Today, I experienced that moment, when you find out you have unlimited mental health visits.
There were tears.
Today, I also experienced the facilitation of my first Grief Recovery Method practice group, an 8 week course I began teaching this evening. I was really stunned at how knowledgable I am about the realities of grief (and the things we need to look at that are in the way of recovering from it), my tempered but genuine passion for the work, my ability to naturally connect with the participants energetically, and how easily I slipped into my own style and groove with delivering the concepts the method is based on.
Yesterday, I began a 6 week self defense class, which was incredibly empowering, and I recommend it to every single woman I know. Due to that first session, I am learning in an experiential sense that the single most detrimental thing I have done to compromise my personal safety (which includes my emotional well being) has been to unconsciously presume that announcing my intuitions that something wasn’t right would be an adequate defense.
The next most detrimental thing has been to take others at their word when they told me that intuition was wrong. Others who often insisted they were trustworthy and yet utilized the subtle behaviors of a predator, behaviors I knew were fishy but I ignored and made excuses for.
I am angry in those classes, but it’s the right kind of angry, the result of having removed the veil of smiley floweriness I once used to disguise my deep anxiety for my bodily safety while walking down a public street alone.
Also, I am learning how to beat the fuck out of people, if I have to, and letting off some bag-slamming “I. *BAM* DON’T. *SLAM* FUCKING. *POW* THINK SO. *BANG*” steam. It’s pretty fucking great.
The day before that, I wallowed, puzzled and pathetic and sad, on the tail end of a rough Saturday, in which I was mortifyingly reminded that even the best of us sometimes catch ourselves having hoped to see a fish climb a tree. When that fish simply continued being the fish it is, I didn’t exactly take it very well.
Being in mourning is frustrating and draining. In this case I managed not to isolate, or apologize for having feelings, and I’m really proud of that.
Before all that nonsense went down, I spent some time after my second Saturday yoga therapy session out of 5 contemplating the distinction between pain and suffering, surmising that one is an inevitable part of existing, and the other, is not.
The day before that, I returned from a 5 day vacation in the bay area with a long-time lady friend of mine, a trip taken in homage to our deep life transitions which parallel in timing.
We drank iced teas, ate desserts, ordered room service, and read a tremendous amount. I frequently played the baby grand piano, sat in the sauna, and got the first massage I’ve had since February after my motorcycle crash. It was an incredible gift that I am deeply grateful for.
Currently, I am doing Yoga therapy sessions, self defense class, Cognitive Process Therapy, and mime lessons every week. I am constantly learning on both a physical and mental level, about myself, my strengths and my potential, by doing things that are new for me on a bunch of different spectrums.
Most of these activities materialized in trades and cosmic circumstances, and though I often feel lost and sad and confused in my child psyche while I maneuver a life that doesn’t include filling the space in my thorax with the wants of (or the [un]conscious search for) someone else, it is clear that right now, I am exponentially supported.
Tomorrow morning, at 8am, I will awaken to Kenny Loggins serenading me into the Danger Zone. And, should I need to, I will face the book with my new-to-me Paperwhite Kindle, which arrived today complete with a badass case, and temporary my little pony tattoos, handed down to me by one of my favorite people to stalk on twitter.
I am, for lack of a better word, blessed.