Going to let meditation set rudder for my day ...

[bethanny]

It's only been two days but I think this is a good thing.  First thing when I am up I am going to do at least 15 minutes of meditation to cultivate a sense of peace and serenity.  

I think what infected me the most from my codependency with uBPD mother was her often chronic hysteria and sense of frustration with "trying" to live.  And I too often a reactionary captive to her whirlwind and her belief system that disaster was upon us or imminent.

Today I watch myself with a negative tape in my head with some clipboard to do list demanding I always do the impossible. Everything at once.  If I accomplish something the voice scolds me for not having done something else as well.  How could I but that voice is not about reason and logic.  

A counselor in a book once wrote how so many of us treat ourselves like roommates we don't like.

So I used to meditate regularly years ago when I was really suffering high-grade as opposed to low-grade of these days depression and anxiety.  And it helped.  So why did I stop?  Time to begin to shed the low-grade which readily ignites from time to time back to high grade, I say.

I remind myself, well, the tape in my head does, of that rabbit in Alice and Wonderland racing through the forest proclaiming it is late, late, late.  There is a word "anhedonic" -- fear of pleasure I think.  I think my mother had that and I got conditioned to it, too.

So I have a lovely meditation CD, two 15 minute meditations with a nurturing and wise female voice advising relaxation and full breathing and serenity.  The past two days I have used it to set the rudder for my day.  

Yesterday was a work day so shortly after that lovely 15 minutes I was as usual scrambling for the subway, racing with time to get to work, scolding myself once again.  Today I am off and actually enjoyed both of the meditations with a to-do list with the potential for once again paralyzing me. And no matter how much gets done, my negative tape will try to sabotage my satisfaction.

We'll see how it helps me. I won't become super serene overnight from it, of course, but it is a path. To be used as a rudder to set my day up not to be as manic.  

I know when I have met people who are yoga enthusiasts there is a deliberate and even pace they seem to operate from. They seem to be more resilient to stressful energy emanating from others.  I WANT THAT!

My mother so often went into MAY DAY MAY DAY MAY DAY mode. And when she wasn't anxious she was depressed too often.  It seemed like there were two main speeds in my family.  Well, one speed was more off than on, so not a speed.  Lethargy.  The other one was superspeed -- the white rabbit panic.  

I remember watching tv families in the 50s who would all have breakfast together on a week day. What planet were they on, I asked myself.  People actually had time to casually eat and swallow and chat before embarking on their day?  

There's an old joke I heard about a kid who is late for school and he rushes to school while pushing his bicycle beside him. When he gets to the entrance of the school the principle is standing outside and asks, "Joey, you are late.  Why did you push your bicycle instead of riding it?"  Joey responds, "I didn't have time to get on."

I feel like Joey too often.

Our bodies are our friends and a source of gratification.  So much a Puritan ethic I grew up with.  Satisfaction -- good works -- si but gratification and self-indulgence --- NO! After college when I was whammied with serious spirit-breaking attacks of a uBPD mother who was hell bent to not let me embrace independent adulthood I was indoctrinated into feeling guilty for reaching for joy and pleasure. It was an abandonment of my mother and the good girl on call role she demanded if I lived at my own pace following my own needs and wants.  I was to be hypervigilant of her needs and in my role with others I was supposed to be almost equally people-pleasing, other-focused codependent.  

Lots of tension and unpredictability and focus away from fun and on duty. Then there was my father's roller coaster of alcoholism and the incredible physical and psychological tension that contributed.

When you are "reactive" you can not be "pro-active". You cannot be attentive to your own needs and wants.  You can be conditioned to be this way and it stays with you. And even if you are detached from your qualifiers or in my case they have passed on, you have some serious hardwiring to try to change to engage with life with more serenity and inner peace and self-possession.

I want to spend 15 minutes a day at least, at beginning preferably, to inhale and exhale fully, to be in the NOW, to hear a soothing and calming voice, feel my heart beating within me and enjoy the freedom to be being not doing and shut off that scolding tape doing a commentary on what a loser and failure I am in my head.  

FWIW!  I'll keep you posted.  15 minutes is such a modest amount of time considering the number of hours we have each day, but especially at the beginning I suspect sustaining that commitment will have its challenges.

[Turkish]

A counselor in a book once wrote how so many of us treat ourselves like roommates we don't like.

What do you think that means? As I go off to ponder it... .

[bethanny]

Hi Turkish. 

The negative tapes in my head were messages that were recorded from the extreme invalidation I got from significant family members and others growing up.  I had "conditional love" not "unconditional love" offered too often, and the ego voice in my head sabotages my general self-esteem with a high bar -- impossible one -- of perfectionism. 

Too many of our parents could not offer themselves unconditional love either, tragically for them and us, too many of us not to have learned it by watching it exhibited.  They projected their own perfectionism and self-hate onto us.

Growing up I had such fear around my mother that I eventually noticed I never fully exhaled around her.  It was if exhaling was a dangerous self-indulgence that would interfere with my on-call readiness to respond to her needs and shifting moods.

The deliberate and conscious breathing of meditation even for a modest period each day will remind me to and let me exclusively focus on breathing.  So basic, so important, still disturbed by the power of sustained fear for so many years and the still residual fear I need to face down even now.

best, bethanny