........but to get through was more hopeless than ever: she sat down and began to cry again.
`You ought to be ashamed of yourself,' said Alice, `a great girl like you,' (she might well say this), `to go on crying in this way! Stop this moment, I tell you!' But she went on all the same, shedding gallons of tears, until there was a large pool all round her, about four inches deep and reaching half down the hall.
I am continually finding out that "holes", especially black ones, are rather difficult to get out of quickly. One gets a glimpse of light and assumes that one must be out of the hole because there is the light after all! But then "your head bumps the ceiling" and you realize that you are still on the journey to get out of the hole completely.
My problem is that I am IMPATIENT. If I think hard enough I can admit that this has been my way for all of my life. I want it NOW, I want to do it NOW, I want to get it over with NOW, OR I don't want to do it AT ALL!
So, this black hole, that threatened to swallow large portions of me faster than a Western Australian shark goes for a drum-line, has tried to reassert it's dominance in my life. I found that the healing process will not be rushed no matter how hard I try to "fake it 'til I make it". I cried my buckets of tears. Granted the dark did not last for weeks or even more than a few days, but it was scary enough to make me reconsider some stuff.
1. I have to admit that I am unhappy about some things, that my emotions are "real"
Now, I don't think I have to be happy all the time (it would be nice but that is not a reasonable expectation given that we live in a fallen world) I have a tendency to try to push my emotions into a sack somewhere.....down in my deepest self.....then I pretend they are not real and were never here. I know I don't succeed at this because these emotions do the Great Escape and in doing this they become distorted and exhibit themselves in monstrous form, not at all like they were when I put them away.
2. I have to be willing to be vulnerable and talk about the stuff that is eating away at me.
As much as I love people and interacting with them I am DEADLY AFRAID of them. I don't always say if something is bothering me because I am afraid they won't like me. They might turn on me. They might say something back that will HURT ME. So I don't say what I want to say...and then my imagination has a right royal picnic and imagines millions of things that make the dark that much darker. This is a curious thing because I think they have the right to tell me if I am bothering them. This is because I know that I won't reject, ridicule, hate, etc etc them. I just have never thought I was worth the same sort of treatment. Well, that's not quite true... I want that sort of treatment. I guess the issue comes down to TRUST.
3. I have to stop berating myself for having emotions.
Most of my life I have fought against crying. It is a sign of weakness and something girls and women do to get what they want.
NOW HOLD ON!!!! Before you get upset at me for that last sentence.... That is what I believed. THAT is what society and my peers taught me as I was growing up! THAT is what many people believe still today! Don't believe me? Cry in front of a man in the building industry because he won't listen to you explain in detail what the issue is with his contractor's workmanship. "Oh, I will have to come and fix it because I can't stand to see a woman cry"
I wanted to be listened to because I was speaking sense. I wanted to be included because I knew I was liked. I wanted to be chosen because I could be trusted to do the very best.
I have tried so hard to NOT be emotional that, guess what, there's that bag of distorted monsters again! And here come the well worn self talk put-downs I have used for decades.
It does not help, calling oneself names, speaking sternly to oneself. It only makes the imagination say "See, I TOLD you that you were not good enough" The imagination is good in it's place but it is lousy at telling the TRUTH. Truth that is there to see except for the darkness. The "trick" is the key in the door and being just the right size to get the key and then the right size to fit through the door.
I have an idea that the "trick" isn't really all that hard, in the end.
The imagination has coupled up with the darkness and is screaming out that it IS just TOO HARD!!!!
No, it isn't! It isn't going to happen instantly but the door will be opened and the Garden will be accessed. Get back in your proper place iImagination. You will come out when I tell you and play by my rules. :) (hmmm, I can't even tell my imagination off without putting a smily slant on the comment just in case I have offended it ha ha)
So, that is it for this time. I leave you with a poem which could have been written to the emotional monsters in our lives
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Here is to wielding our "vorpal swords" and "snicker-snacking" those imaginary monsters!
