Fight not - Tiredness

These days physical tiredness seems to be my companion, coming to the forefront several times a day. I realise that this is normal for some people. For me however, feeling like a need a nap in the middle of the day, to the point of not being able to focus my vision is a very new event.

Maybe it is getting older, maybe it is the state of my life affairs. The main issue lies on the additional layer of pain that this produces. Or to putting in the right order, the pain caused by me fighting the fact that I feel this way. I think that I have written about this before. I'm starting to chase my own tail, would someone just throw a tennis ball, or something.?

It is possible that the tiredness is linked to my decreasing levels of exercise. I'm not sure where the balance point is between exercise and rest. In any case, tomorrow we will start a running programme from day 1. Initially, there are short runs between walking intervals. There are a couple of reasons why I want to do what might seem a step back.

Numero Uno: I want to rebuild my fitness by strengthening the support muscles that I need, gently, slowly.
Numero Dos: I need to have the patience to walk, to take a step at a time, specially when I feel like bolting down the road and never turning back; or when in the contrary, I feel so tired that I could fall asleep standing.
Numero Tres: the experience of a running buddy. Having never had one before I am looking forward to it.

I have been a bit of a loner who whinges about loneliness. In this new chapter of my life, I would like to stop the bad habit of missing on making friends because I am too worried about my own thoughts. I remember thinking a few years back something along the lines of "if I didn't worry, what would I do with my time?". Well, I am willing to find out.

This is a big week for me, having just celebrated the 8th anniversary of having entered the parent realm. I feel like I am ready to stop trying to play the role of parent. From now on, being a parent will not be that unattainable idea of perfection that I cannot fulfill. Probably, it won't look any different on the exterior from what I already do. However, there won't be a gap between me and the role my head has demanded for years for me to play, unsuccessful to my own standards and therefore causing of pain.

I am bad at playing roles, mainly because my expectations are ridiculously high, maybe even purposedly built in such way that I can suffer about not being good enough.*sigh* the games of a bored ego *sigh*

The time has also come for me to leave the relative "safety" of my current life. I am moving on, starting a new chapter in my life. At the start of my separated status, moving to a separate room was a relief, a necessity. I was fine like that for awhile, having my own safe little nook surrounded by things I loved. Although I realise that they are only things, they signify my desire to have a home. A place where I can be myself without the expectation of being plowed by disdain. After 15 months, I have come to the conclusion that I have outgrown my space.

A conclusion not reached without a great amount of struggle. Was I capable of going through with moving away from the one person with whom I've lived most of my adult life? did I not get all I want already? and what about my children? my dreams of a family? the joy listening to the voices early in the morning, every morning? Am I capable of going through life on my own, which is essentially what I need to be prepared to do? I have no answers to these questions, as I cannot predict the future. However, I believe that there is option but to move forward and out, to fully experience the change, to break away and independent is the only way for me at this point.

Looking at my anxiety charts a few days ago, it is evident to me that this struggle was what caused it to spike again. I am however, entering a stage where there is more of me, in all I do. Less fear and worry, more presence, more laughter.

I am tempted to say "I'm so happy that my back is good, if at least I didn't feel physically exhausted..." but it turns out that I am also tired of fighting what is, and that what I cannot immediately change...so I surrender, close my eyes and go to sleep.


Good night,
Evelia <3

I live

I love writing. I love the smell of warm milk and the sound of the French language.

I love dancing. I love feeling the strength of my own body.

I love kindness, openness and closeness.

I love the warmth of skin just out of bed. I love sunny skies, blue as far as the eye can see.

I love eye contact. I love honesty, sleep, dreaming and beautiful things.

I love dark chocolate, voices, small gestures. I love thoughtfulness, spontaneous adventures, respect and generosity.

I love being loved, there is nothing like seeing that softness in another person's eyes when they love me.

For that, I live.

Following the string

It comes a time after all the learning, when it is time to put in practice what one has come to understand. To demonstrate understanding is not measurable, but when it comes to matters of the soul, it should be felt. The point is not to demonstrate outwardly, but to be at peace with one's decisions.

Today I grieve, for the loss of a relationship. In a way, I understand that this is grief for all the loses passed and the current. For the loss of the dream had, and the ones that never actually took shape. For the loss of giving all and being mislead in exchange.

If it sounds like pain body and ego having a big party drinking themselves silly, well, I'd have to agree. In the background, there is the quiet presence, watching, trying not to fight what it is.

Is it possible to feel pain now and not to relate it straight back to what happened last Monday, last month, last year, or 25 years ago? yes, it is. Is it easy? no, it isn't, at least not yet for me.

This morning I did a survey to evaluate my levels of anxiety, I scored only marginally better than a year ago. This result makes me feel a bit puzzled because I believe I had made a lot of progress managing it. But maybe I am just trapped in my hamster wheel in a never ending attempt at something that is not even in sight.


In my defense, I must say that last week was difficult given that I'm about to take yet another big step in my life. I am moving house. Reason tells me that it will be good for me. The well informed tell me so as well. Pain body and ego want nothing to do with it. The thought of having my children come and go guts me, and I don't seem to have a way to reconcile that with all the learning I have gone through in the last year and a half.

When do we get to dream and move forward in this process? Or is the aim of life to just sit and accept all? accept discomfort? accept being used?

"There is no certainties in anyone's life", I keep repeating to myself. "Just hang in there, something good will come out of all this", others tell me.

I just watch what happens, and follow the string attached to my belly, like Sue Monk Kidd describes in The Dance of The Dissident Daughter. Walking, one step at a time.

Intermezzo - A wish

In the same way that we fling our wishes in the air, hoping they gently land on the wing of an magic being flying pass, so the light shines upon me. 

The river that flows inside that mixes my being with the Earth, that makes me nature itself. I want to flow on the earth, flow as my life is long, I want to hold in my hands the  truth that beats with every step of every day and every minute and every breath. 

I give myself to life, the cold wind on my face I will not fear, I will not shake anymore, I won't fight it if I do.

Let my tears flow if they may, but never doubt that there is a day ahead when the sun will shine just for me, as I am nature and the sun I carry inside will glow for me and others. 

May I be happy, may now be my treasure, my company, my best friend. 

May you be there too. 

May we dance the night away, may we see each other's light and embrace it.

Pain-body and my story

If you thought that my last post was a bit heavy, it is maybe because my pain-body was activated, making me feel sorry for myself. And what is this "pain-body" I speak about? together with ego, it is the other main entity that tends to render people unconscious, masking with pain a life that by all standards seems liveable and pretty alright.

Pain-body is emotional energy that feeds on our personal history. It was easy for me to comprehend this concept because I have carried emotional stuff all my life. Almost every event can be linked back to a chain of past painful events, thoughts that built upon themselves and make up a story. I have questioned myself often as to why I seem to have a better recollection of negative events. Trauma perhaps, or maybe it is the fact that briging up the memory and building a story around it makes us relive the experience. How much of that experience is fact, after we dress it up with all kinds of tragic connotations?

The power that comes with detaching ourselves from our story is great. In "A New Earth", Eckhart Tolle, tells us that it only takes an instant to lose the identification with our pain-body. If you try it, you will see that it is true. However, I've likened this identification to a bad habit, we do it because we are used to. I have found myself sometimes, idling towards a story, past or future, without even being aware of it. The result is pain, ready to interfere with my decisions and send me into a downward spiral of fear and suffering.

Pain-body feeds on drama. Some of us create drama to feel alive, maybe in the hope that all this suffering will be rewarded one day with a happy ending. "Amor que no es del todo dolor no es del todo amor" I learned in my chama days. Drama is part of my cultural background, if you don't believe me, do tell me, in which other culture is it legal to name a person "Dolores", which can be translated as pain and/or suffering?

One of the challenges is then to break the habit, especially in situations where we react before even formulating a thought. Preparation, knowing the triggers come to mind as a strategy.

My personal pain-body has the watermark of abandonment. At the time of my first formal dealings with anxiety in 2004, my greatest fear in life was being left by my partner, if I became ill or incapacitated. It sounds very complex, but in defense of my story, there were more than one trigger confabulating to feed this fear, mainly being far away from my family, having had surgery and ending up with pneumonia as a side effect. I felt alone and scared, terrified of my own thoughts. Since then, being a bit ill has become a trigger for activating my pain-body. A backache, is not just that, but a feeling of my body failing, of my life entering a dark place. It is obvious to me that I am capable of building a lot of emotional pain on to a backache.

Recently, someone told me that I look sore when I am in physical pain. Pain-body is recognisable, I see it in other people, therefore I am sure I show it too, probably, surely, more than my actual physical pain.

Sometimes when I am out and about I see people whose bodies are being seriously challenged, some cope better than others. I do not presume to know what it is like to be any of those people, in fact I know nothing about them, other than what my knowledge of physics tells me. And I wonder "how would I feel if my body were to dramatically change?" or even "how would I cope with getting old when my body starts indeed failing?", then I remind myself to breath.

Along with some exciting design work I did this week, I listened to audio of Eckhart Tolle on Oprah answering a question from a caller who has suffered Lupus for years and who is in chronic pain, this got my attention. His advice was simple, to break the identification with the illness, she should find wellbeing in nature, and in those places in her body where it exists; do not talk about the illness with anyone but her doctors, while doing all the necessary to help herself.

The more we talk about our story, the more the pain-body feeds, the more negative thoughts occur. The way I see it, breaking free of pain-body is like the quitting smoking of the emotional world, ten times over at the very least. You can quit easily, in fact smokers do it often.

If I believed in God, I would pray to never lose my faculties, to gently and gracefully age with enough time adapt to every change, to never find myself alone when I'm in fear of pain, or actual pain and death. I ask the universe instead, knowing that there are no guarantees, and still taking care of this body, to allow me the space to not attach myself to pain and suffering, and to not struggle with what is happening now.

à bientôt
Evelia