Massage and Thoughts

My massage was scheduled for 11:30 this morning. It takes about  15 minutes maximum to get to this place. So, why was I 10 minutes late? Well, I basically got lost. Beth sent me directions on how to get there but what confused me was first, she said turn at the first traffic light when it was the second. The other confusing part was that I used to go a slightly different way when she used this room before. The way she told me to go had me turning left across a line of traffic. Now, I hate doing this because all the cars line up impatiently behind me or, even more annoying go round me on the right instead of waiting. So, I had figured out a way that had me able to use my turn signal and turn right. But today, I followed her instructions and got irrevocably confused, so much so that I got very tense which, of course, made me still more confused. Finally, I used my cell phone to call Fred and told him what was happening. I asked him that when Beth called the house, to tell her to call my cell phone. So, right after that, I took a deep breath, calmed down and immediately knew where I was and where I needed to go!

This kind of thing very often happens to me. I run into a problem, can’t solve it, get myself into a state, ask for help and then immediately solve it myself. Much of the time I was being massaged, I was thinking about this. I know where it comes from. It is quite difficult {but not as difficult as it used to be} for me to ask for help. You see, when I was a child, I felt I had to be perfect. The root of this was that I felt my father would no longer love me if I was not seen to be perfect. Now, of course, as an adult, I can see this wasn’t true but then as a child, I was desperate to keep my father’s love. {My mother made it quite clear from her actions that she neither wanted me nor loved me. I responded to this by having as little to do with her as was possible.} He was very proud of the fact that I was an excellent student and from early days it was clear I was destined for college. I would be the first person in his {or my mother’s } family to go to college. So, in order to keep his love, I felt I could never ask for help. I had always to sort things out for myself.

Now as an adult, I find I slip into this mindset occasionally but since I have no longer to please my father, what I do is to get a sort of frozen panic.  This is not an actual panic attack per se but rather my intelligence and common sense  seem to shut down and I don’t know what to do. I find if I can bring myself to ask for help, the frozen feeling goes away and I am able to solve the problem quite easily. Which is what happened today. It is actually a big step forward in confidence that I can now ask for help. But there is obviously more work to be done…

I came home and slept for an hour and 15 minutes… And I mustn’t forget to mention that I told Beth I wanted to go back to massages every two weeks. My skin is naturally dry and since I have been having massages only once a month, it is itching and flaking in a way it never did when I was going every two weeks. Since I am not going anywhere this summer, I can spend the money that was building up my travel fund on myself again.

QUOTATIONS:

"Step by step. I can’t think of any other way of accomplishing anything."

Michael Jordan

"Fear not for the future, weep not for the past."

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) English poet