Starting with short, clean,
clear-polished slates,
twice or thrice
daily lotioning,
keeping mind and body
meaningfully occupied,
together
can grow
a new path through the forest.
Tag: mental illness
Do I remember how to do this?
Months away from the creative page.
The desire to make things
or express myself with words
evaporated and melted away
like the unseasonably warm weather of these winter months
kept the snow away
and prevented it from returning to stay.
I cannot find the words to convey the depths of pain and grief and depression and anxiety and ambivalence and change and interspersed joy that have filtered through and between the days of recent months.
I could not imagine what such words would look like, sounds like, spell like, write like or hear like, so it seemed worthless to spend any amount of time before a blank page, hoping for the imagining to come to me.
The thought of spending time before a blank page cascaded waves of fear, discomfort and vulnerability through every tissue of my body, maintaining distance between us.
I have felt vulnerability before, even embraced walking alongside it. But this felt different. It was vulnerability in a new form, a more terrifying form, and I chose to stay away for what I believed to be my own self-protection.
Last weekend, in the midst of an anxiety attack, I tried to color in a coloring book with pencil crayons, reasoning that the act of coloring would distract and calm my mind. Instead, my anxiety amplified. Fears of choosing the right picture (not too complex but not too simple), fears of choosing the right colors, fears of coloring too faintly, too intensely or beyond the lines, fears of choosing colors to live next to each other that do not complement. Questioning why I am limited to the colors chosen to be within this collection of pencils. Questioning why I need to adhere to rules and lines and systems laid out by an entity separate from myself. After ten minutes, I abandoned the effort.
I want to stand before a giant white canvas and throw globs of paint upon it, then wave a brush to spread them all around under the guide of exploration and curiosity. I want to get my hands messy. I don’t want to abide by arbitrary rules that tell me what’s right and what’s wrong with my exploration of self. I want to translate myself into colors and textures and images that words cannot always adequately capture within themselves. I am evolving. I am expanding.
I must believe
I am strong enough
to rise up against any tribulation
threatening to pull me down
and keep me there.
I have to trust
that I have the means within me
to face each new situation
in the moment.
It’s somewhere deep inside of me
waiting to rise when the time is right;
the knowing of what to do.
All I need to do is trust.
Trust that evolution
is a celebration
and a journey with no finish line.
I must trust that I remember how to do this,
and will remember how to do this
when I need to.
decisions on instinct
My therapist
encouraged me to practice making decisions
faster
and based on my instincts.
Not every decision needs to be
weighed and analyzed
for hours
before reaching a conclusion –
a novel concept
for my brain to comprehend.
I took her advice;
I could hear her voice in my head
gently pushing me
out of my head
and into my body.
Warm air, sunshine-soaked sky
lured me to be outside
and move,
while listening.
I want to walk through the park,
I want to explore a new trail,
I want to recreate a small sliver of wild
I chase and revel in elsewhere.
I laugh at myself
as I walk along the trail
at this series of decisions
being the most impulsive I have been
in months.
When did I become so scared of living?
living in the shadows
I have been gone for a while
living in the shadows, the darkness,
and finding comfort there,
familiarity,
safety.
I can see the light
but it scares me.
The shadows are quiet,
impose no pressure to speak or do,
their cold embrace enveloping me
until we warm.
I’m liking it here, in the dark.
It feels familiar
for I am often here
though not for long periods of time.
There are bursts of sunlight
that beam through the clouds
interrupting my accumulation of days.
The sun tries to tell me
that really, I’m OK
because I can see the sun
and be happy for a while;
I don’t qualify for a new label.
So when the clouds roll over again
I start back at day one.
And I ask myself the age-old question:
on some level, have I always been this way?
And then I ask the question:
am I trying to make something out of nothing,
this earnesty to classify
and put myself in a box per criteria,
or is this just a simple part
of the human experience?
This time,
I am staying in the darkness for a long time.
Longer than any time before.
I feel scared of everything
all at the same time,
all the time.
Paralyzed.
I have either lost myself
or changed –
I know not which it is.
And I don’t have the energy
to do
what they tell me I should do.
I don’t want to deny the darkness
in an attempt to feel better;
I want to stay here.
Eventually I will let someone down
and I can only blame the darkness
for so many things
because after all,
shouldn’t I be strong enough to fight it off?
But then
someone on the outside
saw me, and saw the shadows.
She acknowledged,
she validated,
and she nudged me towards a new source of light.
I have been gone for a while
and I’m not back yet
but maybe,
someday,
eventually.
walking away from anxiety
Noticing, how
when I leave the house
ridden with anxiety
my breaths are short and shallow,
my steps quick and rigid,
resisting the urge to run and cry
at the same time,
anything to make this feeling go away.
After ten minutes
my breaths are short
but deep on the inhale,
strong and forceful on the exhale.
After twenty minutes
my breaths deepen
my stride lengthens
and I find a rhythm.
And after thirty minutes,
maybe more,
I feel the anxiety release its final talon
and fly away.
My breathing calm,
my steps easy,
I walk a bit further
to soak in this feeling
a little longer.
Let me soak in this feeling
just a little bit longer.
not yours to carry
Darling,
there you go again
loading onto your shoulders
anxieties and un-controllables
that are not yours to carry.
They are not yours to carry
so please
let them go.
Free yourself.
love will keep the cycle spinning
The day where I slow down
becomes the day when
my anxiety builds, and grows,
consumes my body,
stands in the spotlight
it presumes to have lost
for too long.
But I know it well,
its patterns consistent,
I anticipated this would happen
and I have tools, strategies,
to help shift the spotlight away
and reclaim my power.
Breathe.
Move.
Talk.
Breathe again.
Shower my anxiety with the love
it expects not,
showering my body with love
alongside,
love will keep the cycle spinning;
this will not last forever.
A new journal, a new pen
My counselor,
her name is Marcela,
assigned homework for me
during my last therapy session.
She said I had to go out
buy a notebook of visual appeal
alongside a high-grade pen.
The idea was to stimulate my creativity
with a notebook I liked to look at
and a pen I liked to write with
to make the experience enjoyable and enticing
to draw me in
to create for the sake of creating
to help me re-connect with this part of me
that, at times, seems to be fading.
So
one day after work I went to the bookstore.
I looked for a journal to catch my eye.
Funny how, at the same time,
my mind automatically eliminated some
because they looked too expensive.
Or,
I would find one that looked pretty
but my mind would convince me it wasn’t right
because of the size
because of the binding
because of the line spacing
because of the ‘fanciness’
because of the price.
If any journal held these qualities too well,
I told myself,
I would feel inherent pressure
to create content of high esteem, high value,
worthy enough to live between its covers
thereby creating more pressure
and likely, shying away from
scribbling out thoughts
for the mere purpose of releasing them.
What should have been instinctual
and taken seconds
took me minutes and minutes
standing in front of the journals
wrestling with my mind.
At last, I landed on this one.
Different than any I’ve had before
a thought-provoking cover
and on sale.
I chose a package of pens
I knew I would like
even though I could clearly see
the dozens of unused, good-enough pens
waiting at home.
A new journal
a new pen
starting a new journey
while I was away from home
in the mountains
looking for a reset
seemed fitting.
Connecting the stars within me
into constellations
bringing me back to myself
one page at a time
ink and words flowing.
Reading passages over and over
Reading passages
over and over
but not like last time
with that other book
this time
I read the passages
over and over
for the comfort they offer
and sensations they generate
within my body
reminding me
to be vulnerable
to release through art
to create
to let go of perfectionism
to just be
with the people who know me
and even those who don’t
like she did
with the guy who wanted to know her
who didn’t run away
waited for her
until she was tired of hiding
and bared all to him
and they promised
to help each other
no matter how broken
they both feel
because no one is broken.
– Inspired by the book “The Words We Keep” by Erin Stewart
mental health lifeboats
When you share an intention with someone else, usually, that carries with it an added layer of accountability. Now, not only have you given a voice to the thoughts traveling around inside your head, but the voice has landed upon the ears of other people. It’s not just you anymore.
But what do you do, when you want to change your mind?
You’re no longer the only person that knows. Other people know. What will they think of you, knowing that while you seemed so sure, so prepared just a little while ago, now you’ve retreated back to the timid and apprehensive version of yourself that believes they can handle the journey up this mountain on their own?
They might make you out to be a fraud. They might believe you are too scared to face whatever you think you need to face. They might think less of you, they might consider themselves to be superior to you. They may call you weak, or arrogant, or in over your head.
Or, they might just understand what you’re going through.
Only the people who have traveled a similar path can understand the terror, the uncertainty, the vulnerability, the bravery that comes with sharing your needs with someone other than yourself. It requires a new kind of strength.
Admitting that you need to talk to someone, admitting that you have reached a new point where you feel more fear than excitement for your future, admitting that you don’t know where to go on your own, admitting that you need help – these don’t make you any less than. In fact, they make you more than. Feeling uncertainty about your decision after you’ve ‘taken your stance’ is normal.
Use your knowing of others’ awareness of your current experience not as a rope tying you to an anchor, but as a rope connecting you to a lifeboat; available to you when you need some additional support.
You will be OK. You have a fleet of lifeboats ready and waiting to carry you to safety.
Dawning Words 