Moderation in Moderation

For two weeks I have not always completed my todo list. 

Or, rather, I have often completed it. 

My illness has made completion remarkably difficult. 

I have still completed my maintenance pomodoros. And today, for the first day in decades, I speak: 

a) From the belly. 

b) In breaths of ten syllables. 

I do not want to be pushed to speak faster. I do not want to 'give' as I have done for decades. 

That reticent gothic boy of Wolverhampton will find his way into being sooner than we think, before the end of a life arrives. 

I am excited for the chance to breathe deeply this week and to resonate with the words I speak from my guts to my head. 

Grounding myself, feeling my belly, purple

I am distant from my belly. My energy usually flows upwards. Yesterday I felt my belly more, of the energy that might flow from there, and how it pulses in waves, cyclical yet not linear. 

In Western terms, I feel at least some part of psyche did not complete a stage of development. 

My belly has worked overtime for many years to keep me safe. It will always do so. But the flush of energy I feel from it does not need to overwhelm me. 

Today I walked with Grace to a new cafe. My feet and legs felt grounded to the earth, that place from where I come. My dust, my cells, all were formed long before, and will return to the earth in time. It is my destiny. 

I remember my psyche when I was about 13 or 14 shifting, needing to accept how others might see me in order to survive in school. I became far more demonstrative than I am perhaps comfortable being. 

I also feel the difference between my breath fast and my breath when slow. I want to appreciate the difference between my voice from my throat, my chest voice, and my belly voice. 

Lowering my voice, deepening my breath - these are the things I want to do over the next week. 

Back to the cafe. I believed I heard Hari Denton in the cafe. My chest jumped, and my anxiety rose. But I was grounded and entered anyway. He was not there, but I felt not overwhelmed as I might have been in the past. 

What I call anxiety is perhaps something else. It is my experience of the spiritual cycles that threaten to overwhelm me. But they come and go. Trying to listen to them with Joanna, I realise that they do not throb constantly. Instead, they come and go. 

Anger and Frustration

Righteous anger can be a fantastic tool to motivate, to challenge wrong-doing with the aim to create good in the world. 

Frustration, anger's distinct cousin, can eat people up. 

I have tried to be more 'receptive' this week to my emotions and others with some success. Where I have found most happiness is in...

No, not happiness. I have tried to see my own emotions without judgement. Push down, travel to my guts, see how that experience plays out. 

Where I have become better this week is when I can switch my mind from the games of work to my actual games and books. In all of it I see games. Serious games, but games nevertheless. 

I sat through the final leadership conversations with Martin et al this week. There were a few points where I could be frustrated, but for some reason, my emotions did not overwhelm me. Carrie-Anne is someone who is invested in being good, and I admire her for that. But she continues with peculiar foibles that I could read into in an unpleasant fashion. 

But that unpleasantness melts in the face of my journal. The words seem unduly petty, the emotion does not stir again. A greater good remains instead, a desire to be receptive, and to experience my emotions, how they stir my guts and tighten my shoulders. As I spoke to Rebecca I tapped my guts and legs, trying to remind myself of an entire body. 

I should consider a stretching program. The stiffness of my body likely reflects in my emotions. 

I am perhaps somewhat apprehensive about questioning people at work, and maybe rightly so. I grow frustrated with the 'disconnect' between PETAL paragraph writing and other types of literature essay production. I can synthesize those things one day. 

Am I able to express anger or frustration? Am I able to feel those emotions and not let them overwhelm me? What might I find tonight? 

What should I retreat from? What should I face? What discipline might help me? 

Can I return to memories and relive them with the intention of reforming? 

We can see. 

I sit here regaining those habits of imagination

I sit here on a Wednesday morning regaining my habits of imagination. 

My sleep is better. I am sleeping through the night, although last night was trickier. 

My body is better with my fever largely gone. A faint muscle strain remains in my right leg, but adopting a better posture will relieve that pain. 

It was a great decision to apply for the leadership job. It was a better idea to leave it, too. There has not been a resolution on that, but we can wait. Knowing my disposition makes me better placed to deal with the irksome nature of colleagues. 

Over this week, I have focused on returning to my RPGs. In Pillars of Eternity 2, I fought and killed four mercenaries to grant four untouchables passage on a ship towards a new life. Was that moral? Or just something I did? Is there still taste in me for punishing the rich? 

Stay with the idea of the young boy in Wolverhampton crying in that classroom. 

Remember the tears over hidden paints. 
Remember the request to stand with a peer and being refused. 
Remember the moment at the party where you did not want to get up from the table. 

Joanna tells me to return to those moments now as the strong and capable man I am now, to tell those fucking teachers to leave that boy alone. Take him by the hand and move him to a better place, away from the toxic abuse of that environment. 

Perhaps nobody was particularly malicious in their mistreatment of me. They could have been trying to survive like we all do. But I have yet to integrate the emotional intensity of these moments. Perhaps I should reenter these memories, place the best version of me, waistcoat and Doctor Martin boots, a beard and a smooth voice, and challenge those people directly. Relive, don't relieve, the emotions, and let myself feel them, integrate them. 

I do feel anger and shame and frustration, and I do not know exactly how to do with them. These emotions have names. 

I should move into a mode of receiving over these coming days. Slow down, see how your silence might push people into action. See how it might push you into action! 

Sleeping much better

Last night both Grace and I enjoyed vivid dreams. Mine ended in an interrogation scene, presumably after my dangerous driving in a flying car. I sensed a betrayal from the man who sold me the car. 

I also sensed the terror of Dubai, with many new and ineffective young teachers, and the stress of Charlotte Abbott, leading them ineffectually and desperately. 

I am lucky here, but I have made my own luck. Today I intend to have a better day. I intend to avoid undue stress and to enjoy my mind as before. 

I am playing Pillars of Eternity 2. That is engaging my mind and soul. The consciously ethnic element of it quirks me a little, but that is fine. 

But do not lose what you need to do: to return to those moments, relive them and the emotions, and to place the strong version of me, perhaps even a future version of me, in place. 

Staying with the emotions that occurred at that time, sitting with that young boy. Sitting there and integrating that overwhelming emotion. Then we might leave somewhere else. 

Let us do this. 

Staying with emotions: progress, music, spirituality, being

I have no great interest ruling over others. I am a lone wolf. That is both my legacy, and what I have nurtured. 

That does not need to be all of me. A small party of people speaks more to me than being a solo traveller. 

The stress of the new job lay in its triggering nature: leading people overwhelmed me emotionally, far more than I needed to be. I stepped away before it broke me. 

Make no mistake that it could have broken me in an ideal way. I was not willing to risk that though. 

I look towards a richer inner-life once more. Remember last night that dream about the American colony houses, of rustic wood and straw, of the initial acceptance of a few folks because they saw what I might do for them. The shock of seeing some of the huge houses behind these muddy huts, of the few economic successes who had invested in these huge brick status symbols. 

I want to experience music and spirituality more. That emotion without language. 

I need to seek a different path - push my awareness and attention downwards into my body, my stomach and chest, to where emotions are most keenly felt. 

Bacon

Books

Brawn

Being

Looking after the younger version of me

I remember in my school there being several moments of suffering. 

An especially aggressive teacher told me to fetch some paints. They did not exist. She berated me publicly. Unable to find these paints, I broke down in tears. Then the entire class saw me. I was just told to stop crying. 

Another moment saw me drawing baby Jesus. I gave him green eyes. Another teacher again berated me, harshly. 

Another teacher, Mrs Gibbons, attacked me for something inocuous. She tried to shame me in front of the class, and supposedly in front of my mother. 

Another teacher, Mrs Harris, attacked me for my reading, claiming there was no way I was reading as much as I was. 

These women were terrible to boys, and had no idea of how to handle me, a sensitive boy with a curious mind and a clumsy body. 

The emotional challenge of these moments is substantial. Each one sees a vulnerable young boy who was unable to understand and integrate his emotions. Perhaps a developmental stage has not been reached, and might never be. 

These moments can be revisited. The adult version of me, the lord protector, can stride into these moments and rescue me: take me out of them? Or simply tackle the teachers, challenging them and establishing a new rule? Or even take me far away to a different place.

There is something of suffering that is fine. The suffering is fine - it is the emotional safety I need to stay with those emotions that I mean to find.   

Anxiety about seeing people in the street

One distinctive anxiety I suffer is the thought I might see people I know in the street. 

There is no superbly rational reason for that pain. Here are some: 

a) When I meet people, I am often demonstrative, expending much energy. The thought of expending energy I do not have can make me anxious. 

b) I struggled to be with people in my classroom when younger. I have base experiences where being with people was an event. 

c) That continued at university where being with people was always an event. 

d) Passing the man in the garden centre was an experience - I refused to walk past him for many months just because I did not have the energy to say 'hello'. 

e) Walking the high street here makes me feel anxious, thinking I might pass people who are from different circles. 

What are my options if I do see someone? 

i) Ignore them. 

ii) Say hello and keep on walking. 

iii) Stop and speak demonstratively and warmly. 

iv) Look at them and see if they say hello to me or not before I respond, or not. 

I think the acknowledgement that there is a sentient person(s) on the other end of this exchange is something to consider. 

I think considering how my stomach responds to this experience is also important. 

I will likely speak to Joanna about this today. 

Anxiety about my Marking and Judgement

A particularly anxiety that often arises is when my marking is challenged. 

I remember in Beijing how I felt ambushed when my marking was questioned. The two brothers standing against me was devastating. 

I remember in Manila how that was the same, with two staff questioning my judgement. Despite offering facts, they stood their ground. 

In Dubai I suffered confidence in my own judgement, losing health over the coursework moderation.  

What can I do? I should integrate these emotions, appreciating the professionalism of improvement. 

When my marking is challenged, both my judgement and my approach is challenged. The investment I have into my job means this is a challenge to my integrity and my emotions. That integrity is threatened. 

Staying with emotions - Pat

I struggle to stay with emotions, especially those that are negative. Those emotions threaten to overwhelm me and have left me vulnerable, like now. 

I remember living with Pat, and feeling traumatized when his friend broke into my house and slept with a steak knife. Pat... what am I to think about you? Even now the betrayal of your actions bursts in my chest, threatening to derail my mind. 

When I was teaching before in York, I felt focused. In response to students talking...

Look at that line. The main idea should be about being overwhelmed, and how that leads to me ignoring those emotions. The fronted adverbial clause becomes misdirected. Be clearer. Stay with those emotions. 

I was almost overwhelmed by the emotions stirred by past friends in York. My teaching in York required my absolute focus. I enjoyed planning and delivering lessons to critical acclaim, living a structured life, and feeling healthier after those feckless student years. 

One Christmas saw Patrick and his friend break into my house. Only months before I had lived with him, seeing his alcoholic disintegration. It was traumatic. I was unable to see him afterwards, ignoring his calls to meet, and instead protected myself and my chance at a new life. But that choice to not stay with my emotions - ideal at the time, and perhaps essential - now needs to be revisited in my mind, and integrated into my being. 

There are moments like this, where I can relive them, and the emotions, with the intention of integrating them.  

The invites of various people to meet risk triggering me. Keep your mind, and do not reply immediately. See some people, and not others. 

Anxiety After My Decision?

Stabs of anxiety plunge into me, bursting my chest with the violence of a beating heart. But my day is better than before. 

I sent my decision yesterday. And yesterday was a decent day, productive with marking and efficient with teaching. 

I slept last night for 8:30 hours. I biked in the gym and enjoyed time with a massage. I ate well with Grace and retired at a good time. 

It is time for me to appreciate this life of moderation that I managed before. 

I think to expect 200k when I am 39 and January. That gives me well-being, without doubt.  

Playing Guitar

Investing in some guitar lessons - worth it? Ideal? 

My emotional and social life is my focus. 

Listening to music, playing with people, really understanding how the guitar works, moving beyond Metallica: these will feel better .

Emotional Maturity Pt4 - I made a Decision

With the help of my brother, that wilful man of resolve, I made a decision on this job. I am stepping down. 

I need to work on myself, especially my emotional state. That is work indeed. 

Too much of my energy flows upwards to my head, especially when I encounter emotions that I would rather not stay with. Instead, can I bear energy to flow downwards into the rest of my body where I can stay with that energy, bearing it, accepting it, and perhaps finally welcoming it. 

Today I have some marking requirements that will be my focus pretty much all day. 

I have worked hard and well throughout my life. It is time to find that balance again, to avoid that anxiety, that demonstrative and intellectual intensity that for some reason I seem to seek. 

Emotional Maturity Pt3 - Regulation vs Integration

Last night I spoke to Joanna. The focus was to reduce my high anxiety. 

Linked to this was the anxiety created by the social elements of this job. I have already drafted an email for Richard to read, and I might speak to him in the next few days. How that will proceed is uncertain. 

Where I am more certain is the need to stay with my emotions more. My energy levels drive upwards into my head where my intellectualism regulates and dominates. I need my energy levels to drive downwards as well, into my stomach, into a place where my awareness of living is visceral and beyond language. 

For a long time, perhaps since Amsterdam, I have responded to anxiety and fear by moving into my head. That will not save me now. 

Right now I feel dizzy when I stand up, an overproliferation of energy in my head, threatening to remove my sense of groundedness or any awareness of the rest of me. 

My stomach is light and spacious. 

The boy who needed care and emotional/social guidance growing up still lives, albeit in the white rooms of a dungeon. If we do speak to him, it is in terms of achievement or strength. 

I am ready to change. I am ready to listen to my emotions more should they try to tell me something. That is the direction and path I wish to travel, towards the integration of this anxiety.  

Emotional Maturity Pt2

I feel better this week than I have done before. 

I still feel pretty rubbish though, with high anxiety and a lack of energy and health. 

Yesterday I managed to deliver a good training session, a good observation, and a good series of speeches in the leadership session. I regulated my emotions reasonably well and booked myself in with a counsellor. 

Today I have a very busy day. Hopefully, I will regulate my emotions again. 

I will speak to the headteacher this weekend likely.

Emotional Maturity

For so long I have operated by putting in a full effort, often redoubling my efforts if necessary. 

The sometimes frantic nature of my speech and my lifestyle stems from the intensity of this approach. 

I have the chance to reframe my approach, today at least. I can speak a little slower, and I can try to embrace some emotional maturity. 

Sometimes I feel like I will faint from the stress of this new job. I do not have the energy levels needed to collaborate and to socialise as I would normally. But my connections with Grace and my family seem to help me. 

I feel ready and able and willing to rest up, and then to put in some worthy pomodoros. Pomodoros and socialising will help me. 

The main intention of this job is to move sideways into an alternative job at some point. 

Is this the most stressful thing that I have done? 

1) Starting teaching was more stressful. 

2) Living in Hull was more stressful. 

3) The pain of Sarah was more stressful. 

Illness and Pomodoros

For almost a week I have suffered a feverish flu, affecting my breathing and ultimately slowing my mind. 

Each day I use pomodoros is a day I build towards something of a future. 

Whilst I convalesce, I read far too much reddit and scrolling through too much YouTube, perhaps curbing my recovery somewhat. Yet it was only a few days ago that I suffered the pain of lying in bed with no sleep coming easily. I sweated the bedsheets and rolled in bed, ending up dreaming of a lack of dreaming. 

And now? I am able to write a small entry in my diary. 

I do feel some anxiety for the future. But with my health returning, the challenges are doable. 

I need to move and to be once more. Whatever I can do in a few hours needs to acknowledge the slow-burn of pomodoros every day, again.