turning snakes into ropes

For the past 20 days I've been nearly unable to stop eating. Or at least to make good choices about what I eat. It's been very clear that my body doesn't want all that food - it's not pleased. But my head was (and still is to some degree) convinced that food will give it enough space in time until it is safe to feel what there is to feel. I could see the compulsion as a compulsion, but not drive away from the DQ. 

Hearing all that, UberCoach loaned me a copy of Women, Food and God - I'll write a full review when I'm done, but in the meantime I wanted to share this tidbit (so far I've wanted to share about 40 tidbits, and I'm only 100 pages in) that had me release a HUGE sigh in the bath just now:

View on Amazon

To the degree that my feelings are familiar, that I've felt them before in similar situations - the willingness to allow them offers a completely different scenario than the situations in which they first developed.

Recurrent negative feelings - those that loop in the same cycles again and again without changing - are unmet knots of our past that got frozen in time for the precise reason that they were not met with kindness and acceptance. 

Can you imagine how your life [or the life of those you love] would be different if each time you were feeling sad or angry as a kid an adult said to you, "Come here, sweetheart, tell me all about it. ... I want to know every little thing. I'm here to listen to you, hold you, be with you." 

All any feeling wants is to be welcomed with tenderness. It wants room to unfold. It wants to relax and tell its story. It wants to dissolve like a thousand writhing snakes that with a flick of kindness become harmless strands of rope.

Here's to the kind of magic that turns snakes into rope. I hope you experience that ... and share it with someone else. 

you don't say

You've probably noticed the quiet of late. Or not. Maybe you see what's there more than what isn't. Life has been good this winter. And then suddenly not. Or perhaps 'not with hints of wonder.' Somedays I've lots to say and someone to say it to. And then days like today I'm alone with my thoughts - a dangerous place to be - and thinking that sometimes those days I want to talk the least might be the most important times to raise my voice. 

Only ... some of what is circling around in there isn't worth showing to the light of day, let alone fit for human consumption. Life has me questioning choices I've never before questioned, 100% clear that I can't undo what I've done. So many questions. So few answers. 

sounds in the night

I can almost feel them give way. Those taut, stretched, straining muscles and tendons. The wee fibres of my being that struggle to keep me upright. To keep my foot lifting one more time. To keep my eyes forward and my head on straight.

If I turn too quickly I can hear one snap - not hear it so much as feel it reverberate in my inner ear. I feel a sharp ping between my shoulder blades and imagine the miniscule shift of a vertebrae as it adjusts to the newer tugs. My back is mis-shapen. My shoulders pulled forward by the sheer force of sorrowing filaments. My lower back, so recently revealed, is flattened by muscles that recoil from this reality.

I am not bamboo or willow - I am not infinitely flexible. I am only human. Bone. Muscle. Sinew. Somewhere a heart keeps somehow beating. Moisture trickles down my face when I get distracted and forget to hold it in, or when I breathe too regularly. It's better if I catch my breath - the force in my lungs helps keep me upright. If through some error a sob escapes, it's likely to break a rib. Sometimes it's impossible to speak. My lips and tongue are busy holding in the bits of me that want to run away from all this.

They say I won't break. That I'm someone who knows how to navigate these things. That if anyone can do this it's me. They say they'll catch me. That I'm not alone. But they don't hear it. The minute crackling of my body. The slow turning to pieces.That is mine alone.