Learning

My days right now are confusing.  They say I’m experiencing yet another “pendulum swing.”  I’m becoming more and more aware of when the shifts are going to happen.  I gear up to changes in my thinking these days with less excitement than before when I referred to the changes as “cascades” (picture:  beautiful water fall refreshing my world).  Now, I am tense, I feel resistant, and I get scared.  The changes that occur now are usually about things I thought I knew that have become untrue. 

All through this process this has been the case but on different levels.  From day one, I had to recognize that what I understood throughout my childhood (my interpretation of my experiences) up until the point of manifesting in self-destructive behaviours was wrong and I had to relearn it.  Then, I started getting treatment for an eating disorder and since then, everything that has been beaten into me (such as terms like “in recovery” and “relapse” and developing “tools to cope”) about overcoming an eating disorder has become wrong because it’s not consistent with truly becoming well.  This part has been a joyous experience as my understanding of recovery until this program has basically been that I am doomed to struggle through life and inevitably relapse from time to time and hopefully never sink as low as I did – it’s very different now.  Then, I thought I had been getting to know my true self (after the painful experience of becoming completely blank and undefined) and that was kind of neat.  Now, even those things are changing.  So what I thought I knew - was wrong.  What I was taught and chose to believe –was wrong.  What I thought I had come to know – is also not always true.

Above the learning and relearning, came the unlearning and that is not easy.  However, it is possible.  It really is about creating new pathways.  I know this because I have revisited and evaluated messages I received as a child, recognized the fault in my interpretation, chose to learn how to see it differently, and now, with many memories, I actually don’t know how I believed what I did.  It is so completely different and comfortably so, it feels natural but the process did not feel natural.

I think this might be the most difficult thing I’m dealing with right now.  Just when I thought I knew something…it’s ripped out from under my feet and has to change to fit with the true me that continues to emerge.

One day at a time, I still relish the moments of calm and peace.  I appreciated the good times greatly.  But the rough times….they’re still present in quite the capacity.  It’s still a practice of getting up, walking a few steps, and being slammed to the ground.  And then, it’s about getting up again and taking the next few steps with my new knowledge.  Like I said before, I don’t live a life braced for difficult times, for panic and fear and anxiety and sadness, I just live and with that comes all of those things.  I cannot let those low times overshadow the goodness in my life which is beyond plentiful.  I am now driving, which is amazing.  I have 2 regular squash partners and I’m getting a lot better.  I laugh so hard my face and stomach hurt at least once a week.  I played ping pong until 3am on Saturday night.  It’s 28 degrees right now and 11:30pm.  I stared up at a 400 year old church today and then walked along the Atlantic Ocean while the sunset.  Life is good, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt still.  I’m still learning, unlearning, relearning and it’s hard but gosh, 99% of the time, I wouldn’t change it for the world.