happy place. i also studied singing; i learned how to sight read a piece of music and sing it. i had tests in sight singing. so showing up to sight sing a piece of music in front of 2 people that i know fairly well wouldn't normally be concerning, or nerve wracking, or upsetting, or cause for worry. 

however, in the space that i am in these days, concentrating was challenging. being "all in" was challenging. because my vulnerability was bigger than me. 

there i was, in a room, with a piece of music in my hand, staring at notes on the page and having no freaking idea what the notes were. 

that was disconcerting and discombobulating. i just couldn't distinguish the damn notes. it didn't help that it bounced between flats and naturals and had some really awesome intervals. 

following that mess, i was given a line of music to read. in C major. i don't know if it was because my brain was still in the key of the other song, or if it was my depressed mood, but i sang that entire line of music in a minor key. 

crazy. 

embarrassing. 

humiliating. 

and what do you do when you humiliate yourself like that? 

what are your options? 

never audition for anything again? 
never put yourself out there? 
never be vulnerable? w
hat good would that do for me? 
what kind of life would i have if that were my solution? 

making myself hard and hiding away for the rest of my life is NOT a solution.  

“It’s the hard things that break; soft things don’t break. It was an epiphany I had today and I just wonder why it took me so very, very long to see it! You can waste so many years of your life trying to become something hard in order not to break; but it’s the soft things that can’t break! The hard things are the ones that shatter into a million pieces!” ― C. JoyBell C.

hard things shatter when they break. what a great lesson! 

being soft doesn't mean being a jellyfish, or being something that can be stepped on or squished. being soft means being bendable, changeable, malleable ...  being vulnerable means being soft enough that when you fuck up at an audition, it doesn't break you - no matter how humiliated you feel. being vulnerable means being soft enough that when your world feels like it is crumbling down around you, you wont break.

and at the same time ... change is FUCKING HARD AND SOMETIMES IT HURTS!!! Nosy Nora shared a quote with me today.  

 "The nature of understanding is that alone we can come to understand only what we already understand. To risk testing our organizing principles in dialogue with a text or a person makes possible a new meaning."- Donna Orange

sometimes changing isn't something that you can do on your own. sometimes you need a second opinion, another voice besides the (often critical) voice inside your head. sometimes you need a guide, a mentor, and someone to keep you on the path you need to (or want to, or are meant to) be on.

being vulnerable, and putting myself out there has been the most exciting, terrifying, liberating, and painful journey of my life thus far. sometimes i think that i am so very brave to be letting myself be seen. 

“Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen.” ― Brené Brown

sometimes i think that i am bat shit crazy for sharing this much of myself and of my story. 

what i have found, especially through readers who have been emailing me, is that sharing my story allows me to connect with people in a way that i never thought possible. 

i continue to be amazed as i discover that MY stories, MY emotions, MY vulnerability are imbued with the commonalities of my readers. by that i mean that i get emails from people who can relate to my stories, who have similar experiences, who UNDERSTAND. 

“It makes me sad that so many people feel they're only allowed to show their best face, while their humanity and vulnerabilities are forbidden and hidden. How else do we connect, but by commonality, by mutual understanding and truth in life's experiences? Whether it makes you smile or cringe, a truth spoken is a healing thing.” ― Jennifer DeLucy

and that makes me feel so much less alone. 

putting myself out there, writing this blog, going to an audition, telling my doctor the truth ... none of those things make me a hero. because as Brene Brown wrote, a hero is someone who puts their life on the line. and that isn't what i am doing. i am putting my life OUT there. but i am not putting it on the line. i am simply demonstrating courage; the courage to say that i am vulnerable and human and that i need help to navigate this journey ... the courage to say that i can't do it all alone. 

“Heroics is often about putting our life on the line. Ordinary courage is about putting our vulnerability on the line. In today's world, that's pretty extraordinary.” ― Brené Brown

xoxo

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