So long, farewell, Auf wiedersehen, good night

So that's it.

My weekly contemplative writing classes ended last night - the end of an eight-week session, the end of the "school year." I'll begin again the last week in August. When I first started out my teacher suggested that I offer a "summer break" to students. People travel a lot, and then that also gives me some time off. I take off all the major holidays, plus a week or two between eight-week sessions, but there's nothing like a bit of summer to slow down, open up and find space and inspiration for the next season of teaching.

Integration

Integration

I have noticed that dialogues in my head are changing. For a few years now, since finding the book Born to Win and exploring Transactional Analysis on my own, I’ve become more aware and able to distinguish the people inside me who direct a lot of my decisions. For instance, though there are more than these three: there’s my father, or some reduced version of my father, who says strict things and orders me to do them. There’s an inner child of four or so who understands little but likes to play; there’s an inner child of eight who understands a LOT but is stuck on her version of the stories.

The eight-year-old is my storyteller, my spinner.

Talking to Myself

It's hot. Humid. Gross.
Weather that belongs to July, appearing in June.
I grew up in this state, but I get worse with it every year, and every year it gets worse.

Combine that with depression, and me=mess.

After a blow of financial news about things we have to do with the house and things we want to do, I found myself, yep, frozen this afternoon: cranky, overwhelmed, unable to function. This morning I read and tweeted about a useful kind of broken; this kind isn't. Lock down.

Actions Actually DO Speak Louder Than Words

...which feels ironic to write in words...

I'm not dumb. I know there's an inherent conflict in even writing about how I have experienced, more and more, that statement to be true, that age-old adage:

Actions Speak Louder Than Words.

I just can't get over how true it is, perhaps because I listen to, write, and share so many words every day, all the time. Reading books, articles, blogs; writing manuscripts, poems, essays, emails; listening to raw writings, soulful conversations and even the radio. I often say my classes are so that we know that not everything arises in finished form - that a good, solid start from the heart is necessary for clear writing, but of course when all we read is finished product, we think all the fineries - great editing, structural reconsiderations, etc, should come, too, in the first draft. I say a lot of smart and insightful things, and I even believe some of them, truly, deeply. Words are awfully sexy and wise.