Pattern

"For it was I, the Lord your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it with good things." Psalm 81:10

  The ice berg Zentangle is complete. It was a mind stretching process, trying to come up with so many different patterns. I left some sections not filled in. The white spaces are expressions of gratitude. It's important to illustrate the healing the Lord has already achieved.

  

 The white spaces are also about hope. If so much can be changed, it's safe to rest in the understanding that more will come. Patience will prevail.

  I admit I'd like to know when this is going to happen...so much for patience...(smile.)

  The thing about change is it takes practice. It takes having safe people in your life to practice on! It takes having those same people cheering you on even when an attempt to put on the new fails. 

  It's not always easy. I think my biggest challenge is coming to understand that my instincts around an uncomfortable situation are right; that my red flags are to be trusted. 

  It's easier to take a flag down than to put one up.

  Am I afraid of being hurt? Now that's a good question. 

  Perhaps it might be better to say that I am slow to trust. Understandably so. 

  I got thinking about masks yesterday which actually ties into this. We all wear them don't we? Some wear masks of humanity to hide the monster beneath. Some wear monster masks because their humanity is incredibly vulnerable. 

  Ah, yes...the monsters. To be specific, the one in my closet. The one that everyone told me didn't exist. 

  He did, you know.

  I've grieved the lessons this first monster taught me because monsters are very, very real.

  God has restored much of what he and the others took but I've never thought about what was lost when others dismissed my childhood fears.

  Something happens when a child isn't believed. 

  Something far worse happens when a frightened child receives no comfort. 

  (There was a long pause after I wrote that last line...)

  The patterns which made up the identity God established in my soul at birth got blurred, got written over. New ones were written by the strength of shame and shadow.

  By the time my seventh birthday rolled around, I had Dysthymia. It's a form of chronic, low grade depression that wraps the heart, mind and soul in a blanket of fog. It created a mask I didn't even know I wore until being diagnosed in my forties.

  The diagnosis opened a door that had long been closed and with it, healing.

  Thank You, Lord, for giving me the strength to explore these painful events yet again. It sure takes a long time to unravel the complexities of deceptively simple patterns. More importantly, thank You for reinforcing my need to understand it wasn't all my fault. 

  The next pattern? I think it might have something to do with suppressed anger.

  

  

The Eye of the Beholder

   "But I say to you, anyone who looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart." Mathew 5:28

  I don't presume to know what was in his heart as he constantly raked his eyes over my body but it's left me feeling like I need a shower...several of them.

  I ran into someone yesterday who hadn't been around for several years. The weight loss has changed my appearance drastically so he hadn't recognized me. When I came over, he looked me up and down...more than once...and continued to do this the whole time we were speaking. 

  As we caught up on all that's been going on since we last met, he commented on how good I looked. Yes, he praised the efforts being made to lose weight. But...his eyes constantly undressed me. At least, that's what it feels like when men do this. 

  It's an awful feeling. 

  And it's a huge trigger, this being objectified. It's having the living, breathing, feeling, person inside vanish or worse, be of no consequence.

  Jesus has fought too long and too hard to help me overcome the belief I was only a thing.

  This person is going to be someone I have more frequent dealings with. Not by choice but through circumstances. He needs to be told his wandering eyes are utterly unacceptable.

  I need to tell him because if he did it to me, he does it to other women.

  One of the subjects that's come up in the Gina program is understanding why it's more comfortable, more safe, being overweight. It makes you less desirable, less likely to attract the "wrong" sort of attention. My knee jerk reaction is to stop losing weight if this is what's in store.

  It means letting go of the improved self worth. It means letting go of the knowledge around how proper diet keeps the body running smoothly. It means letting go of how much better I feel mentally.

  Because of one man? Are you kidding me? His eyes don't deserve that kind of sacrifice.

 

  What is needed is a strategy to put a very clear boundary in place: a Gandalf boundary that speaks firmly, "You shall not pass!!" I need a metaphorical staff to hammer into the ground...although...having a real one might come in handy. (Smile.)

  I need to show up fully clad in the Armor of God and trust the Holy Spirit to give me the words this man will hear, respect and obey. I need it because this gal is quaking in her boots. Not only setting a boundary but also demanding a change in behavior from a big man who towers over me is scary to say the least. 

  Jesus says, "Be not afraid."

  I'll try because I did stop him from giving me a hug when he left. I simply said, "No."

  

  Wow. The battle is already won.

  

  

  

  

The Ice Berg

  "Let my soul be at rest again, for the Lord has been good to me." Psalm 116:7

  The art called. An image of an iceberg took shape beneath my pen over the course of several hours. It's not finished yet but the time spent has given me an opportunity to meditate on all that it means. It's a hope filled symbol due to the transient nature of ice bergs.

  I ended up doing the underwater section like a Zentangle. Each facet of the berg will have a different pattern. It seemed to be a good way to illustrate all the experiences which shaped it in the first place.

  As I draw, my heart and mind opens to hear what the Lord has to say. What began as a way to illustrate the hidden impact of PTSD has evolved under the tender guidance of the Holy Spirit.

   I got thinking about all the videos showing massive ice bergs flipping over. Mini tsunamis cause the sea to boil as the water wrestles with the force of solid ice surrendering to the inevitable. 

  I got thinking of the photos taken off the coast of Newfoundland showing a parade of gleaming blue and white hunks of ice. They have no choice but to follow the current...south...into the warmth that will render them nothing more than fresh water diluted by the salty sea.

  This has become a lesson in kindness. 

  It's a hard lesson for me to grasp. That's part of PTSD, too. Having a long track record of being treated without kindness means I never learned how. I never thought I deserved such a thing. Kindness was something other people needed...deserved...were entitled to have.

  

  The Gina Livy food program is still being followed. I've still more weight to lose but this part of my life is a whole other post.

  Every morning, I've been choosing "Be Kind" as one of my daily intentions because being hard on myself means I am hard on others. Personal expectations have a way of becoming judgements when others don't think or act the same way.

  

  Patterns of behavior...hmmm...ice berg facets...events...lessons...pain...truth that isn't truth...shame...guilt...fear...shutting down...shutting out...

  And grief.

  Once I was only three...the glacier dipped its toes in the sea and a crack began to form.

  Now I am almost sixty...the iceberg that was calved so long ago is about to tip over...can you feel it?

  

  

 

  

  

  

  

  

After the Fear

 "Let them praise the Lord for His great love and for the wonderful things He has done for them. For He broke down their prison gates of bronze; He cut apart their bars of iron." Psalm 107:15-16

  I had an appointment with my psychiatrist yesterday afternoon which gave me a chance to talk about what was written yesterday. He said something that has given me pause for thought.

  He mentioned PTSD and how triggers can influence our reactions to various circumstances.

  There's the big reactions, the panic attacks, the full on fight/flight responses that get Triggered because of past Trauma. But there's another side of it, triggers associated with trauma.

  The capital T Traumas are those that shape our understanding of ourselves and our place in the world in an instant that remains frozen in time forever. The little t traumas are all those micro events which work together to destroy our understanding of ourselves and our place in the world.

  It's complicated.

  It means allowing my understanding of truth to be adjusted. What I believe is what I believe but that perception, perhaps, has gotten skewed due to the simple matter that my personal fight/flight/freeze/fawn response is particularly quick to act. I become a deer in the headlights when this happens. 

  It happens a lot.

  Because I have been prey for the predators; the kind with a capital P and a little p.

  Which means I think and act like a prey animal: wary and constantly sniffing the air. Hence the fear. And while I am not cognizant of this all the time, sitting here writing about it makes me aware of just how "on" I am all the time. It's why I perceive things as an attack when maybe they aren't...and if they are? I am ahead of the game by already running away or, perversely, shutting down (fawning) rather than sticking around to find out otherwise.

  Do deer ever feel safe?

  The situation with the worship team leader is the tip of a very big iceberg made up of all the times I wasn't heard or allowed to have a say. To be fair, she knows very little about my story. That's something else the doc suggested. Maybe it's possible to have a conversation with her about it all.

  "When you are ready," he said, "And not because I said you have to."

 There can be no love without choice.

  I think what's also very disconcerting is when I played on Sunday, there was a level of disassociation taking place. This, too, happens frequently but again, it's so automatic I am not even aware it's happening. 

  It's fawn's cousin and another coping mechanism used by prey animals. It happens when the predator is about to win. I firmly believe God gave the hunted the ability to separate their awareness from the world around them so death wasn't so painful.

  

  It all all boils down to instinct. The survival methods of fight, et al, and the disassociation that kept me putting one foot in front of the other served a purpose during dark and terrible times. 

  Those times are over. Jesus opened the bronze, prison bars a long time ago. 

  I just need my primitive, survival oriented brain to get with the program. 

  Lord, hear my cry. Show me where to find the off switch! In Jesus name, AMEN!

  PS. I frequently find myself wrestling with the idea that Trauma's offspring are sinful; that the fear, and the associated automatic coping mechanisms are sinful because it means I don't trust Jesus. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The bronze gates may be open but there's still iron bars that need Jesus' love, strength, patience, grace and wisdom to shatter into oblivion. 

  Oh, and I need His light to melt a flotilla of icebergs, too.

  

  

  

Fear

   "For I hold you by your right hand--I, the Lord your God. And I say to you, "Don't be afraid. I am here to help you." Isaiah 41:13

  I have come to realize my life is governed by fear. 

  Self doubt wars with a fear of success. My battle with poor self-esteem is at war with the confidence I seek to embrace yet fear that it will appear as arrogance and conceit. I am afraid of the new because I am afraid old patterns will take over. I am afraid to fail yet, at the same time, the thought of success is equally terrifying. I am afraid of commitment because committing comes with being abandoned and rejected. I am afraid to get it wrong...

  So instead, I do nothing. I bury myself in knitting, in shutting down, in non-thinking because to think is to stir the pot. Knitting fills my mind with counting, with numbers, and wraps it in a security blanket of concentration. All the while, the fears nip at my soul.

  We performed a song yesterday at church, "Made for More" by Josh Baldwin and Jenn Johnston. 

  "I wasn't made to be tending a grave. I was called by name. Born and raised back to life again. I was made for more."

  It was the first time I'd played since Christmas. A much needed break was an opportunity to get my flute serviced which ended up taking longer than anticipated. 

  Most of the time our worship team leader creates a flute part for me but there wasn't one for this song. It meant I could sing. This is a rare thing.

  Several months ago, I'd asked her if singing sometimes would be an option. This request was met with fierce resistance. I guess I am a flute player and that's my role. The end.

  I get it. I get that the flute adds a rich dimension to our performances. I get it that its sweet sound brings joy to others. I get it that we have terrific vocalists who have sung together for years and have mastered many intricate harmonies. 

  I don't know how to harmonize.

  But I could learn a song or two if someone would teach me.

  Because I can sing with the kind of vocal control that enables me to match my vibrato to the lead singer's vibrato. Not doing this would mean my voice would clash with everyone else's.

  It took a huge amount of courage for me to ask in the first place. Maybe she doesn't know

how fear usually stops me from asking for what I want or need. Maybe she doesn't realize she's done what so many others have done when I dared to voice a need or a want. Maybe she doesn't realize she's shut down any hope of being something more than a flute player. Maybe she doesn't realize the cost of my capitulation or the cost of being contained in a role designed by someone else. 

Maybe she doesn't know because I am afraid to tell her.

  "I wasn't made to be tending a grave. I was called by name. Born and raised back to life again. I was made for more."

  I was made for more.

  AMEN!