“Rather than learning how to be tolerant of difficult feelings, many of us have learned only to avoid them… our inclination is often to run from our emotions because they carry with them the threat of destruction. Indulging ourselves in thinking as a protective alternative, we try to avoid our fear by staying aloof of our feelings.” ~Mark Epstein, M.D. excerpt from Going to Pieces without Falling Apart
In the last post, I had photos of women who were naked. Their nakedness represented the revealing nature of where I am today emotionally. I stripped away the self-disgust and fear. In my nakedness, I found I needed a way to ground myself in who I am in this moment.
[Fernando Ortega "Give Me Jesus" a Tribute Ruth Graham]
Not only was I naked, I was yearning to desire something more than myself.
That is when I finally found hope–for that moment…every moment I have lived since. I also found a quote from an unknown author that reads, “Never deprive someone of hope… it may be all they have.”
Sometimes I am left emotionally raw. My solar plexus aching. My heart hurting. So much so that I don’t want to feel what I am feeling. In the past I had used self-destructive ways of coping, but having learned some DBT Skills and grown in my emotional intelligence I am finding appropriate ways to express what I feel…hopefully more than 85% of the time is my goal.
I’m learning how to take care of me along the way. One thing I remembered about doing acupuncture is that my solar plexus didn’t ache as badly as it did.
I was part of a mindfulness-based stress reduction study for adult female survivors of child sexual abuse. In this study, there were three groups–a placebo, meditation and acupuncture, and acupuncture. I was in the one that just did acupuncture. I would come in twice a week and get 15 minutes of acupuncture; on different days, I would get my backside or front side done using various points and meridians like the ones above. I’ll never forget the physical sensation I got when the acupuncturist placed Ste and Sol in. The physical sensation I got was like bad energy getting unglued and shooting upwards and downwards haphazardly between the sites. I remember frantically looking at the acupuncturist as if she was doing something wrong. I even felt so weirded out that I told her what was happening, and she said that the bad energy (in not so many words) getting unstuck. In days I began noticing changes physically and emotionally. I got my menstrual cycle regularly and I became less depressed. These were great results from my experience in the study, and when the study was completed within two weeks my psychological symptoms returned–just like they said it would.
[My son's feet when he was about two years old.]
I can’t afford acupuncture right now. I am left being creative about how to relieve solar plexus pain. I was motivated to reblog about my solar plexus seeing many people every day go to my other solar plexus post. I started searching the web and found someone’s blog about sole work. While I was reading, I physically began feeling me rubbing the ball of my foot on the corner of the computer chair.
[On the feet, it can be found if you draw an imaginary line from the second toe down, below the ball of the foot, right within that hollow. It can also be found if you gently squeeze the top of the foot inward. You should find a “little dimple space”- that’s the solar plexus point.]
So let me get to the point, literally.
Naked I found desire. Desire I found hope. Hope I found feeling.
Feeling I found a way to take care of myself.
