splendourofrecognition

[splendourofrecognition]

What's going on?

I feel so...tender. Right on the edge of a big, big sob. Thoughts about dogs floating around, guilt about forgetting Ruby's cardigan this morning, then joy that I started to put some self-compassion into practice, followed by wondering if I need an ADHD assessment, followed by worrying I'm about to burnout again, followed by....a single deep breath.

I guess I have a lot going on. But then again, it seems I always do. I look upon people that stay in one place, one job, one house, one routine and feel so incredibly stuck and sad imagining it. So, naturally, I've made moves to have a life of spontaneity and flux, but in the process can often burn myself out. There are things about the flux that I love and fills me up- like booking Amsterdam to see Andrew & Bill in September. Or some of the little holidays we have planned over the summer. The thought of going to London on Saturday to celebrate my birthday. These things feel good. What things don't? I suppose it's the inner and outer expectations that I put on myself, particularly at work, and now with my upcoming counselling course. My people-pleasing remains part of my MO and it's utterly exhausting.

When I put others' needs before my own, it's neglect. I think the more I can understand this and gain clarity around it, the more I'll be able to choose differently.

And then there's the dog situation.

Kobi has been coming to mind a lot in the wake of Billie leaving. That's interesting to me, given that we more recently needed to re-home both Moose and Pip. God, our track record. It's dire.

Why Kobi? He's the key to unlocking the desire to have a dog in our lives. When Kobi arrived, I was 14. It had so far been the very worst time I'd ever experienced- high school was filling me with dread, friendships were changing rapidly by the day, I'd made the decision to give up dance and with it a whole group of friends/identity, I had started dating Greg and it was hard hard hard because though he made me laugh, he was in constant pain. My mom and I were fighting more than we ever had and would continue to...in fact, it would only get worse. Kobi, though. He was always there as this stable and loving force. I think I felt unconditionally loved in a way that I hadn't since I was very, very young. In Kobi's eyes, I was wonderful, just as I am, without having to DO or BE anything other than myself. It was a world of safety, love, affection and connection. I can't keep writing this because the tears are coming and I'm alone at the garden centre.

To Kobi. One of the greatest loves of my life.

[splendourofrecognition]

An ode to observations

When I went on a woodland walk, words drifted my direction to say:

A whisper came to me, to wonder

What if we

didn't

do

Now, I'm overhearing various conversations of octogenarians at the garden centre, who all appear to speak with an edge of complaint or irritation. The flowers are too hot. Judgements about various friends- He's a bit stupid sometimes, she's too (insert anything and everything here), why didn't he (see before). How does it feel, to be toward the end of this brief and thrilling life, to focus on such specificities circling around the category of 'not quite right' and resistance to what is?

So often, I become aware of how I think my life will end imminently. This sometimes manifests as the familiar friend called anxiety, but others times, I do wonder...I wonder about how this is actually more in touch with reality, because it's true that it could. It could actually end. At any point. Rather than live as if it is my last day, what if I lived as if it was my first? A stance of deep gratitude, of discovery and most importantly, of love. None of us know how many days we have left to love, and to be loved.

Lately, there's this really enthusiastic, playful and rebellious part that keeps arising and that I feel more at ease listening to. Before, this part would've been shunned and pushed to one side; a silly part, not worth listening to. It pains me to write that, actually. Since my inner child sessions with Ros, this particular part is more free to express itself and it's...delightful. It's also having a direct influence on our home, such as wanting to create a 'pancake wall' in the kitchen, buying a funfetti cake sculpture (for far too much money!!) and just a gentle nudge out of my comfort zone overall, particularly when I find myself in that dull, tepid and 'should' zone. It just says: what if you did it your way instead? What if you did it differently? What if you didn't do it at all?

What I love most about this part is that it no longer seems angry or afraid; it's as if it's been given space and freedom to roam, without fear of reprimand. As we become more acquainted, I've noticed memories arising that I haven't thought of in such a long time- things like how I felt when Cara gave me feedback about my final painting project, looking at my painting project for the first time in years and realising I had been thinking about art for the majority of my recent walk, where I usually think about work tasks and worry about what I need to do.

Thank you to the part of me that's in there and has been all along; reminding me that life is more than complaining about flowers that are getting too hot and judgements that cause suffering. It's all too easy to drift into this way of being, and I do repeatedly, but this part helps me see the unfettered silliness, awe, absurdity and joy that can transpire too.

[splendourofrecognition]

Bad mood.

Opened this up with the intention of writing about making pink snickerdoodles, seeing a dormouse and the inner explosion of joy and light whilst sharing the way my painting mentor, Cara, viewed my work during a phone call with my dad yesterday. One quote I do need to remember and reflect on: it matters.

Instead, my mind is consumed by a bad mood. Bad mood because a wasp stung me while I waited for a train that I didn't want to take into Brighton for a car theory test I shouldn't have to take. For the third time in the last 12 months. Bad mood because my friends seem consumed by their own shit and it's leading to dumping it on me, seeking for me to meet their unmet needs and then expending energy to hold boundaries and most crucially have little to no capacity to wonder how I am or what's going on my life. At one point, I just thought: I need a whole new set of friends.

Bad mood because I feel overworked somehow, even though I've dropped my hours.

Bad mood because the world moves at a vicious and cruel speed, with a deluge of expectations at all times. And it's just...impossible to do.

[splendourofrecognition]

“When everything we know becomes strange (reactivated outlines) terracotta/candy” (2023) John K. Raustein, from Mitt Stavanger exhibition in Oslo.

You asked me what I was doing today.

I said something like, reports. admin. things that take a lot of time.

Then I walked Billie and thought about it more. Thought, what a strange response.

And wondered, wondered if I could wonder instead

About fairies that eat pineapple pizza in rainbow lantern lands

About that paper-cutting course I got on sale and how my body felt a hum of energy

About my dad's description of scuba diving in Cozumel, contrasted with the bustling streets of Playa Del Carmen

About my friend, who is having thoughts of not wanting to be alive

About the way the buttercups sway in the breeze and how Billie watches them with no hurry in the world, wind in her ears

About how long a day is

About that blue-spotted octopus that has one of the most toxic venoms in the world

[splendourofrecognition]

both/and

As I head into the jungles of self-doubt that arise when I do anything new or challenging, I'm struck by a patterned behaviour of conflating "not knowing" (a fact, a reference, a memory, a concept etc) with "not good enough." Not smart enough, not thin enough, not pretty enough, not funny enough. It becomes a volcano that spews in every direction, leaving nothing untouched in it's wake. Lots of lava fields, lots of opportunities throughout the day to add to the flaming pile of "not enough."

Perhaps following the flow of lava will provide answers. I can observe it, bear witness to it and allow it to flow. There's also a need for fierce self-compassion; a way to let go or say "no more." It'll never go away entirely, and that's not the point, but there is a recognition in my core that so many of these thoughts/beliefs/ideas are sincerely not my own.

How to harness the volcanic energy into the conduit of: not mine.

[splendourofrecognition]

Breaking up with capitalism

I feel as if the curtain is both gradually and very suddenly lifting, to reveal that it's just a foolish, confused, misguided, bewildered and inchoate form behind the machinations for how we work, how we think, how we feel and ultimately, how we live.

Honesty was the value I chose to focus on for 2024. At the time, I didn't fully clock how hard that would be. Honesty requires strength, and lots of it. Strength to call bullshit and strength to empower, particularly when honesty lands you in the position of going against a thousand things you're "supposed" to be doing.

Honestly- I'm exhausted. I've been internalising, deifying, immortalising, upholding and revering the religion of capitalism from a very young age. So young and so gradual that it would be impossible to truly trace. It's as if it is the very air I breathe and who stops to pause and reflect, or even notice, that? Yet, that's exactly what I feel propelled toward suddenly. This process of unlearning and unfurling requires waking up over and over, lest I drift back into a slumber that this system of power thrives on.

There are layers upon layers coming to the fore as I write and think and feel through this. The way that capitalism arises from a poisonous root system that views humans/animals/organisms and the earth writ large as resources to exploit. The imbalances of power that leads to war and extraordinary, incomprehensible violence. The way the climate is being decimated every second to the degree that we will have ruined the only habitat we can survive in. And for what? Money? Power? It is the bedrock of all that ails us, of our darkest parts. Yet I have come to the altar of capitalism and all its substructures over and over, to sacrifice my time, energy and life force.

I don't believe in this way of being and these are not my values. They belong to others and they have found their way into fusing with my own, but there is a way to diffuse, to disentangle, to take back the power that I have given away so freely without the awareness that it comes at a high cost. Funny how obsessed with 'cost' capitalism can be and yet unconcerned with this particular cost to life.

[splendourofrecognition]

I listen to the wind, to the wind of my soul

Yet another song, flitting across my busy mind, without any clear trace as to where it arose from. Well, that's not true actually- it's a very windy day and the wind is currently blowing loudly as I type this, so I've found the link.

I keep thinking "I must keep track of that" or "that observation feels important, I must put it somewhere to reflect on another day." Yet, where to put it, how to track it and when to reflect? It's absurdly confusing and I don't have a systematic way of doing it. Amazing, too, how many moments occur on any given day that feel important. The truth is that I can't possibly track everything I want or mull over something at a later date...so some of this is a discernment predicament. First discern, then decide, THEN keep track/reflect later etc. I think I'm reflecting on this particular point in order to avoid all the others, which are the actual things I need to be reflecting on. Right now.

My NHS job is weighing on my body and soul. It has been, for such a long time. Only as I take small steps to extricate myself am I becoming more aware of the cost of this burden, the way it robs me of my energy, leaving me little left over to show love to myself, my family, my friends- all the things I actually care about. I feel sad and heavy when I reflect on the zero-sum gameness of life; that if your attention is in one place, it is absent in another. How much has already been lost, swept up the torrent of my fears around self-worth and all during the first years of Ruby's life that I (and she) will never be able to return to.

I watched my mom do this and vowed to not do the same. Yet, here I sit. Ravaged by a feeling that I might die soon, both literally and figuratively. It sounds so dramatic, really. But that doesn't shift the truth of it and truth is where I'm trying to make my peace. When I first saw Ros, I knew work (specifically, the NHS job) was a pernicious forcefield pulling me under and likened it to Japanese knotweed; a weed so forceful and rapacious that seeks to find cracks in structural foundations and push its way through. Full of destruction and growth. I knew in that moment, too, that my mom was somehow woven into this weed. During our subsequent sessions, she appeared like an apparition that slowly gained opacity as I ventured back into those painful memories. At one point, going so far as to banish her with the words of Gollum, "Leave now and never come back." What, or who, was I trying to banish? The belief that you must sacrifice all that you love at the altar of "responsibility" (code for patriarchy and capitalism). Uphold the status quo, at all costs, even your own life. Do what others tell you to, even if you don't value their opinion. The measurement of society is real and you will be judged at every move; your worth determined by your ability to uphold your white, middle-class, monotonous life, devoid of creativity, spontaneity and joy.

This has a quality of a self-fulfilling prophecy. By worrying from such a young age that I would become my mom, I thereby put into motion the machinations to do just that. But...why? How did this come to pass, when it was diametrically opposed to what I was seeking in the first place?

And if I'm repeating the cycle, where does that leave Ruby? I'm modelling something to her, just as my mom did to me. The messages are unpredictable and I can only speculate, but what I do know is that she's viewing her mom going to work at a job that genuinely feels as if it is killing her at times and for what? Because she's "supposed to" do it...according to who? It would be all too easy to cite money at this juncture- the undebatable reality that our world requires money, for everything. It also has to be said that I don't have to go to a job that destroys my life force in order to make money and have in fact being going to various other jobs that provide what I need, without killing me in the process. So why have I hung on? Should I just hand in my notice?

[splendourofrecognition]

How do you solve a problem like Maria?

How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?

Why have I started this entry with this song....

Funny how frequently my mind turns to music in a ruminative way. It helps, really. I probably learned that from a very young age and have so many memories of humming tunes to myself over and over.

Laura recently sent me a text that just said "veiled criticism, boundaries on emotional labor and examples of answering questions by saying 'I can't answer that." This sums up a few things floating around my mind, related to Texas, but also to the human condition. The struggle has felt so real and so very hard for the last few weeks, starting with the trip to Texas, followed by a subsequent fog of depression that doesn't seem to want to lift anytime soon.

One area I'd like to cast my mind to is: what feels fun? It's all too easy to go full steam on the meaning and purpose, but that feels too serious and it's important to know how to hold experiences in lightness, too.

It'd also be helpful to just wonder and gently track, day to day, what pulled me under and zapped my energy, as opposed to what buoyed me and gave me energy.

Instead of doing any of those things, I'm going to go for a walk and enjoy the birdsong and sunshine before the dreaded school run.

[splendourofrecognition]

Meaning log

Daffodils in the centre of my table at a cafe, with their exquisite, understated beauty.

Coming home to a Billie greeting and her choosing to snooze next to me as I write this, with a coffee and jazz.

Upcoming phone call with Heather.

[splendourofrecognition]

IFS

Internal family systems sparks intuitive fascination in me and feels like an important area to focus my concentration for a little while. The idea of 'parts' with their own autonomy/sub-personalities and stories, combined with the myriad ways they function (or dysfunction) in contexts and within a whole system makes so much sense to me. I love the compassionate approach of asking permission to engage with the parts and seeking information/wisdom from the source, rather than assuming another part already knows the answer.

As I listened to a recent Glennon podcast on the IFS topic, it got me wondering about my perfectionist part, which at first glance appears directly linked to my inner-critic part. These, in the framework of IFS, are 'managers' and protectors of the core emotional burden or 'exile.' What are they protecting? The managers are especially keen to plan, strive and self-criticise. Why?

I especially love the focus on 'Self' as the core part which contains the 8 C's:

Calm

Curiosity

Compassion

Connectedness

Confidence

Creativity

Courage

Clarity

[splendourofrecognition]

The grammar of animacy

...something more- something that is not me, for which we have no language, the wordless being of others in which we are never alone. After the drumbeat of my mother's heart, this was my first language.

I could spend a whole day listening. And a whole night. Listening in wild places, we are audience to conversations in a language not our own.

-Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer

A chill wind whipped my hair and insisted on blowing open my coat on my midday walk through the woods. The wind, as a verb, 'to be the wind', something animate and alive. Constantly changing directions, temperatures, speed, ferocity. Wind has a playful element to it and a gentle way it whispers: things are always shifting and will continue to.

------

When boiling water is poured into an empty mug, with no teabag to greet it and merge with it, that's when I become aware that it would be helpful to wake up. A cue, forever available as long as my Bengal Spice tea gets restocked. So where was my mind ferrying off to, exactly?

After my walk with the wind, I took a photo of some pebbles in our driveway. Quietly beautiful, unassuming pebbles just being in existence, that I stomp over regularly without a single moment's notice. But today, I paused. This photo became the reference for the first drawing I've made in...well, is it really worth figuring that out? I started a drawing, that will become a painting. It contains nothing about my point of view, apart from my literal point of view as I shot the photo. It's not communicating a deeper meaning in and of itself, though in a sense, the depth exists in the process of what it feels like to put one line down after another. Tiny, infinitesimal strokes that came from no other hands or mind than my own.

Dear Katie,

I give you full permission to fail over and over. To make awful, embarrassing drawings and paintings. To explore, to create, to roam, to experience. Unapologetically. Unashamedly. Audaciously.

With a love that knows no bounds,

Katie

[splendourofrecognition]

The rumble

Change is afoot. I can feel her gentle breeze and slightly terrifying shudder; her shaking and the soft cracks in the foundation to signal a shift.

I can feel myself circling, as a bird might from overhead, trying to state when, where, how, why before plunging into the sea to attempt a catch. The catch being akin to survival. Is it this serious, a matter of survival? Sometimes it seems like it. Sometimes it feels like it. The way it follows me around, emerges frequently in dream states, flows in and out of consciousness throughout my waking moments.

What am I circling around? The understanding that there are other, more authentic parts of myself, that have been silenced persistently and perniciously for too long. The artist part, especially. It feels so delicate, tender, vulnerable and frightened. Who wouldn't be after being silenced to near voicelessness? It's an act of torture, in a way.

The intellectualisation is all too tempting. Dissect, analyse, reason and research all the causes of how this has come to be. What I feel, though, is not the same as what I think.

What does the feeling want to say? It's a quiet whisper: go.

'Go' like...

Approach.

Go for it.

Do it.

You can. You're ready.

[splendourofrecognition]

Ruby the Philosopher

Ruby keeps coming up with these philosophical/poetic statements, which she's been generating since she was about 2 years old. Things like: Is here a happy place?

I was thinking of trying my hand at painting some of these statements. That would involve some typography skills, which, frankly I don't possess. But what better time to try than now? It's a relatively straightforward, contained process (famous last words...) that enables us to ponder Ruby's wise words. She'll also get the benefit of feeling seen, heard and honoured, so that's not too bad a deal.

This morning, in a haze of slight sleep deprivation and weekend blues, Ruby and I did some watercolour together. I copied drawings from a book called How to Draw that was designed for her age, and with the simplest step-by-step instructions, I made an ice cream cone/donut/cupcake/croissant. Meanwhile, right beside me, Ruby was creating an entire storyline about about a magic potion set and painting each one on a different shelf, describing their powers in detail such as "this one turns you into an animal." Next to it, she created a racoon that morphed into a unicorn, had babies, then was consumed by a fire it had to fight off. So...slightly different approaches. I was in admiration and awe of her ability to unapologetically and courageously go for it, no qualms, just present with herself, her ideas and her interest in translating it to paper through images.

I felt the fatigue cloud descend suddenly. This dark, insidious sticky mess seeping out of me and all around me, saying this isn't possible for me. Ruby, sure. Someone else, definitely. Not me. It's not there anyway, so why bother even indulging this foolish dream?

[splendourofrecognition]

Split brain

I'm re-reading Waking Up by Sam Harris and just finished the chapter about split brain experiments, where the corpus callosum is severed between the left and right hemispheres in order to subdue epileptic seizures. The experiment results continue to astound me, even after discovering the research over ten years ago. The implications are...spooky. They defy my experience of self and yet they are undeniably present in the data.

The particular implication is that consciousness, and its contents, are divisible. The left and right hemisphere data indicates they can hold separate beliefs, memories and thoughts. What? And are these arising because of the procedure, or were they there all along? Are there more than two? In one experiment, the examiner asks "What did you want to be when you grew up?", to which the adult answered in language, with the left hemisphere faculties, "a draftsman." When the right hemisphere answered, in written form by arranging letters visually/spatially, it spelled out "racing driver." In another experiment, the examiner flashes the word 'egg' to the right hemisphere by showing it to the left eye only with a partition to divide the eyes. The examiner then asks "what did I just show you?" to which the right hemisphere is able to respond by finding the egg, without fail, amidst a multitude of random objects. They're then asked "why did you choose the egg?" to which the left hemisphere responds "I don't know. I guess because I had eggs for breakfast this morning", with no awareness, consciously, that the word has been shown to them.

I think in some ways, though eerie, these experiments do speak to my own experience of being a 'self.' The way I can sometimes feel at war within, or my desires completely at odds with one another, even directly negating each other in real time. That tug can be visceral. Within that, too, is a sense that I overwhelmingly prefer to inhabit the right hemisphere and its more creative, artistic, visual and musical tendencies. This is also where all those non-verbals cues are interpreted about emotional states, which I find so intuitive and easy at times that I wish I could switch it off, or at the very least dampen it.

My job, and frankly most of the western industrial complex, necessitates, exalts and rewards left hemisphere functions. Speech, language, reading, writing, computing, analysing, order, sequencing, logic etc. Well, no wonder I feel so utterly awash in misery and bewilderment much of the time when I'm at work. I look around, too, and see these traits and themes playing out in personalities I'm surrounded by, which again, explains the challenges I've been facing lately.

Basically, it answers for a lot of the confusion the ensues on a moment to moment basis. My practise is to notice. To see. To name. To own. To experience. To let go. To let float. (SNOELL from Lama Rod).

[splendourofrecognition]

Untitled, 1969. Mark Rothko.

Rothko just about sums it up for how I've been feeling the past week or so. God, it's only been a week, but in the throes of depression, time seems to dilate and warp in the strangest ways. There's a sense that a shadow casts over past, present and future, stymying the ability to see beyond it. It's in these times that "this too shall pass" is called upon, over and over, even when I don't always entirely believe it.

There are a kaleidoscope of pieces that have created this general scene: finishing (nearly, anyway) the counselling assignment and personal statement for the PGDip application, transitioning back to the routine of work/school after a break where we were all insulated from that domineering side of life, booking my flights (reluctantly) to Texas after deliberating for the better part of a year and mysteriously spiralling about my ability to do my job. The job stuff feels interwoven with the counselling stuff- am I becoming more aware of my pain that arises from doing something I no longer find meaningful or fulfilling as I step closer and closer to something that I do? The cognitive dissonance is ticking up, it seems.

A walk through the woods with a podcast interviewee called Matthew Brensilver lifted the spirits yesterday. Walks tend to do that, generally. This episode was full of sparklets: viewing the present moment as a crest in the wave of all past experiences, allowing the process of resting/becoming in the present moment, the way that our habit minds are frequently squeezed between past and future, the way the present moment can feel pulled along and impelled into the future, unbidden. There was discussion of a radical permission and radical surrender to what arises from memory and letting it 'blow through' awareness. We imagine the present moment constantly and leveraging that model into a kind of estimation in the safety of this moment. The practise is to metabolise and equinamise the present moment. He offers a granular investigation into the evolutionary fear to stay safe, to stay alive, and the way this plays out in a hyper-vigilance at all times to some degrees. The truth is that it's phenomena coming and going; within that is the opportunity to surrender without defence.

How will I integrate this into practise? By trying to notice how the phenomena coming and going, with a particular awareness of how it effects the present moment. Naming the safety and security fear: the wolf. What is she doing to protect me and can I let go and surrender to some of the uncertainty?

[splendourofrecognition]

Some words

Vagaries: unexpected and inexplicable changes in a situation or someone's behaviour.

Incisive: (of a person or mental process): intelligently analytical and clear-thinking.

Rankle: (of a comment or fact): cause continuing annoyance or resentment.

[splendourofrecognition]

Snowy Night, by Mary Oliver

Last night, an owl in the blue dark tossed an indeterminate number of carefully shaped sounds into the world, in which, a quarter of a mile away, I happened to be standing. I couldn’t tell which one it was – the barred or the great-horned ship of the air – it was that distant. But, anyway, aren’t there moments that are better than knowing something, and sweeter? Snow was falling, so much like stars filling the dark trees that one could easily imagine its reason for being was nothing more than prettiness. I suppose if this were someone else’s story they would have insisted on knowing whatever is knowable – would have hurried over the fields to name it – the owl, I mean. But it’s mine, this poem of the night, and I just stood there, listening and holding out my hands to the soft glitter falling through the air. I love this world, but not for its answers. And I wish good luck to the owl, whatever its name – and I wish great welcome to the snow, whatever its severe and comfortless and beautiful meaning.