Watching...and waiting

As the days pass and the sun still shines I often feel as if I live my life waiting for the other shoe to drop.  Having had such a good winter and by that I mean a winter where I didn't fall into the Harris hole of depression, I am sitting here in this glorious Spring feeling a bit low and completely de-motivated.  Why? Does it matter? Can I actively change it by being in-active?


Last week's work fiasco was the beginning.  Though, if being honest with myself I set up that situation perfectly.  The killing of Bin Laden was not planned in any greater detail.  From the moment I took on the work contract I began to create failure.  I was convinced I wouldn't be any good and I was certain that I was not prepared enough, that my programme for the two day course was not detailed enough. I was sure that I would fall flat on my face and when I was confronted with a sour, unhappy group of workers, I decided to take it all very personally and fall flat, just as I anticipated.  Since then I have had more positive feedback, from senior people and directors of the company.  I have seen that the two days achieved more than anyone expected and that I was well liked and invited back with open arms.


This knock has rocked me dreadfully.  I feel so low and so unlovable today and I also see that I am just creating more 'stuff' for me to deal with and there is no need for it  and still I do this again and again.  To me this is the definition of stupid.  As Einstein said when he defined insanity - 'doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results'. So either I am insane or very stupid.


To add to this self-flagellation I went to my doctor this morning for some minor thing and he weighed me! Weighed me! Very bad thing to do when I am not feeling absolutely at the top of my game.  I always want to be thinner.  Thinner than I am at any given moment and today I was not.  I have not gained any weight in months, but according to his (obviously wrong) scales, I have not lost more that 1/2 a kilo.  BOO! this means that in order to attain my ideal weight and age, because of course, I not only want to be thinner I also want to be younger, I have to cut out all the little treats that feel so necessary when I am feeling low. The realisation that even if I am thin I will still be almost 62 years old with a face full of wrinkles and a body dimpled with cellulite is another huge de-motivator.  Oy vey - am I making problems today.


All in all, I could list idiotic reasons as to why I feel low, but it all comes down to the same thing.  All of it is self-created and seeing this today so clearly is almost enough to motivate me to do something new.  I could clear my clothes from the floor of the bedroom, I could cook a gourmet dinner, I could even iron some clothes, but at the moment the blankets of my bed beckon me and are asking me to pull them up over my head and hide for a while.


I think I will try to do a little bit of all these things.  After all, that's what a day off is for.  Tomorrow I can go to work and shine.  Today I will just glow a bit and give in to myself.

How to get it wrong...

So, here I am beating myself up for doing a terrible job at my training event last week.  Really beating myself up, gnashing of teeth, wailing, mea culpa-ing like crazy and then I started typing up the training notes.  As I typed I saw that actually the group came away with lots of ideas, actions, plans and future changes they are going to make.  So far, so good.  Then I had a conversation with the consultancy that hired me.  I was on the verge of handing back this contract, resigning with my tail between my legs and slunking off to a corner to lick my self-esteem shattering wounds until I heard that the client loved me. Huh??? Really loved me, thought I was great and wants me to not only carry on working with the organisation, but also wants me to facilitate a meeting with their executive directors and their board.  What????


How did I get this so wrong?  For sure I could have run a tighter course.  I could have nailed the brief down tighter before I started, but there was no way I could have anticipated the internal wrangling and politics I was faced with.  I could not have known that this particular group of people was fed up with any training at all and didn't want to be in the room.  I could not have known the individual hidden agendas with which I was confronted and all of this added up to me believing that I was unprofessional and more distressingly, useless.


I am not unprofessional and I am not useless, but how easily I let myself be convinced of this.  How easily I let myself fall headlong into this pit of despair makes me sad for me and for my development.  I thought I was further along than this.  I really believed I had transcended my childhood need for approval and could re-affirm myself without the need of the input from others.  Maybe this is another form of arrogance - the belief that the opinions of others should not matter.  For me they do, but how could I have read this so wrongly?  Why was I so ready to believe the worst about myself?  This is what I am busy with right now.


I used to be a smoker.  I was a heavy smoker and sometimes got through three packs of cigarettes a day. I stopped in the 1980's for over eleven years.  Wow - quite an accomplishment! I convinced myself that I was cured.  No longer a nicotine addict.  I could be in a room full of smokers and not feel an inkling of temptation. Nothing, not a smidget!  I was above my past addiction.  And then, one day, I had a cigarette.  What harm could it do? I was no longer even tempted by the lure of cigarettes, one couldn't hurt.  BANG! Before I knew it I was back on two packs a day edging towards three.  How easily I slipped back into old habits.


This is just what I did over the past few days around work. I judged myself so harshly because of my addiction to old habits.  Not feeling good enough is an old habit.  I thought I had eliminated it, but obviously just like the one cigarette of my old downfall, one episode of doubt had me laid low.  Feeling bad about myself is an addiction to the past and just like any addiction I need to look at it again and be more aware of its power to entrap me.  I need to treat this addiction to feeling lousy with respect and when it arises, I need to examine it, acknowledge it and counter it with positivity. What I don't need to do, is to feed it.  The more I feed the addiction to feeling bad, the bigger it grows. I need to nourish the little girl inside who is so unsure, but not be beating her up, but by hugging her and showering her with love.


Thank goodness I have friends.  They have been supportive and loving and busy telling me that I'm fine.  I am beginning to put myself back together again.  I am still feeling bruised by what was a difficult few days and I am still wary of going back to the same organisation.  This time I will go back prepared for what I might find and with the knowledge that I am good at what I do and I am never less than professional and competent.  Sometimes I am even great!


Oh, and by the way, I completely stopped smoking six years ago and can't even remember that old addiction so there is genuine hope for the future.

I'm Back!

THIS PIECE WAS WRITTEN THEE WEEKS AGO:
It's over two months since I've thought to come and write down my thoughts.  I'm not at all sure why this is and not sure why I am today inspired to write once again. So much has happened and so many different emotions have flown through me that it's almost hard to know where to begin and possibly, and just as importantly, where to end.

In the past few months I have been to the States to visit my father, seen some old friends, been on holiday in Scotland and increased the amount of work I've been doing.  Life has felt very busy and I've been watching my moods with curiosity as I take on more and panic less. I've given myself the gift of booking the Ecstatic Chant group at the Omega Institute in early September and booked a week's residential pottery course with Ralph for this summer.  Even making plans for a few months in advance seems like a good omen and a pledge of trust in the future.  I've watched the garden turn green again and the Spring blossom come and go as the warm weather takes hold.  In other words life has carried on taking me with it and all in all it's been very good.


As I write these words I am still surprised that it is me who is writing, that it is me who is feeling these positive feelings.  Surely there is some mistake, I will wake up from this dream and find myself mired in my usual anxiety.  Now I can't say that ALL in the garden is lovely.  I still have my crises of confidence, my panic over a new work contract and my horror when I look in the mirror and see, not a young beautiful girl, but a rather wrinkled, overweight old lady and et, and yet, and yet, the order of life is exactly as it is meant and things seem to be workig out just fine.


PLEASE LET ME ADD NEW INFORMATION HERE:  
It is now a few weeks after I originally wrote this upbeat report of where I'm at and since then a few things have changed.  I still feel strong and resilient, but I have taken a major knock to my confidence.  The work contract I took on began this past week and went really badly.  A combination of an organisation in chaos and my lack of experience in the area of work I undertook meant that for the first time I can remember, my work didn't go well.  I was and still am, to some extent, very shaken up by this and very distressed by how much this has disturbed my equilibrium.  I feel like I've been in a car accident - battered, bruised and hurt.  There are many reasons why the work didn't go well and to be honest, less than half the fault lies with me, but that still leaves a chunk of poor quality work that falls at my feet and it sure feels bad.


When I was originally offered this work I said no.  I knew this was not my area of expertise and in my gut I felt that I was not the right person to do this work.  I allowed myself to be convinced otherwise and seduced by the size of the contract.  I guess I am upset with myself for putting myself into a position where I took on something I should not have taken on.  I should have trusted my original reaction and stuck to my no.  Instead of that I am sitting in my house feeling absolutely dismal and trying desperately to make it ok.  It will be ok, but right now, it doesn't feel that way.


ALLOW ME TO CHANGE THE SUBJECT!
Not only am I taking part in the Ecstatic Chant at the Omega Institute this year, but I am also booked to participate in an intense and important retreat.  It is a retreat of bearing witness in... Auschwitz.  Let me explain this and in explaining I know I can get clearer for myself on what I think this means to me. 


I have known about this retreat for almost three years.  Each year the pull to take part has grown stronger and this year I could no longer ignore the call to be there. It is a 5 day retreat organised by a group called Zen Peacemakers and led by a Buddhist Roshi (master) named Bernie Glassman.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrxgPhWFquo  


Every year for over 15 years he has led multi-faith groups in bearing witness in the grounds of Auschwitz.  Each day is structured and involves meditation, sharing, prayer and time to process what happens.  Rather than sounding morbid, it feels to me to be a journey of healing and as Glassman puts it, 're-membering', putting back together the unhealed past.  For me this feels like the culmination of so many years of having come to terms with my parents' past and having deeply understood that the purpose of remembering is to heal and honour those who died in the Holocaust by making the world a good place to live in.  In some small way I fully believe that taking part in this retreat is my next step.  It is my 'enlightenment intensive'.  How to explain something that is based so strongly on a magnetic pull of the heart, something that is beyond words and beyond rationale.  


I could never imagine going on a day trip to Auschwitz with some tour group.  I have often thought about visiting Poland.  As my father is reaching the end of his life and his spark of life is getting dimmer, it seems that this is the absolute right time for me to undertake such a big step.  I trust totally that this is a positive thing to do and also, I feel very courageous right now.  I am ready for this.


I will write more about my thoughts on this since it helps me to clear anything in the way and also I am aware that my 'retreat time' has already started.  From the moment I booked the group, the flight and the hotel, I have begun a process. Right now it feels a long time until the retreat begins at the end of October, but I know that at my age, time seems to fly by.


I am happy to be writing again.  It makes me smile to sit here and tap away at my new nifty little computer and pour out my ranting.  It makes me happy even though the main reason I started to write again was that I did a poor piece of work.  I will try to be kind to myself and not beat myself too badly over it and watch it pass.


I welcome myself back to the world of words...