Adventures du Jour:
I was hoping for restful sleep but instead woke up early and miserable. In retrospect it makes sense; I wrote down some taboo things yesterday about religion and being controlled. So I was feeling down and my right hip was in a state of OWFUCK this morning.
Yoga: working on reading Yoga Anatomy by Leslie Kaminoff and Amy Andrews, taking it in small chunks because I keep running into stuff I have to stop and think about. Each individual sentence is comprehensible, but they’re the kind of comprehensible sentences that seem to be pointed in incomprehensible, or at least brain-stretching, directions.
From the book:
Chapter 1: Anatomy as a Story
The story of yoga and the study of Western anatomy are deep and rich fields that offer way to organize our understanding of ourselves and how we move, think, feel, and experience the world. These studies give us ways to engage with questions about the nature of life, what it is to be human, how our existence began, and what its purpose might be.
…
What that sounds like is “yoga woo!” But what it also sounds like is “we’re going to identify where in the physical body–down to the exact muscle if need be–you can process life’s big questions.”
Flipping through the rest of the book, it looks like they make an earnest effort to do just that. However, the way the book is written, it’s pretty much useless for me to skip ahead: I have no idea what they’re talking about yet.
I did my (updated) yoga routine, used a chair and STILL wobbled through the new balance pose, and whined internally every second until I got off the mat. As one does.
Walking: Additional whining ensued. “I just dragged my ass through feeling like crap. Whyyyyyyy? Don’t I get to feel better for one day?!?” Hip hurt. Eventually I stopped and listened to it, trying to figure it out. It’s a different muscle this time, right at the top of the hip. I ran through a series of thoughts to see what made it tense up, and my little internal Wheel of Misfortune stopped at “I’m afraid of hurting people.”–Yesterday I was thinking about how scared I am of violence, aggression, stuff like that. I know, too, that I fear my own capacity for violence, manipulation, evil. (Why wouldn’t I? Carrying someone else’s discomfort with themselves on those things used to be my job, and it wouldn’t have been a very satisfactory job if I hadn’t internalized their fears as my own!)
Mr. Assassin came out (not very clearly) so he could find out the answers too. Having him there helped; I could talk to him instead of to myself. “If someone is fucking with you and the people you care about, *shouldn’t* you have a capacity to fight back on some level? Shouldn’t you be able to defend yourself?”
Literally under a minute later, I got catcalled for the first time since I moved to the new apartment. I gave the guy a look and he noped right off. I got catcalled again later, same thing, and finally a guy begging for cash decided to walk aggressively into my personal space but noped right off as well after a second glance. I didn’t even say anything! I was also smiled/waved at by a variety of people.–I was wearing the outfit I took the full-body pose in, loose pants and a loose t-shirt.
I don’t think I want to give off “GRAH AGGRESSIVE SCARY” vibes; I like being a goob and it delights me to talk freely to strangers most of the time. But I do want to be able to stand up for myself and others. (I’ve said this before.)
Anyway: I can sort of accept that I have a capacity for dark things that apparently were showing on my face this morning in reaction to having my boundaries crossed.
I don’t need to erase or “forget” them. They are not just false images that my mom and my ex handed me, but also internal to myself, regardless of their source. I’m not going to be punished for “being evil” as some sort of free-floating status.
I will also have to face consequences for my actions, although I’m gonna say that I don’t need to face consequences for other people’s emotions and inability to process them. Other people’s reactions can be their own problems. I get to be myself, as I find that to be.–There’s something Mr. Assassin says to Goth Girl when she says she’s being too much: “Be more.” We’ll go with that.
–Another thing I noticed was that the right hip and the left shoulder kind of hurt “together,” not at the same level necessarily, but with some sort of interconnectedness. Left shoulder: “I am afraid of being hurt.” Right hip: “I am afraid of hurting others.”
In between them is the solar plexus, seat of authenticity. Ehhhh…for a while they both decided to hurt at the same time. It felt like being painfully aware of one of my puppet strings. I didn’t get things completely worked out and kept walking off the sidewalk as my hip decided we were going *that* way.
Made it home (ow ow ow!) and did a bunch of practical things that need doing. Today kicks off NaNoWriMo, which I’ll be effectively doing (by writing 50K words this month), but it feels weird to sign up for. Anyway, I’ll figure it out.
Messing around with Midjourney on a cute demon prompt. It’s adorable. The power hasn’t flickered at all yet this morning; here’s hoping that it stays stable. I have shit to do on that other computer. Shooting zombies last night was particularly NICE, though.
I’m still disappointed that I didn’t get any trick-or-treaters last night!