Now *this* feels like the New Year!
Good morning! I'm so excited to be getting started with all our plans for the New Year! I feel like such a dork, like the kid whose favorite time of year is the first week of school (and,yeah, I absolutely was that dork for many of my school years) A brand new notebook, starting on a bright, blank page with so much possibility...
I thought we might make the lobby day in Trenton, today, but it just didn't make sense. I'm making my phone calls, and may do another volunteer session on Wednesday, but I'm trying to listen to my body, these days, and my body gave me a very clear "You've gotta be kidding me!" when I considered getting up that early and getting the both of us all the way down to Trenton.
Speaking of listening to my body, I've been doing this visualization at night that is about clearing out stagnant energy, releasing energy blocks or emotional blocks, depending on how you look at it. So I do the visualization, fall asleep, have all these wacko dreams (some of which involve me being very, very angry), and wake up in the morning -- still very, very angry. I don't know what to do with the anger. How do people clear anger out without dumping it on other people? I've gotten two excellent bits of advice on that: 1) feel the anger going into raw eggs and then hurl the eggs against a tree and 2) screaming alone in the car. I haven't made any real use of either bit of advice, yet. Maybe this week... I wonder if my ecstatic dance DVD has any sections that feel appropriate for clearing anger?
We started late, today, but we're starting right anyway -- with our full morning routines. We'd made general lists of our interests and then yesterday went through some of our books and refined our plans. This "semester" we've decided to focus on science, drawing, sewing, cooking, world cultures/history. Oh, and spies. Always spies!
About Me
- Elizabeth
- I'm a homeschooling mom, an activist, a lifelong learner, an expatriate New Yorker, an amateur musician. I'm passionate about music, food (making it, eating it, and making sure it's safe, healthy, and plentiful for everyone), civil liberties, social justice, education reform, and books. My past lives have included stints in the fields of social work, tech support, and alternative education. My super secret goal is to be part of a band that's just good enough to play at local pubs and get paid in bottles of Original Sin hard cider. Well, that and to take over the world.
I was that thrilled-with-the-first-day-of-school dork too :-)
ReplyDeleteI haven't done the eggs yet (you can drop them in the tub, too...less clean up to deal with that way :-), but I have done the screaming in the car. It is quite cleansing to connect a physical release to the release of anger.
For me, there's a scariness to letting anger out. I don't want to hold onto it, but am more afraid of letting it loose...
Good luck and happy new year!
Hey, Elizabeth, I must have forgotten you had a blog! I'm always inspired by the visualizations that you practice so it's nice to see you talk of it here. Hmm... what to do with anger? One thing that works for me is heart pumping exercise. I admit, since our elliptical broke, I haven't participated much in this (but we ordered a part-yay!). However, I always found that exercising relieved stress and also was one of the times that inspiration was likely to hit me. I know you love to dance. Does this help you relieve anger/stress?
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year!