A Bushel and a Peck

Broken Falling Turning Over and over Writhing Bleeding Peeling off my own skin Get me out of this worthless prison How did I get trapped here again? Discarded Discard myself before you can Let you know I know my own worthlessness Promise to try to make up for it Just please love me Please I fall short Always I'm sorry. I'll just go Give up Break again Rescued Again I hate myself for it Again Begrudging rescue is almost like love It's close enough that I'll settle for it But resent myself all the while For being so pathetic Who taught me to love this way? Guarded requests Expecting rejection Scrambling for crumbs Trying not to count on them Trying not to believe I deserve them Hoping I can someday find a way to earn them So I can stop hating myself Vulnerable I hate that word Weak Helpless Unlovable Undesirable Stupid Pathetic Burden These are the feelings I've associated with vulnerability Being "vulnerable"...

I've chosen a word for the year. No resolutions or jumbles of seemingly unrelated goals. Just a single word to center my efforts, thoughts, and feelings around. My word is POWER. Between Christmas and New Years, I began thinking on what word I wanted to choose for 2018 and couldn't decide on anything. I'd been struggling with a little anxiety and found myself thinking the phrase, "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear..." over and over. This is something people have told me periodically throughout my life, when I try to explain the anxiety I've so often experienced. "God doesn't speak to us through fear..." How I wanted to believe that! But the fear I regularly experienced was almost tangible - I couldn't just be making all of this up! And what if I chose to tell myself I was just being silly and it turned out that was  God's way of speaking to me? What if I missed something important? At any rate, I decided to look up th...

Deeply rooted belief/fear I'm finally coming to terms with: "I'm emotionally alone in the world and always will be. I don't deserve to have anyone consistently care about my emotional needs." Ouch. Ouch ouch ouch!! Naming and examining this subconscious belief is so painful. I've spent SO much time and energy trying to escape from this painful hole in my heart. I've spent SO much time and energy vacillating between seeking people's love and shutting them out. I've spent SO much time in emotional "survival mode" that I couldn't really live my life. Emotional support is a basic human need. Basic. Especially in our "first world" society, where physical survival is not a constant issue for most of us, emotional wellbeing is huge. I've essentially been depriving myself of seeking out emotional support because I've been so afraid of what will happen if I trust someone and they betray me. At the first hint of the ...