Notebook - 3

29.11

Therapie ging um planning. The reams and reams of paper, quire upon quire, Pranay hunched over them like something out of Dickens, scribbling down plans. Plans upon plans upon plans.

The poor little fuck! So much planning. Fr. M thinks that planning kills my creativity. Sie sind genug strukturiert, she said.

And rather than words comes the thought of high windows. We dove into the glittering blue waves, diving off the cliffs into clear blue crystal shimmering with golden light.

We walked a path. I could not see where it went. But I was told, I felt, that I had to keep walking it. I was being led & I was being protected. It was both a command and a question. Trust, it said; and it said, can you trust? Will you trust? It wasn't a question as plea. It was a question as challenge.

Yes, it was a challenge. Can you trust? Are you able to? Can you rise to the challenge?

What I want to do is make things. I want to write, I want to perform, I want to make people laugh & cry & feel alive.

But can I trust? Can I walk this road without knowing where it leads to and still stay on it?

A plan, a plan ... my kingdom for a plan.

Planning kills. It makes me scared and reluctant and resistant.

Yeah. For me, no plans.

Fr. M talked about making a kind of idea bank & dipping into it & doing something when I felt like it.

But what earning money?!! I wail. I need to earn some fucking money.

***

I am fragile today. But why does the fragility bother me? I couldn't write my habilitation because it was a lie. I had no option but to leave that life. Now here I am. The thing that distinguishes high performers, said Waitzkin, is their ability to do things at their worst. When in discomfort, when they're struggling ... they've found a way of being that & using it.

I have to accept my state in my every moment.

There is no other state. In this moment, this is what there is. If I can't work, okay. Don't work. Just fully accept the state. The world. Accept the world.

I feel sad. I'm trying to really observe and analyse what this experience is. I feel bad.

I feel my calves, my feet. I see a little boy crying in the space inside me. I wanted to use this to go to work, because all this made me feel less sad. But I didn't. The little boy cried harder. Will I be leaving him? He looks at me hopefully. Another one emerges. Young, anxious, hard. Intolerant of emotion & need. Yes, he says harshly. Fuck off. We can't have this. We can't afford it. The little one starts crying. The older one looks about to cry himself. I look at them and I love them and I feel weariness behind my eyes.

I look from further away and take them both to me. Holding them close, so tight, squeezing them hard, kissing the little one on the top of his head.

If I do nothing the world will end, says the young one. He is panicked. It will be really bad. We won't have money. You'll have to beg or be on the street or do something awful.

Amazing, the internal ride.

It's okay, honey, I say. It's okay. But something in me is also crying and I need to step back, watch from further away. He's crying. Everything is useless, he says. I'm useless. I will always be useless. I wish I was dead. I hate you. I hate myself.

I hold him in my arms, hugging him, murmuring in his ears, shh, it's okay, I murmur. I got this, you got this ... we got this. I murmur, and I help him cry, rocking him as he sobs into my shoulder, shaking, big heaving sobs racking his body, my shirt soaked through with tears and snot.

***

When I turn outwards with love, with attention - that is a turning to myself. The turning heals me.