I might be almost at the point of resignation. I think that comes before acceptance and surrender. I’m feeling emotionally drained. I can’t do this.
I don’t want to think what to do next.
Last night our meditation/study group met for the first time since the facilitators left for NZ. Two of our group couldn’t make it so there were just three of us. I suddenly realised the level of the expectations these two others have of me. They seem to expect me to take over running the class the way the facilitators did. I’d thought I’d made it clear I just can’t do this as I work fulltime. The facilitators were a retired couple with plenty of time and they had each other for support. I cannot do what they did. One of the participants is very demanding and is always pointing out her needs. She always has done this only now it will be directed at me. I ran a short meditation and she wasn’t completely happy with that either. I feel very disheartened.
I drove home to my cold, dark house and just cried. I wished so much that there was someone there to welcome me home, hug me and ask how it went. Maybe say, “sit down and I’ll make you a cuppa.” I stood by the fire hugging a cushion and pretending I was crying on “Tom’s” shoulder while he told me it would be ok. Does that sound silly? Am I losing the plot?
Ok I’ll add there may be hormonal reasons for some of this excess emotion. If so, it may pass soon. I hope so.
Does one just accept their life as it is and be as grateful as possible? Does one surrender to the possibility of always being alone, always being in a job that doesn’t fit, never having support, always feeling excluded?
Or does one visualise and act as if and all those other things? Does one refuse to give up or does one just let go? Some things you just cannot control no matter what you do. When other people are involved there is nothing that can be done. So there, one has to accept what is.
There must be a middle way – isn’t there always? Not one extreme or the other, but a way to find the path between the opposites. What is the middle path between acceptance and surrender on one hand and determination and effort on the other? One is passive, the other active. My friend said to me that I TRY too much and to just let it go.
The icing on the cake? Still haven’t heard a word from P in two weeks now. I tell myself I don’t care but I do. I tell myself it doesn’t matter, but it does. It isn’t him I yearn for, but what he represents. He is the closest I have at this time to a partner – a lover. A very part-time one. One I am not ready to give up just yet. I do wish “Tom” would turn up.
Well, I think I’ve a tradition of reading a few posts and then lumping all my comments into one, well, lump… so here goes.
Re the ‘Emotional Nourishment’ – could it be that your desire to be an actress all those years ago got subsumed in an unconscious trade off for a different career – ie writing, whilst deep down do you think it’s possible that all those years you traded that dream for putting your life into the ‘roles’ you would have loved to do? – It’s a tentative suggestion as information for that idea is thin indeed. of course you could try writing with the ‘actress’ guiding you on what ‘her’ part would be… Again – idea… tentative…
Re ‘Not a good day…’ well you may think it bad that your boss can see how vulnerable you are and cares enough to try to be pro-active and get ‘help’ [I couldn't give advice on the counselling staff but you could try to find out what approach they were using with you before and then try another one - there are real differences between different approaches...] but would it not be worse that he didn’t notice or noticing did nothing? The whole P thing is, sadly, going to be hurtful for awhile longer I think, sadly – considering how much you want that relationship to work and how much P doesn’t despite whatever feelings he has… So everything is going to be a little shakey.
And lastly, re ‘Finding my way’ with a strange attempt to bring everything together- or should that read ‘a brave attempt’… Sometimes folk will play the ‘I need’ card for whatever reason {including the entirely possible – they do need} and are thus always going to bed dissatisfied and that’s not your fault.
In the end if you stretch yourself too thin you won’t be able to attend meetings nevermind run them – so be careful about what you choose to do. Because if you’re afraid the group will fold if you don’t run it then remember that if you decide to lead it and it is too much then there is no group for you all…
I find it difficult to comment on your hugging a cushion and wanting Tom to tell you that it was ok – if you are feeling this low then if you feel you can’t go on then you should be able to tell yourself that that’s alright. It’s not the same as having somebody else there but still…
I can’t speak into your situation but for a different approach there is always a chinese idea called wu wie or wu wei which is the strength that bends – you can accept that the times aren’t what you wanted and they are less than fulfilling but you retain enough of your stuffing so that when these times pass you can still bounce or in my case ’slowly creak back’ it’s based on the idea that the grass that bends in front of the wind can bend back up once the wind has passed…
You may try to hard but then sometimes if in these straights we can decide not to try too much so much that we wind up ignoring folk and pushing them away and so on… so I don’t believe that there’s a ‘magic bullet’ about how we should engage with the world. My advice is to try and tackle it ‘game free’ but that’s just me.
Your feelings for P are real it’s just that your feelings, tragically, are not enough and that’s not your fault – and as you’ve said you can’t blame him either – but it’s one heck of a mess and that is going to take some time to get over it. I once made a friend [a very gently spoken friend] of mine swear [as in use bad language] and after he had got a few choice insults unloaded I asked if he felt better – sometimes we need to know that expressing ourselves is healthy but that sometimes we have to be careful about where and with whom we do that…
I’d love to just continue until I could ’solve’ your problems but I can only offer my sympathies and overly long comments.
I feel for you, Zen *hug hug hug* – it must be vile to feel all aspects of life are off-kilter at the moment. The needy, demanding woman at the meditation group would have probably been the last straw for me – she might have ended up with a cream pie in the face, given I’m also suffering hormonal ups and downs at the mo. (Certainly more productive and satisfying than actually eating the cream pie and ending up feeling fat as well as ugly …) I can’t even offer any cute and useless ‘chin up’ homilies without sounding pathetic and insincere – but I really hope you have a glint of sunshine on the horizon soon and Tom gets his act together and mounts his white charger …
Free, do you not have a blog somewhere? You have such wisdom and insight and I’d love to read more of what you have to say on life and love and everything else.
I have tended to dramatise my life very much – I love to feel deeply – even negative emotions that are deep give me a feeling of being alive. Well, that is how I have lived my life. I am trying to choose not to do that anymore because ultimately it is not fulfilling or satisfying. I think I do play roles at times. The star crossed lovers theme has always greatly appealed to me because then you never have to deal with everyday life after the initial passion wanes and changes to something more solid and grounded. Only I never saw it like that – it was a grand passion that was important and the daily routine afterwards – well I saw that as ’selling out’ on love and passion. I don’t see it that way anymore but it is perhaps still a core belief locked away deep inside. I wish to let that one go. I don’t need it now.
I think it fantastic that my boss is so caring and observant and that he is trying to help as best he can. I only see it as bad because I don’t like to come across as anything other than professional in the workplace. This makes me all too human – and it is probably the better for that in the end. Again it is my ‘control’ that has slipped. This isn’t the first time I’ve been unhappy at work and someone has noticed. In fact in one job, I just went to my bosses door, he said what’s wrong and I just burst into tears!!
I suppose I don’t want people to think I am flakey or unreliable (I am a Capricorn after all – the responsible, reliable sign of the zodiac). The workplace doesn’t seem the right place to show strong emotions. I am usually the light hearted one cracking jokes and entering into banter. I advocate on behalf of users and state my case strongly but usually pleasantly. I am on contract and don’t want my employers to think, she’s ok at her job but she has emotional issues – maybe we can find someone else.
I have to face up to the P situation at some stage. I keep running away from it. He is triggering things in me that were lying dormant before. I had reached a point of emotional tranquillity before he re-entered my life and I’ve been back on the roller coaster ever since. A lot of it has been positive, upbeat emotions, but there are also the others. I really do not know what to do about him. I know things won’t change, it is just a matter of how much do I want or how much can I put up with?
Hugging the cushion – that is a technique I’ve learnt through psychotherapy and other counselling modalities. But usually you are holding the inner child, you are the adult and nurturing the child. This was the other way round – that is why I don’t know how helpful or valid it really is. But it helped and so as long as I don’t get dependent on it then I think it was ok. I just can’t replace P with a fantasy person – that is also not healthy long term. So I am letting Tom go now too.
As for the group – well I will give that a go for a while and see how it pans out. I am not going to give up without trying but I am not going to experience more grief over it. I can let it go if necessary.
I do like the idea of bending in the wind like a blade of grass. I do seem to always pop back up again. Interesting you should say about it as on my walk yesterday morning I was marvelling on the grass and how I could walk on it and even though it is so delicate, it springs back up again.
Thank you, Free, you always give me food for thought.
Guybrush, believe me you never sound insincere. And again you made me smile with visions of cream pies in faces. Sometimes people really deserve that don’t they
There is always a glint of sunshine if I look hard enough for it. I have to face the fact that Tom may never turn up and I’ll spend my life alone. I don’t want that to be the case but I can’t control it at all. I just have to learn to accept what I have and let the rest go.
It makes me happy though, to know you are reading my words and sympathising with me. I greatly appreciate it. My online friends are a real blessing.
i hope you are feeling good today. i’ve read your other posts but decided to post my personal wishes for you here: 1) that you will soon find the job/vocation that will make you feel alive and less lonely (acting, writing, or any creative or perhaps humanitarian endeavor that you enjoy), and that you will soon meet your “Tom” (or “Roger”, or whoever will love you the way you deserve to be loved). Be well, Zenuria.
xtin, how very sweet of you. Thankyou my friend. I have decided to again be grateful for what I do have and not focus on what I don’t.