Spun

Feeling quite spun around with my thoughts today.  I got out to the park with Jasper which means I can get out of my head and problems and just be in the moment, the beautiful magical present moment in which there is no inner torment going on.  Arriving back I was aware of the many flaws in my old home and of how much upkeep it demands and then I get totally overwhelmed and forget it is all manageable. In my head the other voice is going “Why don’t you just go forward into the new place?”  At the moment not doing so is causing so much agony and then I remember that I was manipulated through my openness and vulnerability and perhaps bid too much.  Its very uncomfortable to think that others will bear the cost but if I was never offered financial help in the first place I never would have made an offer and gone against what my gut told me.

It’s all a little too late now to fix the original mistake!  I have important lessons to learn and the realisation that the new place would be a lot less work.  But at some point I have to draw that line in the sand and decide I am going forward with one decision and not look back, lest I be turned into a pillar of salt like Orpheus.  (Come to think of it what metaphor does that allude to : that if we do not allow ourselves to totally go through the tears of letting go in grief, endings and loss we will get solidified in place in trapped and deadened feeling?)

Anyway. the antidote for me for getting too spun about in my thoughts is just to take some action, but not to allow my anxiety to force me to action if that makes any sense.  This morning I had very intense anxiety coursing through me.  I was conscious that I was holding my breath, its something a body work therapist was getting me to work on by doing a big exhale when I was not even conscious I had been holding onto my breath.  Part of it is being angry and feeling I am stuck in place, powerless and can do nothing, just as I was when two major collisions overwhelmed me.  I also probably had to hold on in the womb as I had to wait to be born, Mum was too busy bottling plum jam to let me out.  Its a very deep imprint.

Forward movement or the ability to engage my muscles and my will are big recovery tools for me.  It was very confusing to be in AA and told I had self will run riot.  I get it that that can happen sometimes when we are pushing for something that isn’t meant to be.  It is what the agent used on me the day I said I would like 24 hours to think about my offer, then he pushed again and I said I would like a few hours, he didn’t accept that either so I caved!!  Then when I got second thoughts I felt I had to press on anyway.

Now it is going to be impossible to get out of the contract without huge penalties I want to cave to make it easier because I find it hard to tolerate the discomfort. But what I realised today is that I CAN TOLERATE DISCOMFORT, it is possible.  I did it today when my anxiety was huge, I just let myself fully feel the discomfort of it and breathe through.  It didn’t kill me.  So maybe now that is what I have to do and then set the intention to shift my focus away from what spins me or is painful or anxiety provoking for me.  I know that probably seems like a contradiction but on some level it isn’t.

I guess what I am really trying to say is that I need to care for myself when I start to feel spun.  I need to ground myself and get out of my head and into just being because when I am really in the present moment, anxiety goes.  I just have to keep going forward a day at a time.  This too shall pass.  I just have to keep going forward, not round and round in circles.