meditation & other hokey new age stuff

a year ago i was fairly at peace with myself. dare i say, even happy? i was at the lowest weight of my adult life, i had a fabulous new guy in my life who treated me (& still treats me) like a goddess, i had found joy in writing again, & i felt like i finally- really & truly honest injun- had a good handle on my life.

the last time before then that i can recall having peace in my life was winter of '95/spring of '96. at that time i had begun researching wicca & i was meditating on a regular basis. i was giving myself the cosmic space that my physical self needed. my meditations got to the point where i was verging on the edge of energy play & lucid dreaming. if i would've kept it up i'd probably be an expert at both of them.

these are the only two times that i can remember not waking up most days with some sense of self loathing. now back in the 1990's i was still a pretty big gal, but i was a happy big gal. i let people take pictures of me, & when i looked at those pictures at the time i thought i was cute. now it makes me want to vomit, but that's another issue. so the disconnect between the physical space that my being took up makes me think that my happiness is most likely not weight related. i was definitely pushing 300 in the mid-nineties, but it was still a good time for me.

the two things these things have in common is meditation & giving my mind the chance to wander where it will. how did i come to this conclusion? please refer to the posting wwskd. i was just reading on writing (seriously, if you haven't read it you really really should) & he was talking about a mental space that he had built for his writing. & it made me pause & say to myself "self, maybe i need to create a mental space for writing." ok, yeah, a total duh moment, but not all epiphanys are light bulb moments.

somewhere at home i still have my cedar incense that i burned nearly every day last year. i used the smell of cedar to help transport me away from my apartment, my monetary worries, all the other little bullshit in life that interferes. i won't be trite & say it took me to a happy place, but it took me to where i needed to be. & maybe that's not such a bad thing.

routine can be a powerful tool when it comes to the human mind. in a way we can condition our selves in a similar way to that of pavlov's dogs. one action will automatically make us primed for another action. for myself, brushing my teeth makes me want to go to the bathroom. probably because every night before i go to bed i a) brush my teeth & then b) go to the bathroom. so routine has ingrained in me a desire to pee after brushing my teeth. sorry if that was a tmi, but it illustrates this point beautifully.

now extend that. when i used to meditate i would often burn incense too. so it became an olfactory trigger for my brain. cedar burning=relax=write. i could have worse habits, ala hemingway or hunter s. thompson, who took the chemical route to writing enlightenment. i'm not saying that's necessarily wrong, although definitely not endorsed by the medical association or your friendly neighborhood doctor.

at a time where i know very little i do have a few known factors. #1 i can't continue with this depression #2 at this time i'm wasting my writing talent #3 something needs to be done to fix #1 & #2. like any historian will tell you "those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it." in this case my history has some good things to teach me, so there's no reason for me to take the hard way if i can take myself back to what has worked for me before.

wwskd

wwskd=what would stephen king do

so anyone who knows me in the least little bit knows that stephen king is my idol. there are lots of other writers that i admire (keep checking my profile, i'll add more), but king is by far the one who i most idolize. i hesitate to use the word idolize because there are so many negative associations with that word. hero is kind of close, but also not accurate. maybe it's best to say that when i grow up i want to be stephen king, except, not male. & i don't want to grow up.

i admire his honesty & candor. i won't give away the whole story, but if you've read on writing you know what i mean, & if you haven't read on writing you need to. go out & get the book. i'll wait.

>>>>>

so what'd you think of the book, pretty good, eh? i'm a huge fan of his & i can list off a few other must reads. one of them is the eyes of the dragon. good good stuff there. but enough advertising, i'm not getting paid for the promotion : )

it's that brutal honesty that i applaud. but beyond that it's his tenacious nature. in the book he talks about being so flat busted that he & his wife didn't even have a phone because they couldn't afford the bill. he talks about living on that edge of poverty that is such a scary place to exist. i remember that place from my childhood. i fear that place.

he also talks about continuing to write despite having a family to feed & real grown up obligations. that he worked so that he could write. now that last sentence is a paraphrase, but the general gist that i got from those sections of his book. he made the time to write because it was something that mattered to him, that drove him.

i claim to be a writer. & i claim to have that same driving passion. & i really believe i do. but all of that is tempered by fear. at this point i can't even put a voice to all of the fears that i have rolling around inside of my head. like i've said before, fear is an awful awful thing. sure, it can keep us from that infamous dark alley & unknown horrors. but it can also keep us from doing. it's this latter part that's giving me the problems right now.

which takes me back to my blog title, wwskd. seriously, i need that on a tshirt. & a bumper sticker. the answer to that one is simple. he'd write. a simple answer, but not such a simple solution for me. it's something i've been having a lot of trouble with as of late.

what does all of this have to do with weight loss? well like a very wise person said to me today, "self image, self esteem, eating, weight loss, writing, it's all tied up together." once again, a paraphrase, but the general meaning is there. & right now i'm struggling with all of those. i am such a typical gemini in that i'm flighty & a lot of my actions are mood dependent. & right now my mood is in the crapper. so that tells you where all of the rest of that is at this time. once again, seems like a simple solution. but it's not as easy as it seems. it's pretty tough to simultaneously work on all the things that you need to make yourself feel better.

i guess it's back to one day at a time, or hour, or minute. whatever helps me get through. not like i'm trying to sound like a twelve step program or anything. but i've been told by some of the people closest to me that i'm scaring them. & that was never my intention. & it bothers me that that is the effect that my dark moods have been having on the people that i love the most. & while i'm having a hard time believing in myself & caring about me right now, i do still care about them. at least that's something to work towards.