Feel

Sometimes I don’t even feel alive. I’ll be driving and not feel alive. I’ll be sleeping and feel dead. It’s terrifying. I hate it.

So in taking the advice of a fellow 43thing’er, I’ve been working on my breathing. I also learned of a new breathing technique! I read about it on Yahoo.

You close one nostril and breathe for 5 counts for 10 breaths. Then, you repeat the cycle on the other nostril. It helps even out my breathing, which helps me feel aware.

Lately moreso, I’ve been feeling particularly numb. Not necessarily bland, that would be so much better than being numb. I mean, I could be a walking zombie numb. Like, “am I even awake?” numb.

I used to feel like this a lot, then it subsided. Now it’s back with avengeance, something fierce.

My intentions with this goal are: to stop walking around in a brainless emotionless haze and feel for once! Damnit I want to feel ALIVE! I want to FEEL! I want to laugh, cry, spit, cuss, shout, sing! AHH!

anything.
anything.
or nothing.
numb.
nothing there.
but all you want is to feel again.
breathe deeper slower harder.
nothing.

...in the past 24 hours after finding a message on my answering machine from my ex-dh. I returned the call last night, and it was the first time we’ve talked in almost 2 years. Hearing his voice again was shock to my emotional system, almost like talking to someone who had come back from the dead. We have a tax problem to work out, so it looks like we’ll be talking again. More feelings to feel, I’m sure.

i am at a scary point in my life, i am having trouble feeling what i should be feeling, and just as bad, feeling things when i shouldn’t be. i just want to feel like i used to, this sucks.

I don’t like who I am, or whoever it is that I’m becoming.

_{Usually, if we allow ourselves to feel our emotions fully when they come up, they recede naturally, giving way to another and another. When an emotion haunts us, it is often because we are afraid of really feeling it. Emotions like despair and rage are powerful, and it is natural to want to hold them at bay.
Certainly, we don’t want to let them take us over so that we say or do things we later regret.}

Makes sense… there’s an area where I’m painfully aware of this right now. And it is probably rage rather than despair, although there are two sides to the coin, and the side I am looking at in a given moment impacts which of the two it is.

There are some others I can talk to for some ideas. This might be a situation where there is more to do beside feeling.

If I am aware of situations that I have not fully grieved, is there anything I can do about it?

Is even asking that question setting me up for failure… asking of myself something I perhaps am not ready to do?

Does timing always work out naturally for the best, or can we help it along?

Speaks my language.

Says what I can’t.

Helps me feel.

I’m really happy that yesterday I found another book of his, at just the right time. They have to be read slow to be effective, in my view, and the page or two I read did just that.