I have an assignment for MBSR this week to notice and write down one unpleasant thing that occurs each day. As soon as our instructor gave us this assignment, I realized I had my first unpleasant experience! I really don't like this assignment, it makes me uncomfortable. Our instructor, her name is Kate, probably knew this was likely to happen, thus that is why it is the assignment, I assume. I still don't like it.
I've spent the past few years really trying to think about everything but unpleasant things. I have worked very hard to concentrate on positive, life-enhancing, zen producing things. For a nasty time in my life, unpleasant thoughts consumed me.
My life has been challenging. My lovely, young mother passed away when I was only 12 years old form cancer. I was the oldest of three girls that my alcoholic father did his best to raise. Ultimately, that proved too difficult for him and he committed suicide in our home. My youngest sister, barely 16 found him. We were now orphans, and we basically scattered, each of us trying to find a place of comfort and safety. Amazingly, we grew up, married and started families, but the scars of our childhood ran deep and often tore open.
I married Ken and at age 30 gave birth to beautiful Tessa. At age 34, while pregnant with Torrie, I got breast cancer. My life with Ken and my children has been exceptional. I bulldozered through 14 years of fighting reoccurring cancer like a trooper, then a few years ago, I hit a wall. A big, dark, ugly wall.
I started feeling jittery, antsy and scatterbrained. Sometimes my pulse would race and my throat would feel tight. I thought I was having heart problems. It turned out to be anxiety and it got worse, every day. With the anxiety came a feeling of "nothingness". It was like someone had turned the light off inside of my soul. I no longer felt attached to my husband, to my children, or to God. I could no longer feel His presence. It was a darkness I had never felt before and never want to feel again. I was beginning to get a glimpse of what my father described in the letter he left behind and it terrified me.
Thank goodness, no, thank God, I had the wherewithal to seek help. I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety, in addition to PTSD. All of the feelings that I had snuffed barreling through cancer, chemo, radiation, procedures and surgeries finally caught up with me. The fear I had never let myself experience had me in a paralyzing grip. For a while.
After some medication, time and much prayer, the God that carried me and left only one set of footprints, helped me to find my way out of the heavy, dreary grayness, and back to the brilliant light that is called LIFE.
That was three years ago, and that was the catalyst of my returning to school and becoming a certified Pastoral Counselor. My desire is to help those whose souls have been battered and want to become whole again. Even as challenges present themselves to me and my health, I now have the tools to meet these obstacles, and accept without being consumed by them.
So yes, I don't like to focus on the negative things each day, but for the assignment, I will.
Today, our new pup Bella had an accident in the dining room. It was unpleasant. Very unpleasant.
Assignment done!
Kim
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