Self Awareness
Good morning, everyone,
You may have noticed that I did not post for the month of
January 2022. I could have written
something ahead of time but I didn’t. I
could have written something last week but I didn’t. I chose to be on schedule with the February
post. I could not have written anything
for four weeks because of the position my body had to be in for optimum healing
from my foot surgery.
Self-awareness is a practice that I initiated several years
ago, but that practice has deepened over the past year and intensified in the
last two weeks. My concept of self-care
has greatly expanded just in the last eight weeks. I wrote a post a few months ago about my pain
with my foot. I even managed to make the connection to my life foundations. Wednesday will be the end of the 5th
week after the surgery. I have been
freed to put 60 lbs of pressure on the healing foot but it could be longer than
three weeks before I can walk again. This
is my big chance for making a few more huge changes in the way I think and act,
particularly to myself.
The choice I made to get this surgery is part of my biggest paradigm
shift ever. I knew it would be a big
deal but I couldn’t have imagined four weeks with my foot elevated above my heart. I am no stranger to pain but this combination
of a heavy numbness and shooting, burning pain has been disconcerting. The
thought of all the pins and screws in my foot touches my squeamish nerve. I was in a blessed haze for the first two
weeks. I was responsible only for myself
and getting myself to the bathroom and back.
In the third week I began to fidget.
I created two nests ahead of time. One was in my bed and the other in the
backroom where I had a TV installed before I set up the old VCR and newer blue
ray DVD player. (I couldn’t actually put a tape or DVD in by myself until last
week.) I found the old Amazon fire stick
and stuck it in the TV. TV was not my
first choice of entertainment but it was the only one that I could manage for
three weeks. I couldn’t even use my
computer as I had expected. I had envisioned
sorting and organizing data and other things like that. Ha ha ha ha. Plenty of people were available
to talk to on the phone, but repeating my situation over and over and
discussing the elements of it, are not conducive to rapid healing.
My biggest accomplishment was getting myself to the
bathroom. I had to wrap my right ankle
tightly for a while because it was taking a beating from having to manage all
my weight while hopping with a walker. (Yes, I have crutches. Crutches are dangerous on obstacles.) I ordered a scooter for indoor use and it has
helped a lot to relieve the weight distribution but my house is far too small
for a scooter to be easy transportation.
And then there’s my dogs. Only
one of them takes the initiative to move at my approach. One of them actually likes me to prod her or
bump into her and one of them neither hears nor sees me coming. Then there’s the part where to get the
scooter from my room to the back room, I have to stand on one leg and lift,
shift, rest, about 5 or 6 times to get around the corners. I have been getting a physical workout and now
can move in my kitchen in ways that would make you shriek to watch me. I pretended I was an ice skater
yesterday.
I have been turning all of my energy onto myself which is a
never before taken action. When my goats
were bleating because Matt forgot to feed them before he went to work, there
was nothing I could do to make it happen at that moment, but I did learn to send
scheduled reminders to him that would tell him to feed the fish and the goats at
4:15 AM. (By the way, if you are looking
for a pleco, I have a free one. It is really Matt’s but I’m the one who takes
it seriously enough to take care of it.) I couldn’t let a cat or a dog out of a door
and Matt couldn’t go back to work until I could. To call someone to come and do these things
for me took far more energy and explanation than was reasonable. As I began to feel the frustration of needing
help, I had to keep reminding myself to stop condemning myself for not figuring
out everything ahead of time. I had to
prioritize and then take whatever action I could take. I know that a lot of people find relief by
telling others of their difficulties. I
do not. My blood pressure rises and I
prepare to protect myself from the onslaught of “better ideas” ETC, that I perceive
are on the way. Obviously, this is
something I needed to dive into. Giggle.
I am the most independent person I know. I don’t mean that I don’t need people. I mean that I resent needing people, to the extent
that I do without, or learn to do for myself in ways that most people don’t even
consider. I am finding this to be an
aggravating behavior because I am constantly berating myself for “putting
myself back in this position”. So, this
is something I need to unpack. I am
going to do that with a few questions that I hope I can answer.
Why don’t people help me when I ask for help? Mostly because I am asking the wrong person
at the wrong time. I am hesitant and
quiet to say what I need because usually I’m emotionally wrapped up in it. The other thing that happens most often is
that I am not asking for a small thing. I
am asking for something that I would normally do myself and find that it is
beyond the scope of the person I feel safe enough to ask. It appears that I carry a lot of baggage
about being worthy to receive support.
In addition to that another thing is poking out that I keep pushing down. I do not deserve money spent on me or my
needs.
Much of what I do, I do it myself because to pay to have it
done is outside of my budget. Buying
firewood is outside of my budget. I have
access to plenty of firewood as long as I can manage my chainsaw, woodsheds, equipment,
and a way to get said wood to my house.
This example is easy for me to understand and the solution most offered by
others is to move. I am thinking about
my future home and as much as I would like it to be here, I might not be able
to manage that, especially, if I am going to spend any time recovering from
something like surgery. I do not like
this conversation one little bit and can feel my body reacting. My physical reactions are my clues to what I
need to process.
Another sneaky little thing is popping up and it has to do
with my shame. My physical reaction to
this clearly tells me that this might be my most devastating weakness. It may be the motivator behind my problems asking
for help. I have been unable to
completely unpack this item because it has roots in the “before my memory”
time. It is part of a vicious cycle that
I turn on myself. A vision of a large piece of art titled “Shame”
just passed through my head. It is
strange but I felt a glimmer of hope in that thought. It is
very difficult to understand why or how I manage to lean toward people who can
increase this feeling of shame in me.
I am not looking for advice or direction because I have
found some really super good information on YouTube. This is simply an exercise in my self-awareness
honestly.
A bright ray of enjoyment has been handed to me by my sister
Kari. I am not usually a color book
person preferring to let my “native” creativity lead the way. She brought me a bag filled with goodies
such as oil paints, water paints, markers, a color book, genuine artist
canvases, and junk food. From my
ridiculously prone position nearly two weeks ago, I was finally able to use the
markers in the color book. It is clear
that color plays a huge role in my life which I set to one side over and over
again, to make space for what I perceive has to be done. I have smashed color on the pages in
consecutive order whether or not the picture has any meaning. Last week I was able to sit up enough to get
the paint brush in a glass of water for water paints. I used them on the color
book too. I have fully completed each
page before starting a new one. I don’t
think that has ever happened before. It
is part of my big change that I am pleased to announce.
I am not defined by my circumstances.
Sincerely, Carmen Davis
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