elainegrey

With some surprise, i ended therapy yesterday.

I went in because the Elephants were wearing me down. Between advice and Christine's growing skills in elephant wrangling, that has passed.

Then i took the opportunity to go off one of my antidepressants, which has given me access to my emotions. The poor things and i aren't really used to each other, but i was well off when mom had her stroke.

And Mom had a stroke.

In the process i have become better practiced at being accepting of myself and not getting stuck in the negative frame. I still go to the negative frame --

... as i wrote, i used the term "extreme negative" and with just a moment's thought i can see there are much more negative ways to frame things. A meta example, nonetheless an example of the new inner auditor who pulls me back from framing everything as doom.

-- but i catch myself and reframe.

I don't know if i will ever be a person who immediately goes to "my life is wonderful and everything is doing great." Even. Though. It. Is.

The same auditor rolls their eyes and says, "Back it off there, Blondie."

So, "great" is perhaps not qualified well enough. But despite my mother's dysfunctional behavior through our whole life, my siblings and i all have stuck together and my father still loves her. While this caregiving relationship is hard and brings up heartache, we all are together with it.

Work is very challenging at the moment, but it's a challenge for me to grow into, not dysfunction challenging. (I wish i didn't have it at the same time as Mom challenge, but whatever.)

Meanwhile Christine and i both enjoy our quite times together, each of us taking care of the other where and how we can. We are both somewhat awed by what we actually have created in our landscape. Yes, there could have been much easier ways to achieve similar outcomes by paying folks with heavy equipment, but not only did we make this change, we made it with as small an environmental impact as we could. (I think of the many small plants i found and rescued from the clearing work, how we started with the goats, how much we tried to keep the biomass here and return it to the soil.)

Yesterday evening we sat under this amazing triple-trunked tulip poplar, the shape of which tells of how the original trunk was knocked far over and sprouts grew up from that trunk. Edward chased something in the grass: probably one of the tiny cricket or tree frogs the size of the tip of my pinky finger. Carrie ran and danced and pranced. Luigi sat on the table near us. The weather was exquisite, not too humid.

I'm surprised to have ended therapy yesterday, but i am managing my mental health well. The waves of procrastination and depression occur, but i'm not in a riptide of vortex where those waves overwhelm me.

How incredible.