November 20, 2004

• Life’s Little Mysteries
  
  Someone left me a question in my guestbook, wanted to know what “that”
  is a picture of.  On the assumption that the “that” in question is
  the snowy profile pic currently up there, it is a poorly-aimed
  self-portrait.  “That”, if that is the picture you mean, is peachy
  sunset light illuminating a heavy load of snow and hoarfrost on the
  trees around here, and on my head and shoulders from a little walk
  through the woods.  I’ve gotten a little better with my camera aim
  since I did that a couple of winters ago.

  ---

  Just to clear up any misunderstanding…

  The note to myself about disabling comments when I whine and vent was
  not because I receved any unkind or critical comments.  It is just
  because I cannot stand to be “poor babied”, as a few of my long-term
  readers have learned to their chagrin.  [Yeh, Lucky, I mean you.]  I don’t vent to get
  sympathy.  I vent to get the feelings out.  It’s a
  therapeutic technique, not a sign of weakness.  The weaklings are
  the ones who hold it all in and let it eat at them because they’re afraid of appearing
  weak. 

  Perhaps I should not have used the word, “whine,” because
  if you’d have heard my voice describing the events of those two days
  and nights the tone would have been something between irony and
  disgust, and nowhere near agony.

  I have recently had a major personal insight about pain.  Do you
  know about “conditioning”, about the way something we practice over and
  over becomes automatic and unconscious?  My use of the painswitch
  technique has become that way.  I live with a disease that has
  many neuromuscular symptoms, one of which is chronic pain — but the
  only time I feel any “pain” now is when a big, severe one catches me by
  surprise.  You know the kind of pain that nauseates you and makes
  you go weak in the knees and dizzy?  Those will get my
  attention.  The milder, moderate “pains” are not pain for me any
  more.  They are just sensations of one sort or another: 
  pressure, tension, inflammation, “electric” feelings, cold, etc. 

  Used to be, they’d start out feeling like pain and then I’d apply the technique,
  and the “pain” would go away, leaving one of those other, more specific
  sensations.  Now, for the mild to moderate sensations, at least in
  my conscious mind, I just skip
  the “pain” part altogether.  There must still be some unconscious
  awareness, because a hefty collection of such sensations will tend to
  disturb my sleep and make me a little distracted and cranky.

  I became aware of that recently when I was doing a little
  self-inventory, a bit of the Work on Self that has paid off so
  wondrously for me.  I was just observing myself, paying attention
  to what’s going on in here as opposed to out there, when I noticed a
  collection of sensations that in a less-evolved state I would have
  called “pain”.  But they are not pain. 

  The one in my scalp is actually a sort of fizzy feeling, and across my
  shoulders there’s a buzz, with a sensation in one spot there that feels
  like something sharp poking me.  My left biceps area feels hot and
  my right foot feels chilled.  Until I just now shifted my position
  on my ergonomic office chair, there was a pulling, tearing sensation in
  the skin on both shins.  That one was sufficiently uncomfortable
  to get enough of my attention to cause me to shift position.  My
  stomach feels empty, and I’ve got a sinus that feels heavy and
  congested.  My blood sugar is low because I’ve not had my
  breakfast yet, and that’s making my head sorta spin, with a dull achey
  feeling high up. 

  Gotta go eat.  Seeya later.

  

  • 11:41 am
  • 4 Comments