Such a fat-assed waste + UPDATED: Wise Woman

I wrote this entry on March 16, 2012.  Today is the 18th.  I am going to go through this and write in responses that I imagine come from the "wise woman" within me.  (These will be in blue italics.)  This is a technique that my group therapist came up with, herself.  To me, I imagine my wise woman to be myself, only older, perhaps at the end of my life, with all the wisdom of having lived through the life I am struggling with right now.  The key is not to give advice, but to be accepting and present with the feelings of your present self, to soothe and comfort yourself as you might a good friend or young child.  I find it comforting to do.  This can also be done with drawings, where you draw one drawing about something you are struggling with.  Then with a different color or pen or whatever, you see what the wise woman would add or change about the picture.  It can be very interesting.

I have been upset this evening about turning 40 on Monday (I can see how that might be an intimidating milestone for you) and not being able to feel acceptable. (That must have been pretty rough, huh?) My husband took the day off (How nice of him!) and I stayed in bed until 4 or so as if it were a Saturday. (Maybe he felt good to be able to give you some extra rest.) 

Breakthrough!

http://bonobo.rcdc.it/archives/tag/little-april-shower/

I had a breakthrough today at my counseling session. I made some connections that I had not realized before, regarding 2 of my issues: the napping-in-the-car-thing and my negative feelings about growing-up.

I was telling my counselor how in my group session last night we had decided that the nap-thing was not necessarily all about sleep, but more about feeling safe.  I feel safe in my car, lying back and passively listening to the radio or music or sometimes just the wind and birds.   I get to feeling safe and soothed and then sleep follows. Today I realized that when asked the last time i felt safe, my brain goes first to a prominent memory of taking a nap in my bedroom in South Carolina in 1975 or so.

New Resource Tabs

Dear Diane and Readers,

I hope you have been enjoying the blog! I am having breakfast today at The Nautilus Diner with the husband and kids. We slept late because the kids, especially my poor daughter, kept us up last night. She must have eaten too much ice cream, a blue cotton candy flavor with KitKat pieces and gummy bears, last night at Coldstone Creamery, or something she ate was contaminated.