mining this mind....

I have a brain injury….sometimes…it helps me to think…if I just sit and type….what ever comes into my head..runs out my fingers…I can see the words on the screen…and I will have come to understand…what is hidden from my awareness…I wish to place it…somewhere….in my solitude…or out of my solitude…I wish to exist…even if it is to be just words written on a screen….there is some ache in me I can not factor into understanding…the where from which it arises…if I knew…would I be able to bring forth some balm…some wisdom that would give ease…I don’t know….I have looked and looked and looked…or maybe I think I have…when really I am just shoving it back…closing the door…stiffening the resolve…not to look….because if we really look don’t we see….maybe not…or we see…we just refuse to admit…or say it outloud…for then it becomes fleshed into reality…where is the ache…it sets in my chest…maybe not an ache of the heart…but a pressure taking the breath….oh here is a glimpse….I stifle myself….those doors I shut…close me off…I won’t open…expose myself….yet that isn’t all truth…I do…yet I don’t….I walk out into the sun…and I see….I feel….is it the lack of connection…in my solitude…I am free…to enter another requires…letting them…..I want and I don’t want….there are people who wish into my life…yet I can’t make the effort…or I won’t….just like writing these words…it is safely onesided…..I touch…but am not touched….there is a disconnect in my brain….I am set aside…it feels pointless….just to utter words…to watch a movie of another’s life play out…and it like listening to someone read the phonebook…where is the spark that gathers any interest….how can I reach….and at the same time…be untouched…I like the stillness…the silence….I feel most people are just NOISE….static on a level of volume that bounces like a rock on my brain….it bruises…..if my comfort is stillness…where is the ache…yet I wish to add my own noise…to stand on the hilltop…and open my mouth and sing…sound moving like a wave across space….ahhhh…..I can do that….there is a breath….I can do that….I will look…I will see….I will go….and sing…..or...is it that I am singing here.....

mc2ed,
I looked at some of your posts. They were good and interesting. I agreed with what you said about having a good therapist (verses an unskilled one) can be very helpful. Maybe the ache you are feeling in this post is just various emotions that are deep inside you but not fully expressed. Sometimes my emotions feel like butterflies in my stomach, dizziness, shortness of breath, etc. Sometimes you can figure out what emotions are causing your physical sensations. Please keep posting because I think writing makes us think and that will help you come back from the terrible brain injury that you are recovering from. I will say a prayer for you and look forward to your future posts.....

I enjoyed this. I would like to be able to write like you good job.

Your writing has a rather poetic undertone - perhaps your version of the creativity gift MI seems often to dole out? Continue to write. I find it sometimes helps with that ache. My journalling often starts with a vent but out of that chaos sometimes something more organized with clarity 'falls out'.

Feeling our emotions is not uncommon (Synesthesia is an extreme case of this). Negative emotions sometimes show up as physical pain and discomfort.

When this happens to me I will play hard ball with my physical aches. You may have seen my mention of the sensory strategy in anothr post. The checking in on the senses, "What do I see, hear, smell, touch." drawing your emotions from one feeling to others is usually helpful for me. I believe this is a form of 'mindfullness'. Some times I try to imagine something else is happening. Like, if my chest feels heavy, I imagine my dragonly fly perching upon it.

So yes, continue to write, but explore alternative 'feeling' to what you are experiencing.

Here I am....Here I am....words on this screen....I feel as before......sorrow streaming over my BE-ing...like water flowing over flesh......it aches....and I am tired....I come again...fingers falling on the keys...may they pound me into knowing....Someone asked....Do you feel neglected....my answer is no.....neglected implies there was thought of you...with regret....?.....More a truing expressed....dismissed.......I have connection....and no connection....I am alone...and never separate.....so how does the ache arrive..... how... how....how....why does it linger....

I have stepped outside...into the greening....the wandering forest nun....has come again....with the season....to ring the bell upon my gate....requesting to sit with me...her face looks on me....and smiles.....her heart holds joy to see me....I have gone too.....to a holy place....I see....that same joy...race...from heart....to face...to eyes....at the sight of me.....it is true....offered without measure....I feel it.....I see it....there is the touch of it...in hand and arms that hold.....laughter as joy rising...it enters....and it does not...have anchor.......my brain...takes too much....to hold the body upright....for words to speak...with meaning....to move through space...and walk into crowd....and hold within the confines of acceptable sizing of sanity........arms crooked out...a place offered to hold my hand....walking breathing...one foot in front of the other....moments into memories....known....and not held....as presence....their fullness...more viewed...than mine....yet....the thought....rises....here I am....Here I am...Here I am....and I wish to wash my mind...with tears....I am tired.......I have lost my sense......

Beautiful--captures the emotion of being alive! Also hints about the limitations in your mind that your brain injury might have caused yet is also insightful writing.

Thank you for 'talking' to me...Hopingtrying.....I know I don't write in a way that foster's response...yet I appreciate you doing just that....

I have passed days....moments of required participations......the 'must' of things done for others.....it is like something hangs as cloud of anxiety...that you must perform for others expectations.....A deep breath rises...as solitude is once again mine.....there comes a vast richness of time....that sense of allowed....even the doing of nothing...it is allowed....I breathe deeper....

It is so beautiful outside.....the trees are beginning to dress themselves...and the blossoms they are draped in....the palest of pinks...darkening into shadings of fuchsia....I can stare at them...with the lightening blue sky as backdrop...I think I would like to walk into that color....and live it for awhile....

I used to live in a space...where I trimmed a tree....so that there was a hidden room between the branches...one chair would fit in that space just so....I would sit there surrounded by living....completely hidden from view.....The time of the blossoms...was a sensory bathing of the exquisite......when I moved from there....I lost a need...I knew...It...gave to me....I just didn't realize how much...it helped me.......The landlord told me some years later....that when I left...the tree dropped it's leaves and died....
how could that be....it hurt me...as if I lost a friend....

Is it the touch of that...that is alive.....is it what makes me come here and sound words with my fingers....a wish for that touch of alive....there is so much that surrounds me.....a pulling for this and for that....a doing for others....should that give me enough....yet I feel it is not so....it is always another's wishes...for which I must act.....it is another's schedule of timing...never the moment of my...now....and it does not rise...that act of a moments...offering...as...this is for you......

Ahh...now I see....when I do come and write here....this is an action for me.....which gives your response Hopingtrying....an endearing bit of wonder....in that you did it for me....how lovely that is......

Your thoughts about me are so sweet. It is truly appreciated today. I love sunny Spring days. Love my walks outside observing all parts of the day, sunrise, noon, sunset--of course noon is best in the Winter and sunrise during the hot days of Summer. For the first time, since I missed a day when I was sick a while back, I am not walking with my H. It is a sad but necessary thing. Thank you for cheering me up with your beautiful words. Your words tell about the beauty of being alive. I fear that if I stay with him my spirit will die. I am sure he thinks I don't love him but I do in many ways. Thanks for being there...

It is in the dark of night.....that called...witching hour...it leans towards the day to come...there is stillness...and silence...and a depth to both....not found in the light of day....the darkness hides what the eyes could follow.....yet what is hidden in the mind...or that which you would turn from....rises....wishing in it's way to give rise to vision...or to be heard....the silence is shouting...the mind is streaming....the visuals...clear colorful clarity.....yet the wish....is still....to turn away....like the child's toy...of the jack in the box...let me put it back....shove the springing rising way back into the darkness of that opening...folding the lid down....back...back...back......locking it away....held....again....for what ever moment....causes you to twist the tune....for it to spring upon you once more....the silence....that comes...again....the noise it stops...and what ever is let loose....just waits....it moves and weaves...in the recoil....and waits....

I have read this over and over. The line: "What is hidden in the mind" sums up the feeling of this piece. Beautiful....

I wonder at my ability to express....that the word that rises is beautiful..?..

Then I think of that place of balance...where there is no light...there is no dark....that cusp of fullness....that drains to emptiness....the emptiness that is full....the teachings of the ancient....that of...one taste.....no acceptance...no rejection........my experience of death....for 3 times I died....brought back by the age of modern medicine....there was no fear....only the awareness of all as ONE....a great cosmic expanse of merged connection....nothing withheld...all flowing into ONE....the fullness of emptiness...again...returned....awareness...the dark of void...expanded to the brilliance of light illuminating beyond....gone beyond.....far beyond...all the way past knowing....

I hear words....I am sorry.....Please forgive me....Thank you....I love you....
Another ancient teaching....is it...for the past...for the future...of this moment....is it another's voice whispering...or is it my own voice....offering..

I rejoice for the light of day......

I used the word beautiful twice because of my inability to express myself but the pictures you draw flow beautifully. So you don't believe in one God but instead believe in a vast endless flowing universe. I wonder who/what created the rules that make it all flow? A place where things are constantly moving--things shining brightly and then burning themselves out only to die and then be recreated into....? That a God may rule it all makes just as much sense as any other explanation to me.....of course I accept what everyone believes about this. What made us have conscious thoughts is the most mysterious thing about being alive....

I wish you to know....that I have no offense...at your choice of the word beautiful....and the expressing of that thought....it took me to a place beyond what I was feeling in the moment of writing....realizing my choice of expression....was taken in....as beauty....in what ever manner....seen or felt...by me....was seen or felt...by another....you...in the context of your own mind...as beautiful....it wasn't a wrong-ness.....it is just that....here I go with the....just that....

I have told a story in my life....of weeping at the moment of my father's death...someone was holding me...we were both standing in the same 2 feet of ground....over the shoulder of the person holding me...I saw a vision of utter beauty...a rose garden....yet I knew...the person holding me...over my shoulder...in their looking....they saw a parking lot and the dumpsters for holding trash.....we stood in the same ground....yet our view was so different....

I remember shifting....a slow dancing movement...so that the person holding me....would be seeing the beauty over my shoulder...their memory of holding someone in their sorrow...would still have beauty...it would have some 'beautiful' in it....my choice would be to look at the dumpsters...if I cared to even look...I was blind to that vision....by my weeping....yet I had the awareness to wish the shift in perception....for the other person....who was giving me their compassion...may they be offered a better view....

My response was meant...only in that way.....and in your offering of the word beauty....it did direct me.....into a shift in perception....

As for my experience of death....I can only use words....held in the context of be-ing of this dimension...to describe something that is NOT....there....for me...is no explaining...what can not be explained....I fall far short....in what is gone beyond....

I am....ever thankful...that you read my words...and that you would reach to touch me...with yours.....I know you are doing it for me....and it is a kindness felt......

I did not know...my words here are locked....every where has rules...yes....I should have paid more attention....so much of my life is beyond my ability to control....and now to learn....there are holds.....it removes a safeness for me....I am anxious....from this knowing...I have parameters of timing...to think my way into knowing...that which I would stay....limiting.....it is not enough......for the freedom I reached for.....when 'it' comes at you....finding what you exposed...vulnerable...you become nakedly blind.....It runs shivers under my skin.......the breath pants....it's way.....OUT of comfort....That feeling.....of lights shining on you in the dark....spotlighted...........

Another shift in perception......this one...has left me...clenching.....that panic again rising...of being held in place....without the naturalness of choosing....to stay or to go....to watch and to listen....in silence.....again holding it back....that which weaves in the recoil waiting..........it will remain....beyond any target of my searching.......