Today was a good day. I woke up at 6am, bright and ready for the day. I only went to bed at 1am and so cut myself a break, made my plant medicine and then went back to sleep. After all, my plant medicine works best when I am sleeping. I did have some sort of dream, pretty detailed but now I can’t remember it. I have been slacking with tracking my dreams lately. Mainly because they are unexpected. It is usually as though a curtain exists between me and what’s happening behind the scenes. I have come to accept that this is the way it needs to be and it will be revealed to me in time. I want to get back into tracking them and paying more attention to them. Truthfully, I have been slacking in a lot in the last few weeks. I am doing so much better in day to day activities but I am not as focused as I was. I am suffering from extreme exhaustion and been listening to that, honouring the tiredness. Resting is so difficult for me to do. I am new to this and it is okay.

Mid morning I went to a Iyengar yoga workshop for hips, knees and ankles. My lower back was killing me before I got there. Just what the doctor ordered. This form of yoga, or maybe the classes I have been going to, are really good at giving constructive feedback to form. It has made such a different. Today was another example of that. I was in a few poses and my lower back was hurting, not how it’s supposed to. I was brave and put my hand up to ask for additional instruction. I must have been the youngest in the class, and I am pretty sure I was in more pain than most. Shows you something. Anyway, with each additional instruction, the teacher nearly put her full weight on me to get my hips into the proper position. It was painful to get to the right position, but when I got through the uncomfortableness, it was an audible sigh of relief – and NO pain! Astonishing. I look forward to more classes with them. I have learned so much from this type of practice. After the class on the walk home, I was carrying myself differently. There was new space in me to be able to carry myself in that way. It felt really good. I am so glad I went.

I got home and ate a huge vego meal. It didn’t look very good but it tasted great and had such variety of vegetables. Adding this to the yoga class I had new found energy to do a 3-hour spring cleaning of the house. It felt so good to action. I did just move all my bits and pieces from the lounge into my office. So the office still needs to be attended to. I can do that this week. I even wiped down all the cupboards in the kitchen as well as the dishwasher, the fridge, the stove and the range hood. It looks and feels great! I was tired though.

Then the main event of the weekend was to go and see Moontricks perform. I was tired. It was meant to be seating in a beautiful theatre, and it still was, but everyone down the front was up dancing. It was really lovely to be out, to be with my friends. I noticed myself going inwards and stewing over how fucked up I am, how little confidence I have in the decisions I need to make about my life, and about how much easier my life would be if I wasn’t alive anymore. If I wasn’t alive anymore, all my problems would disappear. Then I would criticise myself for thinking that. These thoughts keep coming up, and so a part of me thinks about this and wants to be heard. I need to speak to my therapist about it. Lucky I didn’t cancel my appointment on Tuesday. I am the luckiest to have found her to help me.

I sat outside when I got home and started writing my opening chapter, or maybe the foreword to my book. It leads with this:

I read this Mother Theresa quote recently:

“These are the few ways we can practice humility:

To speak as little as possible of one’s self.

To mind one’s own business.

Not to want to manage other people’s affairs.

To avoid curiosity.

To accept contradictions and correction cheerfully.

To pass over the mistakes of others.

To accept insults and injuries.

To accept being slighted, forgotten and disliked.

To be kind and gentle even under provocation.

Never to stand on one’s dignity.

To choose always the hardest.”
― Mother Teresa, The Joy in Loving: A Guide to Daily Living

I am none of these things. I am not a saint. I have made many mistakes in my life. Who am I to write a book about healing? I keep delaying writing this book, and not putting my whole heart and soul into it, because I think I will get to a point where I won’t feel like a fraud. Well, it’s been three years now and I still keep going back to this not wanting to be alive phase. I am so fucked up, and yet I am healing. This is not a how-to manual. No, this is what I did and how I got through. I want to show you that it is not pretty, it is not easy, and it is worth it.

First steps: Quit drinking. Quit drugs. The irony is, there’s a lot of drinking and drug taking in this book. I did say it’s not a how-to manual. No, don’t do what I did. I can admit that I tend to find out things the hard way. I, not only find rock bottom, no, I like to drill down way past that point, just to be sure that way really doesn’t work. Then I have this realisation ‘hey, maybe this isn’t working’ and then the total opposite.

~~~

Something like that anyway. I want to admit that I feel like a fraud. I want to point out the things that people aren’t going to like about me straight away. I think that’s a defence mechanism.

Anyway, it’s late, I am tired. I want a peaceful rest with my kitty Cora and I would love to sleep in. I do think maybe the early wake ups are my plant medicine calling my bluff. ‘You wanna stay up late and not prioritise rest? Well, let’s see how you fare with early wake ups too, if you don’t like sleep’. I am nearly ready to listen to that. I wished so many time tonight that I was at home. Funny, just realised I didn’t wish I was asleep. I would also love support with my fear of going to sleep. It’s all a test before I level up again, and I am failing miserably.

Oh yeah, I forgot the part about laughing. Moontricks asked everyone to sing a capella with them. I had just finished telling my friend about how I wanted him to teach me guitar. He told me he wanted to teach me how to play piano too at the same time. I told him that I also wanted to get singing lessons. We hit the second round of the a capella. They turn the lights on for the audience in preparation. I start singing, I give it all I got, completely out of tune, way ahead of everyone else in the most silent part of the song. My friend hears me and we both just crack up laughing. We couldn’t stop laughing. He’s got his hands over his eyes, peeking out from behind, giving me side ways glances. He can’t even look at me. I can’t even look at him. The song is still going. I have my hand on my chest and I can feel this laughter coming from deep inside of me, it’s nearly painful. Eventually, through more laughter, I tell him that I feel so embarrassed. He’s making cringe noises and keeps laughing too. I said at some point that this was already in my top 10 highlights for the year. The hardest, and deepest laugh I have experienced in a long time. I can’t actually recall another time when laughter hit my chest in that way. I won’t forget it, and I hope there is more of that to come. My god, I deserve that type of laughter in my life.

My soul needed that.

Lots of love and deep rest,

Kate