a missing ingredient

i'm missing an ingredient somewhere
that I wish I could find...
not too sure what it is unfortunately
anyone's got a recipe to help?
been told it's a little blend without it

i hope i can find it
will incorporate it with the stock that tastes good
hoping that it blends well

if i like the look and smell of it
i'll put it to the real test out there...
wish me luck!

:-))

un regard complice
un sourire en coin
un sentiment de surprise
un mot de remerciement vers l'impalpable
un quelque chose d'indéfinissable
...

The little princess

once upon a time a long, long time ago lived a little girl who always wanted to be a princess. She dreamt about it every day and every night so much so that one day she just knew that her dream had become reality. She had become a princess. She was the most beautiful little princess and she was so special that all the animals of the farm recognised her and loved her, and all the horses recognised her and loved her, and all the people recognised her and loved her. When some people didn't recognise her or didn't pay her the respect she was due she became very angry. But a princess cannot possibly get angry because it is so out of character and ugly. And so instead she would turn around and leave.

Now this little girl had many brothers and sisters and she knew that all of them wanted to become princes and princesses too and so there was stiff competition. And so she dreamt more than her brothers and sisters, and she asked always to be the most beautiful and the most intelligent of all and to be worshipped by all the people across the land. And when some people didn't worship her the way she was due she became very angry. But a princess cannot possibly get angry because it is so out of character and ugly. And so instead she would turn around and leave.

The most beautiful little princess left the land where too many people didn't love her and worshipped her the way she was due and arrived to a new land where all the people loved her and worshipped her the way she was due. And she was very happy. But as time went by the little princess was growing up and the love and worship of all the people was no longer quite enough because she wanted the most beautiful prince to find her and to love her and to worship her the way she was due. If the most beautiful prince could not find her then could all the love and the worship from all the people really be real? The little princess who was growing up became angry because the most beautiful prince obviously didn't live in this land. But a princess cannot possibly get angry because it is so out of character and ugly. And so instead she would turn around and leave.

The most beautiful little princess left the land where too many people didn't love her and worshipped her the way she was due and arrived in a new land where all the people loved her and worshipped her the way she was due. And the most beautiful prince lived on this land and found her and loved her and worshipped her the way she was due. But as time went by the little princess was growing up and all the love and worship of the most beautiful prince was no longer quite enough because she wasno longer that he was the most beautiful prince. She might have made a mistake and the most beautiful prince was still looking for her to love her and worhip her. The little princess grew angry the real most beautiful prince obviously didn't live in this land. But a princess cannot possibly get angry because it is so out of character and ugly. And so instead she would turn around and leave.

Once again, the most beautiful princess left the land where the prince had tricked her to think that he was the most beautiful prince and she erred for a long time. Finally she arrived in a new land where people didn't love her not worshipped her the way she was due. Because the people didn't love her and worship her she could be get angry, get out of character and ugly and she became very angry against the people of this land. But they didn't care and they continued living their lives without loving her or worshipping her. When she saw that being angry didn't change them one bit, she wept and wept and wept until the tears dried out and she fell asleep. When she woke up, the little princess had gone and only a not so young woman was there. And next to her stood a man who was not the most beautiful prince and she smiled at him.

words for pain
resentment
anxiety
sadness
fear
anger
hate
misunderstandings
aberration
envy
dark
etc.

I know well how to articulate them when things get complicated, uneasy and choatic

words for joy
pleasure
open heart
smile
easiness
love
friendliness
compassion
fogiveness
gratitude
light
etc.

these are a much harder task to get a grip on to communicate those feelings

i will work to restore a healthy balance

Ouch...

what else when
a door has been lashed open
a slap given across the face
a fist received in the stomach
from out there

what else when
a disheartening scream is being heard
both eyes are flooded with salted water
an extreme resistance sets in
from deep within

what else can it be
than an extreme pain
rising from the dead
making itself felt
in dis-ease and illness
in the body

Thank you and welcome
to this blast from the past

not good nor bad

how can this be not good nor bad?
or that be not right nor wrong?

I do this and I hate myself for it
I do that and I love myself for it

I do this and I risk be rejected for it
so this is bad
I am bad
this part of me that does this is bad
I end up hating her

I do that and I'm being loved for it
so that is good
I am good
that part of me that does that is good
I end up sticking around with her

yet they're both me, aren't they?
how on Earth can I live hating some part of me?
slow
without answer
lethargic
angry
stressed
short-fused
tired
driven
and many more....

learning to not judge, not fly away, not repress, not move, learning to listen and be
remembering again and again, this is not bad and that is not good - it's an illusion

breakthrough after breakthrough

I'm living a dream these days
ok sometimes it turns a bit into nightmar-ish dream kind of thing where fear and frozeness take over
but even then!

i watch myself being in that state
i seem to identify less to whatever emotion turns up
there seems to be more fluidity
in the relationship to myself and to others

i experienced something beautiful today
when an well known kind of anger and rage submerged me for a while because X asked me to do something that I thought was ridiculous in terms of wasted time and ressources
but then for some reason, I actually got out of it and focussed on how to change X's idea, in a creative way rather than the bull's way

and it kind of worked!!!!!!!!!!!!

we met in the middle and although I wasn't too happy to feel that I was wasting time, the rage had just gone!

Clairem this is unheard of.
Well done (gentle tap on the shoulder and the back)

cold blood

january 2009 is over and done with
already!!!

and what a month it's been!
adjusting to a new boss
and new methods of working
taking in a new training
and a new weekly schedule
sticking to my new resolution
and listening to my body

recording a few big dreams
feeling my well guarded borders
that don't let anyone in
watching the crocus blossom
and the snow fall silently on cold ground

I've grown his month
I've not been kicked out of the garden of Eden
No, this time
I've kicked myself out
of a false comfort zone

Yes, outside it is terrifying
but this is where real life is
and i will now live in it
in the world of warm blood

water, water, water

A couple of months ago, on a Sunday afternoon, on the spur of the moment I went to the local (still unknown to me) Spa to look at the time passing by in the jacuzzi, the sauna, at the cafe table with a fruit juice. At least it as the idea...
Instead I ended up in a basement with a badly lit swimming pool and no cafe, no table, no fruit juice. So I swam for a while and wowwwww

the contact of the water on the skin was pure bliss, the small currents created by the movements of my arms or that or another swimmer I was passing by... there was just an immense pleasure at being in the water! THere was also a great surprised as I haven't enjoyed swimming in the last few years...
Then I remembered how much I loved the water as I was younger, whether pool, sea, lake, river, bath, whether cold or warm...
Then I remembered how much I love my morning shower (even if I don't spend as much time as I'd like as I can't get up in the morning...) not so much to wake up but mostly to be under the running water

Then I realised that i was enjoying it on that evening because I hadn't come to do some exercise, to swim for however long in minutes or meters. No, I had come to have a good and relaxing time! It made all the difference in the world!

And so I promised myself I'd go again - not in that same place though. To night, I'm back from the pool where people go to exercise, lots of people after work... I got in the slow lane and it took some constant awareness to get back to feeling the water on my skin, rather than being impatient because the person in front is slower than me. On those moments though I simply loved it - again.

I am pisces and I love water. It is in constant movement, sound... It is alive and it transmits this life to me when I take the time.

I am so grateful that it's found me again!

grandir

parmi les quelques résolutions, celle de grandir - enfin!?!
non par la force des choses
consciemment, motivée et résolue
intellectuellement bien-sûr mais aussi
dans le ressenti, le coeur et le corps
lui que je souhaite respecter et
que je sabote, encore et encore
parce que je refuse de grandir!

2008, année pleine s'il en fut!!
2009, aurai-je juste un peu de temps pour m'ennuyer?

je me sens vivante

ca vous tombe dessus comme ça, par surprise, sans prévenir, et ça vous assomme!

il y a six ans je me suis trouvée face à une situation tellement douloureuse qu'il m'a fallu trouver une personne compétente qui pourrait m'aider à la traverser. Je ne souhaitais qu'une chose, faire le dos rond, attende que passe l'orage, et continuer ma route comme si de rien n'était. Mais sans pouvoir mettre de mots, je SAVAIS que jouer l'autruche n'était cette fois pas possible. J'ai eu une chance incroyable dans cette histoire, car le premier psychothérapeute que j'ai rencontré a été le bon. Six ans plus tard, je travaille toujours avec lui, deux fois par semaine...

L'objectif, à l'époque, était de sortir de cette situation le plus vite possible et puis d'être heureuse (happy en anglais, le happy de "don't worry, be happy"). Il était clair dans ma tête qu'une thérapie me rendrait "happy". N'est-ce pas ce que tout un chacun désire et recherche à tout prix ?

Avancée rapide....

Il y a quelques semaines, j'ai compris, mon coeur et mon corps ont touché du doigt une vérité, ma vérité : cette thérapie, cette longue psychananalyse ne me rendrait pas "happy"...

Parce que être "happy" n'existe que s'il y a aussi du non "happy" comme la nuit n'existe pas sans le jour, le chaud sans le froid, le féminin sans le masculin, le yin sans le yang, la conscience sans l'inconscient, l'hiver sans l'été...
Parce que "happy" n'est qu'une seule des nombreuses émotions qui vient nous assaillir, nous submerger parfois
Parce que pour être vivant, vraiment vivant, on ne peut simplement oublier toutes les autres
Parce que le but de cette vie humaine n'est pas d'être "happy" mais d'être vrai et que cela est un labeur quotidien, parfois agréable et léger, parfois qu'on préfèrerait éviter...

Malgré tout, aujourd'hui je n'ai d'autre choix que celui de continuer ma nouvelle route - plus exactement, mon choix est de continuer ma nouvelle route ; quand je regarde vers le passé, je n'y retournerais pour rien au monde. Aujourd'hui j'existe et je me sens vivante

cycles

squeezed between
tears
and
laughs

swinging between
music
and
silence

begging for
no
words

terrified by
new
openings

no more
inscape

out
it
must
be

today
tomorrow or
the
day
after

scary...

2 years that I've been filling in this pages with bits and bobs of my life, situations, crises, introspecting, analysing, observing, chasing and playing the detective, trying to discover who I am, why I act the way I do, judging yet trying to be gentle....

nearly a month that I haven't written anything... almost anything... most of time I didn't even think about it. At times I did, I didn't feel like it. No words, no wish to sit down and share, no need to be serious and evaluate where I am, how far I've gone, compare, judge...

My analyst lent me this book Narcissism and Character Transformation: Psychology of Narcissistic Character , by Nathan Schwartz-Salant a few weeks back. Fantastic book, but very complicated. Yet it shifted something inside and the one thing that had struck me is how narcissistic people can not be happy. As if it's just not on!!! It hit me hard. real hard. And yesterday I was having a wonderful chat with my friend A. and she asked me the question "can you be happy?", to which i finally answered yes!!! That brought tears of fear and relief, pride and guilt....

I am learning to be happy, lighter, frivolous, owning the right to be, with the risk that it brings other people to envy me! basically I'm seeing that it is possible to take life not as seriously, have fun, have various types of friends... and lots more!!

I am very grateful to my current and older friends who've put up with me in these last few years where I've been looking for darkness...

welcomed anger

I am very grateful to T. as he's allowed me unearth a strong emotion - once more

A few weeks back, "he sent me" to reexperience the most painful wound, one I had been not only avoiding but ignoring for years and years.... it'd been calling for attention in recent years, and the calls had grown louder in recent months and weeks, and BANG!!! one action, one decision, one word, one situation and the trap under my feet opened large and wiiiiiiiiiide...

Yes I fell deep into darkness
No I did nothing to stop the descent
Yes it was the most painful experience
No I didn't enjoy it
Yes I watched myself falling
No I don't wish the same pain to my worst enemy
Yes i would do the same again if it was required
Yes I knew deep down that it was worth the pain
Yes I discovered a real treasure in the darkness

Tonight he cancelled a meeting at the last minute and because it wasn't the first time, I felt a surge of anger rising and rising... the good thing was that I was on the train and wouldn't have called him there and then for the whole carriage to share what I had to say. Some things are private, after all! This time though I kept this anger going until I was home.

Yes I voiced it
No I didn't want to hurt myself for it
Yes my heartbeat was going very fast with anxiety
No I didn't feel guilty
Yes I broke a real good sweat
No I wouldn't do any different
Yes it was simply anger which vanished after taking shape in words
Yes remnants of the original pain resurfaced after our phone call
Yes I felt worthy, centered and respecting myself

it came
was expressed
went

end of story
thank you

i can say good bye

therapeutic tears... thank you.

I am grateful I can easily stop, cry and listen.
Two weeks ago they were begging "don't go, stay, please! my heart hurts too much!!"
Two weeks later and a quick online chat, they asked for a proper good bye, then said good bye
genuinely, meaning what it says on the tin "GOOD" bye...

Once again I have seen T. as Other and not "simply" as an image of myself in the surface of the lake... But the pain is such that I have come in contact and retreated fast again. Hopefully next time will come sooner than last and will be less painful. And the time after that sooner and less painful still...

yet however painful, after i retreat it feels like a victory for Love with a capital "L", not petty love with a small "l". This is a reason to celebrate!

what is time anyway?

10 days
a split second
an eternity
and still no clear answer to my question...

10 days
one minute yes
no the next
and still stuck in a clear confusion

going alone

as I find myself very much alone... (dare I say lonely?) i note that the world is conspiring for me to go back within... I believe this is no coincidence about the timing of what happened in the last 2 or 3 weeks. As if the world had made sure I was prepared for what was coming to hit me...

It "all" started when I got a strong call to go back to my grand-parents house in Brittany. I knew I needed to go alone even though I had no idea what the purpose was. I didn't have any other intention than to remain open to what would come to me. I stayed for 2.5 days and the messages I got were clear - let go of your own story and history (different from forgetting or denying or giving it up!); the strong feeling of being home in this place in the physical world, take with you and make yourself your home so that it is with you at all times;

as I came back to London with a few more days off, my psychoanalyst had gone on holiday for a few weeks, something that hadn't happened for a really long time; my dear friend I. had gone to SA for a few weeks, too, for his own journey; my dear friend R. has been working in York for a while now and it's not always straight forward to meet at weekends; Yet I was excited also because it'd been a couple of weeks since I last met T. and thought we'd meet soon... I was wrong and the timing of him calling a day on something that had never really started but in which I had invested a lot could not be more difficult (or appropriate, depending on whic way you look at it...). From being and needing to be alone, I felt (and needed to feel?) lonely...

Of course I could have chosen to email my analyst, to call my friends, to cry and ask for support... but deep down I knew i needed to go alone, to let myself fall into the darkest tunnel full of ghosts of past and present times... After a first terrifying 24h filled with excrutiating physical pain and a sense of complete desperation, it is as if I got used to the darkness and as I accepted it, made friend with it, the fall slowed down, even stopped for short periods of times... before picking up speed again! I believe that the sweetness and gentleness of this man increased not only the speed of my fall but also the pain that I experienced: there was no blanket of anger or resentment to be hiding behind this time making the whole experience full blast!! "Funny" enough, I believe this is the best gidt I could give myself!

I have often thought in the past that the men I liked were not available... I know now that most of the time, I was not available, however strong and loud I claimed the opposite!!! This time, i do not know and I will live the question, as well as leave it open...

right here and right now

I feel my heart, strong in my chest, I am at peace

In 2 seconds my mind will wonder off to a sweet memory or something that will not be and my whole body will cry

Ten minutes after that I might be well at peace again

This pain i have never experienced, or should i say my mind has no memory of anything similar... Anyone read Harry Potter or the Northern Lights trilogy? The terror I experience resembles that described in the sucking by the dementors or that by the spectres... dragging me to a place beyond any word where I feel dead - I talk, I work, I go through the motion, I can even laugh and sound merry but there's noone home because the home, my home, I've let it been sucked away... There's only darkness, emptiness, invisibility, cold and loneliness left.

In this deepest fear that can only happen at a cellular level, there's no anger, no resentment, no blame, no guilt and no shame. There's a prayer mixed in with the tears crashing on my chest, "don't leave me it hurts too much" and a desperate call "i'll do better, I'll change, I'll learn how to please, please give me another chance"... but is it him that I'm begging to stay or is it my home sweet home that i'd given him? In other words, am I in love with him or with the relationship which made me feel whole?

I believe I know the answer.

implosion

I said "I can't be asked"
something snapped!
I disconnected
my mind went blank

my heart burns
each drop of blood has turned to stone
even tears refuse to overflow

yet I feel a massive struggle inside
the volcano is rumbling hard
will it be lava running free on its slope
will it be an explosion

i've got no idea what's causing this
i'm in it, so much so that i'm blinded
i feel that my words won't come to my rescue this time
they're only taking me away
the talking will take place another way

Plus rien qui marche

Une pièce finie
Coup de blues
Sorti de nulle part
Disparaître
Eteindre ce coeur incandescent qui se consumme
Rien qui marche

Tristesse
Peur
Colère
Entremêlées
Les vieilles échappatoires sont toutes usées
Rien qui marche

Barrage
Bâtisse
Château-fort
Vite fait, bien fait
Je tente en vain d'en reconstruire les hauts murs
Rien qui marche

Larmes
Hoquets
Caresses Inattendues et bienvenues
Les fondations se dissolvent
Plus rien qui marche