I have been looking at the memories surfacing in the past month… allowing me to look at them, like you would look at physical memories in an attic or a storage facility, and reminiscence and then put them back where they were, or in the garbage.
The first wave was shame.
I dealt with tens of instances in my past that I am ashamed of. Yeah, yours truly… I did all those things I am ashamed of now.
I have also gone back and watched some actors I grew up loving, now dead. Some theater plays. Some singers. And wept. Good cleansing tears.
And I am not even on my deathbed… as far as I know… lol.
Actually, I am getting better and stronger, as Source said I would… if I kept all the restrictions in food, and most importantly, if I drank the sesame oil evening and morning, diligently.
Some people are getting worse, but in my humble opinion, it is because they thing what is happening to them, YOU? is wrong. Shouldn’t be… How about allowing, and accepting it as a gift.
I read something useful in Rob Brezsny’s email
NORMAL HUMAN RESPONSES: NOT TO BE PATHOLOGIZED
Sarah Mariann Martland
Normal human responses to a global pandemic that do not need to be
pathologized or treated as abnormal:
• Food and eating challenges & difficulties
• Resurgence of compulsive or addictive behaviors
• Obsessive or intrusive thoughts, memories or fears
• Generalized fear, anxiety, panic & overwhelm with no apparent cause
• Depression, dissociation, shutdown, freeze, hopelessness
• Feelings of abandonment or loneliness or isolation
• Sense of loss of control or powerlessness. Feeling confused
• Anxiety around money, shelter, food, and other survival needs
• Past traumas being triggered, activated or re-experienced
• Health anxiety heightened (about COVID-19 and otherwise)
• Feeling unheard or unseen amidst the flood of stories
• Feeling like existing chronic needs are being ignored
• Thoughts and feelings about death and dying
• New and old grief surfacing
• Feelings of anger, irritation and frustration
• Caring for everyone to own detriment. Compassion fatigue
• Feeling exhausted, fatigued, unmotivated, lethargic
• Hyper-focus, surges of energy, keeping ‘doing’ to distract
• Immune system depleted, other illnesses starting, chronic flares
These are normal, and not pathological…
For some Playground students these are very welcome, because when you can, for example, feel what you always feel but don’t have time to consciously be aware of… during ‘forced’ and maybe some places ‘enforced’ isolation you have time to look at and start seeing what has been in the invisible, running your actions, running your reactions, never actually raising their hands to say: ‘I did that’
It is normal to feel how you feel, what you feel. Most troubles arise not from what happens, but your resistance to it.
Do as I do… Entertain the thoughts, entertain the feelings.
As long as you feel, as long as you think you are not dead…
This is something I have never shared.
In the summer of 1965 I was 17 years old. One of my classmates from elementary school now lived in England, and we exchanged letters. She said: why don’t you come and visit me here?
I said, great, I’d love to, and was certain she meant what I understood: she would pay for it, or I would stay with her… but that is not what she meant.
She sent me a brochure of some bed and breakfast places… I had no money, my parents had no foreign money… but now I was hooked and sent out a letter to those people who owned these bed and breakfast places, and asked how it would be possible for me to be there and not pay for it.
I got one answer, from the Austins in Lyminge, Kent. They were amenable for me doing maid work and for that I would get to live there. No pocket money, nothing.
I took it, and spent nine weeks there being a maid. about 3 days before i was supposed to go home, the police came and they searched me and my room, looking for a missing item.
The item was found in their car, but regardless, they kicked me out. I spent two nights with my old classmate in London, and then came home. For years these memories intruded on my sleep, for years I had roving eyes… to see what I could steal to justify the Austins…
I was changed for life…
I still have hate in my heart… after 55 years.
And the Austins are not the only people I have hate in my heart for… there are some more people.
Hate is harmful. Hate makes your blood vessels narrow… it can kill you on the long run.
This came up unexpectedly after listening to a partner call… where the dominant emotion, hidden, concealed, was hate.
Hate needs to be loosened up… and that is what I am doing. The incidents I haven’t shared or injustice, being treated badly, suspected of a crime, stolen from, or other ‘bad’ stuff that happened to me now have a chance to breathe.
I don’t need to be right about any of them… it was what it was… bad sh*t happens…
When I went to England, my TLB was 4. When I went home for the start of the school year, my TLB was 9.
Your TLB grows with the number of bad sh*t that you can tolerate, not go apesh*t about, not suffer about much.
After ironing starched old fashioned dress shirts and bedsheets for four days… even though I had never ironed before… my TLB started to grow.
After serving dinner even though my father was a statesman, and we were ‘royalty’ at home…
- After being beaten by Major Austin…
- After eating red Indian soup that reminded the house guest of the blood of the commies… (don’t forget, my parents were communists!)
- and countless more stories, just that summer.
I grew up fast, and I am better for it.
When are YOU going to grow up?
PS: Not the first time, Virgo horoscope is your best advice again, not just for Virgos. If you are in the Playground, this is for you:
Your words of power in the coming days are simple: deep, low, down, below, dig, dive, and descend. I invite you to meditate on all the ways you can make them work for you as metaphors and use them to activate interesting, nourishing feelings. There will be very little worth exploring on the surface of life in the coming weeks, Virgo. All the hottest action and most valuable lessons will be blooming in the fertile darkness.
