Lots of backbends

Yoga tonight was so intense for me. Backbends, backbends, backbends. A couple hours later, and I'm still kinda shaky. But I look forward to going every week. It's good, and calming, and all of the crap in my body is gone at the end of the class-it's all left on the mat.

I was sweating like crazy (it was hot and the room was packed). I was slipping all over the place, and my clothes weren't spongy enough to soak it up. I had to go to town on my mat when I got home-clean it up, get all the yuck off of it. Then I ate a lot to fill up my empty muscles.

Now I'm watching The Bachelor. My body feels great; sore, but great. I am full of rosemary focaccia, and chocolate, and soy milk. I am content and tired.

Shame in me

Shame is an awful thing. I can feel it in my chest. It's like a fist grabs my heart, and then wrenches it to the right. Ouch.

I am feeling shame at this very moment, and I am trying to talk myself through it. I feel the shame of a little kid who is tattling, something I don't directly remember doing, but imagine I did quite often. Doing the right thing is very important to me. And when I see it out there, possible, I want to grab it and make it mine. I want to own the essence of being right. I want to own it and let it define me. I want to be right. I want to be right. I want to be right. Ad infinitum...

Being right makes us feel safe. It makes us feel in control. When that is questioned, when we make small mistakes, we are struck with the uninvited wrenching fist in the chest.

I have to talk to myself often, remind myself that I am fallible, remind myself that I cannot know the right and perfect way to do everything. All I have is myself, and whatever faculties are available in that particular moment.

In all reality, I am human and flawed, and I never do the right thing. But so are you, so at least we're all in this thing together.

The pain can't last forever.

Have you ever felt debilitating emotional pain? Have you ever done everything in your power to then cover up or numb that awful feeling(s)? If so, you are not alone. And I am here to tell you that that numbing that you seek is perfectly understandable. Those terrible feelings are oftentimes the reason people attempt suicide. Sometimes those feelings do indeed feel worse than one imagines death could ever possibly feel. "Hell? This is hell."

So this is a shout out to all those who have felt those debilitating feelings of awful, unspeakable pain. You are not alone. Ride it out.

Someday the pain will end. It has to. It really must end at some point. I'm beginning to think that if I equate emotional pain with physical pain, I can begin to imagine that this awful feeling in my chest that makes me want to die is actually my heart healing from a horrific injury. It has been blasted, and now it is doing the difficult work of putting itself back together. I'm not going to pour salt into it by sleeping around and making it worse. I'm not going to start drinking excessively. Alcohol will only make it worse.

All of things we do to ease the pain only prolong the feeling(s). And in order to get over those feelings, we must FEEL them. We must do the awful, heartbreaking work of sitting with those feelings and waiting.

So wait, dearies. It will end. Someday, somehow, it will end.

How often do you purge?

One of my aunts once told me that every time she buys something new, she gets rid of something old. I think that she was specifically talking about her wardrobe at the time; get rid of a pair of shoes when you buy a new pair; new pants, old pants, and so on. This seemed genius to me.

Of course I have quite a book collection, and it isn't entirely for me, so that isn't something I purge from very often. My clothes are definitely possessions I go through regularly to get rid of what I don't wear anymore, doesn't fit right, or isn't looking as good as it once did. Since I've been buying all of my clothes at thrift stores, it seems apropos to just thrift them back. "From whence they came..."

Moving is the best time to purge of course. Spring cleaning, or something similar, will also do quite well. I myself have begun purging mid-November because I watched Hoarders for the first time, and it made me anxious.

Final note: If someone could please give me an appropriate range of "number of pairs of shoes allowed one individual female person", that would be very helpful to me (I tend to return to my feral child roots when I'm unsure about something). It may be helpful to know that I am a professional person. I try really hard to live simply, but I just bought another pair of (used) Dansko clogs, and now I'm up to three pairs, and I'm feeling like that may be too many, but I don't know which ones to get rid of.

Mantra #1: Donate what you don't use!

Mantra #2: When in need, always ask for help!