Ah

Such an interesting topic

I do things in staccato. Short bursts of whatever. It's how I ride, I speak, I type, I do (did) yoga.... possibly not the best way of being, but that which is natural to me.

So when it comes to dealing with things, I have great methods of coping with short term stress. I've learned to visualize myself surrounded by butterflies. This works particularly well when riding on a road bike and feeling very vulnerable in the traffic. This is a hard thing to maintain when the difficulty or fear lasts more than through that one activity...when it's something that has affected your life.

Although I feel like I'm a happy and lucky person, there have been some difficult situations that have made me (and usually DH too) feel very alone, and, since I'm not one who easily asks for help, the feeling of aloneness lasts a long time.

If there's any truth to emotions changing our physical lives, whatever is wrong in my guts right now might be a direct result of not having coped well with those difficult times in the past. I've made efforts to take this difficult time and try to cope with it better.

What am I doing differently? Listening to my body better. I rest when I feel the need to rest, I start each day with gentle slow yoga (not the powerful too-fast yoga full of one-legged and arm balances that I used to do), when I thought I had an answer and it evaporated earlier this week, I vented - I was disappointed, sad, a little angry and I posted here, and called friends, and emailed friends, and told myself I could be sad for an evening. That was Monday and today I truly feel happy and there will be resolve from this.

I think maybe I'm learning to be less staccato, at least some of the time. That's probably good for coping.

Of course, through everything, taking pictures is as magical and powerful and connecting to earth's amazing energy for me as a church is to someone religious. It's important to have something like that in your life.

I have no idea if this makes any sense to anyone. I've written this post in staccato, too....I've gotten up several times while writing this!

Hugs and butterflies,
~T~