Yesterday's therapy sucked

so one would think that the therapy one pays for would be affirming and make one feel better. yesterday's did not. i suppose that's ok because maybe it's just poking at stuff i need to look at, but don't want to. the bulk of it centered around my relationship with karen - which left me feeling misunderstood and judged. i guess that's a common occurrence. i think it's just hard because it'd be nice to be able to go somewhere and have someone "get it". it's not that i think that everything in my relationship with karen is a-ok - there are problems. i get it. but i also think that it's not wrong for me to want to be of support to her AND have a relationship with my girlfriend. i hate the idea that there are only certain types of relationships that make it ok to be a caregiver. i.e. a parent for a child, a child for an aging parent, a spouse of an ill spouse... why not for "chosen family" as well? blah.

anyway. i think overall it's a good process to look at why it is i do get so defensive around the karen thing. the feeling misunderstood and isolated thing is probably the key here. and then possibly the self-questioning of my decisions made more defensive by other people's questions... i don't know. it feels very mixed up in me now.

this morning i was thinking about kim and her relationship to her mom and how we repeat our relationships. i think kim is playing this whole thing out with me in the same ways she does with her mom. she is excuses her mom and feels sorry for her, but at the same time not getting what she needs and feeling bad about it. i see her do that with me. she feels sorry for me and says she knows that i'm doing what i can, but then also isn't getting what she needs. and so she feels like she is giving up what she needs, but is excusing it, but still feels bad because she isn't getting what she needs and feels like she isn't respecting herself. and somehow it seems like there's an either/or of respecting her own needs and understanding/accepting what she's getting. if that makes any sense. i don't like being someone's mother figure working out person.

Day 1 - Writing as therapy

OK. So this is it. Gonna see if I can do this semi-regularly and hopefully make some more progress with the self-guided therapy. Not to say I'm throwing the therapist-guided therapy to the winds yet... But my 20 visits in a calendar year are quickly depleting.

So to re-cap my recent epiphanies:
My judgmental nature: so assuming that Gary Z. is right and all my judgmental-ness of others is simply a flag that these areas of judgment are areas that I hate in myself, I guess I hate (among other things):
that I feel cheated
that I feel weak
that I am indecisive
that I not honest


Hmm.... interesting. I do feel cheated I guess - though I don't want to and I think it's crazy to. I mean, blah, blah, the universe is giving me the perfect situation to learn what I need to learn in this lifetime, so I can't really be cheated, blah, blah. Nevertheless. I guess I do.

And I think I hold myself up as an honest person. But I'm not I guess in lots of ways. I sometimes avoid saying things just so I don't have to deal with the reactions of the other person. Which is, of course, the weakness thingy. Blah. I'm not sure I like this.

Power Struggles: I need to listen to this part of the CD again. It was very powerful, but now I feel like I've lost it. I know that it's all about trying to acquire external power and all that through all our various manipulations and being aware of it and choosing instead to focus on authentic power. I know I'm not good at that yet.

Resistance: Resisting the flow of life and the situation that is presented. I do that alot. Rejecting the way things are. The effort here is to in the moment open myself to the possibility that I could let go of the resistance.

Let's do the other Gary Z. exercise.
OK, off the top of my head, these are the ways I think of myself:
Loyal
Stubborn
Smart
Hard-working
Un-lovable
Introverted
Stressed
Moody

Now I'm supposed to say: "I choose to perceive myself as [fill in the blank]" for each of them. Apparently all our perceptions are choices. Very empowering.

I'm going to have to come back to this, and add to the list. I know I perceive myself in more ways than that. But somehow sitting here, I'm blocked. And I have to go to the store anyway...

tonight - i'm committing that i will not engage in any power struggles and will try to open myself to the possibility of letting go of resistance.

good thing i have real therapy tomorrow.