all kinds of good news

So, I figured out why I was stuck.

Seriously. I did.

And now I'm getting a lot of work done. And it all seems pretty simple and I'm just tootling along and even starting to feel a glimmer of something like confidence.

No, I'm not shitting you.

Although I give credit to Our Little Italian Friend for a lot, this one is pretty much thanks to the meditation and related CD's I've been listening to, and a timely intervention from Loopy.

So here's the story.

I have observed that I seemed to compulsively hurt myself, all the time.

(This is the part that's thanks to meditation. It helps you stay present with your feelings and also to see your own mind. So I began to actually feel the pain I was inflicting on myself, and also to see myself doing the inflicting.)

Not that I was doing anything dramatic like slicing myself with razors or any TV-movie-of-the-week kind of thing.

But I was continually doing all kinds of littler things that added up to ongoing misery—from stripping away all my sources of self-esteem and confidence, to clenching up all my muscles until they ache, to making Loopy angry, or distancing myself from her and my friends.

I've been watching this for a while without being able to figure out WHY I was doing this. I'm sure I've posted about it more than once.

So last Saturday I tortured myself into a state of misery and hopeless despair and cried all the way to bowling (that's a whole 'nother post!—the bowling not the crying).

On the way home in the car, Loopy made some useful suggestions about how I could stop this compulsive self-abuse. I immediately told her why they wouldn't work. She observed that I didn't want to stop. I protested, but could see that she was right.

So I delved more into the tougher question: why don't I want to stop? What do I get out of this?

The only thing I could see myself getting out of it was self-pity.

But that triggered a connection to something else I've been thinking about lately (also as a result of the meditation CDs): how many compulsions and addictions are about getting some kind of pale substitute for something you profoundly need. Since it's just a pale substitute, it doesn't meet the need, but it seems like it might—if only you could get a little more.

I've been thinking about this particularly in relation to kids getting so attached to their IM'ing, their cell phones, all these things that are sort of like human connection but really aren't.

So when I thought about the self-pity, I could see that I could be addicted to it because it's a pale substitue for feeling loved—by myself and by other people.

As I delved into it it was totally clear that that was it.

Well, my meditation CD's have also been teaching me how to give myself real love and compassion. And, I'm extremely lucky to have real, living humans in my life who really do love me (thank you, you know who you are)(and hopefully I know who you are!).

So as soon as I saw this, it was actually simple—simple! think of that—to see that I didn't need the pale substitute, I have the real thing.

It's like I was wrapping myself in a dirty threadbare blanket when I have a big fluffy comforter right in the cupboard.

And that was it.

I came unstuck.

I still have to breathe, I still have to stay mindful, I still have to catch myself as I start to hurt myself and say—hey, you don't have to do that, you don't need that yucky blanket, remember the fluffy comforter?

Today I felt like I still needed something else, one more little push. So I called a dear friend and talked for forty minutes. Not about my problems, but about anything, just to connect with another person I love.

And then I was satisfied. Wrapped in that big fluffy comforter, I went to work for three hours without any trouble at all.

AT ALL.

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In other good news: I finished all the work for one of my incompletes—the biggest one with the most work—and sent it all off. (This was all work I slogged through over the past couple months in a continuous uphill battle against the self-abuse stuff). Monday the prof emailed me and said she'd look through it and could I contact her by the end of the week to set up a time to talk next week. Yay!!!

I emailed two other profs in whose courses I have incompletes that have lapsed to F's. Both agreed to change the grade back into an incomplete long enough for me to have transcripts sent out with my job applications, and to read the papers when I finish them (one is already half-done) so I can get a grade in the courses. THAT was a huge relief. I was half afraid I'd have to go to another school and start all over. Yay!!!

I finished three and a half assignments for my correspondance course. (You can only send in four a week.) These are between seven and ten pages each, and I've mostly finished them since my big revelation this weekend (despite spending Sunday and Monday engaged in political activities). It's amazing how much faster I can work when I'm not working against myself. I'm savoring walking past those fat envelopes in the front hall. Yay!!!!

Now I'm gonna go eat dinner, with that wonderful feeling that I've accomplished plenty for one day and I can cheerfully goof off for the rest of the evening. I felt that a little bit last night. Tonight I feel it confidently. I haven't felt this way in years.

I can't even convey to you how it feels to have this incredible weight lifting from my shoulders.

I know there will be relapses, steps backward, lots of habits to change, more mountains to climb, etc., but now I know the deep dark secret, I hope the going will get a little easier.

Hope. That's another thing I haven't felt in a long time. :)

Time for dinner! Yay!!!!