Filling the Vessel

The past couple of days have tested my boundaries. It is only when things start to come in that we understand the size of our vessel - what we are able to receive.

On Monday night I was surprised at how low my energy reserves had become - how long it was taking for the drugs to move out of my system. Unable to properly take care of myself and having no-one around to take control of the situation for me, I was in a downwards spiral. I needed energy to prepare food to give me more energy, and very little energy to prepare it. Instead of bouncing back from my trip in to space, I was getting weaker by the hour.

At the eleventh hour (or rather, the ninth hour), I summoned the energy to sling two chicken quarters in to the oven. By ten-fifteen, I had enough protein in my system to turn things around.

On Tuesday I travelled in to London to stay at W's house. It took almost the entire day to prepare and pack, and the evening was spent with salad and steak and good conversation. I felt better - more alive to be around people - although Tuesday night was restless and I had a couple of vivid hallucinations in amongst a few hours of hot and cold sweats. Nice.

On Wednesday, W was out for the day. I started to work through some issues that needed to be resolved on our website, first from her house, and later from the centre itself. It was strange to be around people again, to answer 'How are you?' and 'I haven't seen you for ages, where have you been?' with 'Yes, I'm good, thanks. I feel as though I've been away for ages - I've been busy and plus the weather didn't help with the trains...' More lies. More cover up. More feeling this grinding sense that I had been living in a parallel universe that I could not reveal to other people.

By the end of the day, my head was pounding from overload. I need to rest. I'm not ready for this. I need to back off, back to my solitude. I went to bed early, certain that I was ready to pass out as soon as my head hit the pillow, but found that the opposite was true - an even worse night of hot and cold sweats and a feeling of no sleep at all.

Thursday morning arrived early - 5:45 to be precise - enough time to make myself presentable for registering attendees for the Business Gym. I caught sight of my reflection in the bathroom mirror - triple bags under the eyes which were virtually closed from puffiness, and a dark bruise along the inside of one eye. I looked as though I had gone at least one round with Mike Tyson, but it felt like ten. Thank heavens for make-up. By the time I had finished getting ready, my presentation was passable.

The Business Gym was regretfully low on attendance - a shame for those who missed it because the seminar (I heard) was incredible - but it did make the registration process a little easier to handle. Usually I am impatient to sit in on as much of the seminars as possible, but this time I held back from being around people, easing myself back in to life gently, avoiding burnout.

I stuck to one-on-one conversations with the people around me, and little by little, the Light started to come in. I had a conversation with a friend who listened to my recent experiences and then shared that she too had moments of being around people when she felt detached and unsure of whether she was in control of her next reaction. And I thought that was just me. We invented a code-word - "fairies" (as in "away with the..") to support each other at future events.

I was then approached by another volunteer who wants to move in to London and asked if I was interested in sharing a flat. He wasn't planning to move until April, but when I mentioned that I needed to move in the next month or so, he said that this would be fine. It's an option to consider over the next few days.

After the seminar I then caught up with another good friend over coffee and started to feel a little more at ease with what I had been through. She asked whether she could pay me to teach her how to sell on eBay, sometime soon. We discussed each other's businesses and self esteem. I felt less and less alone in my thoughts, less stranded in my other world and less as though I was repeating old patterns. There are people to share with, to help me to grow stronger, and I have ways of helping them too.

Following this, I bought some new perfume, and a pair of jeans. Eventually I made my way back to W's, where I was introduced to her new business partner and we discussed how I could help out with setting up their business. I committed to two days a week - they were thrilled. And after looking at their new website and talking with them for a while, I started to feel more valuable in what I could contribute. I started to see my CV coming together by the end of next week. I started to see things coming in. I started to feel excited again.

And last night, home and full of new challenges, I slept like a log.

Today the weather is miserable - steady rain and dark skies. And all I can see is the Light behind it.

Rising from the Ashes...

Okay, so I'm back. Back to reality, albeit that reality is a clever illusion in itself.

The last few weeks have been painful. On a couple of occasions I hit a place so low that I was no longer in control, a depression so deep that I could no longer think, that I no longer recognised myself. I was confused - not knowing how to get to where I wanted to be, or become who I am here to be. Not even knowing whether I understood why I was here.

Confusion is an excellent place from which to transform. When you think that you know the answers - guess what? Most of the time, you're wrong. If you think that you are in control of your life and hold on to the outcome with both hands, you are often closed to other possibilities.

There are lessons to be learned from every situation - no matter how painful. Every experience is valuable. I once heard a saying "It doesn't matter how many plans you make for your life, God has a bigger plan". It helps to explain all of the times where we experience something that we didn't expect (which we can only see the reason for when joining the dots backwards) and it helps me to trust that every diversion that comes in to my life is giving me something that I need - something that I can use in the future.

Sometimes we are given challenges or pain so that we can be better prepared for future events.

And sometimes we are taken to new depths of pain because we simply aren't listening to the messages.

I was hearing the messages, but not taking them seriously. So the Light has taken me to a level of pain that I could not ignore - from which I could not not change. I was dragging my heels and it gave me a damn good kicking.

I have learned so much about myself over the past 3 weeks that the pain has been worthwhile - a great wake-up call - a baptism of fire.

I've learned that 10mg of Citalopram is enough to send me crazy for 30 hours.

I've learned that trying to apply make-up 5 hours after taking 10mg of Citalopram is only recommended when applying for a job in the circus.

I've learned to keep a carton of UHT milk in the cupboard at all times for emergencies.

Oh, and to keep the chocolate supplies high.

Okay, so I jest. But seriously, what have I learned?

I've identified that my pain is guilt, and that I have carried that guilt with me through to the present in so many ways. I feel guilty about my current situation - about not working for nearly 3 years, accepting benefits, watching my savings disappear, getting myself in to 'this mess', feeling so ashamed over what I am currently not doing that I don't want to allow anyone else to see it. This has prevented me from writing my CV this week - because how, exactly, do I justify how I am currently spending my time? I have distanced myself from other people, and was too afraid of failure to step up to the plate, or accept help. I've been looking for a rescuer all my life - someone else who will look after me and protect my feelings - someone who would step in and solve all of my problems for me, to take me out of this mess without me having to face any challenges.

And many more other things besides. But the amazing thing is, that as soon as I was put into a situation where these messages could no longer be ignored and I accepted them and allowed them to be, wondrous things have started to happen.

A good friend of mine has asked me for my help. She has just created a new business and needs someone to start promoting it. Unpaid at first, until the business starts making money. There is also so much that needs to be done with the Business Gym website. All of these things can be done from the comfort of my own living room, but she insists that I need to get out of my house and be around other people. I need structure, to start with, and less of my own company.

At first glance you might wonder if this is a wise move - to be spending so much time in unpaid work when I should be looking for a job - and I shied away from her offer last week. Now I have realised what a perfect opportunity this is. This is the interim. Not only is it going to get me back in the flow of having commitments and structure, it will also give me something to put on my CV. What am I working on at the moment? Well, I'm managing this website... administering this business...

My friend also has the gift of being able to see the potential in people, and previous experience of working with me, which she said was a pleasure. It's nice to be reminded of this from time to time.

I sense that I have learned enough to move on - and that everything is starting to fall in to place. The next dot is clearly illuminated and I can almost see the dots beyond it starting to spark in anticipation.

I've no idea what the Picture is yet, but I know that it is going to be Big.

Finding the next dot

I had a conversation with a very good friend about a week ago, just before I had my meltdown. He gave me a metaphor for life that I have heard in various forms before and like all good things had forgotten.

Life is like one big Dot-to-Dot puzzle. Except that there are no numbers on the dots.

We are not meant to second guess what the finished puzzle should look like. We have an idea, maybe, of what it might look like, but the only way to complete the puzzle is to wait for the next dot to light up. You cannot join the dots forwards to get understanding, only backwards.

For every perceived failure in life, know that this is where you are meant to be. Sometimes the nasty surprises in life prepare us emotionally and mentally for bigger challenges which, without previous experience, would have wiped us off our feet.

My over-active Gemini brain not only tries to work out every combination of what the picture is, but also logically how to get there - logic which always ends in 'I don't see how this is possible' and so I give up before I even start. Sod waiting for the next dot, I want to know now that everything is going to be okay. I think I know better than the Creator - an illusion of control that none of us have, and a total lack of trust that everything in the Universe is unfolding as it should. As my teacher says, I think too much. Oh yes, 25 hours a day, 8 days a week.

Whilst I have been overwhelmed with confusion for the past couple of weeks (actually, I have been sinking for a while without realising it, heading to this place) I have learned to trust that my teacher will point me in the direction of the next dot. My meeting with him yesterday brought a bit of a surprise on what I thought the next dot would be. Because it wasn't where I thought it was.

I decided this week not to talk about myself, my decisions, my experiences - for a change - and allow him to reveal the structure of the personal transformation plan instead. This is the way forwards, after all. And I did listen. And he revealed. And it was good.

It basically involves looking at 5 different areas: Study, Ego Transformation, Spiritual Connections, Personal Goals and Sharing. Over the next couple of weeks I am to capture what I am already doing, and what I want to start expanding on. Then we are to discuss and formulate a plan that will help to start introducing the Light back in to my life.

My teacher then asked if I had any questions. I said no - it was all clear. Good, something to focus on. I like structure.

And then he said "So, what are you doing about work at the moment?"

Whaaaaaat?? my Ego screamed. Where did that one come from? Don't you know that I am in the middle of a really hard depression here?? Can you not see that I am not in any position to even speak to people, let alone work? Don't you get it?

I told him a brief recount of what I was trying to do - building my own material for my business, but now I was confused because what I wanted to do (helping other people through coaching and training) wasn't going to work whilst I was still trying to deal with my own problems. I told him that at the moment it was an effort just to function.

"In Kabbalah", he replied, "You do not fix the pain by dealing directly with the pain. You work around it. I am not going to say that I can truly appreciate the pain that you must be feeling because I have never been there, but in order to remove it, we need to work around it and allow the Light to resolve it. And your spiritual work at the moment is to get a job. That is what the Light is telling you to do"

What, you mean like, live in the Real World?

I started to listen, whilst the Ego was jumping around in my head finding every excuse in the book not to take him seriously.

Teacher: A student of mine was out of work for a year and she took her CV to an agency

Ego: Oh, I have already been down the agency route and failed miserably

Teacher: Within two weeks she was offered a job...

Ego: Yes, but probably she was working in an entirely different field

Teacher: .... with a company similar to [MD's]...

Ego: Oh yeah, working on the phones or something...

Teacher: ....travelling to run training courses up and down the country...

Ego: But that's great for someone who already has the experience.. I don't have any concrete experience on my CV..

Teacher: ...and she had no previous experience of this at all.

Ego: *oh*

Teacher: But she went to speak to them and there was something about her that they liked and so they took her on. And two weeks after that she was offered another great job that she then turned down. You have already done some spiritual work. Write a letter to the Creator asking for what you want, down to the number of people in the office and the colour of the furniture. Start scanning the Zohar and get your CV out there. See what starts coming back. And maybe taking any job is the right path for you - because it might be the step that will take you to something better.

Ego: ....Yeah.....But how am I going to know if this is the right thing or not, or whether I am just taking the first thing that comes along because it's the easy way out?

Teacher: ..and if you want to contact me at any time with the offers you receive then I can take a look at them.

Ego: ...errrrmmm.... shall I just shut up now?

KR: Yes. I think you should.

My teacher even arranged our next meeting for the evening ".. because I think you will have a job by then, or maybe one or two people will want to meet with you on that day and you can come here after..."

Part of my Astrology reading predicted that as soon as I started to take action, big things would start to come in to my life. I started to feel enthused once again by this prediction. The pain that I have carried around with me so long cannot stay close to the surface forever - but at least this time when I pull myself together I know that it exists, and I know that I am doing the work to remove it permanently from my life.

And now, as I consider all of my strengths and weaknesses, re-writing my CV, visualising what I want, the next dot is starting to light up....

Time to Deal

It is strange to be in the grip of depression - this one is quite a doozy. Not surprising really, given all of the years that I have been holding this in. But for the time being, I am sitting with it and listening to what it has to say.

And I can hear two voices. The first is that of the child - hurt, bewildered, confused. The second is of the parent - telling me to get a grip. Usually I listen to the parent. This time I am not.

It is said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. So I might be on the sidelines at the moment, but phew! Thank goodness I'm not insane!

When I lived with my Mum and Step-father, it wasn't just the sexual abuse I had to deal with. If everything else in the garden had been rosy, save a couple of inappropriate nocturnal visits, I may be living a different life by now. But instead my sister and I had to deal with years of mental abuse. No wonder I am a little confused.

My Step-father was a misogynist and a control freak. Six months after moving to live with him, the whole family moved to a 3 storey council house. Under the pretence of 'not wanting your Mum to shout up the stairs', he installed an intercom system on all floors and used it to surreptitiously listen in to our conversations. Shortly after this he received a pair of field binoculars for Christmas, and used them to spy on the neighbourhood, make lewd comments on the state of the women walking past the end of the street and watch to see whether any boys were turning up at my friend's house (they were side on to us - we could see in to their windows, they couldn't see in to ours). He also had the uncanny knack of appearing out of nowhere if ever I was anywhere I wasn't meant to be. As the years rolled on it was evident that he was going through our rooms, looking for evidence of things that he could get upset about, and soon enough Mum was one step ahead of him trying to protect herself from another battering. Nothing was sacred.

I could have a normal, sane conversation with him about boys or friends which two weeks later would be twisted around and used to prove to my Mum that her girls 'were taking the piss' out of them both and that she needed to take action to correct it.

And of course, every morning after a monumental fight - whether we had to step in or not - my Mum would be frantically trying to control the situation by telling us that our Step-father just dealt with things differently, that this was something that she would deal with - this was for adults - and not to go making any trouble or make mountains out of molehills.

So every day I would go to school and put on a mask of 'nothing to see here' and pretend to be normal. And do everything I could to prevent friends (and enemies) from getting my phone number, inviting me out, calling round to the house. Every invite was met with an automatic 'No' and an excuse. I was so well practised. And anyway, if they really found out what was going on and what I was letting him do to me - then what would they think? And where would that get me, given that as a cover-up team, my Mum and Step-father were virtually professional. "Oh you know what teenagers are like - always wanting attention. She's just being silly because..."

So all of those years, I told myself that my feelings did not count, that the pain I felt wasn't real, that I was just making mountains out of molehills, that I had nothing to make a fuss about and that people wouldn't understand anyway. I became a master of the art of disconnecting from my feelings - switching off, shutting down, locking everything away.

Since I've left home, the feelings haven't diminished - the pain is still there, untapped. It feels as though it has grown so huge that I am too afraid to touch it - as though I might spontaneously combust with the sheer size of the rage. And now that I am further away from the events that caused all of the pain in the first place, it seems even more surreal for it still to be there and so disassociated with my current life for it to be even less understood than it was before.

Another thing that I have noticed about depression is that people don't really want to know. And I can understand why. People are afraid of it - they don't know how to help or what to say. All they want is for you to be better, for you to be back to normal, sooner rather than later. And this isn't a criticism of my friends, because unless you have been there it is hard to understand and I can't say I have felt any differently when faced with a depressed friend myself. (Note: this is what I love about blogging, because, actually, I don't need anyone to provide a solution, just to listen and 'be there'. And you, my blogging friends, have been outstanding in your support. Seriously.)

All of my life, there is one question that has helped me to keep pushing people away, no matter what my current circumstances: "How are you?" because I have always had to lie.

People ask 'How are you?' and what they want to hear is 'Great, thanks! How are you?' But the question for me has always taken me back to the time when I was so desperate for someone to spot that things were not normal, the times when my forced 'nothing to see here' smile hid a great pain, masked a silent plea of can't anyone see what is going on here? which was begging for someone to step in and help. And nobody ever did. How fabulous have I been in concealing this pain?

The truth is that the pain has never diminished in size or vanished. It has always been there, waiting for me - even during my happiest moments when I thought that my past was in my past, it has been lurking, waiting for a challenge. I have made excuses to leave parties early and not understood why I couldn't connect with people, why I felt a sinking feeling in my heart of separation from all of the people there. Why, even when I am happy, I still feel a downward lurch when anyone asks 'How are you?'

Well, now I finally know. All of the years when I thought I was 'coping', all of the things I have achieved, all of the times I pulled myself together, all of the times I thought that my past was behind me, that I felt I had finally moved on - all illusion. The pain was still there, patiently waiting for the wake-up call.

Oh, can I hear alarm bells ringing? Message finally received and understood.

Time to plummet the depths to retrieve the gold.

Time to deal.

A Light in the Darkness

No, scrap that, several Lights in the Darkness.

First I would like to thank all of my blogging friends for throwing me a line - where I would be without you all, I just don't know. Luckily for me, it seems that none of you are prepared to let me slide in to my gloom. I am truly blessed and deeply touched that you care.

Depression is a cruel beast - but it is crueller still when you have an understanding of how life works, because it is accompanied by enormous guilt. Somewhere deep inside me is the knowledge of what I can bring to the world - the positive impact I can make to other people. So when I am locked away in my own pain, I am doubly crippled with the guilt that I am denying the world of what I am here to bring. And that sounds as though I believe I am something special, but actually, I am. And so are you.

My recent infatuation served a purpose. It wasn't about him, it was about me and my perceptions of what I am worth, of who I would want to be to even consider being with someone like him - who he would be attracted to and where I fall short in that equation at this moment in time: where I want to be in life, what I have the capacity to be and my beliefs relating to what is possible or probable with respect to falling in love.

The long and the short of it is: I don't believe that I deserve to have it all. Which is ridiculous, because, why not? Someone is out there waiting to come in to my life, and I am blocking them because of a fear that they will somehow fall short. I want them to be amazing in so many respects, but believe that if they are intelligent and caring and spiritual, they will also be pug-ugly and I would have to put a bag over their head to sleep with them. Or maybe they will be physically incredible, but intolerably shallow or dull. Or just looking for a good time and nothing long term. Is it possible that there is an attractive, intelligent, caring man out there who could possibly fall in love with me and who would love to have kids?

I'm putting up barriers to avoid what I perceive to be inevitable disappointment, pain and tears. I hanker after the unattainable, because at least that way I can't be rejected. As a result I am missing out on a lot of fun and the opportunity to find love.

I met with my new teacher yesterday, and after 45 minutes of 'being honest' about feeling so low (I didn't mention the infatuation) but as far as I was concerned skirting around the real issues somewhat, he said "You need to put a plan in place so that you can move towards where you want to be". I laughed out loud, mocking his suggestion "Plan? Plan? That's all I ever do is plan! I write out lists of what I need to do every day, but there is no structure! There is no one to set me deadlines, nothing to work towards... I can go for days without seeing anybody. I leave the centre and go home and I don't see another person from one day to the next! I can't keep myself going and yes, I do know that this doesn't help and it isn't where I want to be!"

"So, what do you need? You need more structure? Can I help to put a structure in place?" He asked.

"No, it's not the structure... it's not the structure! I need... I need...." and I so desperately wanted to say "LOVE! I NEED MORE LOVE! I HAVE NOTHING COMING IN FROM DAY TO DAY! I JUST WANT SOMEBODY WHO WILL LOVE ME!!" but at that point I realised that I couldn't say that without crying, and crying is not what I do. Plus I know that love comes from within - nobody can love you until you love yourself first. There is asking for the impossible, and asking for the impossible.

What followed was a bizarre situation where I couldn't speak for fear of crying. So I sat with my head in my hands, fighting to hold back the tears. Don't you dare fucking cry. Breathe. Suck it back. Now is not the time. Crying looks stupid. Breathe. And all of the time I was aware of him sitting there in silence, waiting patiently without judgement, and I thought Well, hey ho, this is a little strange. I feel like a right muppet. If I look up now, will my face look stupid? Will I burst in to tears? He's not going to say anything. Oh crap, hurry up and pull yourself together.

The minutes passed whilst I fought with myself, and eventually I won and composed myself.

And therein lies my issue - the darkest seed that lies festering within. When I was 11 years old I mastered one important lesson to help me to survive the situation I was in: my feelings didn't matter. And so I learned to shove them down as they came along - I was one person to the outside world and another person within. I changed my behaviour to keep people away. Despite the horrors that went on in the house I pretended that it didn't matter. Every time I tried to express my feelings, I was told that I was making something out of nothing, mountains out of molehills, being dramatic, seeking attention. And when you hear that message every day for over seven years, there comes a time when you believe it to be true.

When I left home, the habit of being one person on the surface and another underneath remained. The well of unhappiness grew in to a dense, dark spot which has been added to with each emotional upset. I've never wanted to disturb it because I dread to think what I might find. It's too black. Too overwhelming. If I open up this can of worms I might never survive - it will swallow me whole. I'm frightened that if I start crying, I will never stop. The fear is too great.

Oh piffle. Fear is an illusion. And in any event, now that I have recognised something that has been controlling my life for all of these years, I can't not deal with it. Ignoring this for any longer is simply denying myself the opportunity to be happy - pushing away the Light. And that I can't do.

I was aware of all of this before I met with my teacher - I said none of it. It didn't matter because after watching me force my tears down, he could see all of it. And he has offered to help.

Now is my time. The time to face everything that I have previously tried to ignore. The time to move forwards, once and for all, release these blockages and find me some Luuurve as a result.

Best prepare yourself, chaps, this is one woman who once she decides what she is going to wear, doesn't need a lot of time to get ready...