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bebesempai · 7 years

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Knots

Fitting. My tummy all in knots. I spent a little time this morning feeling hung up over a friend who blew me off. Cancelled on me 5 or 6 times in a row until I got the hint: stop trying. My rational mind says it's her, not me, but since she never said anything, I wondered if there was something about me she just didn't like. I don't think I could have done or said anything differently, but it just makes me a bit sad when I thought of her as a friend.

I went to therapy last night. We talked about my physical manifestations of anxiety, how conscious of it I've become, and the courtroom dream I had the other night (see my first post), which she agreed was significant and symbolic of this consciousness.

I said to her, "you know I realize I'm getting older, and I have a finite time here in this life and I'd like to spend the rest of it free of all this." The constant triggers, the self-doubt, guilt, shame, self-consciousness. It's like carrying around chains. It builds up in my sleep and I wake up feeling uneasy and/or achy.

A few years ago I had chronic lower back pain. I went to an orthopedist, an acupuncturist, massage therapist, and a chiropractor who told me to stand a certain way, don't try to run, keep coming back, and stop taking jiujitsu, which really threw me for a loop because jiujitsu had become the best thing in my life after my daughter.

And so a friend of mine recommended I read Dr. John Sarno's Healing Back Pain. Because it helped him, and it helped Howard Stern, so I suppose it could help me, too. I didn't pay anything to go see him--I simply read the book. The book explains that there are psychological roots to chronic physical pain, and you don't have to necessarily solve the mental or emotional problems in your life to get rid of the pain--you just have to realize the connection.

I was a psychology student and took an Asian martial art, and everyone that studies those things knows about the mind-body connection, so it wasn't hard for me to grasp. I'd also read stories of women who'd been sexually abused or had hurtful relationships, who then developed cancer in their sexual organs, and I felt this was no coincidence.

Anyway, I read the book and grasped its concepts and bam! My back pain disappeared. I quit going to the chiropractor, went back to jiujitsu, and even started running again, which I hadn't done since I was about 13.

The pain did come back a few years later, and guess what? I read the book again, and the pain went away again. More slowly this time, but it went away. Again a short time after I started getting acid reflux. I made a few temporary changes in my diet and thought about the book, and it also went away.

So these physical manifestations of anxiety (or depression) are real. Freud was definitely on to something. I thought, the mind is a very powerful thing, it's my stromgest "muscle" and it has the power to lift me to great heights or destroy me. And not just me, but everyone around me--like a ripple effect.

So the part of my brain that says, replace anxiety with creativity, is the path I keep hopping back on, more and more.

Yesterday I learned a few knots. First, I watched Bespangled Jewelry's video on how to make single, double and triple knots. Et voilà:

Then I watched "7 knots you need to know--or you're a sissy." I learned a couple of those...pretty proud of my clove hitch:

And finally, I found a website called Rings & Things, which had a basic recipe for a macramé beaded bracelet. I'm not gonna show you that one yet. It's a little harder than they make it look so I'm gonna practice a little bit and I will be back soon with my results.

#healingbackpain #creativetherapy #meditation #crafting #beading

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