Unchaining The Iron Ball of Expectation

Jul 20, 2012 by Hayley Cafarella

Dear Audy,

Feeling unsettled is rarely pleasant. I find it quite ridiculous how much humans are prone to enjoying routine when we live in a world of constant fluctuation. It’s like this strange little secret that we must discover about existence before being able to move past this source of anxiety. Things aren’t going to stop changing. They just aren’t. I am in a particularly rocky period of change and adjustment, but I need to combat it head on rather than floundering about in a state of denial.

I am continuing with Scenar treatments, my body is responding plenty, yet is still a bit unpredictable. The most recent sessions have been lowering my pain, which is wonderful! I won’t explain more about what these treatments involve until I have some sort of concrete idea of the results for me and can describe the experience with something other than confusion.

The brain fog has been on more than off and I have been enduring some emotional stormy weather. It’s weird to be back in this place of turbulent feelings, when I know that I have dealt with them before. Overcoming the tricks of my mind often involves a new method for the same old material. The perspective that led me out of a similar emotional down point doesn’t necessarily apply to the stress that I am currently facing.

Things aren’t going to stop changing. They just aren’t. There is suffering, but there are also ways past it. Ways, plural. Life isn’t simple mathematics.

I think that the reason I am feeling upset about recent increases in unpredictability from my body are that I’m feeling stress and pressure to be doing things more than and other than what I feel like I need to do for my health. I feel like I need to be coping at the level I was coping at before I commenced Scenar treatments. Rationally, I know this isn’t true, yet I am finding that rationality hasn’t been quite enough to let go of feeling this pressure.

One of the factors playing into this is that during a period of better health, I am much better at making plans. I can see a future, a slightly stable future and then I want to fill it up with wonderful things to do. When things change and my health dips, it’s hard to let go of these plans. They become an iron ball chained to my ankle, trailing along after me and holding me back. Wearing such a weight makes focusing on what I need to do to continue improving amongst setbacks a difficult thing to achieve.

(source)

Too often, I’m just sitting and staring down at the ball. Just watching it. Unable to leave it behind, unable to accomplish its demands. Frozen between desire to act, incapability and the perceived expectations of others. I perceive that others expect the things that I planned when I was well enough to plan them and worry that I am not able to sufficiently communicate that my situation is different now.

Overwhelmed-Caf very much longs for the communication skills of Regular-Caf, but we’re just not pouring from the same pot of tea. O-Caf’s pot is deCaf (Ha), it just doesn’t turn on the energy switches quite like R-Caf’s. O-Caf forgets basic things like how to respond to messages or think outside of O-Caf’s immediate surroundings. O-Caf spends too much time feeling sorry and badly about her inadequacies and has a massive inferiority complex in regards to R-Caf.

Basically, O-Caf can be a bit of a dick. But, I have to work with her and so we’re trying to get to know each other better. Befriend the enemy and then you don’t have an enemy. If I can blend the positive parts of my coping personas together then I will become OR-Caf and that sounds like a chick that would be getting shit done. Life wouldn’t be able to mess with OR-Caf, she’s too capable of finding new ways around her problems.

Get upset, or what? OR-Caf, that’s what.

Next week is National Pain Week. I had planned to have many things up and running and happening and dancing away by now, but none of that has happened. I am sad about this. I need to stop being sad about this, it’s just giving that stupid iron ball extra weight. Rather than focusing on what I haven’t been about to do, I’d like to direct you to the National Pain Week website, where you can see what other people have been able to do.

Such as organising a Festival of Hope in Sydney at the end of next week. A festival that I will be attending. You know, in a whole other state to the one where my bed lives. I wish this wasn’t a big deal to me and I’m trying to squash its inflated ego of dealiness but going away from home is a source of anxiety for me. Past trips have included sleep difficulties to the point of total sleep absence, exhaustion, increased pain and emotional trauma. This doesn’t mean the upcoming trip will include those, it’s just hard to shake off past problems when similar situations are impending.

I am currently putting a lot of effort into visualising myself sleeping at night and attending the things I will be attending in Sydney and seeing everything happen smoothly and within the realm of things that I can handle. Yep, I’m using The Secret. Because I’d hate to accidentally use it to manifest an awful trip away for myself through fear and dread. I mentioned that O-Caf isn’t always rational, right?

I have a week to spend sorting through my anxiety and preparing to be OR-Caf. I’m going to kick up my pain rehab and meditation practises to attempt to get a handle on this. Please forgive my lack of message/comment replies and my absence from completing our plans to catch up or meet, or whatever it was that we were planning. I need some time and space to get on top of my pain and anxiety, that’s all. I need to rest and relax and unchain this iron ball from my ankle.

I need to let go of plans and expectations in order to heal, deal with what is, as it is now, and then bounce back to functioning. I’m going on a quiet, internal adventure and then an external, adventure adventure. All I can promise is that I’m going to cope as best I can and this might involve some radio silence, overjoyed updates, or various Twitter rants. I don’t know yet.

Whatever may come, I’ll write when I can.

Love & Preparation,
Caf

More about me…

Follow me on Twitter

Join me on Facebook

Subscribe on Youtube