Work and Germany; Benedictines and Buddhists: Attitude

[Copabanana]

Well, I followed your lead to work for 15 minutes only, in the kitchen, trying to focus on the work. I worked the whole time waiting for it to end, watching the clock, knowing that I would allow myself to post at the end, as reward.

So much for being present. So much for chopping onions. It was a start.

Unfortunately, I have won many auctions of stuff about which I am indifferent. The one thing I wanted was the necklace I did not get. I feel slightly bereft. I will see this as a sign, a clue. I want what I could not have. Was denied. Wants I had to stuff. They were beyond my reach.

The missing signifier. The word missing from the sentence that carries the meaning. The sentence missing from the paragraph, that promises to tell it all. The daughter missing from the family, who holds the heart.

I am the missing signifier. It is me. I cannot be defined by any one thing or many things. I define myself. As I choose. I am not dependent on or beholden any thing outside of myself. Naked I am enough. (Quite too much, at my present state.) The missing necklace, grabbed by someone else, was me. I can gain control as I see this. I hope.

COPA

 

[New Leaf]

We are constantly being bombarded from external forces to buy this, buy that. The consumer industry is very clever, using psychology and brainwashing to make us think we need things.

I will stop now. Until I better understand.

I think this is a good thing Copa. I will do the same. I have a bunch of stuff, and want to downsize, to make it easier to clean my house.

I am going to try this. I must clear out, and organize my house, before I bring any more stuff in.

As Cedar quoted and I will use in a different context here

I..do..not...need..this..crap.
leafy

 

[New Leaf]

In fact, I thumb my nose at the consumer industry who would hypnotize me with their wares, and have me continue to want things I do not need.

I rebel against them, by not buying.

Calling on the Extreme Chinese Waitress Goddess

Fook Yuen.

Phooey.

leafy

 

[Copabanana]

I am seeing is that each thing I buy I think might be part of myself that is missing. I am using them to try to be whole.

Copa

 

[New Leaf]

I am seeing is that each thing I buy I think might be part of myself that is missing. I am using them to try to be whole.

You are more whole
and wonderful than
anything in the world.
You are priceless.
There is no trinket that will replace you.
Or, fill you.
You are the one,
the only,
the original
Copa.
And you are marvelous.
in every way.

leafy

 

[InsaneCdn]

To which D H responds: "Cardiac event, Cedar."

From this day forward when I am having an ugly day? This is what I am going to say to myself: "Unfortunately I look ugly."

Sorry, NOT acceptable.

Do NOT, under ANY circumstances, refer to yourself as "ugly". It's part of old tapes playing in your head. It reinforces the negative self image.

Better: "Unfortunately, I'm not looking my best today."

It's true, from time to time, that any one of us is having a "less than" day. Just like once in a while we get a "more than" day. It doesn't make us less, or more... we are still ourselves. Nothing wrong with acknowledging that we aren't usually like "this"... without the negative labels.

(If kid2 were to hear me talking like you say you talk to yourself? She'd bite my head off, really fast. She's the one that is teaching me to avoid labels.)

 

[Copabanana]

I just finished my third 15 minute work session. I am less anxious. I am approaching this a little bit in the spirit of discovery.

More consciously than I remember, I experienced this: When I clean, I become distressed because everything is so dirty. I despair that it will get clean. I feel I have already destroyed it and it cannot be repaired. That the dirt and the stains and cracks have become part of it. And no matter how much I try I will not succeed. It is hopeless.

I am hopeless. I see when I clean I am encountering my broken and dirty and destroyed self, which I fear is impossibly damaged and dirty. And it is all my fault.

I realize too this: Most of the money I have, not all, was my mother's. Stolen from me, much of it. Money she did not want me to have. Wanted it to be hers. It is blood money. My blood.

Am I obeying her by frittering it away? Am I spending my blood, with the fantasy of recouping myself and my life? It seems so.

I figured out with the calculator that to acquire the habit of cleaning the house I will have to work almost 7 years, working 4 hours a day. Cedar, there has to be a quicker way to do this. If I work at 15 minute increments, it might take me until I am 90.

COPA

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

It was then she starting screaming. She became incontinent. She began to die. For real.

I am so sorry, Copa. However prepared we think we are, we are never prepared for it to be for real.

I am so sorry, Copa.

And then the thought that came into my mind was this: I want to kill myself.

Okay, so how did I miss this.

It's coming conscious, Copa.

It has been there all along and you have alluded to it, before.

Stay with me, okay, Copa?

Small steps, one at a time.

This has happened to me, but not like that exactly. There will be places inside where that is the message hidden behind the door. Work is the answer. Sincerity in thought and action, and a commitment to heal, to be whole, to reclaim the self, to sit with the feelings and do nothing about what is.

Have you begun seeing the therapist, Copa? If not, this may be what is needed now.

I would never want to lose you, Copa. Remember when we did not know what happened to Serenity? And we felt so badly?

It's like that.

I am sorry I did not see that post this morning.

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

Well, I like my study on habit formation better. 66 days. A scientific study says so.

There are 3 phases each of 22 days:

The first 22 days is broadcasting intent. Telling people. Get them to support you. Enlist them to monitor and remind.

The second stage of 22 days is self-analysis. I think that is what we are doing here. What do you want out of life? How do you want to represent yourself?

Get to the core of the why's behind your motivations to find the unconscious motivations.

The third phase of 22 days is consolidation I think. It was not well-explained in the article. They say: find something to hold onto. Something to push you to your final goal. When you cannot see the light at end of tunnel but can see glimmers, and that is enough.

I think this last phase is anchoring yourself in who you are and want to be. Recognize the shift in your identity. Understanding that you are what you have sought to create. It is already you. In you. It is not only desiring something or to stop something, but committing to it no matter what as part of you. Not just I want a clean house, and work through the barriers, and unconscious conflicts that have stopped me.

It is to say I am somebody who cleans my house. Because that is who I am. So the motivation at this stage comes from something essential in you. Some meaning.

Finally. Celebrate it.

COPA

 

[InsaneCdn]

I figured out with the calculator that to acquire the habit of cleaning the house I will have to work almost 7 years, working 4 hours a day. Cedar, there has to be a quicker way to do this. If I work at 15 minute increments, it might take me until I am 90.

Think of it in terms of acquiring fitness.

When I was at my worst, I could walk maybe 10 minutes a DAY. At that point... what are my chances of ever doing the things I want to do? Very low.
But I didn't stay at 10 minutes a day for very long.
After a few weeks, it was 15, then 20. Then 20, twice a day.

Right now, 15 minutes might be all you can face (it's all *I* can face for housework!). Keep at it, and you will find that you stop looking at the clock. You will get involved in a single task, and you will complete it. Something finite like... clean the washroom. (for the record, laundry and dishes are NEVER "done")

 

[New Leaf]

(for the record, laundry and dishes are NEVER "done")

or yard work, for that matter.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

It is as if I am lost in a crowd and I look from one face to the next, hoping one and then the other will be there for me. I am looking desperately for myself in the crowd. And the longer I seek the more desperate and more willing I am to grab onto one, then the other. I am seeking outside myself, what I am. Who I am. Because, apparently, I do not know.

When we let go of reality as we knew it to be, we are lost for a time. Nothing fits, all the rules are changing, our (mine, for sure) emotional responses are too highly keyed, are out of whack, somehow. This makes perfect sense. For all of our lives, we have looked to the abuser for who and how to be. We trusted the abuser. Think of the story about looking for work and believing no one would hire me, of course they would not.

We may not even be angry about it until we get the little hurts. The big betrayals are just so outrageous we can see the wrongness. But it's the little cruelties that leave me feeling...bereft is a good word, but I feel more physically sick, nauseous almost but not quite, at the cruelties.

We are moving quickly now, Copa.

You are fine. This happened to me, too. You will come through.

It is part of healing, part of knowing what we refused to know. It was that painful then and it is that painful, now. This is why I left my own process right here in black and white. Those times I post about the feelings being overwhelming and then passing, the necessity of finding the work piece to survive it.

You would not have given yourself the feelings if you could not work through them.

About the faces in the crowd, Copa?

When the tiles of that mosaic
once composed in blood on stone
Fall seamlessly together
revealing no face but her own

Then, witch and Child, awakened
repossess the cauldron and claim the loom

Reweaving tales first told in ancient blood
on stone.

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

Have you begun seeing the therapist, Copa?

No. I do not trust anybody.

COPA

 

[Copabanana]

We may not even be angry about it until we get the little hurts. The big betrayals are just so outrageous we can see the wrongness

Imagine. Now the money that was supposed to be mine, and stolen, is mine. And I cannot get rid of itself fast enough. I am not entitled even to what is mine. A beautiful home. A profession. Even fully, of love.

COPA

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

But I do not know how to cultivate desire, to cultivate it, in a caring and intentional way.

How would one learn that?

I don't know either, Copa. I think it would involve play time. Time to listen and explore and learn what it is we do like. Everything is so new to us. It really is as though we have been imprisoned. We are wild with grief and freedom.

I figured out with the calculator that to acquire the habit of cleaning the house I will have to work almost 7 years, working 4 hours a day. Cedar, there has to be a quicker way to do this. If I work at 15 minute increments, it might take me until I am 90.

I think we are supposed to do it like this, Copa:

1) Pick up the house the night before.
2) Begin the day by dressing
3) Set up a cleaning schedule. We didn't get here overnight, and we are not going to establish new habits overnight.

This is a free site which will help you accomplish this thing you have determined to do.

When we are overwhelmed, we clean our sink to shiny, sparkling. She has instructions for sink cleaning right on that site. We are not the only ones overwhelmed by things we have let go. Small steps. One class, then another class, and the next thing you knew, it was time to affix a title to your name. This will be the same.

www.flylady.com

Are you rewarding yourself for what you are accomplishing, Copa?

Very small jobs: Clean one chandelier. That's it for that day. But the chandelier is clean and won't need to be done for three months.

Other than picking up and making the bed and vacuuming, you are done for that day. Who cares if it takes until you are 90, as long as the bed is made most days and the floor is swept some days and the sink is cleaned and shiny?

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

No. I do not trust anybody.

Me, either.

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I am not entitled even to what is mine.

Could you be so angry that you are destroying...what are you destroying do you think, Copa. Dependence? Something to do with the cost of the inheritance, some determination to devalue or destroy it because there could never be an inheritance that could justify what it cost you to go back, to fall in love with her? There is some defiant thing happening here, Copa. Not a sense of entitlement, but a sense of defiance.

Something strong and alone and resilient and courageous and free enslaved through an act of will.

Remember we used to post about imagery of the fiercest of the birds of prey, Copa?

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I am the missing signifier. It is me. I cannot be defined by any one thing or many things. I define myself. As I choose. I am not dependent on or beholden any thing outside of myself. Naked I am enough. (Quite too much, at my present state.) The missing necklace, grabbed by someone else, was me. I can gain control as I see this. I hope.

The thing you could not have is the thing that matters. So, that is what is being re-enacted, with this buying of things. Which thing you believe in that you will not receive. What you will have instead, and whether that is enough.

?

In my journey through Copa, there came a place where I was not enough. Where I was dependent. Where I needed there to be something outside myself because inside was blasted and empty and barely alive.

But there was no one.

Naked, I was not enough.

But I was naked.

It was a very dark time. I had nothing and I didn't know what to think or how to think it or where to go. I lost my faith. Hope seemed like some stupidly obscene thing. (And what of him who has nothing. He shall lose what he has.)

That happened to me, Copa. It was after daughter's beating and after everything was just gone, and I could not think my way out.

I could not think my way out.

And my mother and my sister zeroed in; my sister on FB doing whatever that was, my mother on the phone, being rude to D H and condescending to me and with never a word, with never a breath of compassion for what was happening to all of us.

And I could not think what to say or do or know how to stop slipping into crying and I hate crying. (I would never cry in front of my mother. I mean, crying in general. Like at Tai Chi one time I felt my eyes tearing up.)

Ew.

So, I said "yes". Pretty much anything that came along, I said, "Yes." That is how I began at the gallery, that is how I came to take care of three stray cats for someone I didn't know. That is how I began attending Bible study though I am not sure I believe.

And pretty much, I just tried not to be late.

If I said I would do something, I did it.

Well, and not to cry in public or private either, for that matter.

There was nothing to cry about.

And I posted here, but not so much, because I had nothing to say.

And that was a very long time.

If you haven't read Pema Chodron, she will save you, now. Brene Brown, Copa. Eckhart Tolle and his work on the pain body.

Anyway, so I lost what I had, right?

And then, there was only me, here.

And I decided to...I don't know. To do this. And somehow, we came together and we're doing it.

And that is all I know.

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

Something to do with the cost of the inheritance, some determination to devalue or destroy it because there could never be an inheritance that could justify what it cost you to go back, to fall in love with her?

Nothing that would compensate me for what it cost me to go back, to fall in love with her. The price of the inheritance was her death. My mother's death. I want to give it away so she will come back. I need her so. Still.

There is some defiant thing happening here, Copa. Not a sense of entitlement, but a sense of defiance.

It is if I am throwing it in my face: See. You wanted stuff. Here it is. What is it worth, your wanting, everything you wanted? Nothing. What you wanted, what you needed is gone. In an urn in your closet. Ashes. Nothing is worth what you lost, and wanted and needed.

Something strong and alone and resilient and courageous and free enslaved through an act of will.

An act of willful self-destruction?

Which thing you believe in that you will not receive. What you will have instead, and whether that is enough.

I will never have my mother. I may instead have myself. I am not enough.

The thing you could not have is the thing that matters.

I could not have a mother. Who loved me in the way or cared for me in the way I needed. I could not bear to be with my mother for any sustained length of time. And now it is repeating itself with my son.

What you will have instead, and whether that is enough.

?

Cedar, I do not know what I have or do not have. I am sad now. I spoke with my son and it went badly. I posted on Serenity's FOO thread.

In my journey through Copa, there came a place where I was not enough. Where I was dependent.

I just want to go back to bed.

So, I said "yes". Pretty much anything that came along, I said, "Yes."

So, maybe that is what I am doing with the stuff. Yes to anything. I will stop.

COPA

 

[Copabanana]

I think I am warding off great despair, for I do not know what.

I am accepting that I cannot have a relationship with my son. Somebody has to cede.

I think for now I will try to rest.

COPA