Maybe it’s just my nature to be unhappy, dissatisfied. Maybe it’s true that no matter how good my life is, I will always find something to hate about it. Maybe it could all be better if I could just get a better attitude.

No matter how awesome my job might be, I will always find something to bitch about. No matter how great my friends are, I never feel loved enough. No matter how wonderful my partner is, I will always find fault with him. And on, ad nauseum.

I’ve been happy before, for long stretches of time even. The kind of happy where you wake up looking forward to the day and what it might bring. Lately, when I try to look at my life and make a list of all the good, all that I should be grateful for, I see so much to be happy about. But I’m just not happy. And I don’t know why, I don’t know what’s missing. I’ve had depression for a long, long time. More than half my life. But for many of those years, even though I’d get horribly depressed, I still had this sense of somthing magical about my life. I’ve lost touch with that somehow.

Is that magical thing really just hope?

Depression, you fucking suck. I want my perspective back.

Maybe there isn’t anything missing. Maybe there’s just too much of something. Could I just be tired? Exhausted, I mean – spirtually, physically, mentally, emotionally? I never feel like I’m doing enough, but maybe I’m tyring to do too much right now. If I was healing from any other extended illness, would I be harshing on myself for not getting all my chores done? I don’t think so.

So hard to be kind to myself, to be compassionate.

But I did do a lot today. We made marzipan animals and finished a couple more penguins. I sorted out a bunch of c’s old clothes & bagged them up. I did a bunch of dishes and took out a lot of garbage. Hurt my back lifing the trampoline.

This is going nowhere. I think I should go meditate for a little bit.

Maybe I’ll start getting up early in the morning, before anyone else, to make sure I get some time to myself during the day. Maybe I’ll start going to bed early too. I feel like I need to make some kind of change, I feel like I’m just spinning my wheels.

I didn’t like the way I was talking to c today. I felt like I was channeling my mother. I try really hard not to guilt c about anything, because that shit is poision. Today, I heard myself saying things like: Why do you do that, when you know gum doesn’t go on the chair? Do you do it just to make more work for me? Do you not want me to have any time to play with you? Maybe you’re just trying to make me crazy?

Holy shit. That’s awful. And I knew it was awful as the words were coming out of my mouth, but I didn’t stop it. Not right away anyway. But I did stop, and then I talked to her and told her that I know that she’s just little and that’s why she makes mistakes, and I said I was sorry for being a grouch. But still. Who the fuck was that, saying that shit?

The one prayer I constantly pray is please please please let me not fuck her up. Please.

And the more I pray it the more I see that the only way, the only answer to that prayer is to fix myself. That’t the only way.

I just started reading A Path With Heart by Jack Kornfield a couple of weeks ago. It’s a book to be read slowly, digested a bit at a time, which is so not my style. I inhale books. This book, however, requires lots of thoughtful attention.

There are a lot of bits already that I would like to quote and discuss, but I’m picking this one for this post:

When you meditate, try to allow whatever arises to move through you as it will. Let your attention be very kind. Layers of tension will gradually release, and energy will begin to move. Places in your body where you have held the patterns of old illness and trauma will open. then a deeper physical purification and opening of the energy channels will occur as the knots release and dissolve. Sometimes with this opening we will experience a powerful movement of the breath, sometimes a spontaneous vibration and other physical sensations.

Let your attention drop beneath the superficial level that just notices “pleasure,” “tension,” or “pain.” Examine the pain and unpleasant sensations you usualy block out. With careful mindfulness, you will allow “pain” to show itself to have many layers. As a first step, we can learn to be aware of pain without creating further tension, to experience and observe pain physically as pressure, tightness, pinpricks, needles, throbbing, or burning. Then we can notice all the layers around the “pain.” Inside are the strong elements of fire, vibration, and pressure. Outside is oftern a layer of physical tightness and contraction. Beyond this may be an emotional layer of aversion, anger, or fear and a layer of thoughts and attitudes such as, “I hope this will go away soon,” or “If I feel pain, I must be doing something wrong,” or “Life is always painful.” To heal, we must beome aware of all these layers.

I was, of course, reading this while lying in bed, and as I finished this passage my eyes crossed and the book fell from my hand and so I figured I might give it a try – this meditation of exploring pain. I made myself comfortable on my back and shut my eyes and let my mind drift.

Almost immediately I had this mental picture of myself, laying there with these bands of energy all around my upper torso. This is weird in itself because I am not usually a visual thinker, and if I am able to visualize something it’s with a lot of dilberate effort. But there I was, with these bands around my upper arms and chest and back. The bands were forcing my shoulders up towards my ears, and my whole posture was of someone cowering defensively on the bed and I thought “Jesus, I look like I’m afraid that someone’s going to come in and beat me.”

And that is the attitued surrounding my pain. I am afraid of it, constantly tensed up in anticipation of it, even with many mgs of morphine flowing through my bloodstream. It’s habitual, this defensive posture, and it speaks to my attitude about life in general lately. It’s like I’m just waiting for the next blow to fall.

And somehow, in the midst of this vision, that kindess Kornfield talks about entered my consciousness. I was able to see that things were really hard and painful, and for a while my pain had to be secondary to the pain of my partner’s shattered ankle, and I had to function for both of us and the only way I could do it was to keep pounding down more drugs.

Now, that time is passing. His ankle is slowly healing and he is making heroic efforts to help me, now that I have reached the limits of my ability to function. And as these thoughts floated around my mind, I started to relax a little bit, and felt my shoulders lower**, and I even started to feel my chest opening and relaxing and the chakra there trying to stir. Then, I passed out. Well, I guess I fell asleep, but it was so abrupt and the nap ended such a short time later that it almost seemed like I fainted. I don’t even remember it, just waking up like WTHuh?

That was a beautiful gift, that vision, and the ability to see myself with compassion. I hope to try that meditation again soon, and maybe stay awake and see what’s in the next layer, and the next. And to practice that kindess to myself, just to observe myself as a person who hurts, and needs comfort and love, who deserves those things regardless of whether I brought my hurts unto myself or not. That is healing.

**I have noticed that the two times I’ve gone to a certain resort with an awesome sauna and hot-tubs, when I left my shoulders felt about 5 inches lower than usual. I want to be more aware of that posture, as I’m sure it contributes both to physical pain and to a psychic attitude of defensiveness and fear. In fact, right now my shoulders are making friends with my ears. Perhaps a hot bath before I turn in for the night, for tomorrow I will go ask for a chance to change my life.