Tears and peace

 Had a good day today, all things considered. Had my counselling session (first in a while), and talked about the depressive episode I had a few weeks back. It let out a whole lot of emotion and stuff out around the cause of the depression, and I think, asking for help about it, too. Basically, a lot came up today about my biggest Stuck. "Stuck" (as a countable noun, not a verb) is something I first came across through Havi Brooks. Yesterday I also checked out a friend of hers, Fabeku Fatunmise, through one of those serendipitous links from somewhere else altogether. He also uses the term. I found it cute, but it hadn't quite won me over until today, when I realised what a useful term it is.

I read somewhere else recently (where I cannot recall) that English is unique (or more likely, unusual) in that we talk about emotions by BEING them, identifying with them:
I am happy.
I am depressed.
I am hungry.

... whereas other languages (I don't think the article or whatever mentioned any specifically) phrase it differently:
I have hunger.

One of those talks about the emotion as being the same as you. The other indicates that this is a temporary thing, and will pass. I can HAVE hunger, but I AM NOT hunger.

So. I am not stuck, I have a stuck. When that stuck is particularly sticky, it leads to depression. I am not my stuck. My stuck is something that is happening to me; it's a temporary state.

I downloaded Fabeku's free sound healing mp3 yesterday. I find it really calming and great to help me focus at work when my brain gets too jittery to focus. I put it on a few times this afternoon when I got into work after my counselling session. I got a fair bit done today, I think. This is a win.

Tonight I had my first yoga class in, what, a year and a half? It's with my old yoga teacher, whom I love, and it's a beginner's course, but a whole hour and a half. Very intense, and it's going to be great to start to get back to speed again. All four of us in the course are at about the same level, too, which is good. I decided that I was going to focus gently on releasing Stuck while I was in yoga. Especially since lots of my muscular tension is related to emotional stuff. While we were in half forward bend (I can't remember the Sanskrit, and it's nearly my bedtime so no time to look it up, sorry), one I struggle with because of my ludicrously short hamstrings, I noticed I was starting to feel anxious. I've been having anxiety since about July/August last year when my relationship really went down the toilet. This time I just said quietly (in my head, of course, I was in class), "Hello Stuck. It's nice to see you. We're all friends here." And the anxiety ... disappeared.

This never happens.

So that was lovely. I walked home from the train, since the tram was nowhere to be seen, but instead of getting a bit cross with it, I enjoyed the warm night and the contrast of the cool rain, and I listened to Fabeku's track on repeat (I have bought his album but don't have it on my phone yet), which I can do because it's just drums and singing bowl, and read some of Havi's old blogposts and sometimes just walked listening to the quiet music and the sounds of the night behind that. I felt calm, deeply unmovably calm. It was lovely.

Sometime soon (I guess when all the house nonsense has been sorted out and I have a place to live) I'm going to sit down in a comfortable and safe space and have a talk with my Stuck. I think we have a lot to catch up on.