My Head Hurts

Whap!

Whap!

Whap!

Rafiki hits me over the head three times.

“You do so much recovery work so you can change, but you keep yourself so busy that you can’t change.” 

Rafiki is on fire today. It’s an interesting perception I have. I can tell he’s guiding me out of love and compassion, not out of frustration and judgement. That’s what a good friend does. I can take it in. I can call him an asshole, also out of love, not anger or resentment. I see his opinions as more things I need to look at and work on.

Why is it then, that if someone I’m close to, such as my ex, my daughters, and my parents (when they were alive) say the same thing, I become defensive, feel guilt and shame, or feel as if I’ve disappointed them?

The ones I am closest to I can treat the harshest and at the same time become extremely hurt by their perceptions of who I am.

Sabotage

I’ve been excited about the processing and insights I’ve had over the first three blogs. I don’t have a website, I don’t have a blog started, I have no following. Just an idea of what I would like to see and where I would like it to go. What I always tend to do is envision what something could look like a year, two years, five years down the road. I do a good job visualizing the future of an idea.

Then…I sabotage myself.

Instead of taking baby steps, I see all the “work” that must be done, the risks (all made up because I haven’t done anything yet) and I find reasons why something won’t work.

I don’t take the risk or the leap. I get frozen in the security and comfort of where I currently am. I start freaking out and making assumptions about stuff that hasn’t happened, and most likely will never happen.

(Basically, if you are reading this, I finally took a leap of faith and risk. Something that I have resisted over the years. If you are reading this, then today is the day to celebrate Phoenix. Go with your bad self!!)

Rafiki lectures, “You’re future tripping and creating dilemmas. You’ve created choices so far down the road that you’ve boxed yourself in a corner. What you have in front of you is infinite choices.”

It’s like I’m reading a “Choose Your Own Adventure Book.” But instead of reading one chapter and deciding what I want to do at the end of each one, I make all the decisions on the first page and base my current actions on the perceived future I am certain is going to happen.

I have done this to my ex with our divorce. Shit, I have done this with most everything in our marriage. She has told me that she needs the divorce to stand true to her morals and values (she should have left me years before I went into recovery). She has said that she’s not looking for someone else. She’s not looking for me. She’s looking to find herself. She has no idea what the future will bring. She will not say that I will be in it. She will not say that I won’t be in it. She just needs time and space to figure life out.

All my ex asks is that I be a friend, support her, and understand her decisions.

Yet, instead I go into the future tripping mode. I connect imaginary dots and determine that the worst possible outcome is truth. Then I act on that truth by saying and doing things that hurt her.

Didn’t I mention earlier that I cause what I believe? I push my ex away and make my belief a reality.

What must I do?

“You see the world in black and white. You don’t allow any gray in your life. It’s either one or the other. You need balance,” Rafiki lectures as he walks back and forth in front of me shaking his stick.

How many times has my ex told me this exact same thing over the past 17 years? Why does it take a monkey to get me to see the light?

I need to find balance in life.

I am getting a lot out of writing down my journey of recovery. Yet, I still need to take care of myself with my daily routines. I need to connect with friends and family, I need to continue pursuing my career, I need to stay present and be a parent for my girls, I need breaks and time off, I need, I need, I need…

I need not to stop with the lists and the “should dos”. When I say, I should do this or I should do that, I shit all over myself. I just placed guilt and shame on what I didn’t do correctly.

Deep breath. In and out. Slow.

Feel the rise and fall of my chest. Focus on the breath.

Live one day at a time. Find that which I am grateful for. Enjoy life.

Things will happen the way they are supposed to.

PS: The day to celebrate is March 22, 2017. The actual day that Phoenix posted this blog. Go Phoenix!