I have been obsessively imbibing material on the subject of sex and gender as they relate to the current transgender rights movement. Also reading memoirs by trans- and nonbinary-identifying people. I could write forever on this topic. But not presently.
Both E and Z are away this weekend. I enjoyed waking up alone and spent hours in bed before arising.
Lately I have been partially waking up very early in the morning (my guess is around 5:00 a.m. but I never wake up enough to look at a clock) and coming to awareness of the sudden activation of the thinking mind on topics of personal doom and gloom. I've written about this many a time and have called it the "morning dread". But this waking up early is new-ish (maybe last few months), and often now I will do deep inner work until fully awakening a couple hours later. I will dive beneath the superficial worries ("Will I finish the railing on the rental driveway before the deadline?" "How will I deal with my anger at R and will it become a drawn out source of pain?") and listen to the voice underneath it all that says, "I'm afraid", "I am alone", "I don't know what to do", "I can't stay in this state, it is not the place to be". This morning and yesterday morning there was an image of a bedroom door ajar (not my bedroom today but a different bedroom) with a light on outside, and a sense that Mom was out there and not responding to my wish that she be with me. I can feel the deep longing, the sense that something must be gravely wrong with me if she is not with me, the absolute desperation and despondency.
For those who have not done this kind of work, this probably sounds very foreign and possibly made up. I know I would have judged it that way in my youth. What does it mean to "dive beneath the superficial worries" and "listen to the voice underneath it all"? I just did a brief experiment to try to find a way to explain. It involves shifting attention from the superficial worries to bodily sensations. I go to the sensations that seem associated with the worries, the ones that, when I feel them, are interpreted as "something is amiss and needs to be fixed". And then I inquire as to what these sensations are saying. This is not at all an intellectual exercise. It might be more accurate to say that I allow the sensations to speak.
Sometimes I am reading instructions written by others about how to do some particular kind of mental or even physical activity (such as in the paragraph just above), and I try really hard to follow the instructions, and I cannot get the results I seek, and I feel really frustrated. Often I blame myself for not understanding. But I am guessing that most of the time it's that language is an imperfect communicator, and also that I myself am not prepared to receive the instructions because I am lacking some prerequisite experience.
For three hours after actually awakening, after getting up to use the bathroom, I stayed in bed and spent 90% of my time on my phone (mostly scrolling facebook) and 10% of my time vaguely continuing this inner work. I'm not sure whether the inner work actually is useful when I do it "vaguely". This whole time I was also massaging a spot on my abdomen midway between my right iliac crest and my navel. This is a spot that I've been aware of for 40 years and I typically refer to it as "that spot on my abomen". It is a spot that craves massage. I wonder whether there is some tension stored there from early trauma. While doing everyday activities I am usually unaware of it except in recent years it sometimes is "activated" for hours and is distracting and uncomfortable. I said that the spot craves massage but usually actual massage is unsatisfying. But today, it ended up being more satisfying than it ever has been in my memory! At first today self massage was unsatisfying as usual. I tried light massage and very deep massage. Later, the massage evolved into a kneading of a broad area, basically the entire right abdomen, and I began to feel some satisfaction. After a while I found my hands massaging my breasts, something I am almost never drawn to doing. Then, back to kneading of the abdomen. Now, sitting at my computer 2 hours after arising, I feel extraordinarily at home in my body, and also unusually good about myself. Self-critical thoughts are much diminished in intensity.
I first became aware of this spot on my abdomen while being physically intimate with my first boyfriend, in college. Whenever he'd brush his hand lightly over the spot, I would flinch uncomfortably. I had no idea why this spot was sensitive like this and I would always ask people not to touch me lightly there. It wasn't until decades later that this spot further awakened and I experienced deep sensations there and found that it wanted massage. This "awakening" of the spot seemed related to my general overall awakening having to do with meditation, psychotherapy, and inner work.
I have started and aborted many writings on the topic of sex and gender as they relate to the current transgender movement. These writings have explored multiple angles. Each one I have longed to put out into the world. I have not put out any of them. The topic is complex and fraught. And my views about it are changing rapidly. My views are not oscillating; rather, they are evolving. That tells me that my obsession is bearing fruit. I am eager to continue.
