What Are You Feeling Today? Not Thinking, Rather Feeling! Can You Identify Yours?

[Britt.f7]

This day turned out well. I am relieved. I am actually up late for myself. It is an odd feeling that I have trouble explaining. It is almost euphoria that the day turned out so normal, but not my normal, someone else's normal. In a good way. I wish for more days like this. It has to get better, right?

 

[Hope4Now]

@macca hooray! You talked to your mother and felt validated. That is HUGE. I'm high-fiveing you virtually.

 

[Hope4Now]

So today, something released in me. I feel relieved. I did a REALLY LONG meditation...not particularly focused, listening to a chakra clearing app on my phone with wave sounds in the background...more of a free-flowing thing. I was alone in the house (except for the dog who usually stares at me while I'm meditating, but today slept through it). Lots of stuff came up and lots of my usual body-jerking and shakes, but I didn't fall in. Very relaxed at the end of it. And...the gift of the day...my pain level was significantly less than it has been for months! I even survived my mother without getting triggered. The crippling pain came back tonight, but in spite of it I'm still feeling happy to have had hours without it. Maybe I just need like 10 times the amount of meditation that other people need?

 

[ms spock]

Feeling like I want to stay home and rest and putter around today. Frustrated that I have to pick up my mother and spend six hours with her, eating, doing shopping, taking her to her church, etc.. She is my most intense trigger even when she doesn't do or say anything that should trigger me. I feel guilty that I wish she weren't in my life, that I feel so burdened by her. I am playing out my whole childhood on a weekly basis..."if I just do x, then y won't happen." My husband has 5 aging relatives for whom he is responsible, so he helps me when he can and I help him, but I am an only child. She has no understanding at all of what she has done to me, and she never will. I still feel like a captive. Hate myself for not being able to figure out another way to manage this.

Hope4Now,

I am feeling for you. I am really feeling for you.

I like the notion of self compassion. I am sending you my best thoughts and compassion today.

What a double bind to be in.

I can only offer a feeble - please be kind to yourself - you are already experiencing too much pain in this situation.

 

[ms spock]

I feel both good and contained and also emotional and grieving and also a bit of despair and worry. But more emotional and grieving as well as good and contained. So that is progress.

I decided to make a choice. I am not going to get suicidal and stressed out about packing my bags. I am just going to deal with the feelings under that, I am so scared etc and sad and grieving.

I feel better for having a couple of less than one minute cries.

 

[ms spock]

SMaybe I just need like 10 times the amount of meditation that other people need?

I feel the same at times Hope4Now.

 

[macca]

Depressed.

 

[ms spock]

Worn out but contained. Emotional but contained.

 

[franciemarnie]

Kinda down. Tongue has been thick and hurts on the sides. I sound like I have a sucker in my mouth. Afraid years of smoking have caught up with me as would be expected. Afraid. Slept two hours.

Still - smoking was the only comfort I knew for years and years. I don't regret it - crazy as that sounds. Or let's say - I have compassion for the self I was.

It could be nothing. Just stress. But still...you know how it is when you fear the worst and just don't know. As for seeing a doctor, well...

 

[therisa]

I feel like the past week's stress level are taking their toll, upon my body, as I slept most of Saturday away. Waking up, with my lips covered in painful micro-cuts. Want to go back to bed, and sleep away today (Sunday), but I have responsibilities that need to look after, mine and R's cats. Think my sleep debt is demanding payment from me, and I don't have the coin, to pay it back.

Sigh.

 

[Hope4Now]

@Ms Spock, thank you for sending me your compassion. I feel like I need lots of it from other people, and maybe that will help me build my self-compassion muscle.

I'm sending compassion to you as well. Dealing with the feelings underneath anxiety and suicidal thoughts is really frightening. Shakes the personal universe because it is so painful and unfamiliar. Courage to you as well as compassion. Know that there are so many of us out here who feel with you and hope for you.

 

[Hope4Now]

Today I am feeling completely ungrounded, quite scared, but curious and hopeful at the same time. The feeling puts me in mind of several years ago when I was determined to participate in an activity called a zip line at a wilderness camp my son was attending. I have no idea why I wanted to do this crazy thing. Perhaps just to prove to myself that I could do something I was terrified of (I do this frequently in my life). The plan was to climb about 200 feet up a tree, stand upon a 1 foot square platform, hook the cable to the harness, and jump. The zip line would carry my suspended body at a downward angle hundreds of feet through the air until I landed in a lake. The climb was nothing.

The terror came when I had to relinquish control, trust the harness, and jump. It was my decision what to do. Part of me knew I would not be harmed, yet I felt terrified (many of the same physical symptoms I experience regularly now). I could have climbed back down, given up, tormented myself for being a coward and weakling, or. I took a deep breath, sent out some sort of non-verbal "prayer" for some universal energy to sustain me, and I jumped. 'Twas exhilarating and terrifying and satisfying all at once. I did it twice more. Today, I feel as if I am steps away from standing upon the platform...still climbing, getting closer. I'm not sure what I'm going to see when I get there, if anything. I am hopeful that I will be able to "jump"--out of dissociation, into memory, reality, feeling, life. I am hopeful that my deepest self and the people who love and care about me will ensure that the harness is secure and that I will emerge at the end shaky, wet, alive, and triumphant. That's how I'm feeling today.