A Recovery Blog

This blog is about my continuing recovery from severe mental illness and addiction. I celebrate this recovery by continuing to write, by sharing my music and artwork and by exploring Buddhist and 12 Step ideas and concepts. I claim that the yin/yang symbol is representative of all of us because I have found that even in the midst of acute psychosis there is still sense, method and even a kind of balance. We are more resilient than we think. We can cross beyond the edge of the sane world and return to tell the tale. A deeper kind of balance takes hold when we get honest, when we reach out for help, when we tell our stories.

Monday, May 7, 2012

Waiting

Last week, at the tail end of my birthday, I sent an email to Colette.  She responded enthusiastically in a short email.  She said that she was going to defend her dissertation for her PhD that very afternoon, but that she would check out my blog.  Later that afternoon, I sent her a short email congratulating her and telling her that there was no rush in her responding to me.  And so I've been waiting.

Waiting is hard, but I wanted to give Colette the room to explore.  Honestly, I don't know if she's had the time to explore this blog.  Getting her PhD must be a very big deal, a major life achievement and she could be busy celebrating with family and friends.

While I've been waiting, I've turned to consulting the I Ching, an ancient Chinese oracle, for information and guidance.  I haven't consulted the I Ching in quite a while;  I'm cautious with it.  I know I have the tendency to get obsessive about asking questions and studying all my books to piece together a response.  This time I leaned in that direction, but then pulled back.

The I Ching is not just about divining the present and the future, it's about striving to live morally and ethically.  The goal is to become the "Superior Man" -- a leader or a sage, nobility.  You can't do that without repercussions if you are self-centered and selfish, or what the I Ching calls being the "Inferior Man".  So when I ask the I Ching a question (I use an online computer program), I try to stay open and ask good questions.  The real challenge is in interpreting the response.  I have many translations and interpretations of the I Ching.  It is an intuitive process and time consuming, but it is also a good challenge, a way of staying receptive to the truth.  Of course, you have to believe that an intelligent and acutely sensitive psychic presence is directing you, seemingly through the wisdom of chance, according to a strict moral code.  Obviously I do believe.

Still, interpretation can be highly subjective, and therefore, inaccurate through personal bias.  So while I'm gathering up impressions, I am cautious.  Also, life is fluid and full of changes.  If I ask a question at one point it will not stay there statically.  Life marches on.  The key is to learn to go with the flow, what the Chinese call Wu Wei, and not overly attach to any one answer.  The I Ching's philosophy is that life goes in cycles.  Waxing and waning, like the moon.

One question I asked about Colette was what hexagrams best describe her spirit.  One of the hexagrams I got in response was number 14, Great Possession.  In Hilary Barrett's interpretation in her book I Ching: Walking Your Path, Creating Your Future, she writes "Great Possession means you are rich -- maybe in material goods, maybe in less tangible assets, like knowledge, wisdom, power, energy, talent or relationships.  Whatever form it takes, you have something real and potent in your possession." (p.56)  Part of that richness appears to be due to both her work and her circle of friends.  I think she's been discussing her response to me with those friends and they have been guiding her and cautioning her.  She seems as if she is in good hands and that some of the discussion has been joyful.

My interpretation of Colette is that she is trying to find a balance.  She doesn't want to be too hard on me, but she doesn't want to be too soft either.  She is sympathetic, yet conflicted.  The I Ching's advice to me is to not interfere, to let her go through her process.  I did decide yesterday to write this blog entry because I still need to express myself and keep going.  Staying silent for too long is no good either.

And so I've been waiting, but the fear that I have offended her or put her off creeps into my thinking from time to time.  The situation is sensitive.  I am exposed with all my strengths and imperfections, but I chose to put myself in that position.  I wish we could just join in open communication and gradually develop a bond and heal old wounds.  Maybe we can.  That would be wonderful.  But maybe that's not  where she's at in her life.  Getting her PhD is pulling her into the future, into new opportunities.  I am someone from deep in her past; she might not want to go there.

Whether she chooses to embrace me or distance herself from me, I will abide by her decision.  It will be okay.  I respect how far she's come in life and I want her to do what's best for her.

2 comments:

Karen May Sorensen said...

Hi Kate,

I'm like you, sensitive to what people think about me. Its something that sets us up to be hurt. I know, we are both people with big hearts, so why would someone want to be mean to us? But for us, perhaps indifference itself feels painful.

I like you have recently put myself out there in the world for someone, made myself vulnerable. And I go back and forth between feeling proud that I take risks and feeling like a bit of a fool.

Last week my therapist was reading to me from a book on Zen Buddhism. The book had the most astonishing perspective - when I repeated it to my husband he snorted like "that is ridiculous! Foolish! Absurd!" What the book said is that your life is none of your business. I know, it completely flys against Western ego centric notions. But I like it. I can live my life, take my risks, and how those risks fall, fail or succeed, is none of my business. What other people think about me is none of my business. Whether or not my paintings sell is none of my business. Of course I'm going to go back to my therapist this week and ask him "so what precisely does Zen Buddhism and this book say IS MY BUSINESS?"

If I can say that some issues are out of my reach, out of my control, in the power of the Universe, then I guess that is saying these things are none of my business and I can get on with my life and suffer less regret and pain.

It feels really perverse to say to myself "my life is none of my business" (I am so conditioned to be a busybody about myself - how do I look, smell, and accomplish) but it feels freeing too. Like giving up control to a higher power.

I think that making an effort, putting things out there is part of the business of life, we are agents in creation of our lives, hey, thats the american way - but how our affairs turn out, it is better not to take things too personally. The bad and the good.

I even go as far to think "my birth, it was none of my business" which is a wonder, are we are cosmic accidents on purpose!

Anyway, the quote has me thinking about the nature of control and consequence. It at least has made me more wary as to the energy I focus on my ruminations. I rather make an emotional fuss about less and leave more just as it is.

All my love,
Karen

Antique and good used furniture........ said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m3dVYaZi5g

new song I made.....Maybe i will play a coffee house with you one day.............I would love that..