no title or stray thoughts from a few stollen minutes before the day explodes into action

saturday morning. its almost impossible to have any deep thoughts during this time. my mind races ahead rushing through things i have to do, then doubles back to something forgotten and here i am back where i started. in my mind at least.

the packing has begun. half way through packing books. sighing about why i didn't switch to ebooks - but the tactile feel of a book, it's smell and being able to lend it out is priceless. it will still be a while before i convince myself to completely switch.

i go through the days in altered states, arriving back in my body only at the end of the day as i sit relaxing and chatting about what needs to be done the next or when i have to make decisions. yesterday we visited a factory in bedok and ordered blinds, then rushed to ikea for some essentials. i was in my body then and earlier in the day when the physiotherapist prodded and poked on my back. the pain could have driven me out of my body but i stayed and practiced breathing. today the body is sore and i feel myself in it.

but a lot of times even while packing what i have already sorted i go into a state where my body and mind are not fully connected. it's a way of getting through some of the unpleasant processes of moving i think. perhaps an escape that i will pay for when i can't find something or when some my body shows sudden symptoms. what does our body do when our minds wander away from it? what happens to the mind as it needs to escape for a while? no time to take this further today.

yesterday tired of the constant chatter of my mind around the things to be done i sat with my spouse and  forced him to make a few lists with me. lists of what to pack and where, of when to do what. lists for today and tomorrow and for everyday of the move. everyone laughs at my lists - calls me neurotic but they help me keep see the processes before they happen. finds the flaws and correct them. remember what i could have forgotten. mostly they help me empty my mind and last night at least i slept well.

i am glad to have these morning moments on my bed in my pj's writing and unwinding. drinking water and more water to allow my body to release the toxins from my physio massage and from the relentless exhaustive cyclical thoughts of moving. i am worried about my little rosie. he has developed cataracts in both eyes. he seems healthy otherwise but its so hard to see the little enthusiastic explorer slow down. he loved food and now he cannot eat everything. its heartbreaking to see him ageing.

tomorrow i leave for my beloved annual karate retreat in koh samui. one week of training and hopefully full immersion in the present. its a gift that i will have the week to clear my head of thoughts but i wonder if i will drive myself crazy while i am there thinking of things i need to do when i return? hopefully i will be able to flow with what is while i am there and de-stress a bit.

i have been de-cluttering materially as i pack. though its hard to do so simultaneously. there is an urgency in using the hours of the day fruitfully and a pull towards memories as i decide to take or give away something. though its mostly been easy to let go, to detach - but some things i have held on to instead of leaving behind.

when we moved here we brought so little. its painful to see how much i have accumulated in just five years. are all the things i brought back from bombay each time we visited or bought here, are they truly things i cannot live without? i do want to live more mindfully now and carefully decide on whether i really need something before i acquire it. how many material possessions do i need to be happy? my mind knows the answer to that but to live it is work.

and the emotional and psychic de-cluttering is also happening as i let go of things i let go of inner attachments and clarify my purpose of being, untangle messy internal states. meditating on the fears that arose helped me feel my heart and spirit. conflicts often accompany moments of stress. deciding what is worth fighting for is also a process right now. hopefully my little family can do this without the horrible blow ups of the past. more on that after.

so many friends have offered moving wishes, moving tips, help for getting us food on those crazy days, help to move things around in their car, help with packing or unpacking. reminding me again about how lucky i am to have these people in my life.

time to get back to work.

moving blues

so its almost here. well, its still some time away - april 1st. but with my week in ko samui in between for me it feels just five days away. 

these last weeks have been filled with a lot of fear and suddenly i am having a hard time letting this apartment go and embracing change. just a month ago i was desperate to get out sure that all the negative experiences i was having here were pushing me to leave. i was filled with fear then too.  i am still scared that i made a choice about the new apartment based on fear. we keep running into big and small snags as we try to imagine how to make this new place our home.

this morning i felt i needed to meditate and welcome the fears. since i also have wrenched my back badly last week and one of the biggest fears today is that this injury will really hamper me in the week of training in koh samui. i decided to focus on this fear first. we train five intense hours a day there and arriving in good health feels like a must for a fifty-plus body like mine.

i began with that and just followed where it took me. i found myself amplifying that fear and feeling that i would return with a even worse back to the move. then as i thought of the move the fears about the new home came up and these led me deeper into my core fears and insecurities of being homeless and penniless. but as i just let them all well up and overwhelm, rode with the constricting chest and the  nausea that arose, slowly something shifted. i started feeling the hopeless loss of leaving this gorgeous home. 

this apartment is rented, but everyone who comes in here tells me that it feels like home. i really love this apartment. it was the first one we saw when we came to singapore and i loved it from the moment i walked in. it felt then like a safe spot in this new and strange land. our house agent of course insisted on us seeing more apartments but my mind  constantly returned to this one and we were lucky enough to get it. moving into it was smooth and joyful.

as i think back over the five years i feel how this apartment has been the healing container for us and how much all three of us have grown here. living here by ourselves completely cut off from family and the other deep support systems we have in bombay we were left to deal with everything that came up between us just by ourselves. having no others to diffuse any of the tensions - initially between my spouse and me and later with our daughter - we often found that during a conflict our feeling and angers intensified and grew larger and larger forcing us to face them completely or run away from them and from each other. but the house provided a space that held us and helped us face ourselves and love ourselves and each other even more. we healed from many deep wounds from the past. we healed from destructive patterns.

healing is not the sweet easy experience we want always. whether it is healing through physical injury or through emotional heartbreak there is a period of great pain, of great fear, of facing losses, of feeling fragmented, of feeling alone and abandoned, of feeling we will never be whole again. and we really don't know if we ever will be whole. in the midst of healing there is no vision of the other side and all there is often, is bleak darkness. sometimes there is faith in the great benevolent unknown but sometimes  there is only murky terror.

there were many days like that here too. but we did find our way to the other side and this apartment now has the most beautiful memories for us. here we made our own rules and found our own ways of living different from those we grew up in. the place allowed us all to transform in different ways.

moving into the new home is filled with problems and each time we solve one another emerges. so i often wonder why am i letting this home go? its given us love and new life.

but as i grieve the loss of this home i can finally release the light and love of it to the new family that will move in and wish that they too will enjoy its beautiful healing energy. i can leave feeling glad that as a tenant i left this space richer than when i came in. the agent always tells us how well we take care of this place and that makes us smile with pride. but its not just the visible we have  cared for, we have added our positive vibrations into the very walls of this apartment. let it now work its magic on another.

it is time to move on and face whatever the new space brings. 

as i have these thoughts i also hope that when i leave this country i leave something positive behind in this not so strange city state that has given me so much. and ultimately when i leave this earth i hope i can go feeling that i gave the earth as much as i received from it.

boiling frogs

boiling frog syndrome is sometimes used to explain why a person in an abusive relationship finds it hard to get out. at one time they thought that a frog when put in boiling water would jump out, but if it was put in cold water and  very gradually boiled it would, be unable to sense the change,  stay in and eventually die. 

few weeks ago i woke with the words 'we were all like frogs being boiled slowly'. in a sleepy dreamlike state  i pulled out my journal to write it down. and then  i wrote, 'no, not all of us, probably just those of us who were X's clients.'

that time many years ago is shrouded in dense fogs. i don't remember the sequence of things happening. the years, the events, the experiences are jumbled up. we were in analysis, we were studying to be therapists but something went wrong, the analyst got sucked into his own shadow. and we were boiled. the analysis ended but lives and relationships were disrupted for many years after. the years between 1995 and 2000 i think or even further down.

its hard to write about it, for its hard to pick one clear thought and begin. but something pushes me to remember to try to string together the events and put one word after another. emotional abuse in therapy is probably more rampant than is reported. they say that a person who has suffered therapeutic abuse is like a person who has been abused as a child and needs as much sensitivity. they say that emotional abuse in therapy is life threatening.

often abuse goes underground.

is suppressed.

a part of a person is splintered off.

a part disassociates. 

to survive. 

perhaps years later something triggers the memory and it starts tumbling and jumbling and confusing the very life of the person.

they say a person who has suffered therapeutic abuse needs to go into therapy to sort out the mess. the loss of belief in ones own perceptions. the damage to the psyche and soul. but who in their right minds would go willingly into another pot of cold water which might just be on a very slow boil?

does a person who is suffering therapeutic abuse even know enough of the symptoms to recognise it? i remember my mind being like a tv screen with the image lost, filled instead with buzzy interference. constantly moving grey dots on a screen. 

high intensity broken electrical impulses. 

damaged nerves.

the inner mind like splinters of shattered glass suspended forever, forever ready to crash down and pierce the body, the mind, the soul.

red blood. pools of it. splinters of sharpness. energy sucked into darkness.

something urges me to piece together the story. to break the silence. so others can become aware. so that i can find those parts that were lost in those mists of forgetting. who was i before? and after?

its so hard. unsure of what might emerge. unsure of who will accompany me on this journey. and why go on it in the first place after so many years. is it really necessary? can it really be useful to me? to another? 

i talked to a friend about this. she told me that she had read that when a person is in analysis she is like a patient lying unconscious and cut open on a surgeons operating table. how do you know what they might put inside you she wondered? what happens if the surgeon gets ill before he can sew you back again i asked?

are some of us walking around with junk inside us? with open wounds?

lots of questions. few answers. raw. 

my mind is mostly on karate, the gasshuku in ko samui in a week. and coming back right into moving apartments. but a parallel thought process is trying to happen around these questions and perhaps some deeper and more sustained exploration will help me de-clutter a hidden room in my inner castle.