It occurs to me that when I want to hide, there are hundreds of places to go. Maybe infinite numbers of places I can go. All within the confines of my tiny little mind. I guess if I lap myself running around my brain cavity, I can pass go and pic up the $200. One would hope. Or at least a “Get Out of Jail Free” card.
Anyhow…I am trying to feel slightly better the past couple of days. The FedEx dufus who can’t seem to comprehend that my apartment is on the 3rd Floor and not the 1st is not helping. I am going to have to stake out the next delivery and figure out which driver is doing that, because every 2nd or 3rd delivery makes it correctly to my front door. It’s got to be a single driver who is…difficult. Or lazy. Or something. It’s a first world problem, but annoying nonetheless.
I had a great session with my BIPOC small group last night, talking about how some of us (regardless of color) take care of other folks far more than we care for ourselves. Where it sometimes has an ethnic/racial slant is when we feel the need to be better than everyone else, please everyone else so as not to rock the boat. I acknowledge there are people pleasers who are of dominant culture, but I don’t know if they feel the pressure of having to represent “their kind” the way POC do. I’m not sure about that, and it could be good fodder for a discussion with dominant culture folks. We’ll see.
My meal delivery menu for this week included a beef/dill/cream sauce thing, with peas (kind of an odd choice, but it worked). I ate on that for two days, and it wasn’t half bad. Today I will not have anything from my delivery since the other selections include meat, and I will be immediately thrust into the pits of Hell if I eat meat on Friday. Old habits die really hard.
Speaking of old habits, I had the idea that I should do some work on my shadow self. Nothing formal or even organized, but I’m doing some meditations on YouTube that are designed to help one get in touch with the shadow, and work to make peace with it. That, of course, is easier said than done.
The shadow involves what is best left in the past, but shades the present and even hope for the future. Sometimes it’s just not wanting to revisit those issues or events, constantly batting them down into the void, refusing to give them voice. This doesn’t really work, at least not for me, and only serves to raise a lot of noise inside my head. I hate when it’s noisy in there, because I have no peace. No peace of mind or peace in the body or peace in the spirit. No peace anywhere. No justice, no peace. I suppose it’s not justice to refuse acknowledgement of those root causes for so much of my persistent distress.
The other part of the shadow work is the self-forgiveness part, which is magnanimously difficult for me. I suppose my ego dictates the fantasy that I am, or at least can be, perfect. That I don’t make mistakes. That I’ve got everything under control. That’s more or less a lie. More, actually. A big fat lie. Nobody can be perfect. Me believing that I can be perfect is an egotistical delusion.
I suppose the other significant portion of the work I’m doing with shadow is the change in how to keep the light on and not bury more stuff in the back, in the dark, down in the hole. I feel as though my shadow self has somewhat overwhelmed me, and once I’ve gotten it cut down to size I don’t want it back. Live and learn, I suppose.
A few minutes ago, I was out with the psycho dog, and she was in rare form. It’s a rather nice morning, and we both enjoyed the low humidity and moderate temperature. She literally howled at a passing dog, and could not be persuaded to hush. Then, a neighbor lady came by with her chihuahua, and gave us a bag of treats. She said their other dog was allergic to them, or at least her daughter thought so. These are pretty high-quality jerky treats, so I offered one to the manic dog to get just a couple of seconds of quiet…and it worked. She couldn’t bark while chewing, so I was able to hear myself think for just a bit.
I wonder how I came to be here, in this particular reality. It’s a futile process, because of course I will never really know, but I definitely believe I made some kind of sentient choice to come here, under these circumstances, at this time, with these conditions. I wish that I could know when I’ve learned some lesson I’m supposed to learn, or rounded some corner of ethics or morality so that I could make a point of retaining the learning. I would hate to have repeating this class over and over again. I have the feeling that it’s a lower elementary class, too so I would like to feel that I’m moving up to middle school or high school. Being stuck in the 4th grade feels like a defeat.
Today I am going to have lunch with a friend, and her mother. I really like her mother, and she has been gold in getting my friend back to her usual self. The self that I first knew, the jovial and fun-loving friend who was not so consumed with anger at everything and everyone. She had gotten to be embittered and caustic, and it was really no fun being around her. I understand how that can happen, when everything in the world seems wrong no matter how much you try to make it right, and you take it out on everyone who’s not nailed down. I had to keep her a bit at a distance, but I was still there. That’s how I roll in a friendship. It’s not always what I get in return, but it’s still my choice to operate that way.
Last night we talked a little about work, working, having work, our relationship to work. I have been coming to realize that I am still thinking of myself as somewhat of a lesser being because I have taken on the label of “unemployed”, as though I have less value and worth than someone who is working. That is just crap. I am working on unlearning that, and assigning myself worth and value according to how I move through the world. Why isn’t that enough? I am enjoying what I do in terms of social justice work and building community, and wasn’t during my working years. That counts for something. At the end of the day, that counts for everything.
The Sound Hole 