OK so only three or four days in but this new journey of self awareness seems to be chugging along fine so far. Self-hypno done yesterday and update sent to hypno-dude, who has reassured me that my wandering mind is not a problem (in this regard anyway haha) and gently suggested I may be overcomplicating the crap out/good stuff in part a tad...which doesn't surprise me in the slightest. I think that sometimes I need to think less about thinking. Do you think I'm right? I thought so.
In terms of how all this is affecting my outlook, I do feel like I'm making progress in feeling like a worthwhile human being but it hasn't stopped me eating. I put the full stop there because that's where the full stop came in in my mind and better to put it there and acknowledge it, ather than rethink it into something more socially acceptable. I don't want to stop eating, really. I made a pretty good bulimic in the past but I would be an absolutely terrible anorexic. Fancy not eating at all! I don't want to stop eating, I just want not to think about it so bloody much (there's the thinking thing again, bugger it). This week has not been stellar in the food stakes but I did weigh myself this morning and I'm only up a pound so that's good going as far as I'm concerned.
I am (admittedly reluctantly) coming around to the thought I may have to put my weight loss (five stone so far, go me) on hold a bit while I work on other stuff that needs fixing, which let's face it probably was the cause of being ten stone overweight in the first place. Do I just want to be thin, or do I want to be happy in myself and relatively well adjusted? Do I have to choose? Right now? Aaaaaggghhh!!!
This morning I've been rereading a very fine book, 'Living Well With Pain and Ilness: The mindful way to free yourself from suffering' which I first bought when I arrived in England two and a half years ago. Two and a half years? That doesn't sound right. No, it is. Forgive me, I've been back and forth so much in the last few years, and am so crap at maths that it's hard to keep track. I bought it a while ago, that'll do. I'm currently rereading it primarily to see how I can help the kindest man in the world, who after 28 years of type 1 diabetes has, among other things, major neuropathic issues with his feet which are currently keeping him awake at night and painkillers and medication really aren't cutting it. What do you you do when Western medicine has no answers, but you still want quality of life?
The author explains it's an attitude adjustment. She's a Buddhist and very into the whole 'suffering is caused by wanting' philosophy of Buddhism, in this case, suffering is caused not just by the pain but wanting not to have it and railing against it. So there's primary suffering (being in pain or ill) and secondary suffering (fighting and railing against it, or trying to block it out completely) and ultimately it's the secondary suffering which affects your life the most and makes you miserable.
I do have issues with this whole suffering caused by wanting thing, which is probably as much my ignorance of what it really means as much as anything. But, but, have to also accept that a lot of the pain in my life has been caused not by the actual shit things that happened but how I responded during and after. But, but if you just accept everything that happens to you in some Zen induced hippy dippy it's all written in the universe way, doesn't that make you a victim? Haven't some of the greatest injustices in the world been stopped by fighting them?
Obviously I haven't really got to grips with the book yet. Maybe the answer's in a chapter I haven't read but I can't get away from the knowledge that trying to run away from (block out the suffering of) stuff that has happened to me has never, ever helped me feel better or be a better person. Fuck knows I've tried!!
In the end, you can't escape pain of some sort, can you? It happens to us all, physically, mentally and emotionally. Are you going to spend your whole life bitching and whinging about it or learn what you need to learn from it and move on to something else? If the pain is permanent, are you going to spend your whole life bitching and whinging or are you going to learn from it and grow? Well, Sandy, are you?
I have two very dear friends back in Australia, Gary and Tanya, who lost their four year old daughter to meningococcal disease a couple of years ago. We visited them when we were back in Aus last year. Their pain is still excruciating and obvious, but at the same time they're carrying it with a dignity that awes me. In the two days we spent with them, Gary said something which I think will be with me forever, that he has fully accepted that there's going to be an undercurrent of sadness in him for the rest of his life. No bitterness, just acceptance. Does this bring his daughter back? No. Does it let him live the rest of his life and look after his wife and son in the best possible way? Yes.
I'd feel like a twit chanting and incense does my sinuses in, but the Buddhists may just be on to something.
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