Denial

Excerpt From
The Language of Letting Go
Melody Beattie
August 31

I’ve been recovering many years. I’ve used denial many times. It has been a defense, a survival device, a coping behavior, and, at times, almost my undoing. It has been both a friend and an enemy.

When I was a child, I used denial to protect myself and my family. I protected myself from seeing things too painful to see and feelings too overwhelming to feel. Denial got me safely through many traumatic situations, when I had no other resources for survival.

The negative aspect of using denial was that I lost touch with myself and my feelings. I became able to participate in harmful situations without even knowing I was hurting. I was able to tolerate a great deal of pain and abuse without the foggiest notion it was abnormal.

I learned to participate in my own abuse.

Denial protected me from pain, but it also rendered me blind to my feelings, my needs, and myself. It was like a thick blanket that covered and smothered me.

Eventually I began to recover. I had a glimpse of awareness about my pain, my feelings, my behaviors. I began to see myself, and the world, as we were. There was so much denial from my past that had the blanket been entirely ripped from me, I would have died from the shock of exposure. I needed to embrace insights, remembrances, awareness, and healing gently, gradually.

Life participated in this process with me. It is a gentle teacher. As I recovered, I was brought to the incidents and people I needed in order to remind me of what I was still denying, to tell me where I required more healing from my past, as I could handle these insights.

I still use, and break through, denial—as needed. When the winds of change blow through, upsetting a familiar structure and preparing me for the new, I pick up my blanket and hide, for a while. Sometimes, when someone I love has a problem, I hide under the blanket, momentarily. Memories emerge of things denied, memories that need to be remembered, felt, and accepted so I can continue to become healed—strong and healthy.

Sometimes, I feel ashamed about how long it takes me to struggle through to acceptance of reality. I feel embarrassed when I find myself again clouded by the fog of denial.

Then something happens, and I see that I am moving forward. The experience was necessary, connected, not at all a mistake, but an important part of healing.

It’s an exciting process, this journey called recovery, but I understand I may sometimes use denial to help me get through the rough spots. I’m also aware that denial is a friend, and an enemy. I’m on the alert for danger signs: those cloudy, confused feelings . . . sluggish energy . . . feeling compulsive . . . running too fast or hard . . . avoiding support mechanisms.

I’ve gained a healthy respect for our need to use denial as a blanket to wrap ourselves in when we become too cold. It isn’t my job to run around ripping people’s blankets off or shaming others for using the blanket. Shaming makes them colder, makes them wrap themselves more tightly in the blanket. Yanking their blanket away is dangerous. They could die of exposure, the same way I could have.

I’ve learned the best thing I can do around people who are wrapped in this blanket is to make them feel warm and safe. The warmer and safer they feel, the more able they are to drop their blanket. I don’t have to support or encourage their denial. I can be direct. If others are in denial about a particular thing, and their activity is harmful to me, I don’t have to be around them. I can wish them well and take care of myself. You see, if I stand too long around someone who is harming me, I will inevitably pick up my blanket again.

I tend to be attracted to warm people. When I’m around warm people, I don’t need to use my blanket. I’ve gained respect for creating warm environments, where blankets are not needed, or at least not needed for long. I’ve gained trust in the way people heal from and deal with life.

God, help me be open to and trust the process that is healing me from all I have denied from my past. Help me strive for awareness and acceptance, but also help me practice gentleness and compassion for myself—and others—for those times I have used denial.

Walking the red trail at Wilco Park

I came up with this idea and, at the time, I thought it would be really cool. It turned out pretty much like I assumed but at this point, I am somewhat dubious about the concept.

The idea is to display this on your big screen t.v., sit back, listen to the gentle music, and take a virtual walk down a trail. But, is anyone really going to want to do that for a half hour? I guess we'll see.

The trail is marked as the red trail at "Wilco Park" whose official name is Southwest Williamson County Regional Park located in Leadner.

I will am interested in feedback on this. I hope you enjoy it.

Take care and God bless

More Flowers at Devine Lake Park and a few critters as well

Different lens ... Yeah! 😀 So I was able to get a decent image of the "Large Milkweed Bug" and the dragonfly.

I don't have much to add. I hope you enjoy the images and have a glorious day!

Hill Country Water Gardens & Nursery

As a change of pace, I decided to go shoot flowers today. "The Pond Place", as I call it, has a lot of flowers around it and before it opens it is a nice quiet place to photograph flowers and the critters that visit. To really capture the critters though, I need (you guessed it) a different lens. So, that will be a project in a few days most likely.

I did capture a butterfly that Google says is a Cloud Skipper using its extremely long proboscis to get pollen.

I hope you enjoy the images.

When the Anti-Matter Shields First Collapsed

The first time I remember them collapsing was in tenth grade.

I had worked hard to try out for the All Region Band. This was in the Dallas / Ft. Worth region which was suppose to be one of the hardest. The judges were to select the best musicians of the 10th, 11th, and 12th grades. I was only in the 10th grade.

The competition involved playing several pieces: I don't remember how many. I was in percussion. Aside from snare drum there were "keys" such as marimba and xylophone but timpani was separated out.

The keys is an interesting connection. My mother got me into band in the first place because she didn't want me in gym class. With my trach, I can't blow hard enough for any musical instrument and our band at that time was just wind and percussion -- no strings. We had met with the principal when I was going to enter 7th grade and she had pointed out that with my piano background, I could play things like chimes. I'm not really sure why we had the meeting but in any case, I was signed up for band. Band members were not forced to take gym which was my mother's main goal.

While she did go to all of the concerts, she didn't actually support me in percussion. I eventually bought my own snare drum from money I earned from my paper routes as well as paid for private lessons. The other oddity is she never actually wanted me to take piano. Her dream was for me to learn to play the organ. What I never understood is she had talked herself into the idea that learning piano first would be a stepping stone to organ. And I remember on a few occasions she made fun of the fact I was in percussion.

In the 7th grade, I went to band and I practiced but only marginally cared. Another regular competition for band members was a yearly solo contest. The participants are not ranked 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc but given quality evaluations: 1st division, 2nd division, and 3rd division from highest performance quality to lowest. And there were also degrees of solos with 1 being the hardest and 3 being the easiest. I know I got a 2nd division and I believe the solo was ranked 3 in hardness. My classmate got a 1 on his equally ranked solo.

In 8th grade, I slipped to a 3rd division on probably a solo ranked as a 2 in hardness. As I said, I didn't really try hard. Perhaps I was upset with getting a 3 but I honestly can't recall why but I got a spark to be better.

In 9th grade I got a 1st division and, again, I don't recall if the solo was ranked 1 or 2 in hardness but I am pretty sure in 10th grade I got a 1st division on a solo ranked 1 in hardness.

Back to the All Region Band contest, I ended up getting the last chair in the All Region Band. There were actually two bands, the first and second. The judges were suppose to pick five percussionists for each band but they ended up adding a 6th, me, into the second band. Thus I had placed 11th out of the entire Dallas / Ft. Worth region while in the 10th grade without any support from my family, paying for my own equipment and lessons. A fairly dramatic turn around from the low point in 8th grade.

You may not believe this but I was immediately immensely depressed when I heard the news that I had been selected. Now what do I do? It seemed clear that I was able to achieve anything I wanted to if I put my mind to it. But I could never think of anything that I felt was really worth doing. I ended up quitting band that year.

Nothing mattered.

Small Tribute to Jon Dee Graham

I took this image on July 18th, 2003 at around 10:30 at night in a bar called the Saxon Pub on South Congress. I met with Jon after this to share some of my images. He liked this one the most, as do I, and kept a copy.

Jon and I had a number of mutual aquantences 😉. I thought his music was extremely relatable and moving. I believe I only saw him perform that one time but I listen to his CDs often.

Jon passed away this past March. I discovered this sometime in April, went back and found this image, and it has been sitting on my desktop since. I wanted somehow to share it but I don't know anyone at this point who knew him so it just sat.

Today I decided to just post it here on this blog. I hope you enjoy the image. I hope, if you haven't already, look up and discover his music.

More Images on Jon

God bless Jon...

New Summer Tanager video -- not much else happening

I went to Devine Lake Park. I saw very few birds: Killdears and a Summer Tanager is about it.. A lot of dragonflies. It was already 82º by the time I left at 8 a.m.