moving + baggage

Soundtrack: A Reason to Fight – Disturbed

I had become so engrossed in writing my book, Devastation, that I forgot how good it felt to just get words off of my chest. Letting thoughts fly into the world feels good. So good. Just getting them out there – is powerful. With my recent, non-book post, Meh Update, I remembered why I started blogging again in the first place. The book has become more of a hobby and a world that I escape into. Maybe even a shinny object (see the 3rd paragraph), at times. I need to work on some balance with that. I think that I have felt deprived of so many things that when I find a real spark, or joy, I run with it… Yes I realize that is self inflicted, maybe an exaggeration, or just a twisted view – but it is a feeling that I am processing none-the-less. And my deprivation – is not necessarily well proportioned. I mean, the things that I am battling in my head, are pitiful in comparison to so many other problems that people face. That doesn’t mean they do not exist and since I am living with them – they will feel bigger… to me. Feelings – are not always logical. And that is okay too. It’s what we are gonna do with them, or not do with them, that should matters.

On to today’s topic. It is really more a flavor of the month… It is a thing that I despise. It is one of the things that I simultaneously have become quite good at, and want to bury my head in the sand from. Moving. My lease is up at the apartment and Lindsay and I are moving towards our own place, together. With The Year Turnaround (or TYT), I reflected on moving a couple of times in a short period of time. This week, I even brought it up to my therapist. Moving has a stigma for me and was never really pleasant. Sure, there were times that we moved to improve our living – or perhaps moving across the country following a job… But mostly, recently, it was for a not-so-good-reason. Granted, as in TYT, it was self inflicted, that does not change my Skinner views and things. It is a learning process though, to not bypass the negative. Bypassing just continues burying the feelings. We need to feel it, and wade through it. I know, easier said than done. I am trying to also view the world as just a thing – and the feelings are what we associate with it. Change the feeling – change the thing (or experience). Either way – it has to get done and I have been doing what I can. In regards to moving… I have a couple weeks to go and I am about 30% done, I would say. Not too shabby.

Q and I were talking tonight, and we reflected on some events that were well over year ago. I was blindsided. Not intensionally, on her part. Feelings associated with one of those darker times slammed like waves crashing me into the shore. And then I felt washed ashore… and hypothermic + part drowned. It was a set of feelings that I had buried. I think that it was mostly shame that helped me cover it. I made it to the other side and did not want to look back. I have done that so many times in life, while we are being honest and reflecting. Some new fad, new hobby, habit, or other thing… (work too at some point, possibly…very likely…). Take my ADD from looking left to looking right and focus on that new thing. It is all a part of wading through our feelings just like I mentioned while discussing the moving. It is easier to walk around it. It is easier to walk over it or walk away from it. It is the walking through it that makes the impact though. I survived this. Then once we are on the other side, having waded the marshes (or swamp lands for some of us), we have a map for the future. We do not have to be scared of exploring the wilderness any longer. We can even be a guide to others, possibly, if we are strong enough. Oh, the lessons that I have avoided. TYT kicked off a healing period and it will take time to retrace my steps and make my maps.

What are you walking around – or over – or away from? If you are walking with it or ready to walk through it do you have a guide? Sunday Challenge: Walk through one memory and feel it. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Here is the thing… Q told me this – and I will always remember it… Whatever it is that you need to walk back through… you will survive it. You have a 100% survival rate, thus far. And just like my therapist – or Q – I need a guide sometimes. You do not have to explore the wilderness alone.

WW – joe

from WordPress https://ift.tt/2Nj11lL