Evolvere

[itsnutsandbolts]

Blip

This is a reminder to myself.

You can try to shortcut the process, but ultimately you’ll end up back where you are.

Spirituality is a pursuit of the highest order, not an escape of suffering — although that may be a side effect (or a starting point for many). But to use spirituality as avoidance, is to condemn yourself to a common pitfall.

Most days you’re pretty good at digesting material and content on an intellectual level. But spirituality is a practice that goes far beyond mental masturbation. Your brain may be switched on and receptive towards the ideas you bombard it with, but your mind is shut in ways you cannot comprehend even whilst writing this.

So maybe take a healthy dose of JP verbiage and set your house in order. On days where you have to work, work. On days where you physically feel fine enough to run, run. Do yoga, meditate for reasons other than spirituality, feed yourself and your partner, take your sun-deprived self out for walks and let yourself rest. Read. Talk to your therapist. Poke at your generational trauma. Take a kickboxing class. Or a pole dancing lesson.

 

You can let spirituality take a backseat if you’re not there yet.

 

You push, because you pride yourself on building up a stellar (note: highly subjective) record of discipline and resilience as an adult. Independent of those who were meant to teach you such skills. You push because you fear that rest = not doing anything = flakiness = who I used to be = shame. 

But there’s no point pushing at times, because ‘doing the work’ isn’t a military drill. And your discipline means fuck all if it doesn’t serve you. At what point does resilience morph into rigidity? Be careful, for when it does, you will snap like a twig.

So on days like these, I think it’s okay if you sleep for hours, and if the most you can do is post a semi-coherent entry on noxious parts of the internet that you creep around in. 

 

Life feels like a tightrope right now, so hang on, keep your balance.

 

God will still be waiting when you wake up.

 

[itsnutsandbolts]

Musings.

In the true spirit of IFS, I just want to thank all my managerial parts for helping me show up today at work like a normal, functional human being. Like a normie.

I’ve been pondering how I ended up here again. I had a journal years ago on this forum, under a different handler. I also had a friend. Friend doesn’t seem like quite the right term, they were more of a journal buddy/acquaintance whom I checked in on occasionally. I wonder how this person is doing now. I remember little from back then, but I recall depressive symptoms and major frustration around procrastination for the both of us. 

I know I started that original journal out of desperation. 

What I know less of is why I’ve been lurking around for months, and then finally writing again on here. 

I’m no longer desperate. I no longer procrastinate (much), and I’m definitely not clinically depressed anymore. I’m actually really happy and fulfilled for the most part, and have gone further than I thought I ever would. 

 

What then, am I doing here?

 

So maybe then this forum/journal is a form of procrastination. Maybe it’s reprieve from the busyness of day to day life. Maybe I want attention. Maybe I miss making deep connections. Maybe I miss having big and multiple groups of friends at my disposal. Maybe I feel I’m at a spiritual dead end and I’m tired of pushing through with no breakthrough. Maybe my life purpose(s) is taking me through a rather dull and uninspiring backroad and this journal is a way of tap-dancing through the mundane before I reach more scenic routes again. Maybe it’s limerence.

Maybe it’s all of the above, who knows.

 

Ultimately I guess it doesn’t really matter why. I’m here now, and if I’m going to keep writing, then the writing is going to serve me in a way that is beneficial to myself.

I hope my old accountability/journal buddy is doing well. Our interactions were brief, but the more time I spend on here, the more I think of them.

Maybe I’ll go hunt around for my old username, although I suspect that old account is now defunct.

 

[itsnutsandbolts]

Thoughts on therapy no one cares about.

The research indicates that video or telephone therapy can be just as good as face-to-face sessions, and that each modality has their unique benefits and disadvantages.

I’m not sure on my thoughts on that just yet.

The research also indicates that the working alliance between therapist and client is a major factor in reducing risk of dropout and facilitating desired outcomes — regardless of therapeutic approach or modality.

But it takes two to build rapport, yes?

You can maximise efforts on your end, but a therapeutic relationship is unlikely to survive if it’s ultimately one sided. Just like any other any relationship, actually.

I don’t think people realise how much hard work therapy involves.

A lot of what Leo says about pickup can be applied to psychological therapy too.

But I guess it’s offensive to say that. Or people take it out of context and bastardise your original message. 

Or I guess they just don’t want to hear it.

Which is plenty fine by me.

I just want to make sure I’m aware of this, and my part in it.

 

[itsnutsandbolts]

Running from the perspective of an adult who hates running

Pros:

• Being able to run longer into late life (natural wear & tear occur later in life - under the assumption that no significant injuries occur during runs) - according to partner, not sure how true this is.
• Being a bit more considerate around form & how to run properly/effectively.

Cons: 

• You’re slow.
• You can just about barely tolerate short distances.
• The benefits of habit building in early development are virtually non-existent (obviously, lol).
• You negotiate with yourself and come up with a million excuses not to do the run, including referencing your deviated septum which block air passage entirely in one nostril.
• Your lungs hurt.
• Your brain hurts. Running is apparently 90% psychological (again, according to partner. It’s a figure of speech, not a statistic.) 
• Your self-esteem hurts.
• Every other body part will hurt at some point.
• You generally suck at running.

 

Today’s run was a 3.3 mile (just over a 5k) on mixed hilly terrain. A relatively slow 11-minute per mile run - which feels like fking sprinting to me uphill.

You can't relate because you're not 5 feet tall with dinky legs.

 

I want to build up to a 5-6 mile (10 min per mile) run. Body, please function.

[itsnutsandbolts]

June: Rehabilitation

April and May has been a month of reemergence for me. We did a few long weekend/day trips away. I started going back into the office regularly. I went out with and got in touch with more friends than I have over the last 2.5 years. I posted pictures and commented more on IG. I feel like I’m coming back out into the world again.

It’s been wonderful. I feel like a person again, in some ways.

It’s taken a toll on my body though. I came back from London with a sore throat and within hours developed a full blown temperature. 

 

Right now, I feel like God is taking a mallet to the back of my head every time I try to move into a non-horizontal position.

 

I’m off work today because there is literally no humanly possible way to do my job without a functioning voice (or brain, for that matter), but I’m also a terrible patient and I can’t for the life of me sit still.

There’s always something to do, and if I’m not doing the things I need to do, I feel useless.

This is partly why we can’t have children yet. I don’t want to grow into that mother, or wife. 

The parts work in therapy is helping (I think), but I’m a long way off from any remote form of long term sustainable recovery. 

And speaking of recovery, June looks like it’s going to be a month of gradually rehabilitating my body (and mind). 

 

I am beyond tired to be any more comprehensible and the God-mallet-pounding in the back of my head demands I return to a horizontal catatonia. 

 

To sign off in the words of Emily the Wise, may your toilet paper be plentiful, may your WiFi be strong and may the odds be ever in your favour. Especially if your body is shit at waging war with microbial invaders.

 

P.S. at the time of posting this (not the same time as when I was writing it), I tested positive for the rona. After nearly 2.5 years of superb dodging. Partner asked why I had to catch it when it’s not even relevant anymore. So untrendy of me.

 

[itsnutsandbolts]

IFS, meditation, and all the things in my Covid-addled head.

I feel like I am making some progress with IFS. A few nights ago, amidst a Covid-intoxicated haze, I had an actual conversation with several parts that I found to be very illuminating. I also finally discovered and spoke to one of the many elusive exiles. This feels like a major breakthrough, especially since I have become increasingly frustrated over the last few months at the lack of an exile emerging within sessions. Now, not only have I identified one through intellectual means, but I have actually had the experience of conversing with them. With her.

I really need to take this to therapy.

On a similar but entirely different train of thought, I also noticed periodically throughout my feverish haze that there is a Self present; a Seat of Consciousness that remained untouched by the trappings of the physical pain and suffering my body was enduring. This could, of course, be pure delusion - induced by the aforementioned feverish haze. But in the moment (and actually, several moments), there was a stunning clarity around that presence of mind.

What I would really like to do is advance my meditation practice (or any other available technique) to access that state of mind.

Unfortunately, of late, meditation has felt more detrimental than beneficial. I’m still doing it as a tick box exercise, but the more I ‘meditate’, the more aware I am of certain blocks that very much need to be addressed.

Perhaps psychedelics could help facilitate some answers, but unfortunately that option isn't accessible to me right now.

 

In other less interesting news, I have spent the last 3 days bed bound. I think yesterday morning, I got up to brush my teeth and get a glass of fresh water, and my body was literally like ‘okay back to sleep now you’ve done enough for the day’. I also have all the symptoms. Every single one you can think of. I don’t know why I can’t catch an easier strain like Omicron - nope, whatever I’ve got is some shit banging hot stuff. My throat and ears ache to high hell and the Extinction Reb guys should really come charging down my road if they knew how much Kleenex I’ve gone through in the past few days.

 

In short, survival is a bitch.

 

I’m clearly feeling better today as I am semi-vertical and semi-coherent.

No, wait, there comes the God pounding mallet at the back of my head.

That would be the universe signalling they’ve had enough of my bullshit.

 

[itsnutsandbolts]

Mutiny in progress (Part 1).

Hah, so I did the thing. 

I went to the last page on the Journals forum and gradually clicked forward until I found my old journal (and my old account - I still can’t tell if it is defunct, but I assume not). 

I figured, why not? I am off work this week. I am thoroughly shit infected with the rona. I barely have the energy to shove dirty laundry into the machine that does all the work for me. If I had pets, they would have died from neglect. Thankfully, partner is a fully functional independent being.

I have nothing better to do, basically.

So I found my old sad journal, and the first entry made me laugh because it started out with ‘I’m not sure what I’m doing here.’

I guess some things don’t change.

 

Lots of other things have changed though. 

I had laid out a brief outline of what I wanted to focus on in that old journal, so I thought it’ll be fun to do a 5-years-down-the-road review of what’s gone on since. A mini reflection I suppose.

Here goes.

 

*As I started writing this, I realised it’s impossible to cover all the bits I had outlined initially all at once, simply because so much has changed (and because I'm long winded). So I think I’ll do this in parts, one topic at a time.

 

Part I: My final year studying abroad

My final year studying abroad was trash. I was on the verge of failing uni. I was in a relationship that should have never started - the only relationship I regret to this day. My closest (and in some ways, only) friendship at that time was falling apart. And as usual there was petty (and not so petty) bullshit drama from family. 

I was very, very depressed with plenty of suicidal ideation.

I will admit I had a hand in all the toxicity surrounding me. More than a hand. At times I was stirring the drama pot, even to my own detriment.

Nevertheless I managed to graduate with a 2:1 (sorry, non-Brits, I don’t know how else to explain this to you, but basically it’s a decent-ish grade). I will never be able to explain to anyone how this was remotely possible. At that time, I was told I wasn’t good enough because it wasn’t a 1st. Today, I’m just grateful and low-key amazed that past me was able to achieve that, given all the petty human bullshit I swam in.

That year, I also ended my relationship with then-boyfriend. That was messy. I did it terribly. I asked for a break and some space, which he refused. I told him I cheated, he said it’s fine and we'll move past it. I finally ended it over text with some bullshit we-can-still-be-friends rhetoric that ended pretty quick when he asked if we could be friends with benefits. Lol.

Hindsight is always perfect, but a better way of ending it would be through a phone call explaining that the relationship was over and I did not want to be with him anymore. When pressed for a reason, I would have said the following:

- I no longer like you.

- I dislike the choices you make when you feel jealous and needy (i.e. sulking, hounding & pressuring me into spending time with you).

- I don’t want to be with someone who sexually assaulted me with stealthing, disrespected me several times and who gave me a pregnancy scare.

Of course, if I had that level of boundary setting and communication skills back then, I wouldn’t be neck deep in petty human bullshit soup. 

 

What else happened that year?

My closest friend and I repaired our friendship briefly that summer. It never returned to what it was, and we are no longer friends today. 

I went back to my home country and spent the next few months doing music before I eventually got a full time job. I no longer write or play music today, but this appears more circumstantial than anything else. It’s still something I hold dear to me, and something I will return to in the future. And when I do, it will be a healthy pursuit of a craft I love, not a desperate ploy to escape feelings and thoughts that used to torment me.

I also met current partner that year, although we did not start a relationship till the following year. 

I eventually started swimming my way out of petty human bullshit and lost a lot of friends. I think that generally happens when you quietly and unassumingly remove yourself from PHB. Experts on narcissism will call it ‘grey-rocking’. I call it slinking out the back door. 

 

So yeah, my final year was a drama clusterfuck of a dumpster fire. 

 

Since then, I have worked a few different jobs and volunteered in various capacities.

I also returned to the UK to go to grad school (only a masters degree, I’m not a doctor of any kind…yet). I graduated with a Distinction - a grade that I attribute primarily to three factors:

a) a safe, secure and supportive environment (external)

b) a desire for growth and openness to learning (internal)

c) a mindset shift - prioritising process over outcome (internal)

I’m now working and training in a job I could barely even dream of 5 years ago. My dream role.

I have a partner with whom I share similar values and every day we choose to invest in our relationship and nurture it.

I worked very hard to overcome and manage symptoms of depression and what now appears to be cPTSD. It is a journey, and an ongoing work in progress that included putting myself into therapy last year.

 

So yeah, I think I’ve come a long way since that final year of uni in 2017. 
It actually makes me really hopeful, seeing how I have evolved over the last 5 years. Past me would have never dreamt of the life I live now. Past me thought I would be dead by now. In some ways, 5 years feels like a really short time, but also like a lifetime.

And I think I'm really excited because there could be so much further to go. And however far, is to some extent, up to me.

There are still bad days of course, but generally it's really not a bad life at all.

 

[itsnutsandbolts]

Distress tolerance.

I feel really worn down. Most of it is sleep deprivation and being ill from Covid, but a big part of it is a really intense feeling of disillusionment coupled with an underlying sense of brewing panic.

I'm tired of being at the mercy of a system that appears to be failing the people who really, really need it to work. It is incredibly exhausting to have to do all your own research and prepare a case to advocate for yourself or your loved ones, yet communicate this information in a suitably deferential manner so as to not upset the egos of healthcare professionals who write your prescriptions. It's an impossible balance, made even more so by a significant drop in resilience, which anyone would experience after feeling so ill.

It's such a wake up call to recognise time and time again that your health is one of the most important things. And hardly anyone who should care, cares. The few who do care are hampered and red taped by a system designed to save lives, which I'm sure it does brilliantly. Unfortunately, that very same system does little for those who need significant improvement in their lives, or those who are not dying, but in massive amounts of pain or suffering.

There are few things that are worse than watching a loved one suffer. If I could take it all away or bear it myself, I would, in a heartbeat. Turns out my level of distress tolerance can be rather low at times.

 

I'm going to go attempt some yoga to regulate my nervous system so I can have an actual conversation with the doctor when they do call later.

 

[itsnutsandbolts]

July: Exploration

My arms felt like I had permanently yanked them 2 inches out of my shoulder sockets.

I went into that pole dancing class knowing it was going to be a bit of graceless buffoonery. I could take that. What I really couldn’t take was the day after when I woke up dramatically catatonic in bed. My arms hurt, my core hurt, my shoulders hurt, my palms hurt, even my knuckles hurt.

It was fun as hell though. I’ve booked my next class in.

June has been a mix of physical recovery from Covid, along with a wild game of catch up with uni work post rona. I will admit that catching the virus did change much of my perspective on it. Took me all of 2 seconds to backtrack on all my principles and announce that I’m never leaving the house without a hazmat suit now. 

Hyperbolic jokes aside, I don’t want that fear to take over. Which is why July has been a gradual resurfacing. 

 

Strangely enough, falling ill felt like a mental and spiritual reset. I came back with a greater appreciation for life. My yoga and meditation practice was on steroids for awhile. In a way, it’s wonderful that I feel rejuvenated and hyper alive again. On the other hand, for months I have been thinking of how my meditation practice has plateaued and how I need to switch things up. It’s concerning that the change process was not self-driven, and to this day, I still don’t know what constitutes the change itself. Obviously I’m glad the universe dumped it in my lap, but for future reference, I still wouldn’t know what to do when that happens again.

The covid haze also offered opportunity for several breakthroughs in IFS - breakthroughs I’m still integrating into my day to day life. 

In other news, all the social stuff (not that there has been much, although that is loads by my standards) I’ve done lately has felt very dull. I can’t tell if that is due to the people around me or if it’s just my state of mind. 

 

I’d really like to do more wild swimming this summer - what’s left of it anyway, thanks covid. The sea looks very inviting today, maybe I’ll tempt partner into a long walk and dip.

[itsnutsandbolts]

Am I living, or just waiting to die? ...

...is the podcast I have been listening to for the last hour, for no reason other than the fact that I really, really like the timbre of Kalel's voice. 

And I'm very happy to be able to say I'm most definitely living. I feel excessively alive, in fact. I think that is perhaps a side effect of discovering and working towards life and all it encapsulates in the last 4-5 years. At times, I feel like an excessively boisterous 4 year old in an adult body. Sounds utterly awful, but it feels like the best of both worlds right now. The skills of a functional adult, paired with the wonder and desire for exploration of a child. And to think that 4-5 years ago, I would have most definitely been in the 'waiting to die' camp. Not just waiting to die, but dead. A walking corpse for the first couple decades of my life.

 

On a completely unrelated note, partner found bruises on my shoulders yesterday after pole class. From the sports bra digging into skin as I spend most of the time desperately clinging on while hauling my body weight. I'm also sporting two nasty bruises on my feet from learning (desperately attempting and failing) to climb. It's lesson two, and I already feel a lot more comfortable around the pole, although I reckon the lack of grace will hang around for much longer. There was also a tiny part of me that beamed lots when the instructor said I was strong and could do most of the conditioning exercises to form. This is the part where I shout out the home yoga, as well as every rock climbing, kickboxing and gym session I had in the past. Thanks for not letting my body fall into disrepair. I like that. I like being strong, I think. For a long time -- most of my life -- I wasn't. 

 

On another unrelated note - and because segue-ways are overrated in streams of consciousness - I am so close to closing this chapter. I'm working hard (uhh, hard, by my standards) on the final assignment. I am surprisingly not procrastinating much, how very unlike me. It's two more months, a final assessment day, and then I'll be a qualified practitioner. I want to be proud, and maybe one day I will be able to with more ease, but right now being present and focused feels a little more important. Either way, my plan for August is fun times in the sun and maybe trying to be less hermit-like. And reading. After more than 6 months of unexplainable disinterest, I'm getting back into it again.

 

Could just be the weather talking, but I really like my life right now. I think I will always love being alive, given past circumstances, but right now, I really like it.

[itsnutsandbolts]

August: Liberation...and deliberation.

I had written the following for my August journal overall theme and mini notes. 

 

Theme: Liberation.

Free yourself from the constraints of fear. 

Develop concentration and enter flow. 

Acknowledge and integrate parts. 

Root yourself here, wherever that is. 

 

I think liberation is apt theme for this month, especially liberation from fear, which I have been feeling a lot more lately as a result of putting myself out there. I’ve found the next thing to potentially explore, the next thing to glom on to. Partner thinks this is hilarious, given how much I complain about 'just wanting to get comfortable and bored in the current job' before exploring anything else. I’ve also put my body (and brain) through a lot of I’M-GOING-TO-DIE survival stress - mainly through the pole dancing, but amongst other things too.

Beyond liberation, I think there’s also a sense of…deliberation, which I think might be pivotal in consolidating all the exploration in July.

 

Speaking of deliberation and pole dancing - here’s a quick progress update. I’m 4 lessons in, and am very pleased that I can do a basic invert, a cross knee release and an outside leg hang (I had to look all these terms up because I had no idea what they were called). They don’t look or feel terribly great, but I can do them. My body is shocked (and thoroughly smug); my brain is just shit terrified. I’m happy to report I’m stronger than I look, and apparently can lift my body weight around. Not bad at all.

There are still a million things to work on of course. My flexibility is shabby, my grace and style nonexistent and my fear overpowers everything in the room when I’m upside down. While I have some strength, I don’t have enough of it to throw myself around effortlessly. My arms tire easily and my core gives up often before my brain does - this is very sad looking when you’re hanging upside down and trying to do a massive sit up to grab on to the pole for dear life. I also have zero working memory when it comes to choreography. I have also accrued an impressive collection of bruises, mostly from trying (and finally succeeding) at climbing the pole. I will say that despite all this, my sense of humour is still intact, and is a big part of why I enjoy the classes so much.

In fact, I enjoy them so much that I'm thinking of taking a group class. Shocking.

I also noticed my yoga practice improving physically. I’m getting stronger and more confident with my body - and I'm proud to announce that after years of pathetically trying (or rather, not trying very much at all out of fear), I can finally do a supported shoulder stand with very little difficulty on my part.

I think after distress tolerance and discipline/psychological resilience, one of the biggest lessons I’m learning as an adult is the importance of physical health and resilience.

Just like how psychological strength is pretty useless in some situations unless paired with adaptability and mental agility, being physically strong (for my size - I’m barely 5 feet thanks) can only take me so far. I’d like to work on my flexibility further - I think I’ve already started doing this intuitively over the last few months, but in the last week I’ve been setting aside time for deliberate practice.

 

I’m excited. This is really fun.