get out of the hole again

This morning, I’ve had another very positive session with my therapist. She is very happy with my development and says that I have come a long way since she first saw me in October, when I couldn’t say three things about myself without crying.
At this time, my main concern is not to burn my candle at both ends. I am very busy with doing up the house, planning the move, performing at work and working on my issues, apart from learning two new languages! So you see, my brain is always busy with the next thing and the next and the next, so getting peace inside my head and structure is what I have to work on now. It will show in a few new things to do on my goal list, as I have a bit of homework and want to succeed in clearing my mind when needed.

I saw my shrink this morning and we had a really good chat. We decided to take a time out around the christmas and new year’s period for me to establish the new behaviour patterns I have been working on, before introducing new ones on top.
She is really positive about my progress, as am I. I am making plans, I am more aware and relaxed. I feel a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders (by me!!!) ever since I voiced my concerns about the relationship between my boss and me. I feel that I have taken the big step and made myself heard. In a way, the fact that somebody has listened to what I had to say is an affirmation of my existance. My chin is no longer like glued to my chest, I wear it a few notches higher, these days.
Wow, I might really cross this goal off the list, soon.

...to my “new secret thing”, (remember Abs’s last one, wink-wink), I can’t go into detail, but I can say that the HR lady I spoke to last Thursday must have taken my criticism of my boss to heart and brought to her attention that things have to change. And lo! and behold, she can be nice. What a surprise.
When it comes to clearing my mind with a daily routine, I am failing poorly, but since I vented my spleen, I feel much more relaxed and ponder less.
I feel as if I am more than half way out of my hole.

• set a 30 minute time limit to ponder about my problems, and when the time’s up, no more pondering!
• 30 minutes relaxation exercises

BOREDOM.
They restructured the school grounds last year, just to sew 400m2 of boring grass. No student ever comes out to this patch of land. Couldn’t they have done at least the smallest bit of landscaping? Plant a tree? At least sew mixed wild flowers? What about biodiversity?
No. Boring lawn. Yawn.

This one is “frustration”.
I get so frustrated when I see the sad remnants of vandalism. I bet the kid who did this must have been frustrated too. Or angry. Possibly both.

“grief” for the student who was stabbed here about 10 days before the picture was taken. The stairs in the background are the entrance to his school.

This represents pain and hopelessness

I call this one “under pressure”.

Uncontrollable crying during stressful confrontations

I just burst into tears. There’s absolutely nothing I can do when it happens. A German expression is “being built closely to (the) water”. Currently, I’m living in a houseboat…
Any sort of unpleasant confrontation can and might result in me crying. But my tears also want to run when I think of something sad or something that makes me angry. Yesterday, it happened when I was talking about something nice! I was happy, and it made me cry.
I seem to have so much emotion bottled up somewhere inside of me that the pressure has become too great and the corks just pop when the bottle is shaken.
Cool metaphor, emotion = champagne…
So the general idea of my new homework is to get in touch with those hidden emotions, and let them surface.
Face them, not laugh them off.
We decided that the best action plan is to have me write, haikus, with my left hand, and diary entries.
I also opted for using my camera to find things that depict an emotion for me.
So I started by buying a little note book, and I scribbled down 8 haikus last night. I also doodled a little, an activity ery difficult for me because my inner critic hates anything I draw.
My therapist also said that silencing the sharp critic’s voice would be another session, another time.