The Lift

I love, love, love my new job. I love how technical the work is. I’m learning so much about...well, so much. I feel alive, alive alive!

Having said that, I will now say that I can’t believe I couldn’t see the stress I was under at my old job. I became very depressed and thought I was disinterested in most of the things that I love, but the truth is that the damn job was draining me of every ounce of energy I had.

Tonight I visited the boxing gym and had the most incredible, physically challenging, unstoppable, crazy workout I have had in a long time. I was there for two hours, all of which was spent working out.

I just feel awesome and it’s because I removed myself from a horrible situation.

This week I’m finally going to thank Clay for all of his support and stop my therapy with him. He has been wonderful for me these past couple of years and I’m going to miss him, greatly. Last time I saw him, I expressed that to him and he said he would miss me, too. It has been time for me to let go of Clay for at least a year and I’m going to do it, now, solely because he doesn’t take my new insurance, a blessing in disguise, really. I would stay if he took my new insurance. I guess money (or potential lack thereof) really is a great motivator. I don’t want to pay his full fee. I hate goodbye. Goodbye, to me, conjures up suppressed thoughts of death.

What I am going to do is begin to meditate, hopefully with a different therapist who also specializes in cognitive-behavioral therapy. I have become aware that I am completely reluctant to let go of my grief and I need someone to help move me through this final (hopefully) difficult stage.

This semester, I have been studying stress and it’s management, which includes meditation and guided imagery. Our text book includes examples, and our professor guided us through a meditation last night. What I have found is that when I completely relax my body, my mind relaxes, and my grief and any guilt I normally feel and my reluctance to let go are virtually nonexistent. But the mental block I am experiencing causes me to resist all of these wonderful methods of relaxation, and so I need somebody else to require and help me to push through, in much the same way a personal trainer requires a client to perform at his highest level of functioning.

I have changed my life drastically in the past year. I began seriously pushing myself physically, I moved to a city I have always wanted to live in, I fulfilled a promise to my husband and left the job I took to support us...the “cancer-job” as it were., at the “death-company. “ My home is different. My workplace is different, I am in the best physical shape of my life. It’s my brain’s turn, now. Choosing to continue to allow myself to experience the levels of sadness and grief I have been feeling is putting me at physical risk for heart disease, a heart attack, cancer and all those diseases that feed on stress.

So, there it is. I’m not quite sure how to proceed. Bravely, I guess.

In the meantime, I’m just going to enjoy the lift of these past few days, the absence of tears, my hope for a happy future that is void of guilt.