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Wednesday, 30 January 2008

A Guide to Handling Guilt and Self-Punishment

I've been practicing meditation as a means of stress management for a long time. In more recent times, I've used meditation as an active healing tool. Today I read A Guide to Handling Guilt and Self-Punishment and found it to be pretty amazing, so here's the link.

Saturday, 05 January 2008

A documented breakdown

First, I need to make a confession. I read celebrity gossip. I'm bizarrely fascinated with the whole "celebrity culture" phenomenon, and so I watch it. And I can't help getting sucked into it, sometimes.

I've never cared much about Britney Spears one way or the other, but when she started to derail in public a while back, I noticed and have been watching her turn into a train wreck. And it is like a train wreck... I don't really want to watch, but I can't seem to look away...

Partly, I recognise a lot of the behaviour and I guess I wanted to see how it would turn out. Still don't know that as of this writing, but right now the news is all abuzz with the fact that she went completely insane and is now in the lock down ward at a major Los Angeles area hospital pending psychiatric evaluations. The latest rumour I saw reported was that she was expected to be there for at least two weeks, but who knows at this point.

Anyway, the thing I wanted to write about was not Britney Spears, particularly. It was about how her downward spiral has been documented by the tabloid press. Her entire "downfall" has been photographed and documented, including her trip to the hospital (and the way she was alternating between maniacal grinning and hysterical sobbing).

I have to say, I don't remember all the details of my own descent into insanity. I remember bits and pieces, but a lot of it is mercifully lost now. I'm truly grateful for that. If I could clearly remember all of the ridiculous things I did, I'm pretty sure I'd be overwhelmed with shame, guilt, embarrassment, and all sorts of other unhappy emotions. Thank God there isn't any lasting record of it (including in my own memory)!

Britney Spears, on the other hand, has the whole thing on record and international publication. Even if she recovers and gets her life together, she's never going to be able to avoid all those photographs of her downfall, of all the bizarre things she did, of the way she looked while she was deteriorating. There are records of her being banned from hotels, there are photographs of her dressed absurdly and totally inappropriately, there are millions of people who will remember this stuff. And the internet is a medium that never goes away. You can find out information from years and years prior. There is no limit to the archives online.

I can't help but feel for this young woman. I wouldn't wish a breakdown like that on anyone, and having it documented the way hers has been seems to me to be a certain kind of hell on earth.

Wednesday, 02 January 2008

Things Desired

I debated posting this dream, but when I worked it out, I was so totally amazed by how how eloquent my subconscious is (and pleased that my conscious mind is clever enough to work it out), that I wanted to share it. It's a little weird, so bear with me (and my apologies to Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt; you'll see why).

The dream started with myself in a vehicle with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, and all their kids. I was talking to and playing with the kids (generally speaking, I like kids), and then Angelina left and took the kids with her and I was left alone with Brad. I got the distinct impression that they had "an agreement" about external relationships, as in, don't ask, don't tell or similar. So when Brad and I started to make out in the vehicle, I wasn't worried about it at all.

Things were getting kind of hot and heavy and somehow I became aware that the vehicle was sitting outside my parents' house. I suggested that we go inside, saying, "We can go in my room and shut the door and my parents won't bother us."

So we went inside, and both of us were, uhm... interested in proceeding. We went upstairs and for some reason I got very disoriented, and I couldn't find my room. We were opening door after door, looking into the different rooms, trying to find mine. Eventually, we did find it, and we went in and were going to continue what we'd been doing in the car when I suddenly realised it was time to go to work, and I had to leave.

The place I worked was a police station. I wasn't a police officer, but some sort of clerk. When I got there, the supervisor took a couple other clerks and me into an office and showed us some paperwork we'd have to fill out. She said that the usual reporting system wasn't working, so we had to manually record all the arrests. I said something about how it looked pretty easy, and she said, "Well, yes, I'd expect you to be able to do it easily." At the time, I thought she was commending me because I was smart. We started to go back out of the office when I woke up.

Now, a bit of background. I've been working very hard for the past few months on matters spiritual, which, of course, also involve matters emotional and mental. It's been quite "two steps forward, one step back" for me, because the more I progress, the more little weird "leftover" things I find that need to be dealt with. Bad attitudes, limiting beliefs, strange fears, etc., it's all come out in bits and pieces and I've been sorting through it and trying to deal with it and put it aside.

My New Year's Resolution is to be happy, every day, for the rest of my life. I know that sounds a little insane, but feel free to go read the details on my everyday blog (just follow the link). In a nutshell, I know I'm highly unlikely to be happy every MOMENT of every day, but I believe it's possible to be happy every day, at least some or even most of the time.

Now the dream interpretation. Brad Pitt represents someone (something) highly desirable in every regard. He's easy on the eyes, he's a great father, he's a humanitarian, he's rich, he's smart, he's funny, he's sexy. The appearance of Angelina Jolie and her sort of "nod of approval" was just one more thing that made him the perfect object of desire. (Note: I have never, to my knowledge and memory, dreamed of Brad Pitt before. I have certainly never dreamed of Angelina Jolie. And furthermore, I really wouldn't carry on with a man who had children and a longterm serious relationship with another woman. It's just dream symbolism. I'm putting that in in case someone ever stumbles on this entry and reads something else into it.)

So, I have Brad, who represents "something highly desirable" and there are no barriers. He likes me, his girlfriend is okay with it, the works. I was on my way to getting what I wanted, when I suddenly realised I was outside my parents' house. In a car outside my parents' house with a boyfriend is a position I was in as a teenager a lot. I had a series of boyfriends when I was a teenager and I would often sit outside the house in a car making out or talking or both. So being in that position was similar to me reverting to my teenaged years (which were highly unpleasant, just for the record, despite the boyfriends, who sometimes made things a bit nicer).

I say, "Let's go inside the house, we'll shut the door to my room and my parents won't bother us." I finally worked out that "my parents' house" represents the mess that my parents "built". The world they created in my head. It's the me I used to be, it's the person they raised, not the woman I created, myself. Why would I go there? Because I had reverted to my teenaged self, to the self I was when I first started to really become self-aware and to start to really assert myself in meaningful (and usually self-destructive and stupid) ways. When I become scared or frustrated, I dive right back into that persona, at least partially (in my dreams, I no longer "live" in my parents' house, I only "visit" there).

Once inside, I become disoriented and we wasted a lot of time wandering around opening and closing doors. The object of my desire was still there, right with me. I hadn't lost him, I just lost my way. This is generally what happens when I get scared, frustrated, impatient, etc., and I go back "to my parents' house", so to speak, when I go back to the old patterns and habits that were present before I became who I am now. When I revert to old habits, I lose my focus and my direction. I still have the desire, but it's an awful lot harder to fulfill it...

And then, of course, the dream was also telling me that I'm trying to find a place inside the construction of my old habits and my old thinking patterns, i.e., inside "my parents' house", where I will be able to reach my goals and fulfill my desires. I'm looking for some safe haven in the "old me". And I did find the room, but even though I still had the desire and the will, I suddenly realised it was time to "go to work".

I should note here that I always have called the healing process "work". Spiritual work, emotional work, etc. Therapy was work. I've always used that word (many people do). So in the dream, when I had the chance to fulfill my desire, I suddenly went to work, and in a police station, no less. That part puzzled me at first, until I realised that the job was writing down and keeping track of offences. The supervisor made the comment about me being able to do it not because I'm so smart, but because I've got a lot of practice in recording OFFENCES.

So, to sum it up, the thing I desire (whatever it may be at the moment) is there, and I can have it, there are no reasons why I can't, and instead of seizing the opportunity, I revert to my old habits and patterns (probably out of fear, or perhaps out of just not knowing how else to proceed?) and lose focus, and while I may still have the desire, I end up gettting sidetracked by "working on myself" and by writing down and making a catalog of offences.

Basically, if I expect to move forward and have the things I want (which do not, just for the record, include Brad Pitt, though I'm sure he's a great bloke), I need to stop going back to my old patterns of belief, thought, emotion, etc. Furthermore, while it was once extremely useful, the time for examining every memory and tying it to some behavior or habit or whatever is gone. Yes, when I was in the very intense stages of early recovery (i.e., when I was having a breakdown), it was very helpful to make connections, to see patterns, to understand how I became who I was then. But I'm not that person any more! She was the caterpillar. I'm the butterfly. I don't need to dwell on where the caterpillar went or what made her the way she was.

Now is the time to just throw out stuff I don't want and don't need. When I come across a limiting belief, I'm going to throw it out, not worry about where it came from, how I got it, whether or not I should keep a record of it. It's no longer important. Spending my time keeping records and mucking around in the person I used to be is just keeping me from having what I want and being who I want to be.

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