How Do You Find The Path?

[MesaRock]

I started doing that this morning. My solution was to put boxes under the bed. They are m...

I have found removing a lot of reminders to be SO HELPFUL. Yes, a little triggering, so I built a little process around it that involves me visualizing the process several times BEFORE i do it, with deep breathing and visualizing a sense of openness and possibility and a fresh start. Sometimes I have to do this several times. And then afterwards I plan something self-nurturing, like a bath or chocolate or a walk around the block or whatever will calm me down. I also write it down in my "tiny victories" book.

The process that is working for me is I choose a small area of my space (a wall, a shelf, a closet, a drawer) and I and I do a little bit at a time. Sometimes I ask a friend to come over and help me. The first time, I did my whole office and ended up in bed for a day. Oops. Now I just take something like "I will put all my work suits in a box in the closet so I don't see them every morning and remember I'm not able to work right now." And then a few days later (today) I did that with three pairs of shoes.

anyway, this may be nonsense but it's helped a lot. It also gives me things to do with my day, and the opportunity to slowly accumulate little victories. I also started changing things that don't need to be changed, just a little, every couple of days. Change a few knickknacks on the coffee table. I feel like the progress is so small, it helps to see myself taking agency and control over making little changes in my life, even if I can't have the control I'd like over the great big ones (like feeling a million times better tomorrow). :-)

hugs

 

[MesaRock]

I wish I knew. I am so stuck in my black and white thinking that I can't make any decision...

I so identify with the frozen part! I think maybe we are supposed to sit there for a little while (how long we sit is the question) getting used to having our armour off, getting used to being vulnerable. Part of me thinks that if I push myself too hard to "manifest my new life" i will simply not dream big enough. Does that make sense? There's a story in Gerald Durrell's wonderful book "My family and other animals" where he talks about crabs who have a glue in their mouths and form their shells out of whatever objects available, no matter how unsuitable. He finds some crabs and gives them healthy things to glue to themselves...it's quite moving. Some of the crabs previously had used broken glass and rusty bottlecaps, and now had beautiful opalescent pebbles and little pearls.

In this process, our old shells are being removed and we have a perhaps very blessing-in-disguise opportunity to actually - for the first times in our lives - CHOOSE what we're made of. Maybe we should concentrate on the darkness being healing - like a seed who lives in the dirt all spring getting ready for the light, and the blooming. Maybe this is a natural part of the healing process. Maybe this is a very special time where the gunk goes away, and enduring the pain and discomfort of sitting in the void of the unknown means that our eyes are readjusting...that our little sprouts are actually incubating and growing in the dark, gathering strength, gathering vision for when they'll be a dandelion or a maple tree....

 

[JEKBreatheandBelieve]

Maybe we should concentrate on the darkness being healing - like a seed who lives in the dirt all spring getting ready for the light, and the blooming. Maybe this is a natural part of the healing process. Maybe this is a very special time where the gunk goes away, and enduring the pain and discomfort of sitting in the void of the unknown means that our eyes are readjusting...that our little sprouts are actually incubating and growing in the dark, gathering strength, gathering vision for when they'll be a dandelion or a maple tree....

I used to have that kind of thinking. I would like to have it back. But maybe, like you (and many others) have said, it's just a matter of waiting out the darkness and doing what we can in the meantime. I have at least become unfrozen enough to move 7 boxes to under the bed and do some laundry. Little victories.

 

[MesaRock]

I used to have that kind of thinking. I would like to have it back. But maybe, like you (...

i came on chat one morning last week with awful panic attack and someone wiser than I said if something little itty bitty works, do it again. then do it again. then do it again. then in a while add something else itty bitty and keep doing that. my darkness feels pretty complete, but applying his idea of the itty bitty has helped a lot this week. they start to add up. maybe like a one firefly in an otherwise black night. Then two. then three. It's not the flashlight we want, but then again...

 

[MesaRock]

and by the way, the SEVEN BOXES and laundry is not little bitty. not in my world. That's huge. truly. take it seriously, as much to heart as you can. hug yourself. draw a star on your bathroom mirror with a sharpie. write it down on a 3x5 card and write HOORAY at the top. anything that makes it tangible, that you can remember it. because putting seven triggering boxes away is the opposite of frozen. xoxox