PART ONE of TWO
So… these past couple of days I have experienced the backlash of a previous post. Analysing and experiencing are literally two steps forward and then one step back. You advance on your exploration and then BAM! you revert to see the whole picture in a different light. The old you sneaks from behind and pulls you right back, with alluring words and tones you know so well…
It went like this: people who are survivors of disasters are faced with the Big Existential Questions about life and death and endings and fate. This leads to an undercurrent of fear and then frustration. We do have high expectations, you know? I often feel indignant and exasperated by other’s slowness, sloppiness and inefficiency. People are not doing things the right way, they don’t check, double check, triple check; they are not good enough and do not work and perform at my standards. I then become very impatient and turn my restlessness into inner accusations: “no one shows up for me” which then leads to “not even God…” and then I feel abandoned which turns into “what’s the point of all this anyway…”. Here, here she is, Madame Victím! [I gave her a sort of French flair…]. When I feel that my happiness - not just my life - is in the hands of someone else [a guy who doesn’t text me back, a date that never gets organised, a job offer lost in the virtual world or, in this case, the guy who is marking my thesis!...] I give away my power and turn into a victim.
Don’t get me wrong, I theoretically know that there are things I have power on, and others I haven't. I don't have power over anything external to me: I don't control the weather, I don't control my neighbours, the world finances, or prospective clients whether they choose to come to me or not... I don't control time. But I can control what I choose to do now and how to react: my house feels like a fucking mess and I need to get out of this funk. I also haven't gone to the reservoir for way too long. I can choose to stay here and still slumber in boredom, or I can at least do one thing: just ONE THING. I can choose to do nothing, but then I can't complain. So: what is it going to be?
It is in these moments that I want to remember that I am a Goddess who has been offered beads on a cushion. The image was not coming from outside. It wasn’t external but from within! This is what my subconscious truly believes about myself. This is who I really am. Will my body, this earthly version, catch up?
[*now* I feel that because I am writing this, I am sorted... just by writing... then I will sit here, do nothing the whole day and tomorrow feel v sorry for myself, v bored and I will not have achieved anything… even this writing and looking for answers - some quick, fast, planned and structured steps to follow, a right quote from a book - is a form of underlying impatience: I am at home, alone, and looking for answers. I can do it easily, faster and better when I do it myself so, from boredom and impatience, this will turn into procrastination and doing nothing. Doing FUCK ALL…]
Why am I sitting here and not moving?!
Because I will not incur the risk of someone else messing up, delaying, or stealing opportunities away from me. This is purely existential. Stemming from the disaster: someone / something / god can come and take away from me - suddenly and unexpectedly - my slot / opportunity / chance. The more I see barriers and steps for things to do between where I am at and my goal, the less I try. More steps = more barriers = increased potential of things going wrong and me having to waste time catching up with what others do [mostly very badly…]. This is my usual: Yes, but…
I am scared. And frustrated.
If I start moving and doing something "someone will see me and interrupt me". I am doing something to make myself happy and “the outside world” will check on what I do and they will in a way stop me from doing what I want to do. I feel they could come and shout at me, kick at my door, threaten me, mock me. Mock me, mock me, mock me... I am scared of the "ppl from the outside" seeing me doing stuff for me and then judging me. So, I'd rather stay here and do nothing, barely breathing. If I don't do anything [if I don't move, don't breathe] they won't see me and they will leave me alone. I feel petrified... in a very subtle and insidious way, almost unnoticeable by others, but internally is an alchemical perception of my body being frozen in time. I looked at Medusa and I turned to stone, or I gave one last look at the burning city and God turned me into a pillar of salt because I disobeyed him. You choose the myth you prefer.
This is like being back at home with my parents, keeping all of my dreams locked in, hiding, and being very silent. I am allowing "an idea" of something that "might or might not happen" to control me, my movements, my actions and my future.
I am scared that if I start pursuing what I want to do and work towards my happiness “someone” is going to come and take it away from me [the “disaster syndrome”]. The happier I am, the more bad things are going to happen.
My dad used to tell me that I often looked “incantesemata” which I always took to believe as “mummified, shrunk and shrivelled” but I only now realise where the word comes from: “incantesimo”, a spell. To look “incantesemata” means to be frozen as if under a spell. As Sleeping Beauty. I am here waiting. Frozen and pursuing nothing. Feeling like a victim: no one is coming to help me and rescue me. I am reminded of my copy of Women Who Run with the Wolves and check for parallels. I turn to note 13 on p.494/495: Sleeping Beauty is not waking up because of the kiss. She wakes up because it’s time. The one-hundred-year curse is up: it is time. In the movie Maleficent it’s her kiss that wakes her up, not the prince’s. I turn to the original chapter where the note is from and it happens to be the same chapter I was about to read when I got the book out last time, in 2019: the paragraph titled “Staying Overlong” [p.278]. The same chapter that explains all those “yes, but…”. The chapter I haven’t read back then.
[...PART TWO tomorrow nxt post...]
so, onwards + upwards > out + about
mx
* you might want to have a look at
JS Bolen's Artemis. The Indomitable Spirit in Everywoman and
C Pinkola Estés' Women Who Run with the Wolves
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Date : 5 NOV 2023
Duration : 01:19:26 4.14 km
Steps: 5,784
Location : Turton & Entwistle Resewrvoir
Weather : rainy and damp
T : coldish
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