lucky in the grand scheme of stuff

This afternoon I was thinking about how lucky I am in the grand scheme of things. I mean, something absolutely shitty happened to me on my mission that messed me up incredibly and slowly dragged me down over the years. But once I realized what happened and started telling people and looking for help, I've never been denied it. In fact, EVERYONE has been loving and supportive. No one has ever doubted me, it's always been an immediate jump to belief and support. When I've needed something or have finally admitted that I'm not doing well, family and/or friends have jumped to me to support me.

How many people in my situation can say that? How many people in my situation get told the fault is theirs? How many people get rumors spread about them? Seriously, how many people end up dealing with stuff that is potentially more mentally and emotionally damaging than the sexual abuse/assault/rape they suffered.

But I have felt nothing but love and support--love and support that has been so overwhelming at times I've dropped to my knees.

I was chatting with Heavenly Father about this earlier. I think my question was a bit rhetorical, b/c I haven't received an answer yet. Maybe it's too early in the game for the answer. All I know is the support and outpouring of love that I've felt, even from people commenting on this blog that I don't personally know, have lifted me so high, have been a gentle upward push helping me get past one painful moment after another.

I don't know why I'm so lucky, but there's no way to express my gratitude about this. Here's a linguist saying that words in any of the languages I know are completely inadequate to describe what the unwavering support has done for my once broken and now healing soul

Something I now know unequivocally

Getting your legs waxed hurts like a {cussing cuss cuss of cuss}

Can't sleep, must play with eye shadow

I lay in bed for maybe 90 minutes unable to sleep. So I got up to read a book or something soothing. I ended up playing with eye shadow.

Yep.

Fer rills.

On my right I used greys and pinkish purplish colors. I smudged in some purple eye liner over the smokey one just for fun.

On the left I went for soft pinks and browns.

I know that you love the bonus of the purple nail polish that I messed up today and need to remove.



I should be asleep.

sleep blogging

Last night as I was falling asleep I thought to myself, "Me, did you blog about your hallucidreaming?" "No, that was just another of the weird dreams. Why would I blog about that?"

Yeah, so I really did blog about it and now I know that I can sleep blog, too.

Hallucidreaming

I'm pretty sure I was having sleeping hallucinations rather than dreams last night. At one point I woke up enough and put my phone on its airplane mode so I wouldn't do anything crazy.
I wish I could remember some of the story lines and the whatever else was going on. It really must be the closest thing to a drug trip I've ever felt.

I think it involved hovering, rapid color shifts, crazy dramatic movements, dangerous shifts in space, loss of gravity, irrational anger, giddiness. All of these ramped way up beyond dream level.

revision on one of the two things.

I realized that they way I worded something in my last post isn't really how I picture it. I talked about how my faith has been "building back up" or something like that. No, I don't think that's really what's going on. I feel like I'm close to Heavenly Father and Mother, that there's light and gold and beauty around me and I can reach out and down and around for truth that will enrich me and help me.

I feel like before in my life I was always mucking things out, building from the bottom up, reaching what I couldn't quite see. I feel like I'm in a much safer place, much higher and can look at and see things that will help me.

Yeah, not building back up, but gathering and encircling.

two things for today

I was thinking today about a couple different topics. First about how my facebook wall has lit up the last couple of weeks with discussions and back and forth about a few links that I posted, the Elizabeth Smart one where she talked about the stupid things that are said in abstinence-only sex ed courses (which is the worst way to go about sex ed) and then one about how kids can't be immodest and we shouldn't lay the heavy of adult shame on kids b/c the adults haven't figured out self worth.
There've been a few negative comments, but mostly positive and there's been good dialog, which I wasn't expecting in the amount that's been had.

So I've been thinking about shame and how it works. Today I realized that shame is like guilt. I've mini-soapboxed on my blog before about the difference between Godly sorry and guilt. This is the equation that I came up with:

shame is to worth as guilt is to godly sorrow

oh! I wanna write it in the logic framework

shame : worth :: guilt : godly sorrow

Then I wrote this down:

• Guilt drags us down and proves to us that we suck, we're not worth love, that we deserve every bad thing in life b/c of what we've done, that there's no way back to God.

• Godly sorrow doesn't avoid the fact that maybe we made a mistake, but God's totally on our side, waiting to help us learn and wants desperately for us to feel his love.

• Shame is a man-made construct that keeps us within a certain boundary b/c we know we're bad humans and without it we'd stray. It's essentially like  original sin, which was a dumb idea from the first time someone mentioned that falsehood.

• Worth lets us know that we are good, that we can know what to do to take of ourselves, that when someone treats us poorly, it has nothing to do with us. It also lets us know that if we've treated someone poorly, we are not doomed, nor is the other person.

Divine worth will never change. Within the Mormon context we may temporarily not be worthy/able to participate in certain religious contexts, but our divine worth is a constant. It is an unchangeable fact no matter what we do or especially no matter what anyone does to us.



Also today I realized that these last 18 months I essentially started over in my faith. My world crumbled around me and I picked up pieces here and there. I've not picked up some and I've put back down others. My faith has been a more confusing thing to deal with. The only clear truth that I know is that I'm a daughter of Heavenly Parents. That's where my faith has been building back up. It's been going on for a while, but I didn't realize it until today. I have knowledge about the doctrine of my religion, I have faith in how the atonement heals a wounded soul. But I no longer push, I no longer force something or berate myself when I simply can't go to church. Things will eventually work out. I know this b/c I have Heavenly Parents that believe in what my divine worth will do for me.

So there are two of my realizations from today.