Feeling Good

Do you remember that book checked out of the library in '98 that had all of the exercises? Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, whatever? So it came up today. Changing mental distortions. I guess I need to buy it.

The premise is that one wants to feel good, but doesn't know how. That's not my problem. Mine is that I don't deserve to feel good. Different matter. But still a cognitive distortion, I suppose (one in and of itself). Its own form of complacency. I do really believe that. I conjure various rationalizations for why this is so, but at root, it is how I go about life. I can't allow myself to be fully (or even minimally) human. This will never end until I can defeat that.

It isn't hard for me to trace my shame at all. All I have to do is remember my Dad staring at me, saying something destructive and hurtful, telling himself all along, I am sure, that I deserved it, or that it was something I had to know, etc. He had this awful stare, the way people do when they are being hurtful but at the same time want to distance themselves from their behavior. The hateful, distancing stare, and then the looking away, to dismiss me. What I wish is that he had held me and stroked me, adored me, told me good things about myself. He couldn't do that. And his hatred spread itself, like a virus. That's what haunts me; the blank stare, that even now my mother gives me, and the hollow, penetrating, aching words. And I repeat it myself. That is what is so horrible. I know I should break the chain, yet my hurt wants words, wants action, wants revenge. Because, at the feeling level (but not at the thinking level) I think that that is how I can reclaim myself. Temporarily, it feels good. But what I should really do is reclaim my power by healing acts. I should face my mother calmly, and tell her that I appreciate her concern, and that it is very thoughtful of her to offer me powder (my nose is too shiny), and that I think I look just fine. That would be triumph. She never knows how to react to my strength; my self-affirmation (which I show her, because I show myself, too rarely).

I guess I'm caught in the conundrum that is the result of abuse from another. You're rendered unwilling to fight your way out.

I don't want to discount the positive anymore. I want to embrace it -- to live it. These are just words now, but if I continue to pronounce them...

If I can learn to be unhealthy, I can unlearn it. If I can learn how to hate myself, and to be ashamed, and to doubt myself, and to expect disappointment and failure and to discount myself, I can learn the antithesis. I can learn love and belonging and fulfillment. Even if I don't really believe any of this yet.

None of the rest of it is valid until I do this. This work. Not the other things. This has to come first. And I have to believe that. If I remind myself everyday, it will come true. Healing begins with me. Solving injustice starts with healing the spirit. Healthy people don't wish harm unto others.

So when I say "complacency," I mean confronting the hurt within ourselves. That's the revolution from within. The power to bring peace and prosperity to all of us. Maybe you're not ready to hear it yet. Maybe I have to do more to bring the message to you. Maybe I have to come out from behind my wall. Every small step, the slightest action that is in the right direction has enormous potential, and speaks very loudly.

Remember how you felt when you fell in love? The potential; the omnipotence, the faith in happiness and good everlasting. That all things were possible. That's what we have to hold onto, because the cynicism will wait in the corner for us. You have to work at it though; it doesn't come for free. It's a fight worth waging.

Don't get corrupted. You don't need leaders; you can do it yourself. We all have so much power. It just gets lost from time to time.

That'll do, Pig.