MINDFULLY MENDING MARCH SUGGESTION: ask yourself what your inner child wants you to do.
Do you ever have moments where you really want to do something and know you shouldn't and you do it anyway? Or moments when you DO NOT want to do something and do it anyway? Or you just can't decide which to do because there's this little voice inside of you saying it wants something or that it doesn't want something?
I think that's our inner child telling us what it wants and needs ... telling us what WE want and need.
Babies aren't born knowing much about needs. They learn if they cry something will happen; Some sort of substance will fill their belly, or the gooey discomfort in their nether regions will get cleaned, or the temperature will get adjusted ... they don't necessarily know what it IS that they need at the moment, they just know they need something to feel better. So they learn to make noise.
They start to figure out what feels good and what doesn't. Sometimes, they just need the comfort of a cuddle.
Then we grow these complicated wants and needs and we grow them in these bodies that shoot out in all directions and get too long and leggy and too heavy to be picked up and held by our caregivers. Don't even get me started on the whole part about having to provide your own food and actually prepare it, eat it, and clean up after.
And we get to be all grown-up with our own busy and complicated lives, our complicated wants/needs/desires, maybe with our own tiny loud humans to care for, and our own inner child who is constantly reminding us of what IT needs. Except we are too busy with the part where it got complicated that we forgot the basics.
The Basics 101:
- when you get hungry, eat
- When you get tired, rest
- When you feel an emotion, express it
- When you need comfort, ASK FOR IT
When did life become so complicated that it takes a tiny little voice in your head to say "PAY ATTENTION TO ME NOW PLEASE!" ?
So how do you listen to your inner child? I've got at least 73 of them yelling at me at one point or another. There is so much emphasis on doing things. On getting things done. On being social. Staying home. Going out. Working. Working hard. Getting ahead.
Getting ahead of what? Of yourself? Who are you in competition with?
When I've got all these bossy thoughts rolling around and none of them feel right, I listen for the voice that is the quietest. Sometimes she isn't even speaking. Sometimes that silence says more about what I need than the voice of a bossy 7 year old with a new Barbie Horse ... I may have just dated myself, but did you ever own a Barbie Horse? Me either. Man did I ever want one. And the kids who had them? Let me tell you ... they were the bossiest 7 year olds I ever knew.
If I can filter out the noise, then I can get past the wants.
- Yes I want to go out drinking with friends
- Yes I want to stay out late
- Yes I want to be the life of the party
- Yes I know I hate all my clothes but that means we can go buy new clothes!
- Yes I know we are on a budget and now I want to spend money on an outfit, AND going out, AND drinking.
- Yes I know this work needs to get done so let's do it and then go out!
.... pause .... listen past all those wants ...... there's a voice there that isn't speaking. It's as if all the bossy kids filled with wants have sent her to the corner because all she has are needs.
She's the tiny baby who has needs and learned how to make noise to get those needs met. But then all the wants took over and got louder and more complicated and that tiny baby grew bigger but got overshadowed by all the things.
It's 2am the first night in our new place. I guess it's the first morning, technically. I can't find a comfortable position. I have worked far too hard in the last few days. My inner bosses have been telling me to go-go-go. They've been saying that it's only a few days, and we WANT to be packed on time. We WANT to get settled. We WANT to set up the bookshelves. We WANT to be unpacked now please. We can suck it up and live with the pain because I want the end results.
It really and truly doesn't work that way. It's not the kind of pain you can push-through. It's not the kind of pain you can tell yourself is only temporary so just keep going. Fibromyalgia pain is wide-spread and relentless. And the more you push, the more it pushes back. Only it's like a REAL horse that kicks you a bunch of times and then sits on your back for a month.
I've been listening to those bossy little 7 year olds with their Barbie Horses again. Because those little kids didn't learn to take care of their own needs.
After laying in bed for hours, waking up repeatedly from one bad dream to the next ... I tried to listen ... those plastic horse-owning kids wanted chocolate chip cookies, and a glass of water, and a different pillow, and a different room, my old room. MY room with MY walls and MY ceiling. And my old stairs ("Old" as in where I lived when I woke up today).
So I metaphorically gave all those kids their plastic horses and told them to go play. Then I listened for the voice that doesn't talk. What does SHE need. In this case, it was to move to the couch (which is now in the next room and not 3 floors down from my bedroom), curl up with my special scarf, and write a blog post in my new living room. I think a cup of something hot would have helped too, but I haven't found the box with the teapot, or tea, or hot chocolate, or mugs ...
Figuring out what you need is a never ending battle between what you think you are supposed to do and what you know you can't do.
Having fibromyalgia means KNOWING that a few days of this kind of non-stop physical, mental, and emotional labour are going to affect my body for weeks. But it also comes with these steaming hot piles of guilt and shame; guilt that CC is doing more than her share of the work, and shame that I live in a body that can't keep up.
So here I am at 2am asking myself what my needs are, and guessing that if that quiet little girl without a plastic horse had a voice, she would probably tell me to take some deep breaths, hug my special scarf tighter, and get some rest.
Be kind,
to yourself too
xo
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