My weekly ritual for looking at the week that was.

Late Log. And it’s taking every ounce of effort I can muster as it is.

• In Buenos Aires, Argentina. Haven’t seen my family in 2 years. I’m having all the feelings, so I am not well. I’m functioning, just about, and I give thanks that this isn’t like the Great Depression I went through the last time I was here, 2 years ago, the day after I arrived, when things got so bad, and I was so suicidal, my Mum had to intervene. This time I came prepared for Extreme Feelings, so I knew what to expect. Even so, it is still extremely challenging, and in many ways I am barely holding on.

• Ghosts from AH#1. They are there, or should I say “here”. I am still not free from it all, even though I wish I was. A breath for this.

• Spending New Year’s Eve with Super Friends. I’m not well enough to do it justice, but I’ll say this: we had food, we sang “Defying Gravity” (which took care of any dream I might have ever held of singing as a “career”), we journaled on what we were proud of on 2015, we watched fireworks, and we had an overall great time. And in the morning, Super Friends plaited my hair so it would be ready for my long travel across the Atlantic (it was a 2 people job, hair was that long).

• Had a haircut. Probably not the best of times to do it, since the accompanying identity change only adds to the troubled waters (i.e.: Extreme Emotions) I’m already in, but hair was really long and needed to be done, so I can cope with the heat. My hair is now super short, which means it’s curly. A breath for going through changes.

• Parents’ House. Everything is charged with memories, which in turn are charged with emotions. I am glad to be surrounded by memories, they carry meaning. And also, they contribute to Extreme Emotions. I am essentially on Emotional Overdrive right now.

• Dad’s condition has worsen, which is to be expected since he suffers from an incurable, degenerative disease. All the pain and grief about that. I wish beyond all wishing I could do something to help. There is nothing I wouldn’t give for him to be better, and yet this is how things are, and there is nothing I can do. A breath for processing all the grief.

• The “Big” Topics, all coming up amidst the troubled waters of grief and sadness. I want to give up on “The Big Purpose” and “The Big Dream”, fantasising with moving to an ashram in India and staying there, never to dream a dream again. A breath for staying with the despair of “nothing works”.

• Falling on old emotional patterns. Did you know they are a thing? Well yes! They are totally a thing! And nobody ever talks about emotions, because we live in a patriarchy, where “Men Rulez” and men don’t do emotions (well). So nobody, even in the “self-help/spiritual/yoga” world ever tells you that it’s possible to fall into old emotional patterns, without any logic or reason (because emotions live outside of logic and reason, natch). I find myself getting irritable over the smallest things, which makes no sense. Back in the UK I accept far worse with far more grace, and I am almost never angry. Over here, though, I blow up over the slightest inconvenience. I am experiencing Extreme Emotions, and I am also in close proximity to my mother, yes and also falling into old emotional patterns, i.e.: defaulting into old automatic emotional reactions, is totally a thing.

Moments of Insight

I had this insight a few days ago, and wrote it down, during a brief but productive moment of sanity.

“We are never the same twice.
This is a realisation that begins to dawn on you after you start doing yoga.
We change. We are always changing. We are never the same person.
We think we are, because we remember things from the past, but right now we are a different person.
And this is healthy, or so they say, because the alternative is stagnation. We are meant to grow.
But it’s difficult, this never being the same again. A lot of grieving has to take place, a lot of comfort with dying and rebirthing. Over and over we die and are born again. And it only hits us every so often, when we raise our heads and look back and realise: I am not the same person I used to be. I have a memory of that person I used to be… but only a memory, only a thought. Nothing is the same.
Nothing is ever the same.
There’s no way we can fight the change.
We can only get comfortable with dying.”

Things of Considerable Worth (Un-missables!)NOPE

I am mad at the world right now, and deep inside this story of “I DON’T AGREE WITH ANYBODY!”.
So I have nothing to recommend today.
Boo.

This log may be the hardest log I ever logged.
I am in a kind of Hell I’m well familiar with, but one I cannot describe to other people, so I’m left with “I am upset and no, I don’t know why, just give me space”.
I am trying to stay present and process as much as I can, which is all I can ever do.

*takes deep breaths*