Sunday, July 20, 2014
Healing can become a full-time process. It can become an immense journey...a virtual odyssey. This is how I have felt on some days. My feelings of being persistently overwhelmed are long gone. These feelings passed away when winter died and the world came alive again with the beauty of spring. The longer, deeper and (often equally) demanding process of regeneration replaced the overwhelm. And so here I am...a year later. The great archeological dig is becoming really interesting.
There are many moments when I feel as if I am on a bit of a roller coaster. Some might find such language to be alternative wording for mood swings. But I don't sense I am having mood swings. Neither my friends nor my therapist have made such an observation. My primary care doctor did not make such an observation when I saw him this past Monday. No, I believe what I am experiencing are the typical highs and lows that are a natural part of the process of healing. The trend of the quality of my life continues to be upward...but it's punctuated by peaks and valleys.
I'm going to share some spontaneous writing I did yesterday.
Vital Steps To Achieving Goals
......
On the topic of shamanic journeying and diving in:
So doing shamanic journeying absolutely fascinates me but I have a fear of diving right in. Is this the fruit of reaching a certain level of maturity? Have I become more measured as the years have passed? Am I becoming wiser? Or am I becoming more conservative? Wait, are those two ideas mutually exclusive? I associate wisdom with chronology but I also associate conservatism with chronology. I've heart it said that conservative views are more common among the elderly.
Becoming a shamanic practitioner seems like such a radical thing to do. It requires me to dive right in. And thus I am back to my beginning. Now I feel much more inclined to take measured steps, to walk the middle path, to wade into the shallow end of the pool. What would be my biggest fear about diving into shamanic healing? Getting lost in the Otherworld...sort of like the boy in the movie Insidious did. What if I get lost in the Otherworld but cannot find my way back? I was gone for one Saturn cycle and I'm happy to be back now, in the present, at least most of the time.
In a sense this question I have is all about boundaries. How can I live my life in a measured way? How can I take "well discerned" risks that are thoughtful? And now I find myself at the threshold of one of my core issues...namely making healthy choices. How do I make healthy decisions? And how can I trust my passion when I grew up among some very dispassionate people? How do I trust excitement and enthusiasm, the racing heart, the breathless wonder, the illumination, the inspiration, the artist within, when the artist had been locked away for so long? Actually it was the artist-boy who had been locked away. Ah yes, being held hostage. And how here I am at PTSD-land.
Is shamanic work just my way of being obsessively fixated on my own internal process?
Healing can become a full-time process. It can become an immense journey...a virtual odyssey. This is how I have felt on some days. My feelings of being persistently overwhelmed are long gone. These feelings passed away when winter died and the world came alive again with the beauty of spring. The longer, deeper and (often equally) demanding process of regeneration replaced the overwhelm. And so here I am...a year later. The great archeological dig is becoming really interesting.
There are many moments when I feel as if I am on a bit of a roller coaster. Some might find such language to be alternative wording for mood swings. But I don't sense I am having mood swings. Neither my friends nor my therapist have made such an observation. My primary care doctor did not make such an observation when I saw him this past Monday. No, I believe what I am experiencing are the typical highs and lows that are a natural part of the process of healing. The trend of the quality of my life continues to be upward...but it's punctuated by peaks and valleys.
I'm going to share some spontaneous writing I did yesterday.
Vital Steps To Achieving Goals
- Clarity
- Determination
- Skill
- Humility
- Enthusiasm
- Patience
- Emotional Intelligence
- Role models and helpers
- Humor
......
On the topic of shamanic journeying and diving in:
So doing shamanic journeying absolutely fascinates me but I have a fear of diving right in. Is this the fruit of reaching a certain level of maturity? Have I become more measured as the years have passed? Am I becoming wiser? Or am I becoming more conservative? Wait, are those two ideas mutually exclusive? I associate wisdom with chronology but I also associate conservatism with chronology. I've heart it said that conservative views are more common among the elderly.
Becoming a shamanic practitioner seems like such a radical thing to do. It requires me to dive right in. And thus I am back to my beginning. Now I feel much more inclined to take measured steps, to walk the middle path, to wade into the shallow end of the pool. What would be my biggest fear about diving into shamanic healing? Getting lost in the Otherworld...sort of like the boy in the movie Insidious did. What if I get lost in the Otherworld but cannot find my way back? I was gone for one Saturn cycle and I'm happy to be back now, in the present, at least most of the time.
In a sense this question I have is all about boundaries. How can I live my life in a measured way? How can I take "well discerned" risks that are thoughtful? And now I find myself at the threshold of one of my core issues...namely making healthy choices. How do I make healthy decisions? And how can I trust my passion when I grew up among some very dispassionate people? How do I trust excitement and enthusiasm, the racing heart, the breathless wonder, the illumination, the inspiration, the artist within, when the artist had been locked away for so long? Actually it was the artist-boy who had been locked away. Ah yes, being held hostage. And how here I am at PTSD-land.
Is shamanic work just my way of being obsessively fixated on my own internal process?
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I invite you to accompany me as I document my own journey of healing. My blog is designed to offer inspiration and solace to others. If you find it of value I welcome you to share it with others. Aloha!