I am feeling led into deeper and more meaningful stillness. There is something so beautiful about sitting in darkness in the wee hours of the morning drinking decaf coffee. (The decaf coffee helps me to stay embodied during stillness.) There is something so beautiful about just watching and observing your mind at work even in the darkness and stillness. There is something so beautiful when you catch a piece of stillness in the midst of your busy mind. It is all part of the wonder of me, Janet. This is how my mind, body, spirit and heart work in life and all is well. Amongst the periods of the busy mind and the periods of stillness I find such richness and peace for I truly honor and respect how I am existing in the world and in where my life has led me.

It is a great thing to be finding beauty in the darkness because I have always been terrified of the external darkness – so many things that I could not control in my personal life and in the world around me happened in darkness. Even today, I have a terror response to darkness each night. Continue reading →

My therapist asked what I felt towards the people that abused me or anyone who sexually, physically and emotionally abused others. I said I have to really ponder that question and this is what I have come up with so far.

I have always and continue to struggle with forgiveness of my abusers. I hate what happened to me but I am starting to see that it was these people’s human response to issues of power and powerlessness. It was a way of their taking control in a life full of uncertainty and unknowns as well as their deep fear and terror. It was a reaction to their emotional life and their inability to negotiate the intensity of their inner life, so they reacted and struck out at someone with less power. So I think I understand it more. I clearly see that their abusing me had nothing to do with me personally and with who I was and how I was in the world. It was more their inability to negotiate the depth of the human experience. Questions still remain – Can I forgive or am I forgiving by understanding the human challenges? Am I forgiving and moving beyond it by creating the life I want and desire (given my disabilities)? Am I forgiving and moving on by not trying to change the past and accepting that long term multiple traumas can stay with you for a life time? Am I forgiving and moving on by celebrating, embracing and fully living my life of Beauty and Pain? For me, this is the best I can do as far as forgiveness goes and it is good enough for me. I can say that each time I choose to befriend my life with kindness, compassion, and gentleness I am acting in a forgiving way to myself and influencing the world around me. Befriending myself is a choice and it is in that choice that my forgiveness comes forward. I have found my power now.

Every day I reach a point where I feel my brain and body shutting down and I feel great fatigue taking over. But I think I have finally learned to bow to it and to honor it instead of fighting and resisting it. This is part of my normal. This is part of my nature. It has been with me my whole life due to early and long term trauma. I use to cry from my fatigue when I was in elementary and high school. It only got worse in college. During my career I would cry because of how tired I was from simply getting up and dressed in the morning. Once I got teaching, the children energized me but it became more and more difficult to continue on until I couldn’t do it anymore in 2006. My Chronic Fatigue hasn’t changed; however, my relationship with my fatigue is much more respectful, compassionate and gentle. Continue reading →

I have been up since 12:30 this morning for the second time this week. I am not sure if I am reaching acceptance, surrender or just trying to deal with my reality. I believe that I am finally ready to say and feel the truth of what is like living with the combination of Chronic Pain and Chronic Fatigue. These two illnesses feed on each other constantly. In the past, I have focused on living with PTSD but right now I am trying to negotiate PTSD’s sister illnesses. I hate to think of myself as sick, as really living with several chronic illnesses. My intense drive says to me “Fight, fight, fight”, in reality, I cannot fight through this as that leads to physical and emotional collapse. I feel this enormous grief just saying these words. My reality is that I am burnt out.

I found this book yesterday called How to Be Sick, a kindle book by Toni Bernhard. I got more out of how she exists with her fatigue than her use of Buddhist principles to help relieve it. I am tired of all the talk about how acceptance and surrender can “eliminate” suffering. Continue reading →