Fascinating Truths: Not necessarily Applicable

I went to sleep with a prayer and a question "How do I stop myself from overeating?"

Realization: I have been amazingly persistant in some of the relationships in my life. Specifically, with my parents... the place where I am now with my family, where they understand me, where we understand each other and respect each other... I could not have imagined 1 year ago. Or I could have imagined it, but I would not have known how to get here.

How is it that I am in this place with those relationships, but not with all relationshiops, and not in relatiship with my self? The difference?

My family is my blood... there is no question of should I try or should I not try. It's not a question, which makes it much easier to persist, to continue, it's not even a 'trying'... simply a river flowing, albeit across some rocks and maybe even the river bank at some points...

I know it's right. Family is family. There is no question of 'is it right for this relationshiop to be this way.'

There is love and caring. There is no question of whether I care. There is not much anger, and no battle... Or, there was a battle, with my dad... but it was not out of anger, and it was without violence... there was and will undoubtedly continue to be frustration... but it's only frustrating, it may lead me to pause and breathe... but not to anger and not to turning back.

There is desperation. I need(ed) help/connection... there was no choice but to get a push off into the abyss of the place I have never been.

How to have this in more relationships, especially to myself? There is indeed a battle. However, the battle needs a simplicity of direction, a sword of caring and love, a shield of wisdom, and the fire of necessity.

It's hard to put things into words at the moment for some reason... There's been a lot of up and downs. I've been doing some really good work with my Rabbi. He's been teaching me a Merkabah (Chariot) Meditation - to make my body a Chariot for G-d/my soul - and I always take these wild trips. It's pretty cool. My ability to visualize / inner vision is definately a gift I only recieved several years ago. And, it feels very right to be using it. Usually I use my mind, or more correctly, my mind uses me to worry, build anxiety, stress, etc... It's awesome to be turning it around to see light and build calm. In addition to doing some healing, at the end of the last meditation, after I cut off the roots of that which was healing me in my vision... my Rabbi said, "You know, you don't have to do that..." And I had one of those 'ahha' moments. Like, "you mean I don't have to allow myself to cut off my connection, to hurt myself... like I'm in charge of what happens inside me?" And so I threw down the scizzors inside my vision and broke them. Then I used another pair of scizzors to just cut off the stems of the plants that were growing within me and put them back into the ground to recconect.

That was pretty cool. I need to solidify that realization/expererience with a lot more experience in my life!!!

I also did some gestalt chair work around all of my physical pain in the Men's group. That was more difficult because I had to fit my experience into a pre-existing form, and that's very difficult for me. I ended up meteor showering whatever is causing me pain with light/love. However, I was starving (for something?) when I came home and ate way more than I needed to, causing myself some pain.

Last, but very much not least. I found a NAET (Nambudripad's Allergy Elimination Techniques)Doctor who says she can fix what's wrong. She tested me for allergies and said that I'm allergic to pretty much everything under the sun... including Vitamin A,B,C,D, E, etc... So I'm on a very strict diet. However, the good news is that she not only diagnoses these things, she fixes them using what looks like some combination of accupressure/chiropractic/energy healing technique. So, I'm... it's not so optimistic or not... But I have been focusing my energy since I saw her on Thursday to seeing myself through the lens of her understanding and seeing myself getting better as I work with her. The way that she explained what has been going on in my body actually made sense. And, the other good news is that she said that considering how screwed up my system is it's pretty amazing that my body still functions as well as it does. To me that's a 'kudos' for everything else I have been doing to try to take care of my health. It feels really good, like almost crying really good, to have some confirmation that something I've been doing has actually been good for me.

I feel, a little bit better. I'm not sure how much it's my imagination, how much it's hope... but I choose to believe those things are just as real as anything else. Stuff still hurts, I haven't slept very much... but I do feel calmer. And, I've been using some of what my Rabbi has taught me... when I remember, as I walk to and fro... I see light filling my body (instead of worrying, trying to figure out, thinking about stuff, stuff, stuff...)

I've been sleeping better lately... but/and I've been realizing that, at least lately, a large reason of why I don't sleep is I keep on thinking about my clients from work... and I've been noticing it more in the background of my thoughts throughout the day too. The experience is annoying, but the fact that it's happenign is frightening.

It's frightening because... as if... I'm really here to give these people the 'key' to fix their lives... and I'm fucking up. I wish I could just go to work and enjoy getting to know my clients and be in awe of their awesomeness. That's what I thought I was signing up for, I KNOW it works, and that's what I'd be doing if I could be client-centered. But my supervisor always assumes the worst possible scenario, and since the clients, by definition of the program, are 'at risk for homelessness' they are always in some kind of crisis, and I feel this ineffable pressure from my supervisor (whether I'm in session, or at home) to be getting them to change themselves... And so I hate going to work and feeling like a failure at this. And I hate supervision because it involves a balance of keeping what I really want to do and say with the clients just out of reach from my awareness while I try to present what's going on with them in the way my supervisor wants. Then, most of the time I simply try to avoid thinking about the conflict of what I think I should do and what my supervisor wants, because there is nothing I can do. Though I do take specific time out to think about possible solutions (and this is what is always going on the background, I'm realizing), consult with people, and read stuff that could be helpful.

So yeah, I hate my practicum. I really enjoy some of the clients. And I do like beign there and doing the work. But/and I have a general hate for the fact that I am again (I seem to be here, or put myself here often) in a place where a resolution is impossible, and I just have to bear it and do my best to learn what I can.

I have incredible parents.

Through a series of events - the general progression of the intollerability of my physical pain which has led to a spiralling decrease of my emotional coping mechanisms - I ended up mentioning to my mom that if I don't find a way to work through things on my own this year, I will try to find and check myself into some kind of hospital/residential treatment center to deal with whatever is the problem with my health and the disorder in my eating. I didn't mean to say it... and I felt as if my mom just about died on the spot by the weight of the pain she felt for me.

However, this forced me to the fact that I need to tell my dad and my brother about how serious/grave my struggle is too, so that my mom is not stuck with information by herself. I was very very angry that I had to do this, but fortunately a friend helped me talk through it, and I woke up the next day with a scheme;) I would not only talk to my parents, but I will/am going to connect with / utilize / ask for the support that I need from all the important people in my life. I will have a person that I can call each night when I feel competely hopeless, tired, angry for being tired, in pain, angry for being in pain, and overall a basketcase... and I will show my family/friends specifically what I need for support. Short of a medical miracle, what I need is help processing, and client-centered processing is the best processing there is.

So I talked to my dad yesterday, with my mom on the line. And he was incredible. He actually heard what I was saying. And he didn't die on the spot from a heart attack. He was able to hear me out. My parents both heard me out on what I need and without a question said they would do whatever I asked. I know this will help me. But on an even more basic and powerful level, this will bring me closer to my parents, them closer to each other (my deal is that if they take me up on this, after each time I talk to them about the reality and intensity of my process, they have to talk to each other about it... so that I'm not overwhelmed by worrying that they will simply take my pain on themselves as they wish they could do... and so they become closer to each other, hehe...), and through this process, I think, closer to themselves. My parents did not cause this. But my family and friends can support me in building myself back up, higher, stronger, and more in-tune than before... and, even joyous!

I sent my dad an email afterwards thanking him... and he wrote back (pardon his spelling) "It is a honor and grate privilege to have YOU as my son. Thank you for your trust and remember, that I believe you are the greatest person I have ever met in my life. I believe that you will be the best in would ever you decide to do in your life." My mother says similar things all the time. How lucky am I? I am so proud of my father. I can't even put words to it. He has opened up so much in the last six months. As we were talking today about an assignment for school... he even gave me advice for things I should focus on since I intend to be a Rabbi. This is from a person who said to me just several months ago that he thought religious people were basically a despicable waste of space.

On the other end of it, hearing such things from my parents, why do I have emotional problems in the begining? I'm getting (It wasn't always there when I was younger, but my parents always intended to show it.) the unconditional positive regard that client-centered theory talks about...

I'm really really struggling right now. But I'm opening. I feel very lucky.

i really feel like i've been loosing lately. i've been trying to be more committed than ever to getting past everything in the last few weeks, but nothing is changing...

anger and hate seem to be so seductive... i don't understand why. if we supposedly have choices over how we feel... why is it so much easier to be angry than to be happy, to hate than to love...??? that seems unf'kn' fair, hehe

and what's even more frustrating is that after thinking about it for a few minutes, i have an intellectual answer. it takes less energy and conserves resources. to be happy/loving, by definition and as a result, you are more open to more things... whereas in anger/sadness/pain... your attention is focused on just the miniscule area of that which you hate, and everything else gets shut down... it's the same reason why lethargy/laziness is so seductive... you can turn everything off... so perhaps anger/sadness/hate is just an outgrowth of lethargy/laziness.

yay. someone go publish a dissertation. i will now go pray, cry, and drink some coffee, hopefully the combination of those will help me be happy and loving so that i can do my work so that i don't fail out of school...

i'm feeling a tinge better, but i'm afraid of turning into a mean old person, i'm so tired of 'choosing' happiness whereas what i feel is rage. and it's not that rage is bad, it's just that, well... it'd be kind of hard to actually function while in rage;(

If/when? Alissa and I ever meet - it will be with this poem

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I'll meet you there.


When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn't make any sense.

-Rumi

It was our 'song' when we were together...

There will need to be a place to acknowledge and discuss everything that had passed too... i think that we went to that 'field' too often... as a way of seperating our selves from reality, and as a form of denial... but it was the only way we could find any sanity, and this is still the paradise i seek.

realization: i'm relationship starved and have been for many years. maybe always.

I have had this fantasy for many years- that I will lie down in my bed with someone I love, hold them tight, and the world will simply stop spinning... that's really all i want. I don't want a relationship, I don't want sex, I don't want deep conversation, I just want to be lying next to someone I love, and the outside world to stop spinning...

maybe that's kinda childish, maybe it's a regression or something like that...

but i thought about something last night as i was trying to get to a place where the world stops spinning by my lonesome' self;) the only time the world 'stops spinning' is when I enter/engage it. as long as i remain watching, it will continue to spin, and the day that I can be 'accepting' of that spinning is not near... so as i thought of this, i remained laying in my bed, 'watching' the world spin... thinking - tomorrow

i'm pretty good... though i feel as if there's something missing, or something that I meant to do that I wanted to do... oh, i got it... i hung out with an friend from the crisis hotline center i worked at before i started school here in chicago today... she's visiting chicago to go to a concert and we hung out for a bit, which was really nice. i think the thing that feels like 'something is missing' is that i had/have a crush on her, and wanted to make a stronger connection. though cognitively i know very clearly that the most i want is to be friends, it reminds me of wanting connection with people in general.

i had an excellent Yom Kippur. Considering that I'm often very hungry and have all sorta of stomache pain, the pain from fasting didn't make any unusual impression from me. The services, however, were excellent. I was late Wednesday night because of an emergency with a client at work - which reflected a lot of things that I can/need to learn/change/upgrade/open up to in myself... (couldn't have started Yom Kippur in a better way). Then, I really poured my heart out during services, did some good teshuva (owning up to stuff/ forgiving / realizing / opening up/ commiting to act differently in the future) with several people there, et... I got to scream and cry, etc... and even though i was a bit overboard compared to most other people, considering that it's part of the structure of the prayer for that day, i felt i could give myself the freedom to do it.

I had a good break fast, nice and smooth, no pain... Then, came home... still felt a little hungry... and BAMN! ate in a way i really didn't need to... as if all the work that i'd done didn't change a thing.

however, i'm pushing in a different direction after that. most of the reasons why i eat, feel depressed, lonely, hopeless, etc... and hence, f'k my life... are no longer existant.
I have been 'forgiven' as much as possible for the mistakes made in my relationships... I can no longer be honest in torturing myself in order to exact that forgiveness from life somehow...
I have friends... I am no longer alone
I have some friends that really really get me. I had one particular conversation at Yom Kippur that I'm still awed by. This person, she really heard me... and we... it was just incredible. Like we got each other, and we were totally tuned in to the same experience, and yet saw it in different ways, and at the same time remained completely aware that we saw it differently and did not try to covince the other person of our personal way, etc... and it was just such a ride... and she's married... and if she wasn't, and we were of similar age, she would be my perfect woman, and i said that... and she said the feelings that she had for me, and we talked about all of that, and we acknowledged boundaries, and it was just so cool... and i still can't believe there is a person in the world who can be like that, or I can be like that with... and remain completely sane. it's just so cool. and we settled on the fact that i'm kind of a little brother to her, and i have sorta of an aunt feel about her, which is good and healthy, i think. <-- what all this means, is that if i wait/watch mindfully enough, there are still people in the world who i can connect with without compromising myself in some way, without sacrificing my boundaries. i haven't felt that way since high school. before high school i did most because of idealism/stubbornness and not faith, but afterwards all those things either naturally worn away or betrayed! <-- so again, what wall this means... is that even though i often feel alien, i am not completely alone, regardless of how much contact i have with my own 'species'
I find school and work meaningful, even if not completely fulfilling --> my life is not emptiness
People like me, appeciate me, find me important/meaningful (though not always in ways that are accurate and instead sometimes idealizing)--> people think I'm important
I'm seeing, more and more, how I'm still reacting to a decision made in middle school - people don't like me, so being differnt is better, and i don't like them, so i'll just stay away. i don't make attempts to connect/contact people or return attempts to connect because my initial reaction is that "he/she is empty" or, "well... i don't have anything in common, what am i going to say... what would we do if we hung out anyways" and i often lose opportunities, or try too hard and make people uncomfortable.
i.e. I watch people, even when i'm talking to them, i choose to watch instead of engaging.
There is a significant amount of pleasure in my life, even while there is pain --> it's not accurate to say, "i toil all day long, and for nothing... i might as well give in/ give up at least for a bit and enjoy myself, and f'k the consequences' --> i toil and i see results
The harder I try the more doors open up... and yes, the consequence of my health (pain, fatigue, memory) are significant, and limit (I'll try to convince myself that it's simply "change the direction") of my life... I have made significant progress in my ability to be in relationship with people. I don't know, but I think I have.

So, my strategy, is I just keep saying to myself, "I don't need this habbit anymore... I don't need this habbit anymore... I can choose to step out of it... I can choose to step out of it." I know that the fact that I"m saying that shows that I'm very much still stuck... but I think I can step out of it, which I believe will allow the doors to open up for me to heal in the other ways that I need to heal. I truly do. However, I need to step out of this pattern. It's death. I know that it's death. And i know that I choose it becuase it's my best attempt to cope and not just self-destructiveness... But I must disengage from it, I must transform myself into a person who is no longer even attracted by this option and go forth in a different direction. This is the only way to live. This is the only way to life... PLEASE!!! Let me go. Choose to let me go! My Rabbi says that the trees don't 'lose' their leaves in the Fall, the choose to let them go. So I must choose to let go the leaves of my idea that eating will make me feel better, or will give me energy, or is a way for me to let go for a bit... it does, but it cause more harm then go... i need to choose to let go the leaves of this pattern and my struggles with self-doubt. these leaves have changed colors many times, it is time to let them go, bury them, and reJoice... so that transformation has the room to explicate itself and I can start on fertile soil - the pain and mistakes of the past have plowed the field, and made room for new seeds to groW!!!. I know where there I should let the land lie fallow, and where I should plant... pleaasssse

New committments
- I will no longer take on projects I have no way of doing just because I think I should do them... I will instead choose smaller things that I can do...
- I will connect with people even if what I need to say may hurt them as this is more true to myself, and whatever the consequences, at least they will grow on Truth. I will choose to trust, though in a more gradated way, more...

I keep on almost forgetting appointments, almost missing classes, accidentally breaking dishes - another glass hit the dust just a few minutes ago.

And then getting wacked last night... it makes me nervous...

I woke up with a strange dream this morning - my mother had died... and it was just my dad and I. And, for some reason, I kept on looking for something/anything she had written - I wanted to see her handwriting becuase somehow, I thought, it would soothe me. And I was crying, uncontrollably, in a way that I used to cry for Alissa.
--The real life connection is a story someone told me last Shabbos about being angry, and how they met a person who helped them deal with their anger by looking at their handwriting and being able to tell them whether they were angry or not (there must be additional details here, but they're irrelevant).

So... I don't know... Tomorrow night is Yom Kippur. I'm staying up late to organize a teaching that I said I'll do. My most recent ex-girlfriend will be there with her fiance', I"m not sure whether that's good or bad. Probably a good thing to bring home the reality of the day, but I wish it could all be easier. I committed to spending Shabbat with an Orthodox family, which I have been avoiding for some time, but I'm almost positive I will call and cancel tomorrow because I just have too many obligations... it's hard to know whether adding more things helps or hurts because I don't use my free time too well, so I've been adding things instead, but I'm a bit nervous about things...

So I was going for a nice jog this evening, in my beautiful lakeshore park... all proud of myself for exercizing... and I was even practicing my latest mantra-

May I be healthy

May I be strong

May I be safe

May I be happy

I line per lap... and, one my 3rd lape, while happily chanting May I be safe I get blind sided by, I think, a punch (felt like a baseball) to my mouth... by the time I got up from the ground, the group of teenagers near whom I was running, and suspect of the punch, were about 25 feet away, happily giggling away in the shadows of the trees... Interesting time to get punched, huh? It didn't really cross my mind to chase them down and try to beat them up, I think that would be stupid... though if they hadn't run away, I would've asked them why. Seems like you'd have to be pretty screwed up / in lots of pain to hit someone for absolutely no reason, huh? They will probably end up in jail in not too long for something or other, and that makes me sad.

As for me, I have a big fat lip, somewhat hidden by my mostache, but swollen purple on the inside, and a sore hand from a bad fall. I'll survive;) Interesting timing though. And, I don't feel like explaining to everyone what happened. But I doubt I'll let the kids kick me out of the park... this might just mean I have to start paying more attention while jogging at night, eh?