I'm at home again today working so I can hear myself think and go about my work with a calmness that I just can't find in my office. I start every Tuesday and Thursday at the gym with my trainer Tyson whom I love. I'm not sure that anyone gets to be in my life on a regular basis unless I love you. Or is it that I come to love you because you are in my life on a regular basis?
Anyway, I was rambling onto Tyson (who is also my therapist apparently) about how I tend to go through my life unconsciously for huge blocks of times. I just put my head down and weeks later I look up and I'm somewhere else. I'm either asleep, driving, or dealing with my kids, class, work or friends. It isn't that I don't enjoy lots of those activities, but I don't experience them, I "DO" them. Now before you all go out and buy me the latest self-help book about Human Doings or Relaxing for Dummies, please get a hold of yourself. THIS IS HOW I'M WIRED. I'm not really complaining. In the 80's and 90's I thought about changing it. I read and I understood how I was supposed to meditate and get in touch with shit and and FEEL stuff. But I just said "NO". Saying "no" works for me. I don't have a problem with it. I'm not a people pleaser. I actually get great joy NOT pleasing people. Sorry, I digress.
Okay, so anyway, we have established that I'm a DOER and that in order to DO all that I DO, I sort of become unconscious and brain dead. And we have established that I don't plan on having that change anytime in the near future. So if it pleases the court, I would like to introduce a new piece of evidence marked "Chronic Life". This concept of Chronic Life focuses on what we "DO" with our lives when we believe that we have lost control of it? There are times when I'm tired and I just sit, not being able to move and I think to myself..."how did I get here?" How did I end up in this place with these circumstances and I can't move. For a "DOER", this is called depression. I don't believe I'm depressed when I don't "feel" because feelings are for sissies in a DOER'S mind. But when a DOER can't move.........can't physically move......take a step in her mind to the next thing on the list or physically get up out of bed or a chair and DO something, its trouble. This happens to me at times. My response to this is to "die" a little. I know that sounds harsh but to me when someone goes to sleep for long periods of time, well beyond what a body needs to rest and recharge, I believe that is the desire....to die, to be void of anything living.
The Chronic Life is when a person completely gives into this place. When I get stuck in the place of "how did I become single?" "how did my children lose their father?" "how did I end up here, in this life, without my parents, my brothers, my heritage?" "this wasn't my plan"....In short "why me?" There is nothing empowering about any of that. DOERS need to be empowered to move, to do things about their situation.
I was on the treadmill after my painful, hatefest with Tyson and I was glancing at the TV and Favre's wife was on it with a Pastor. They wrote a book called The Cure for a Chronic Life. She lost her brother and then was diagnosed with breast cancer a few days later and the pastor found out at age 16 that he was HIV positive. Anyway, the whole focus of the book is on not giving into focusing on SELF but OTHERS. Let me repeat that......when it seems like the most unnatural time in your life to be SELFLESS is when you most need to be SELFLESS. Mrs. Favre talked about how she met other women with breast cancer and how many didn't have insurance or money and how grateful she was that she had both (she now has a foundation to help uninsured women battling breast cancer--GO MRS. FAVRE) .
This is a DOER's gift....yes, give me something to DO. (I know there are some of you out there thinking...she needs to FEEL her way out of this..) I would like to point out that as someone who has a Master's in Social Work and who did therapy as a patient and as a counselor,...NOT! Yes I'm pissed at John, I FEEL betrayed, anger, sadness, unworthy, etc. SO WHAT? The Son of a Bitch cheated on me and didn't honor his marriage vows. GOT IT. What am I going to DO about the rest of my life. He married his mistress and is spending his life without his children. He made his choices. What am I going to DO with all these circumstances?
I do believe in the premise of that book. I think that the more stuck we get in our lives, the more we need to spend giving and reaching out to others. Seriously. Take the focus of "self". God calls us to heal others, serve others, love others. The whole TV thing was God's call to me. God never whispers to me, he uses TV, computer, social networking to reach me. He is totally PLUGGED in...
So I need to decide "do I live in Crisis or Christ?" .............it is completely up to me at this point.......(and we all know how much I like that!?)
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