About my post yesterday: a lot of angst leaking, I must say. I viewed the advice that I got with judgement. It's something we try to avoid doing in DBT. Sometimes I forget my sponsor is not superwoman. Nor are the other women in our AA group. And I got loving support from many of them.
As well as from many of you, particularly Exponential, a fellow writer and Renaissance woman.
Pancake update: She visited last night, after 10 days with her new mom, and was thrilled to eat off of my plate again, which her new mom objects to...
As for my drinking relapse: I drank because alkies like to drink. Period. Somehow the option that I can drink in a crisis to feel better, in the short term at least, has to be replaced by the tools of my Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT).
Some of these tools are from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and some are from Buddhism. A few of them:
Mindfulness: paying attention to each moment and what it brings. Slowing life down, as if each moment was to be the last.
Self-soothing: Using the five senses one at a time to create a pleasant memory. The scent of lavender, the sight of a mountain, the touch of cotton, etc.
Half-smile: Smiling this way at someone causing distress, and walking away from the confrontation. I like to picture my opponent with their hair on fire to achieve this. Works every time.
I could go on...and if you would like more information on these techniques, you may contact me at: alisestewart@yahoo.com. I can direct you to a source of info.
My mind is a bit more in balance this morning. The dog snores and twitches beside me, he especially loved seeing Pancake last night. His cuddling is incredibly soothing in the mornings, especially at this hour. Ah, he's awake now, and wants tummy rubs.
I am a work in progress, and sometimes regress, as well. Nothing is static, all changes, every minute of every day. Even emotions change, the eternal ones, like fear and love. Did you know that hatred is simply fear that has acquired power? We feel fear, it makes us feel vulnerable, we don't like that: voila! Hatred. Fear with it's mask of power. It does serve a purpose. It is an old survival technique, designed to let us be aggressive, and defend ourselves.
But today is Saturn's Day. It's a day for a walk in the golden fields surrounding the Old House. They turn gold in winter, and it seems odd to think about that on this first day of Summer. But there is no lovelier sight to my mind than those fields. Our house sits on a hill, and overlooks a large meadow surrounded by woods below. The forest looms beyond, until it meets the mountains the color of my lavender. Turkey roam there in fall, and deer leave trails, as they pick their way into the hidden meadow. I can see each blade of yellow grasses, and the 'umbrella' plants under the trees. This wood has no underbrush, except for the wineberries at the edge. They are a sweet purple berry found wild in these woods. They taste of blackberry, but with a lighter touch.
The apartment I live in now sits lower than the surrounding fields, and the bordering woods. There is underbrush, tall, golden, wild yarrow. No wineberry grows here...it is too tame for any but the blackberry. And that is sparse enough that they are quickly eaten by greedy birds, before I can get to them. There is a large path, that is mowed by the city, leading up to a soccer field. The horizon is not limitless here. We sit at the base of a hill, on top of which is a church, with it's manicured lawn and predictable trees. There is no wildness that my heart loves. The grass turns to straw in the winter.
But there are trees, speaking with the wind, and birds...the path is mysterious, until it ends. As all paths are. It is not a busy pathway, claimed mostly by dog walkers, and is shaded. It is a broad path, some 20 yards wide. It reminds me of the walking paths around the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C., or the paths through historical Williamsburg...a colonial path, perhaps. Large enough to feel unconfined by walking it.
When the dog, Max, escapes, he goes to this path and runs it's long length over and over, like some miniature racehorse.
It is the longest day of the year for us in the Northern Hemisphere. It is warm, and getting warmer unto hot, now. Sometimes, in the early morning, or the late evening, I do not miss spring, or fall. The sun sets behind the pool, and casts a golden glow over it, while the moon and the stars hang heavy. Truthfully, I regret that I do not like midsummer, with it's hot, wet nights when no breeze stirs. It's made bearable only by the pool, by the water under the hot, heavy stars. But it is new Summer, and I am not prejudiced against it.
The flowers are new and happy. The leaves of violets still shade the slate walkway from my door, and the zinnia has come out. Everything is fresh from the cool of Spring. There truly is only this moment.
I love those paths in DC!
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