Willpower Depletion
Rooster sent out an invite to Oryx's birthday party at his house, and I replied letting him know that I had other plans. I didn't mention that I wouldn't have come even if I didn't have plans. I didn't need to face Oryx in the flesh.
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Rooster wrote, "Sorry to hear you have plans but I didn't expect that you'd be able to make an impromptu trip all the way out here."
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I nodded to myself. I would have made the trip, all seven hours of it, if Oryx had never made me feel so incredibly unsafe in my own home, in my own skin, in my own life. But I didn't say that.
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It was Monday morning, the day before I would be driving back to Silverstag Eco Hamlet with Paladin. I felt rather off. I showered, which helped. I spent a while on the toilet, which helped more. I reminded myself that I expected my period to start as soon as tomorrow, and thus I needed to watch what I ate. I didn't have any cheese, nuts or oil in my breakfast or brunch. Small victories.
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Still, I didn't feel present with myself. I knew I needed to write. I replied to Rooster with a more authentic letter than I'd ever written him before, choosing that as a method to motivate me to write.
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Rooster wrote, "I hope you enjoy whatever you have cooked up?"
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I replied: "I absolutely believe that I will. I'm heading back to Silverstag Eco Hamlet tomorrow morning, where my boyfriend lives. I'm in the midst of new relationship energy, but also a lot of trials and transformations in my life overall."
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I paused and considered writing more about Hibiscus. I could qualify how long the relationship had existed thus far, I could mention what that was like for me, how Paladin was feeling about it, and I could draw connections to Otter and Polecat, who Rooster knew. I decided not to. Let him wonder if he chose to.
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I went on to write:
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I "came out" to my parents in a very authentic and unusual sort of way. They know I'm poly, they know I'm bi, they know all that sort of stuff that people often "come out" about. What they didn't know is that they'd caused me to repress every part of myself that was childish, immature, playful and spontaneous. They taught me that being an adult was good, and being a child was inferior.
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I internalized those beliefs and showed them the most adult self I could muster. When I "failed" and showed them my childish parts, I felt that they rejected me, penalized me, and made that wrong. I didn't explain these concepts to them exactly; it just happened spontaneously. I went to them with the full intention to be authentic, and child-Nuria came out. My voice changed, my body-posture changed and I was like a three-year-old standing before them, talking to them with a young perspective.
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I faced rejection from them. I let myself feel it, and I cried before them. They hugged me, and my mom cried too. They didn't really understand what I was going through or what they'd done or why it mattered or that I forgive them for it. I'm not sure what they got out of the experience, really. What I got out of it is knowing that I made the right choices as a child. I did what I had to. I became what I needed to be in order to receive the praise I needed to feel loved.
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The three and four-year old Nuria did the right thing. She accurately deduced what parts needed to start being repressed in order to have a happy home. In a way, I'm proud of the little me. I feel cleansed. It isn't by any means easy now, but at least I have more harmony within myself.
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That is just one of many dozen powerful things that has happened for me in the last thirty days alone. I encountered my first love and found peace with much that had passed between us. I've run into two people I have not seen in many, many years and reconnected with them, if briefly. [Durga was one of the two I was referring to.] I've uncovered more patterns around anger, jealousy, despair, and repression. I've discovered what "safety" really means to me, and why it is sacred.
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And thus, I'm feeling more than just enjoyment of what I've been cooking up and excitement for what I'm going to cook up. I feel more whole, more complete, more capable of feeling overall.
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This, of course, has been interspersed with trials that were hard enough at the time that I spent entire days crying, writing, and feeling like things were not okay. But at least I can go into these trials now with an observer part of me that knows, deep down, it is all unfolding and enfolding into something more beautiful.
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[I quoted Rooster:] "Lynette and I continue to work on finding better ways to communicate and process. And to accept the differences we each have in that dimension as well as how much time we spend together. We do make progress and the work is good and we do connect."
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I'm glad to hear it. Am I correct to recall that you have another girlfriend outside of Lynette and Oryx, or am I imagining that?
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[I quoted Rooster:] "From an absolute standpoint, my life is probably friggin awesome. From a relative perspective, I want to enjoy more of it!"
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I can relate to that, a lot. People looking in see all the perks and very little of the downsides. I'd like to find a way to be more authentic about showing both sides of it - the beautiful, amazing things in my life and the rough, painful things.
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[I quoted Rooster:] "How are you doing?"
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I think I mostly answered that above. I'm doing very well overall. Some parts of me - particularly the parts that I'm only just starting to discover or integrate - feel lost, confused or even jealous of the other parts of myself. The part of me that is ever-pragmatic is a little concerned at how much more heart-based, intuition-based, and flighty I've become.
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I've been giving myself permission to do what I want. It's ironic, but the whole "do whatever you want" method to life works really freaking well. The trick is knowing what you want. Most of us have no clue because we're not even in touch with 90% of our inner-self, and the 10% we are in touch with is always fighting as it is!
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But if we can find things that more than half of self wants, and find a way to get the remaining parts on board as well, then going for that reaps so many, many more rewards than doing the "pragmatic" thing.
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I've been learning to honor even the most petty, selfish, childish parts of self as I've never, ever done before and the outcome has been rather incredible.
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[I quoted Rooster:] "BTW, I know you wanted to do some psych-K. If you feel you are able to muscle test yourself, we could do that over the phone."
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Yes, I'm interested in learning/doing all the tools of consciousness transformation.
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However, I've really, really struggled with getting accurate results from muscle testing. It's like, I can flow in and out of different parts of self too quickly, and depending on which part is dominant, I'll get a different result. Paladin seems to have the same experience, which must be part of the vibrational match that we share that draws us together and holds us together.
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If nothing else, I'd be interested to keep exploring it and getting to the bottom of why exactly the technique has mixed results with me. Understanding that could be very valuable in and of itself.
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Blessings, hugs & fond thoughts,
- Nuria
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After finishing writing to Rooster I considered opening the letter from Lynx that had sat in my inbox since July 17th - well over two months! Something stopped me and I stared over at my plants instead.
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My exuberant peace lily dominated the verdant clusterlove of foliage. Several aloe plants I'd brought home from Redbud Community nestled up beside the window. Two jade plants, a bamboo plant, a baby dragon-tree, an orchid and several others interwove with one another, striving toward their own perfect harmony with their environment.
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I had resisted rotating my plants. Plants in nature don't rotate. I didn't want to impose on them. Then one day my peace lily became so imbalanced that it began to unsteady its pot. It was time to own up to the fact that they were already in an unnatural environment.
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Just like we humans who are closeted up in homes of treated wood, stone-dust, worked metal and refined chemical compounds, who require unnatural things like bath-tubs, supplements, and non-local foods to thrive, so too, did the plants need unnatural aid to thrive in their unnatural environment.
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I felt guilty, but I also needed them in order to keep feeling like I was safe inside my own home.
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Paladin walked downstairs and interrupted my musings. I asked him if he would get some laundry started and he said he would. I put away the clean dishes, washed dirty dishes, relocated a number of bottles and plastic packaging to the recycling, cleaned the kitchen counters and poked around to see if there was anything sitting around I'd meant to pack.
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"You should take this with you," Paladin said, pulling out a cloth-wrapped book off the shelf.
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"No," I said.
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"You could show it to Hibiscus. It shows off lots of things you can make," Paladin said.
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Annoyed, I said, "I'm already taking lots of things of that nature. I already thought of that book earlier and decided not to."
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"Oh," Paladin said. He went to put back on the shelf and had trouble getting back in the exact spot where it had been.
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I took it from him and put it back myself, removing several other books first and putting them back in the order that was required to squeeze them all in.
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"I could have put it back," Paladin said.
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"I know."
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"You seem angry with me," he said.
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"I'm just annoyed."
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"Why?"
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"Because I don't want to work." I was referring to work for White Whale. And because it annoys me to clean up your kitchen messes, I thought.
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But why had I been cleaning up his kitchen messes? Because I didn't want to do the work for White Whale. So I found something else to distract myself with. Then I got angry because I'd been doing something I didn't want to do to avoid doing something I didn't want to do. Why do I do this to myself?
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I let the question hang and didn't try to find a complete answer.
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I checked my packing list again to see if there was more I could pack. I was mostly down to the last-minute stuff - my computer, kitchen-related things, my scrub-brush which was still drying out from that morning's shower. There wasn't much left to do on that score prior to tomorrow morning.
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I made myself a salad, and Paladin one as well, using up a number of leftovers from Saturday night's potluck including some of my mother's home-grown tomatoes which I had picked.
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Shortly after noon I forced myself to get present with my work for White Whale. I was in charge of writing promotional e-mails for our affiliate program/product launches. This particular launch was better than most, because I actually believed in the content.
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I loaded up the video I had to write a promotion for. About half way into it, the presenter was in the midst of talking about will power and why it fails us. She explained that every choice we have to make throughout the day depletes our will power. The more choices, the more stress and will power depletion. By dinner time, we're spent, and so we make unhealthy choices.
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Then she explains the opposite of will power: habit.
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"Did you brush your teeth this morning?" she asks.
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No, I think to myself.
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"What about last night?" she asks.
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No, I think again. But I did use my waterpik yesterday afternoon.
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"Do you have to put a sticky note on your bathroom mirror to remind yourself to brush your teeth?" she asks.
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Actually, that would have been a good idea. I used to really struggle to remember until I was seventeen or so. Even still, I find it hard to force myself to remember these things.
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"How do we do it?" she asks, assuming that you've said "Yes" internally to her questions. "The answer is automation," she says.
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I drew this back to what she'd been saying about willpower depletion. I'd been using so much willpower as a child just to try and behave a little older, a little more mature, that I was in constant will power depletion. No wonder I'd had so much difficulty with developing the same habits that other children developed!
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I struggled with learning to wash my hands, remembering to wipe myself after I'd peed, remembering to take a dirty bowl back to the kitchen, remembering to put on a coat or mittens, remembering where I'd put things, remembering to take keys with me when I left the house, and even remembering how to unlock the door!
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I had felt so incredibly frustrated and angry with other children who had no trouble with these basic things. And yet, here I was, perfectly able to do math years ahead of them. I was doing algebra when my peers were still learning multiplication. I was piecing together the nature of time and reality before other children had their first kiss. I had typed up over two-hundred letter-sized pages in my first novel attempt before most children had written a seven-page piece of any kind.
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But here's the rub. I did those things as a natural extension of impressing my parents. Wiping my butt, brushing my teeth, and unlocking doors didn't matter because these things would not impress my parents. I'd learned that my parents only cared about how I excelled. They only cared about how I was extraordinary.
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I wasn't good enough at being psychic; they were disappointed when I reported no ability to see auras.
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I was way behind in reading. Dad was disappointed when I couldn't do very well at chess. Mom was disappointed when I wasn't good with scissors and pencils and making my hands do things that required fine control. She also expressed keen disappointment in my lack of sharing her 'superior' aesthetic taste.
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I had to find other ways to excel so that I could feel loved and safe in my home.
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When I wrote impressive poetry, they praised me. When I typed for hours on my novel, they praised me. When I became better than my mother at artwork, finally, she praised it. Whereas before, she'd said (in response to one of my artworks of several women on a large horse), "It's very good, but I notice that there isn't any part of this I couldn't have drawn myself."
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Even with video games I felt like I was in competition. When I was six or seven she saw me playing Civilization I and saw the state of my virtual empire and she said, "All of your cities are in revolt," in a way that made me feel like an entire failure. I couldn't even play the game right. At the age of ten, I could win a game of Civilization II - on the easiest level. My mom beat it on the hardest level. She did a 'mature' version of bragging about this, and made me feel small for my meager accomplishment.
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Is it any wonder I loved Christmas so much? The one day of the year I was given toys that validated my desires, and gave presents that my parents didn't critique. Or at least, didn't critique much.
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I found myself realizing all of this while watching the video I needed to promote for work, and I found that it gave me cravings for food. I wanted to go into the fridge and grab my remaining hunk of raw sheep's cheese and eat it. Don't do it, I reminded myself. If you do, you'll have worse menstrual cramps tomorrow. And tomorrow you drive to Silverstag Eco Hamlet tomorrow and see Hibiscus.
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Wasn't it ironic that I was using will power even then, as I watched the video? And what did it mean if I drained all my will power working for White Whale? Was it any wonder I ate so much while I worked for him? I already knew I ate a lot to repress my emotions, but here, I was presented with yet another way to look at it, another way to process the information and connect the dots to make a picture with more depth.
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Perhaps what being safe really means to me is not having to use my will power.
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As I continued to work over the next few hours I finished my hunk of raw sheep's cheese.