Tag: movement

work

Legs Don’t Lie

A Fish Named KarenLeave a comment

My legs. They know. They No. They ache, whine, and protest for days after heavy exercise – biking, kickboxing, hours of garden. I awaken the beast with stimulation. Reaching into the container of stifled protest, the well hidden events of a traumatic past. Weighed down by old held trauma. Wanting to run away. To fight off unwanted advances. Secretly wishing my legs would have defied my abusers and be unmovable, thwarting someone’s plan. All that protest energy still taking up residence. A protest that wasn’t allowed. A fuck-you condensed by sad-mess. Yes, old grief, that hopeless bastard. Bringing me to my aching knees. Festering, swirling – wishing relief. 

The pain is constant. I don’t know where to put my legs so they won’t ache, won’t wake me. Muscular pain that is tired of waiting for the green light to release. Tired of holding. Aching at 2,3,4 a.m. Restless toss and burn. Heavy burdened walking sticks. Demanding attention for what was ignored before. This body does not forget. Tissues pregnant with issues. A high-risk pregnancy that must be watched, monitored. Until the delivery of release. 

The threat of physical harm a long-ago-reality. All of my unconscious, protective holding is no longer needed – but my legs never got the memo. A loving gesture of exercise to keep my body fit and healthy has some underlying “gifts”. This physical pain I feel delivers me to the doorway of my emotional pain. Pain rents space, usually safe, undisturbed – until I call it out. Then pain has a voice. When my legs speak, they sound desperate. With ex-hurt-sion they plead with me. Their quiet whispers they tell me they’re exhausted. To please do the work. We’re sad, broken and depressed, needing deep-rest. 

My relationship with my body is tight. Tight as the terror still residing in my legs, hips and pelvis. I talk with her. Sending love to my tender, lovely, strung-out legs. They need love. I purposefully bring the darkness forward, into consciousness. Visualizing the eviction of fear, disgust, shame, etc.. calling in Spirit Animals or Angels or Spirit Guides. Sitting with strong emotions. Standing with the reality of it all outside the cage of existence I used to know. 

As my legs begin to thaw from their frozen “normal”, it hurts. I’ve disturbed a whole latta dark. The darkness wants out and that’s always painful. Painful going in, painful coming out. The trapped is wrapped in an old worn out container. My container is falling apart. As it should. As I relax, letting my guard down physically, the expression of what WAS is free to flow. These muscles and bones have known no safe place. No downtime. 

I have a choice. We all do. I can do nothing. And invite in fibro-your-algia…cause NO, it will never be MINE. Never. I can wallow in vic-dumb-hood or I can stand on my own two legs and fight for my best life. I choose to evict the darkness. The thick, strangled webs of dysfunctional energy. They ooze sadness. A sadness so great I am compelled to ask them what they need. To actually have a conversation with my legs. The held trauma, wishing to take away my mobility, my health, my drive and flexibility. No thank-you.

I don’t blame my legs for the pain. Instead, I treat them like old friends. Dry brushing them to direct the fluid and energy to my lymphnodes for proper drainage. I Reiki them. I give them baths with Epsom salts for detox and relaxation of the strained muscles. I wrap them in warmth and allow emotion to flow unabstructed. I cry for the return of painless. 

In a miraculous body way, a brilliant way, it handled it. By shutting down. By tensing up in protection. By stuffing all the ugly into my tissues and muscles because it was too much for a little girl to handle. The body never forgets.

cycles

Driving Miss Crazy

A Fish Named KarenLeave a comment

I just want everything to be normal. As it used to be. I would rise up in the morn after a restful nights sleep. Mind open and free. Free to wonder and allow and dream. Thinking about the day ahead with possibility and satisfaction for my life, my aliveness, my able body. All is right in the world.

But this is lost. NOW. A much different picture. Restless nights, waking soaked and agitated. Dark and irritated. Unfocused, lacking the capacity to absorb even pleasurable things. Overstimulated and exhausted. Tears that won’t stop.

Rather then a blessing, life feels like a chore, a trick. Unable to see past my funk, time moves on. This is what depression must feel like. A dimming of the light. The numb taking front n center in a once vibrant life. Eyes fixed and tears streaming. A vast nothingness.

Overwhelm and indifference fighting for the front seat. Moving from everything is too much to -who cares? Frozen despondency. Cozy and terrifying at once. A cocoon on fire, with an audience. Humiliation and validation fighting for the back seat. Driving Miss Crazy.

The isolation looms. I must keep connecting. But my deepest desire is to be invisible. If just for a day, a week. Disappearing. Unable to be found, uncovered, discovered. For who I am is not permissible. Not presentable. What I am, who I am, is not allowed. Not right now.

I hide behind my disposable mask. Inhaling stale thoughts, countless lies about myself. Right now I can barely see the light. Right now, I’m feeling the deepest humiliation and shame. Right now my brain and stores of serotonin have gone on holiday. Leaving me, a rusty iron gate in the wind, mostly closed and whining. Disconnected and invisible.

Until now, my experience with deep humiliation was basically an unmet, unfamiliar stranger. Humiliation meeting pressure, perfection, anxiety and fear, my old sketchy roommates. Most of the time unwelcome house guests. Familiar shadowy strays. With name plates at the dinner table, never changing out of their pajamas.

Today, I rely on a fortress of autopilot tolerance and patience. I muster these for myself. I must cling to the patterns, the same patterns that saved my ass, my sanity, allowed me to look normal and sane as a child. Having patience for the parts of me that still act on impulse and keep me playing victim.

Patience and love for the parts of me that listen to the little stupid voice. You know that voice. Saying I deserve all things horrible because I bring it on myself, I don’t care enough, I don’t know anything, I have nothing to offer… bla bla bla. Should have, could have , would have.

On the surface I fight back but at the core there are holes in the fabric where the slime of self loathing eeks through. All dark and slippery, like a serpent hungry for my soul. I muster the compassion for myself naming and evicting those voices. Zing them out the front door. Crafty bitches slither back in, finding the smallest cracks. No vacancy, no room in the inn. But oh yes, there always is. They laugh at my meaningless protests.

They bring me candy and gifts and charm my pants off. Seduction of sameness, familiarity. All for a comfy seat in my life. They’re so sure they won’t be evicted – they know, before I do- smug bastards. Their voices are ancient. But I give them life. Breathe life into them, their crusty old bones erected and lubed. Upright. My doing.

I supply their juices, fodder, connective tissues and strength. I am the life giver. I birth them, give them a voice -when I listen, when I play small. When I accept the bait, and devour their shards of glass garbage thoughts. They are nothing without me – I breathe life into them.

I bleed. I cut. I cut myself. I cut myself out. I cut myself off. From the light, my gifts, my heart. Severed. Aliveness -hidden. Ready or not. I will stay in the dark but only long enough to find the light. No-one can find this for me. This is an inside job. This is the work.

To blaze the path not yet fully cleared. Grab my sickle, hedge clippers, bushwhacker, axe, pick and chain saw. Disregarding the old, dark, comforting lies my shadow NEEDS me to believe. Otherwise it won’t survive.

I can’t wait to be fearless, content and grounded once again. It will happen. It always does. Meanwhile, buckle-up buttercup. The journey continues…driving Miss CRAZY.

exploration · Human Spirit · resilient

Alive Underneath

A Fish Named KarenLeave a comment

Looking for some inspiration today I stumbled upon this Wintery scene. Quiet, frozen and crunchy. Alive underneath but who would know? Who could tell? My desire for inspiration, stirring. Alive, underneath these Winter layers. We sit. Simmering, planning, fantasizing about the greatest of possibilities. Maybe adding some sparkle and intrigue to our lives, our existence. What rubbish can we dispose of? Can we be doing more? What’s really important? What’s fluff in our lives? What do we keep? Feed? What do we watch die off? Freeze? These cold, crunchy layers of Winter-ness masking, the ME, the YOU, the US. But yet the seduction of mid-Winter hibernation, stagnation, complacency is victorious. For ME? I’m still spying for some inspiration, the ME I aspire to be. Underneath it all.