| Misc |
[May. 24th, 2007|07:16 am] |
Health: yesterday morning 9 ish, my bottom right lip start swelling, took claritin hives med 9:30 ish, and the swelling was gone by 11. * This past weekend i had a great deal of sinus pain, and it's like the pain crept down the side of my face to my wind pipe. It's around the deep jugular and spinal accessory lymph nodes, but is just pain, no swelling. This vaguely reminds me of a "sore throat" i had in the 90's which was eventually written off to TMJ.
Both of these things -- random pain and swelling -- are why i'm going to this body-aware therapy. I do really like the therapist NM, despite really disliking the turbulence.
It feels stupid to be stirring up all the emotions i stir up with her simple questions. Yesterday it was a rope to define my personal space. Intellectually, that sounds simple, but it wasn't. I know what society defines as my personal space. Then there's the space one experiences a person as being in -- i think of how a small cat can be so present, so large in a room. I'm very aware of how others are filling a room, but i feel so blind about myself. I think i'm small, especially at first, but i think i probably leak out -- as i'm comfortable with others or as i get curious and distracted.
This whole process makes me feel pretty crazy. I realize, when i was growing up i got two messages. One was how special i ... was. Mostly, this was about being smart. I also got a whole lot of messages about how emotionally blind and uncaring i was. I think of this as a fairy tale, where the king and queen of the castle show their daughter reflections of herself as an amazing princess and a horrible monster. In the fairy tale, the daughter meets a black cat, who guides her to a spring in the woods, and she sees her reflection honestly for the first time: neither monster or princess, but simple lovely girl.
To me that had been a happy resolution, rejecting the two extremes. Yesterday, though, after an affirmation of presence from NM, the reactions -- the thirst for that recognition, the fear, the sense that i have a Presence i could put forth but don't, the theological issues i have with certain aspects of self and power and presence, and the confusion around being special.
Am i special? Not special in the way every child is wonderfully special, every person is wonderfully special, how we all can be understood as facets of Divine expression -- but some other special. Maybe not special is the wrong word (and not because it's been abused), but power-filled. The offer of the flaming sword in meditation -- so terribly cliched -- comes back to mind.
I think of the power, the force of personality, a type of presence, as how i can come on very strong in a meeting or a class. It's a strength and privilege -- and i know when folks are deaf to it. It's been very few times, but the sense of being little lady-ed despite that strength has happened. I can't imagine what it's like not to be able to put an end to that treatment very quickly most of the time -- what it's like for that treatment to keep going. (Although i recognize, too, i've kept away from communities where that behavior might be entrenched.) Anyhow, i know of that strength i have and how i probably use it far more than i intend (getting curious and engaged and not being careful). And it is a difference, i guess, although i think of it as an inability to keep quiet more than a strength.
And what if, anyhow. What does it matter? If i label myself as something more, something rare -- how would that change things? Why would affirmation matter?
I note that the energy i called receptive vitality is all gone, replaced with exhaustion. I regret not sustaining it. I hope to ignite that again. |
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