alighting

What can you do when you feel disappointment with yourself? You can say, I will try again. As I stated in the last entry, a relative of mine is a good example to me regarding how to climb out of the hole. Yet, I am now faced with other holes. There are things that I confront every day. Exhausting things.Things that I wish I could shake off and laugh at. But the effort to ignore them ...and that's just it...ignore suggests to me to pretend that I don't see them. Again, that trauma from childhood worked itself very well into my psyche...that sense of failure...that belief that I was just no good! It made a permanent stain on me. But I was also lucky because I found early successes too. I had some very strong moments that I pulled out of myself. I am writing this morning to remind myself of that part of me...and I also remind myself that I was having a conversation on day two of said volanteerism about being mindful of one's confidence, one's strength...cultivating a sense of wonder and acceptance of who you are and all that is possible through you is key. I think that that is my saving grace. I also said that acknowledging the sides of myself that I struggle with that I just don't like...like the tantrum throwing...it came about because that is also me. When people say, 'that's not me.' To me that is always absurd. Of course it's you! It is very you. I cannot accept myself and ignore the parts that make me feel that my veneer is slipping. I am ugly, I am cranky, I am stupid, I am lazy, I am a lot of things along with brilliant and kind and funny and charming. So, I was done in by my absolute acceptance that I was worhtless in the eyes of other children or authority figures who judged me.But I also deflected the blows by sensing that those words could not hurt me. I was way more than those words could dent. I am never to forget that. It is only that sometimes, that old gramophine plays and its dented melody scrapes across my emotions and leaves a whiff of doubt and fear and I sometimes don't feel that I am nimble enough to remind myself of better, and that comes about when I am so high in my thoughts about getting to the finished line only to see the horizon change on me. So, yeh, I act as one would expect...I rail, I weep! I throw a tantrum! I have said to my students. it is ok to throw a tantrum. To scream and cry and say it is unfare. But it is not good to live there. PART 5