I Feel Sad and Broken
So I attempt to purge my brain and fill it to distraction.
I’m in the very uncomfortable shifting space that comes with transformation. To be honest, I don’t always love it.
I am turned off by people who say “to be honest” and “honestly” too often. It makes me wonder what they are hiding. I had a couple recent conversations with a “to be honest” dropper and find myself mirroring. Ugh.
My many parts are feeling very activated by recent events, and I’m not feeling like a totally adept manager. When I shut parts down to keep us safe in dangerous company, those parts come out with a vengeance as soon as we’re alone again.
I am understanding systems, including my own psyche, better than ever before.
I credit my current state of unrest to the unrest I sense all around me. Which I suspect is ultimately leading to a state of greater understanding and peace, but it is highly uncomfortable right now. The collection of books I’ve poured into my head recently also have impact, some activating, some calming, some both. And I’ve leaned into extra meditation with Sharon Salzberg, Joseph Goldstein, and George Mumford on the Happier App.
When I feel most distressed, I meditate and turn toward books. I also try to hydrate and move more.
Here’s what I’ve poured into me in the past two weeks, in addition to many gallons of water and daily mediation:
I do see things through a systems lens, which is why I am drawn toward parts work and internal family systems (IFS). In truth, both my parents saw things through a systems lens. It’s what made my dad a sociologist/historian and my mom a mathematician/quilter.
The more you study systems, the more you understand the world and the more you believe in balance.
Imbalance breaks systems. Anyone who understands systems understands this.
This understanding makes our current times a very difficult period to be alive. Major breakage ahead.
Which makes me feel sad and broken except that those of us with lots of practice feeling sad and broken will actually feel less sad and broken as things fall apart.
Things falling apart is less sad and scary for people who never had things hold together in the first place. It feels familiar.
For trauma to feel familiar is a weird advantage. And yet it is an advantage.
My extreme discomfort right now is a preview of how many others will likely feel very soon. Maybe I’ll be through mine enough by then to help others. Here’s hoping.
Hydrate and move.
This is how to handle grief and change.
Sweating and crying are also super helpful.
I am writing a post entitled “I Feel Sad and Broken” while walking in 94-degree heat carrying 40 pounds on my back. Because how I feel about myself is not always connected to reality.
Surely connected to the fact I based my sense of self for many years on how others treated me. When really how others treated me had everything to do with them.
People who treated me like sh!t made me feel like sh!t. And yes, it was my fault for letting them make me feel that way. But also, what makes people treat other people like sh!t? (Power imbalances. Sensing someone else feels like sh!t about themselves.)
Who is wrong in this equation? Remind me again. Is it the person who accepts being treated like sh!t—as she was conditioned to do from infancy—or the person who believes it is his/her right to treat others like sh!t?
The P. Diddy trial continues, Gazans continue to be massacred, we’re at war with Iran, abused little boys and girls grow up to abuse themselves and others. Victims are blamed because no one wants to feel like a victim. Blaming is distancing.
We could learn. Or we could repeat.
When I’m triggered into feeling like a worthless piece of sh!t, I hydrate, strap the weight of a child on my back, and walk until I sweat out the nasty feelings injected into me by abusers who refused to heal.
Sweating is good. Movement is good. Hydration is good.
Stewing in unpleasant feelings, not so good.
Please, hydrate and move.
You will feel different and quite probably better.
I always do.