the darkness and dread and dancing naked in the kitchen

why do I get stuck, What brings back the thoughts of dread and despair.  This morning it happened again.  For weeks I did not dread the mornings anymore but today it happened.  I could not get out of bed I just lay there going through many scenarios which worry me.  On a rational level I know and understand what I am doing but something triggers it off, so what was it this time??????????? Did I overdo it again, is it because I am not eating properly, or not shopping so that I eat well, why has the resentment returned, or maybe it is the insidious perfectionism.  I must get better? I must feel well? Or is it the return of the problems of last year that sent me to hide in the dark cave.  that place was not nice but it is familiar.  Why am I tempted back there? Do I want to go back and live in that cave?????? How did I get out of it in the first place?????
1) I got put of bed and stayed out, yesterday I thought that a day in bed would be nice.  Oh I felt so awful after it.  The house was covered in wood-chips from the guinea pig and my teenager smelled of drink when I went to pick her up.  Not a good thing.
2) I took walks, I have not been for a morning walk in about two weeks. So time to go out.
3) I cooked and took pleasure in creating nice food for me and the family.  Chips from the takeaway are not good for anything.
4) I watched my weight. I have put on at least 10 pounds all on my thighs and tummy so I feel fat.  I am annoyed with myself for that.  All my hard work at weight watchers loosing two stone and look at me now.  Time to change that I think.
5) I forgave myself for my inadequacies.  Ah this is the one that resonates with me most.  I need to forgive myself for putting on weight and not eating properly.  Its ok.  Remember the aim is average not perfect. We all slip back.   We all have slips but we dont need to stay in the gutter.
6) I forgot to sing, I made a play list for these moments , secular songs of joy.  Right now lean on me is playing now as I write.  Time for me to get out of the cave of despair, stop wallowing in the mud and have a bit of a dance around to the sound of cheerful music.

So now I am off to dance to happy music naked in my kitchen and admire my rediscovered very wobbly thighs and belly, in the hope that loving them will ease their pain.  The exercise will do them good anyway.  Perhaps belly dancing would be a nice new healthy hobby.  Maybe I will dress up like a belly dancer instead much more fun.

Oh god blogging is good for the soul and less complicated than my previous unhealthy hobbies. Wow working out where I went wrong is better than orgasms , well maybe not. ; -}

Happy Monday

command the muscles

Very early on in my episode it was as much as I could do to get out of bed and sit in front of the tv all day.  I watched quite alot of rubbish, but I also saw some interesting programmes.  On one of the morning shows there was a woman describing exactly how I was feeling, particularly the anxiety.  I listened to her as she described a method she used to overcome the anxiety.  It was the Recovery Inc. method based on the work of Dr. Low.  It was like a miracle as she described how you command your muscles to act.  When you are stuck you need to change your thoughts to change your actions and vica versa.  I had heard that so many times but it was by connecting with my feelings, and by seeing someone who shared that feeling, and more importantly by seeing them on tv dealing with their very real anxiety that I understood what it meant.  So I tried it .  I closed my eyes and said move your hand, I moved my hand.  It became slightly more complicated the following day as I tried to get out of bed.  Who knew there are so many ways of getting out of bed.  I recommend you start by wriggling your toes.  Then stretch out your arms. Rotate your wrists.  Slowly sit up.  A few rotations of the neck.  The swing your legs to the side. Wriggle your bum over to the edge.  The the final push push against the bed with your arms and push against the ground with your feet.  There you go you are out of bed, was it so hard??

So from the small beginning of commanding my muscles to get out of bed I ventured further.  I started to make my bed every day.  When I was a child I loved to help my mother make the beds, especially on the bright sunny mornings when the dust flew up into he air and caught the light.  Again it looked like magical glitter to a 3 year old.  By making the happy association between the magical glitter, the happy feeling and making the bed i was able to turn a chore into an opportunity to feel better.  By commanding the muscle, by doing things in part acts I was able to piece myself together again and out of the blackness my soul reemerged.  It had not been fed for so long that it had withered.  Your soul needs to be nourished with joy and happiness, other wise  it will wither and hide.  Nourish your soul and life will be less bleak.

Happy Thursday.

building my happy place and other projects

I am a very visual person.  I think in images.  I find words hard to use to describe unless it is in a series of visual metaphors so when I initially started to move beyond the awful despair and crying associated with the early days of my episode I looked to pictures to try to understand what was happening to me.  The first image I worked with was a black well surrounded by grey stones in a dark place, without light , without colour.  I tried in so many ways to colour the picture but each time I closed my eyes all I could see was the bottomless pit.  I was now fortunately kneeling at the top of the pit looking in, previously I have been hanging on by my fingernails trying to claw myself out.  Thankfully the help of family and a very good doctor pulled me out of the pit.  Time and counselling have turned the bottomless dark well into a very pleasant place.  Now it is a lovely stone labyrinth that I can journey through to an inner sanctuary of calm, the pit is now a beautiful still pool in the middle of the labyrinth .  It is surrounded by a wild flower meadow.  In my new found sanctuary it is always summer.  Not the sweltering heat of mid summer rather the beautiful early summer weather in May , just hot enough to lie out in the sun.  Where the ground is warm but still sit has the slight springyness of the damp winter rain.  I have added it to my projects: to build that beautiful sanctuary in real life so that other troubled minds can find a place to revive and renew themselves.
I started this post in order to describe how I started to overcome the despair.  Essentially I sought to visualise a happy place to counter-act the dark pit I felt I was in.  I tried to find images on the internet, then I tried to take photos and piece them together, I tried to draw it.  Eventually I started to collect images from books magazines and the internet.  It lead me back to my love of art.  I found that I have sky arts on my tv and started to watch art programmes.  I was inspired by the film The gates.  I had forgotten how much I loved Christo's work as a teenager, his wrapped landscape was so different from my previous view of art it was inspiring.  What drew me to the film was the total vision he had and his inspirational self belief.  This film should be compulsory viewing for the depressed.  Pure joy was what he created.  How long had I lived a life without joy, where I sought pleasure rather than joy and happiness.  I did not even recognise the difference until last week while reading the art of happiness.  Pleasure is fleeting but happiness comes from within and does not depend on pleasure for its existence.  So I started to compile a list of projects that I would like to complete.
The first was a collage of Gustav Klimt: The kiss.  I spent days and days looking and examining the image.  For me it represented the pureness of female submission, something I had explored last year.  I was still at odds with my desire to be submissive and could not reconcile it with my intellectual belief that I was equal with men.  Who knows where this exploration will end up but for now I am working on the collage.  at present I am collecting things to use in it.  I examine the image form books and from the Internet.  I have plans to go view it.  Next year or later this year is a significant anniversary of his birth, 150 years and there are a number of exhibitions planned so I hope to travel to see them in reality, possibly by train but who knows yet.

The second project is a bubble machine.  I love bubbles.  As I looked out into the garden while washing up I thought how lovely it would be if there were bubbles blowing around in the garden.  At the time I was reconnecting with my interest in kinetic art so I made the connection that I could make a wind powered bubble machine to blow bubbles for me.  I have an endless permutation of possibilities.  So far I am collecting different shaped bubble wands and drinks cans to make the anemometer-like windmill to power the fan to blow the bubbles.  I decided to make it out of objects I find or that I have lying around so it could also even be from parts of old bikes , I love bikes and the rotation of the wheel on the bearings is so pure.

my bubble farm created by the organic bubble machines(children).

  Again a work in progress but such fun to think about.  I love the concept phase of a project where different ideas are considered.  I love the initial creation stage and also the construction bit.  work projects are just no fun for me anymore since it became all about money and paperwork.  I miss the early days of my career where the creation of the project was the aim, not the keeping the stakeholder happy, not the balancing of the books but the essence of taking an idea and bringing it to its conclusion, then admiring the achievement.  Hopefully my art projects will bring me the pleasure I lost in my work.  Perhaps they might bring me the happiness of expressing myself through the creation of things.  Or is that even possible.  


The most important project is to start a business so that I can use my talents to create an income for myself that does not rely on paid work.  I dont want to be defined by what I do for a living anymore.  I invested too much of my time and effort doing things for others now it is time to do things for myself.  Finally I know what I want in my life.  I want a simple happy life, one that I can look back on without regret, one in which I create things of beauty, the life I have always wanted but put aside as I did all the things that I thought I should.  The only should I need to keep in my life is I should take care of myself.  


While writing I always listen to music.  This post was accompanied by Leonard Cohen.  I am off to read my book of Leonard Cohens poetry now.  


Happy Wednesday