Ritual

 Reading a book about how essential ritual is to work through grief and other emotional/spiritual processes. I have a weird relationship with ritual. There are times like At May Day or bare bones when I love it. There are times when I have felt like I am trespassing, or outside the circle even when invited. I don’t really know how to get over my stuff, but there is a deep longing for something sacred to break through, and invite me into being witnessed, in being part of something. 

My roles have always been a reason to stay separate. I get annoyed talking about myself like this, but it feels real. I don’t feel like I belong, and never really have. So it’s hard…. I have a desire to create, lead, be part of something communal and sacred but I don’t know how to relate. I distance myself. I dunno…

Maybe I need drugs. 

Sickness

 

I am sick. It started Thursday and seems to come and go. I am on the quil. I just got back from a walk, for a few blocks I felt great, and by the time I got home I was ready for a nap. Maybe after this. 

It is a Saturday. No one has reached out. I don't have any major plans -though I had a desire to go to a protest at 3 downtown Minneapolis. Don't think I'll make it. In some ways this was the best weekend to get sick since I didn't have anything. 

I am reading a book called The Wild Edge of Sorrow about grief. Its one of those books that you pick up, read some, and put down for a few days. I keep having a desire to read it, but when it is time I choose my phone and distraction instead. 

The reason I want to read it is really clear. Its speaking to my soul and my heart. At times my mind wanders when reading it, wanders to work and clients, wanders to old relationships, wanders to distraction... but my heart and my soul want this level of richness. 

In the premise of the book is basically that grief is a huge part of the soul/human journey and that we in our culture have basically pushed it away -and thereby banished whole parts of ourselves. It is a trauma in itself that we don't acknowledge grief very well. The author then breaks down the types of grief we experience (5 gates) and their entry way leads to a vast sorrow -that is natural and necessary to process in order to live more fully. He breaks it down as: 

1) Everything we love, we lose (grief of loss)

2) The places that have not known love (grief of exiled or shamed parts)

3) The sorrows of the world (societal and climate loss)

4) What we expected and did not receive (unmet needs / including those that should be natural to society)

5) Ancestral Grief (intergenerational trauma/grief).

The gates of 2,4,5 really struck me. I know 1 and 3 also hit me, but I think I am more frequently able to acknowledge and name these kinds of losses. When I watch the news, 3 hits me every time. When I think of the past, 1 hits me.... but naming shame as grief, naming unmet needs as grief... naming generational patterns and the impacts of generational trauma as grief is really helpful. 

Grief means there is a mix of emotions, rather than just trauma (fear and avoidance), grief says step into this... trauma says run.  

I am probably not able to do this right now... but just the idea of saying who would you be if you let shame go? If you acknowledged that your guilt/shame is actually a transmission from the past and you can honor it by healing, rather than feeling exiled?  That your loneliness and sorrow are not a personal defect, but rather the impacts of a society that has lost its way... and really mean these things. 

I am probably not in the headspace to be able to fully do that thinking/feeling right now. But I think this might be my next step. I think I need to imagine, to let go, to stop holding on to anchors that don't serve me. 

I was walking to subway and saw someone who had M's stature, and thought... man it would be really good to let go of my shame, guilt, hurt. To just say sorry and move forward without worrying.

Of course, the author of this book, who invites us into a new recognition and ritual, has also been accused of misusing his power...  There is a place of mistrust and anger and hurt and desire to exile...

Maybe I'll add to all of this when I wake up from my nap.

Rainy saturday

 I woke up late this morning, or rather I’d felt like sleeping in. When I woke up at 7 something the sky was blue and pink, but when I woke up later it was gray and rainy. 

Late mornings equal headaches and difficulty focusing. So I was determined to get some caffeine and get out of the apartment. 

By about 12:30 I’d done a few chores and decided I could get lunch and then get coffee and read and digest things. 

The chipotle was really unclean. The workers sat around rather than cleaning when they had a break. The coffee shop had new art in the walls that I wanted to spend time with, but it was packed and talkative. I started a new book on grief- and struggled to concentrate. I ate half a monkey bread - not great for my stomach but…

Prior to going to the coffee shop I’d felt really lonely, after I didn’t want to deal with people. I was only there for 30-40 minutes and had to get up and go. It may also have been the cold rain on my clothes and not enough layers. Or the headache. Or the fact that I feel like I need to read some texts from my dad but don’t want to, because I’m irritable already. 

On the way home I considered getting groceries just to have something productive to claim for the day before I give up. I decided not to. Maybe I’ll go out later and get some, but for now I’m in warm pjs and ready to take a nap. I’ll probably keep reading the book and it will knock me out. 

I feel lonely today even though I don’t want to be with people. I want to be with a person. 

Last night I drove to Hudson and my step grandparents bought me dinner, we played two different card games and they drove me around the town. It was actually really nice. I’d been nervous about it all week, and could easily see myself going back multiple times now. 

I’m an old person I guess. Perkins and card games. My idea of a good time. 

Grrr

It’s been a tough couple of weeks. I think over the last few days I’ve been feeling relatively good. Part of it has to do with speaking my mind to my dad. Part of it had to do with the weather change and having some sunlight. Some of it had to do with reading spiritual texts and watching more spiritual stuff to give me some perspective. A lot of my clients this week are also struggling and I think the training last week helped give me a little bit of distance which has been nice. 

My dad texted me back this morning. A few short paragraphs, not necessarily responding to everything I said. But acknowledging one thing, while also hinting to disagreements between us. The small half step felt so validating that I was crying on the floor again. And then I had to remind myself I couldn’t close the distance between us with him taking a half step. 

I had this memory of M doing that. Me spending days upset and going over things again and again wondering why she would treat me this way, then confronting her in some non aggressive way, only for her to often times admit something even worse that threw me off completely, and then she’d take a half step and I was so desperate for things to be ok, that I’d make leaps across the chasm to meet her there. 

Somehow I got onto the ocd algorithm on Instagram and it’s kind of killing me. As in, last week when I was anxious and trauma brain around my dad, a lot of my ocd symptoms came back… and now that people are reminding me, it feels like they never went away just got quiet or changed, and I’ve been living into these internal compulsions the whole time without realizing it. My little rituals and routines, my constant battles internally… they got smaller so it didn’t matter as much. Last week they got big again.

It’s really fucking painful to feel that scared and ashamed all the time. 

This week I feel more like the adult version of my OCD, last week I felt like my kid version or teen version. 

I dunno… I felt like writing something down instead of going over it in my head over and over preparing for therapy tomorrow. (This is another ocd thing I do- before during and after social interactions). 

Tired

 Sunday night. 

I'm kind of exhausted. Didn't get a weekend really because I've been in a training  (5.5 hours fri-sun). A peer in the class said "yeah, you basically have worked 7 days in a row and now you have to go back to work tomorrow. 

I have 5 clients tomorrow and a dentist appointment at 8 am. Not sure what I was thinking. The coming week is giving me anxiety already even though it doesn't seem so bad. A couple of clients who are normally online are coming in person. I have an intake on Thursday. 

I haven't fully prepared though. 

Also just kind of feeling off because I've been going in and out of trauma responses for the last week as I reconnect with my dad for the first time in several months. My tarot reader lady said that this week would be a major healing step, a turning of the page. Maybe. I dunno. I feel exhausted. 

The training was ok. I felt like I didn't really get any new information, but a difference in paradigm. I know a lot of people were saying the training was a lot because it felt like new information. To me it was a synthesis of other stuff I've read... and together during a small group, I acknowledged that to some extent the paradigm shift just feels like buddhism to me. It hadn't really clicked until that moment, but after saying it -it made a lot of sense. Don't follow people into their problems and despair, acknowledge that suffering is suffering and help them find ways to have compassion for their experience -EG lend the qualities of their adult (more enlightened self) to the wounds... Wrap up your baby and hold it. 

So... not entirely a new approach, they're just finding ways to share this paradigm through psychological treatment and calling them anchors. Easy enough.

I spent much of the weekend noticing my experience, noticing the methods of teaching, noticing my desire to participate or not participate. Noticing how I was struggling to connect socially. For the first time in a while it really hit me just how burnt out I feel. Not compassion fatigue, but definitely struggling to relate. 

It didn't help that the trainings started at 8 am in a dimly lit (think mood light) room while its raining. It felt like they were trying to keep us calm or something. Many people joked about nodding off.

So it wasn't really the information,  and not really the social stuff, but eventually during the once a day practice small groups I did connect with some folks. And it was nice, but it also felt a little like we could have just had consult groups for an hour and a hand out. I guess the training so far has reminded me of grad school -sitting in a room with a bunch of folks who haven't done their reading while the teacher goes over it. Not that the instructors are boring -they're great instructors. Which made it sort of fun to watch them -lots of breaking things down experientially, lots of stories, lots of visuals, lots of jokes and interactions. 

But beyond the biology of low light, and some irritability, I've also been processing trauma all week. I spent the last few days writing "bullet points" for my dad. I feel good about it, but I spent hours and hours trying to figure out how to name what I needed to name. He told me he'd respond (like I hear you) but hasn't yet.  I guess while writing it, I realized that I am more traumatized and more mentally shook up than I realized. So now I kind of feel like a wounded animal. 

On and off this week I felt all these old behaviors and thoughts come up, and it just took so much effort to tell myself I am ok. Literally last night when I had sent this list to my dad I felt like throwing up and just cried on the bathroom floor in front of the toilet. Earlier this week I was having these intrusive thoughts of cutting myself. Its shit like this that makes it hard. But I didn't do anything too bad... I did a lot of meditation, and visualization, and ritual, and prayer...  and it was effortful.

This afternoon I was watching insta reels from therapists talking about internal OCD and so much of it seemed like my daily way of keeping myself together... and part of me wondered if I've just been tricking myself into believing I am not as bad off as I thought. Like maybe I am just really good at pretending to be functional... meanwhile I am pushing everyone in my life away and internally just going through obsession/compulsion cycles and not even recognizing it. Like my little lists... like my little routines (which I couldn't do all of this weekend). Anyway... I feel very low and I am entering into a hard week. So that sucks. 

I feel like I was hoping that at this training I might meet someone or something... But I am so not open to that right now. The little tarot reading I heard was basically like  -you're finally free to be you and to connect with people you want to. And I am like... I want to hide from the world and not come out of my cave for a week. 

Gonna do some reading and go to bed. 

argh

 My dad's love is so inconsistent, it's incredibly confusing. 

Meh

My dad just reached out. He said he was disappointed he didn't hear from me on Father's day and "if this (no contact)" is the way I want to play this out.

I am not sure how to respond. A) because sometimes the way he communicates things seems to imply I am guilty of something if I don't make more effort. B) because I have been thinking about how to move forward and the best idea I've come up with recently is maybe we ask my aunt to mediate, because though I have been heard, I haven't been understood. 

Part of me wants to say, "do you know me?"    (as in... do you think the kid who went to your wedding with the woman who you cheated on his mom with, is the one who wants to go no contact?)

Part of me wants to say "no, it isn't, got any ideas?"  (as in... don't put this on me... you're the one who screwed up). 

Part of me wants to say, "fuck you" (as in... can you acknowledge that you're part of this?)

Part of me wants to ask him to go to therapy...   (as in... do you ever take responsibility?)

I was talking with my mom briefly yesterday and she said do you think his attachment wound is that he doesn't actually attach or connect, -and we clarified 'beyond when people need him?'   I said basically -well I've dealt with that too... I sure do love to feel needed.  I suppose he has some longer-term friends, and he is close to some of his siblings... but there is a desire to be needed in those relationships. 

When we go for walks, he listens... I am sure it makes him feel like he is contributing -and he was, greatly. I miss having him as a potential confidant, or someone to talk about big things with... but I've lost trust in him again. 

I want to say... "last time we had a serious chat about this, you told me it doesn't matter what I share, what I feel, what I tell you... it won't change the way you feel about it." Well... then what's the point of talking about anything?  I mean... intellectual curiosity?   I told you that you're basically saying the people who are hurting my, my community, my business, my future are fine by you... so I guess you don't really care about my feelings, my community, my business, my future.  Right?