Deep Breath and Prayer

Ambitious and unrealistic. Yes, that may be a good description for today. Woke up fairly early for our morning trip outside and then back to bed for a few. I woke up, rolled over and started convincing myself I was going to sleep today away too. Not too much convincing needed really, the real convincing was telling myself I was NOT going to do so. It is the dangerous ledge I have to stay aware of when I sleep like I did yesterday or last weekend. It shifts very quickly into depression. Yes, it is still escaping, and it is for all the wrong reasons. Recognizing what was happening, I made myself get up. Like a cranky little kid I crawled out of bed and fixed breakfast. I slept through it yesterday and I was not going to start a new habit. In all I did I just kept telling myself, "you have to stay up." Sitting there eating I just scanned through things. Anxiety...check, trapped feeling...check, chest hurting....check, want to cry and can't...double check, want to run away an...

Wednesday night I spent 3-4 hours writing about the past. As I revisited memories, feelings, and emotions of a time that I have done my best to try and bury for over 20 years, I expected a bad night of sleep and a disorienting Thursday. When I hit the final "save" and closed up the laptop, my first desire was to hit the pill bottles. I have done so well recently not going that route, yet I do have enough to knock me out cold and stop all thinking and dreaming. I chose not to. I chose to just trust that God would allow me a night of sleep that would not fall under disturbing. I have to work on turning to Him more than other things. Figured that this would be a good time to practice that. I slept well. Some bad dreams, yet not nightmares. I woke up anxious, and I expected that. There was plenty of memories swirling about still and so I was not too shaken by the anxious feelings. They were relatively calm, not as much as I figured they would be. Maybe this was going to come out ...

In the Allegory of the Cave by Plato, Socrates talks about a group of people who are chained to a wall of a cave and face only a blank wall. They have been chained here their full lives and are unable to look anywhere except the wall. What they see are shadows of things projected from a fire behind them, and as time goes on they start to put words to the things they see. For example, if the shadow of a tree is projected on the wall, they may label it "tree", associating the term with the shadow, not the physical item (as they do not know the physical item exists). As time goes on, they give names to all the things that they see (except they only see the shadows, never the real thing). Socrates goes on to explain that a philosopher is like one of the people who is freed and allowed to turn away from the wall and come in contact with the items that cast the shadows. It takes a while, yet the person begins to understand the connection and relationship between the items, the fi...

I seem to, most times, be able to master the art of doing or convincing myself the opposite of something. For example, when I quit drinking, the desire to do so was still there very strong and I could convince myself that I really didn't want a drink. When I quit smoking, for the most part, I did the same (I still really crave a smoke from time to time). Even with the tangled mess in my eating issues, I somewhere taught myself that when I am hungry, I am not really hungry (and that has now come back to haunt me). These are just a few examples. When I came to points in my life where I felt I had to shut down my emotions, I did the same. Hard to explain, yet it was kind of a "not allowed to feel that even though you want to feel that" kind of thing. Anger was in that group. I went through a long time where I was always angry. I hated the world. I would put on the happy front, yet inside I just was not at peace at all. For a myriad of reason, I was not pleased with life, mys...