1373 21H's THOUGH RESISTANCE REMAINS PERSISTENT ...

Though resistance to penning a descriptive post proves persistent
My heart feels sunny side up whenever this next thought floats my boat:
I have a play date planned with Ravi, today!  Hooray!

In case you wonder why today's post will not serve up
Even one new insight to nourish our minds with food for thought
I'm here to say that, upon awakening, this morning
My brain, which, as you know, has a mind of its own
Saw fit to slip today's insights into yesterday's post, and
With that said, I'll exit stage left before
You start throwing tomatoes at my corny head ...

1373 20H's PATIENCE UNTIL READINESS RIPENS PAYS OFF

Me thinks I've not yet revealed strings of insight as to why my brief stay in the Midwest saw the sincerity of my spirit's smile brighten, hour by hour ... On the flip side of that coin, it's also true that each time I confronted my mirror, during that fleeting weekend, my face offered my think tank a sign of this fact:  An unidentified source of mental unrest was brewing within the depths of my mind, and I'd planned to offer you a detailed description of both sides of that coin, today; however I awoke feeling resistant to writing for any length of time.

With past experience as my guide, I've learned to honor resistance until readiness unlocks a door as though inviting my present state of mind to wander into the expansive depths of my soul where whispers of deeper truth, concerning unmet needs awaiting release, begin to sing, right out loud.

Once denial's resistance can no longer dismiss the persistent existence of my heart's unmet needs, deeper truth invites my conscious mind to walk tall through that unlocked door where the smiling presence of readiness invites my mindset to expand so naturally as to embrace change for the better, which has patiently awaited my arrival, knowing that, one day, personal need would speak so clearly as to reveal this truth, which my soul has always known:
The human brain is born with the potential to make such sound use of its grey matter as to develop the depth of thought that proves necessary to successfully juggle opposing emotions, simultaneously, suggesting why a well balanced think tank tends to cultivate a technicolored life while a think tank that adheres to narrow mindsets, which limit the scope of conscious awareness to black or white, tends to get stuck, spinning its wheels in a rut that deepens mental frustrations as we age, and now that I've served up that morsel of food for thought, here's another:  Strings of insight, which nourish the soul, were added to yesterday's post ...

1373 19H's BY THE WAY, HAVE I MENTIONED THAT ...

So, yesterday, I ran out of time before
Finishing this next train of thought:

BTW, have I mentioned that ...
While standing before Will, straight and 'tall' as though
Symbolizing the fact that a portion of my think tank was
In the process of grounding my sense of wholeness to
Stand on my own two feet, my self assessment was
Taking a huge leap of faith, by investing
My host of personal strengths with a deeper sense of
Self confident determination to free my sunny spirit from
Plunging so suddenly into future episodes of PTSD, which
Had formerly sucked my think tank into
The darkly stormy whirlpool of unnamed despair so
Completely that over the next several weeks, I, feeling
Mentally daunted, emotionally dispirited and
Physically exhausted from relentless muscular tension
Could do nothing more than free intuitive trains of
Thought to tunnel ever more deeply through
Layers of denial until insight ignited, cracking
Through the next layer of my defensive wall, freeing
That ghost-like detail, which had leaped out of and
Then back into subconscious (forgotten) memory
So quickly as to scare my conscious mind half
Out of my wits before my think tank could register that
Fearsome detail in conscious memory, so the fact that
I could not remember how our alarm functions but
Did remember the rape dream, suggests that this
Most recent (briefest) episode of PTSD proved
Different from all that came before, because
The sudden uprising of yesteryear's unidentified fear
Did not swallow my think tank whole, answering why
The courage of my convictions, ringing right out loud as
Clear as a bell, inspired my inner strengths to empower
The self assertive portion of my voice with the natural vitality to
Jet propel these next heartfelt statements through the air as though
Straight from the depths of my soul:
NO ONE'S EVER GOING TO THROW ME IN THE GARBAGE, AGAIN!
AND I'LL NEVER THROW MYSELF IN THE GARBAGE IF I CAN'T
WIN A LOVED ONE'S SMILE!
On the other hand, if the truth be told, I did not
Go on to state aloud, every additional declaration of
Change for the better written into the story, because
Deeper truth suggests that all of those declarations
Were embodied within the 'no more garbage' statements, which
Saw my strength of spirit liberating my whole self from
The subconsciously self imposed, unidentified life sentence of
Bondage that had charged the innocent mind of a child of three
Guilty of such unforgivable 'crimes' as to have
Condemned herself to walk through life with
A bag over her head, blinding her conscious awareness from
Acknowledging the mental block that had not offered
The adult she grew to be even one clue of the fact that
Before her third birthday, a portion of her brain had been
Sucked into a bottomless black hole, where
Behind her sparkling persona MY self confident smile would
Drown, from time to time, in whirlpools of silent tears flooding
Forth from a place of unidentified anguish during
The dark of night until EMDR therapy empowered
My conscious mind to tap ever more deeply into
My intuitive power of self trust, which
Partnering with patience, emotional intelligence, and
Knowledge set out on a mindful quest that has
Rummaged through the closet of my mind in hopes of
Finding the misplaced set of skeleton keys, which have been
Unlocking door after door within each next layer of
My defense system's wall of denial, until, ultimately
My mental block has felt reason to ease enough to release
Forgotten details, which have been stealthily conveyed from
Subconscious storage on trains of consciousness raising
Intuitive thoughts, which offer me insight into parcels of
Baggage in serious need of unloading, thus empowering
The conscious mind of the adult I have grown to be to
Take the bag off my head, thus freeing
The sweet natured, traumatized three year old child
(Whose deeply repressed, darkened self assessment had
Subconsciously emerged as frightened spikes anxiety)
To take hold of my self confident hand as, together
The knowledgable adult and wide eyed innocence of
The traumatized child I had been, conspire with the power of
Intuition to continue to clear baggage out of
Subconscious storage files, where upon my restrengthening
Sense of wholesomeness works to carve a well balanced
Path upon which change for the better has taken
Countless small steps toward achieving
This huge leap of faith that has (hopefully) freed us both from
Yesteryear's haunting, daughting unnamed fear of never being
Good enough to feel worthy of love—toward feeling
Every bit as worthy of love as she and I, embracing
Our newfound sense of wholeness, feel worthy of self respect, and
Fortunately, this most current leap of faith took place before
I boarded that jet to the Midwest on Friday, so by the time
I'd landed in my home town, where I hugged
My extended family, close to my heart
My spirit sang with a deeper sense of inner repose than
Had been possible over these past seven decades, ever since
Grandpa's and Janet's inexplicable disappearances had served to
Stunt a portion of my psyche's personal growth with PTSD, which
Thank goodness, has finally been correctly diagnosed, because
The smart heart of a tot can't heal from severe internal injuries until
The main source of the mind and spirit's raw, oozing wounds have been
Revealed, and now that my power of intuition has pulled this
Insight-driven train of thought into today's rest station, perhaps
Upon awakening, tomorrow, I'll have time to create change for the better by
Simplifying complex trains of thought, thus easing our absorption
Of strings of insight, which emerged when intuition signaled me of
Readiness to share AN ALARMING SHORT STORY with you
Then again, it's possible that between today and tomorrow
Fate will step in and redirect my mind toward
Formulating a whole different plan, and with that thought in mind
I am reminded, yet again, why patience and flexibility partner up ...

1373 18H's RELECTING OVER 'AN ALARMING SHORT STORY'

So, having reviewed AN ALARMING SHORT STORY, which
Was penned over three days time
I spied complex streams of consciousness, which
Really need simplifying; however ...
Ravi and I are soon to enjoy our play date, so
Common sense suggests delaying
Such a time consuming task until
My mind feels free to roam over
Complex trains of intuitive thought that
Chugged through subconscious tunnels, deep inside my mind until
The first draft of this story surfaced on Friday, while
I was flying in a jet plane to the Midwest, then
After diving more deeply into my subconscious while
Flying home on Sunday, the second draft emerged and
This morning, while reviewing this second, more detailed account of
A significant moment in time when self control
Empowered a small portion of my brain to initiate
A change for the better that served to
Halt a haunting episode of PTSD from
Hijacking 100% of my conscious awareness, I spied
Additional strings of insights, which had filtered through
My wall of denial into conscious awareness in such
A complex fashion as to be in need of simplification so as to
Ease my thought processor's next reading ...
I mean, my conscious decision to leave run on sentences
Stand on their own is one thing, but leaving
Hanging participles to fend for themselves is
Too much to expect from the teacher in me ...
And BTW, have I mentioned that ... Whoops!
 Look at the time!
Unlike Alice's white rabbit, your friend Annie
Will not be late for a very important date with Ravi
Suggesting why today's post will be continued
When next we meet ...

1373 17H's AN ALARMING SHORT STORY

AN ALARMING SHORT STORY

There are times when change for the better depends upon taking a leap of faith as proved true for me, a couple of weeks ago ...

Early one morning, I can be seen engaged in an anxiety-provoking dream about rape when a compelling urge to relieve my bladder rouses my conscious awareness just enough to throw off the quilt and arise from my bed, where, feeling more asleep than awake, I begin to make my way across the expanse of our master bedroom's wall to wall carpet when these words float into my ear, giving me reason to pause: Annie, turn off the alarm.  


It's important to note that these words are not unfamiliar to me.  In fact, this scenario happens to be an early morning pattern, which sees Will reminding me to disarm the burglar alarm in case I decide to go to the computer instead of padding straight back across the carpet, where, upon slipping into bed and pulling up the quilt, it's my habit to reach for my iPad and review the post penned and published the previous day, suggestive of the fact that the editing process, which, generally, takes place before the crack of dawn, sees me working industriously for about an hour until my eyelids grow so heavy as to signal a natural sense of drowsiness directing my wearied mind to push save and close up shop, as though welcoming the sum of my parts to wholly relax for another hour or two as if time spent in peaceful repose is my just reward for having worked, over recent years, to simplify complex streams of consciousness, which filter naturally from deep within my subconscious each time intuitive trains of thought, tunneling through layers of my defensive wall of denial, compress my storehouse of repressed fears and memories into strings of insight, which, retrospectively, guide today's sense of reflective comprehension to gain a clarified view of yesteryear's confounding situations by shining spotlights on long forgotten details, which, upon being coaxed out of subconscious pockets, heighten my awareness of misperceptions that had exacerbated painful moments in time to the point of traumatizing certain portions of my neo Cortex, which, having felt paralyzed by fear of falling short of perfection, saw me condemning myself to quietly repress my problems rather than suffer stabs of anxiety over fear of feeling abandoned to experience a life of loneliness in which I'd be forced to fend for myself for failing to be good enough to please the Giants whose over reactiveness threatened to sever my connection to emotional safety each time a hastily conceived punishment was meted out that proved too severe to fit my childish 'crimes'.  And all of that remained flash frozen in an unprocessed (undeveloped) state of being until my psychological engagement with sessions of EMDR THERAPY stimulated my conscious mind to develop the patience to make incremental gains in self awareness, which prove necessary to pinpointing negatively focused, misperceptions that, repressed subconsciously, had darkened certain self perceptions, which were buried behind my wall of denial.

Fortunately, this mental block did not blind my conscious awareness from seeing need to seek the key to open the door in the wall, forever.

Fortunately,  sessions of EMDR therapy coaxed my narrow mindsets to broaden, offering my connection to personal growth space to adventure forth into an ever-expanding sense the great unknown where my smart heart and strength of spirit received astute coaching, which tuned my think tank into the necessity of mustering the courage to revisit forgotten details of blocked memories, which had unknowingly tortured my peace of mind with hot pokers of undeserved guilt that had stimulated sudden spikes of anxiety to arise, repeatedly, until my thought processor came to trust my therapist's agile guidance so completely as to open my mind to its innate ability to carve healthy pathways toward healing the injured portions of my self assessment by empowering my thought processor to switch tracks away from carrying forth heavy loads of unidentified, misinformed emotional baggage, concerning misperceived self assessments, which had caused my spirit to darken, during every stage of my life ...

Since none of the insights, above, are new, then why is what I experienced upon awakening at dawn, on this specific day different from every other day—over my entire life?  Well, without further ado, let's address that question, right now ...

First, let's imagine me, half asleep, paused at the foot of our king size, four poster, cream colored bed, where following Will's direction, I can be seen turning away from Will's voice to face the small alarm box, affixed to a wall (which climbs straight up, fourteen feet, to meet our lofty ceiling) and upon reaching the alarm pad, still feeling semi-lost in a dream state, my left arm rises up into the air, where all five fingers on my left hand hover, suspended in humming bird fashion, for quite a few seconds in front of our alarm's number pad, because my think tank can't for the life of me figure out what to do next, and the confounding nature of my thought processor's inability to per from a simple task, repeated whenever I leave or return home alerts my defense system to declare a state of mental concern in case some unknown form of danger is about to close in, signaling my adrenal glands to energize adrenalin production in the event that having semi switched tracks from my subconscious nightmare to engage my brain with real life, my survival instinct feels stimulated to focus all of my energy on need to freeze, flee or fight with immediacy ...

So it's not as if I can't remember the code.  In truth, I can't even make out the numbers on that pad, because once my think tank leaps into survival mode, each small square-shaped button seems to be imprinted with hieroglyphics, the likes of which I've never seen before, and as each moment of mental confusion casts darkening sensations of danger over my mental awareness my mind feels wholly swept up into a magic spell so overwhelming as to set cognitive thought spinning until I, like Alice, get to feeling myself swirling ever more deeply into the rabbit's hole, except that one small portion of my brain, which is seemingly holding fast to my last vestige of conscious awareness, appears to be watching the rest of my mind reeling back in time, and here's what differentiates this experience from every other episode of PTSD, thus far:  This small portion of my brain is so determined to maintain control over my sense of 'here and now' that my mind's swirling sensation begins to ease just enough to throw my think tank into slo-mo as though to tame my brain's anxious reaction by seemingly stretching seconds into feeling like minutes, and as my dizzying sensation of heightened confusion begins to lessen so does my defense system's production of adrenalin, which lowers my current strike of anxiety from code red to orange, and though, in the moment, I have no clue how this host of interactive brain functions are influencing my body's organs to speed up or slow down production of chemical changes, because it's taken much more time to write this descriptive paragraph than the few seconds in which I stood, as though suspended in time, staring blanking at the alarm's number pad, before I grew aware of experiencing a spontaneous, spot-on change for the better after reflection suggested that I found myself turning toward Will, who, by now, can be seen sitting up on his side of our bed, looking tensely perplexed as he asks:  Annie, what's wrong?  Why are you just standing there?

Though most of my brain is still out to lunch, I hear an exceptionally calm, self empowered tone of voice offer up this crystal clear response, which seemingly floats out of my depths in slow-mo, above the expanse of our bedroom's ivory carpet, on a gentle current of air straight toward Will's waiting ear:  My brain has been hijacked by a moment of PTSD, and I can't figure out how to turn off the alarm.

Thank goodness our mutual investment of thousands of dollar spent wisely on sessions of EMDR therapy places Will's comprehension of my mental confusion a few paces beyond my own, because his conscious mind, though confused and concerned, has remained, for the most part, connected to knowledgable clarity while mine is still reeling, resultant of my limbic system's spontaneous take over of my thought processor, which (like every human thought processor) is preprogrammed in utero to shut down the moment that my defense system senses need to divert every iota of available energy toward thwarting a near and present or subconsciously imagined danger by freezing in place, fleeting with the swiftness of a gazelle, or fighting, like a power-struggling lion, to the death ...

As Will's mind takes a leap of faith onto the same page as mine, quick as a flash, he throws off the quilt, strides to my side and having nimbly disarmed the alarm, my husband turns to me, looking deeply concerned.  The nearness of Will's supportive presence seems to be my cue to lift up both arms in childlike fashion, inviting my husband to enfold me within his embrace, where I, clinging on for dear life, drink in these reassuring words, which, feeling like a soothing balm, float into my ear canal as though seeking to calm the 'close-to-but-not-yet' 100% healed, traumatized portion of my brain, which thank goodness, proves to be much less rawly injured from childhood trauma than had been true before I'd gained conscious awareness of the proven, therapeutic effect of EMDR, healing the brain from PTSD:  You're safe, Annie.  No one's ever going to hurt you so deeply, ever again.

Head down, arms still clinging, I hear a tremulous voice (more deeply connected to the healing nature of here-and-now than to yesteryear's unbearable pain) reply:  I had that rape dream, again.  Holding me even tighter, Will responds with:  I thought so ... You were howling, again.

Next thing I know, a light switch flips on inside the darkest corner of my subconscious where skeleton keys, rattling around, wait to be swept out of the closet of my mind in hopes of finally unlocking the ironclad door in my defensive wall, behind which I am offered short but not sweet peeks at yesteryear's most fearsome ghosts, which have continued to go BOO! and GOTCHA! in the dark of night ever since fate had offered my adult frame of mind sound reason to bounce back and forth from conscious clarity to subconscious terror so quickly as to whip my think tank from crystal clear sanity half way toward madness with such a haunting, daunting sense of speed as if to say that the Gods have grown so bored, exacerbating power struggles throughout the oil rich Middle East, as to have the nerve to entertain themselves by playing ping pong with my brain as the ball, and as fast as a paddle can smash that last metaphor across the net and off the table, it's time to switch tracks, so please straighten your thinking cap and listen up, because here comes the next lightening bolt emotional reaction that's about to prove so unexpected as to shock our socks off, except for the fact that we aren't wearing any:

Imagine my body still slumping limply against Will's.

Imagine Will's strong supportive attitude as providing pretty much the only strength that I can count on to stop my dispirited spirit from collapsing, like a ballon pricked with a pin, until all of a sudden, from out of the blue ...

Imagine the blue of my eyes electrifying utterly unexpectedly as if a fire ball of latent fury is about
to burst through this newly cracked layer of my defense system's wall of denial, as though shot out of a cannon  ...


Imagine the power of this long repressed blast of fury re-vitalizing my dispirited state of mind so completely as to catalyze all four of my limbs to straighten out and stiffen up, so that while both bare feet are planting themselves firmly on the ground, we see all ten of my fingers, uncurling from within both of my tight fisted hands as would be true of the tightly closed petals, which have readied themselves to fan open in similar fashion to my fingers, fanning around the palms of my hands, which are now pressed flat against Will's chest, so as to cause my startled husband to stare at me, as though shocked, yet again, because the unexpected nature of these switchback from emotional fragility to my dynamic expressions of self empowerment feels every bit as mesmerizing to Will's .naturally reactive state of mind as is true of my own ...

Imagine the sheer force of the sum of my inner strengths surging up, like Old Faithful, separating my body away from Will's as my voice, propelled on a tsunami-like wave of need to free my mind of succumbing to future attacks of PTSD, has just plugged itself into my very own declaration of independence from subconscious fear, as if in defiance of need to lean on anyone.  And thus do I find myself standing straight up as tall as my full height of five feet two allows, and as though stepping up on my imaginary soapbox, I hear my most self assured tone of voice say (not for the first time): I may be small, but make no mistake ... I am significant!

As that statement does not remain suspended in air for more than a second or two, imagine the sum of my personal strengths injecting this new string of self-empowering insights into the self assertive portion of my voice, which like the Liberty Bell, literally, clearly rings, right out loud:

NO ONE'S EVER GOING THROW ME IN THE GARBAGE, AGAIN!

NO ONE'S EVER GOING TO INSULT MY BEST CHARACTER TRAITS WITHOUT RECEIVING A PIECE OF MY INTELLIENT MIND!

NO ONE'S MISPERCEPTIONS WILL EVER, AGAIN, COLOR ME SO DARKLY TO MY FACE AS TO HURT ME OR DISMISS ME, DISRESPECTFULLY, WITHOUT LISTENING TO MY SENSE OF CLARITY MAKE SOUND USE OF MY VOICE!

NO ANXIOUS SPIKE OF UNDESERVED GUILT IS GOING TO DISTORT MY SENSE OF REALITY SO QUICKLY AS TO THROW THE SUM OF MY STRENGTHS INTO THE GARBAGE DUMPSTER FOR WEEKS, BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT EACH ATTACK OF PTSD  CONDEMNS MY PSYCHE TO EXPERIENCE ...

I UNDERSTAND THAT CUMULATIVE EPISODES OF PTSD RELEASE DEEPLY BURIED FEARS, ONE BY ONE, IN SUCH A BRAIN TEASING FASHION AS IF EMPOWERING  EACH DETAIL TO PLAGUE MY BRAIN TO FEEL AS TERRIFYINGLY VULNERABLE, TODAY, AS HAD BEEN TRUE WHEN THE ORIGINAL TRAUMA HAD BEEN EXPERIENCED FOR REAL, RELEASING THE SAME OVER-ABUNDANT PRODUCTION OF ADRENALIN TO RUSH THROUGH MY BLOODSTREAM AS HAD BEEN TRUE WHEN YESTERYEAR'S TERROR OVERWHELMED THE TRAUMATIZED THOUGHT PROCESSOR OF A CHILD'S TENUOUS HOLD ONTO CLARITY, AND RESULTANT OF EACH EPISODE OF PTSD HIJACKING TODAY'S SENSE OF REALITY, I INVITE YOU TO PLAY WITNESS TO MY SUBCONSCIOUS SELF ASSESSMENT TRASHING MY SELF RESPECT, REPEATEDLY, UNTIL MY BRAIN DRAINS OFF ENOUGH ADRENALINE TO  CALM ITSELF TO THE POINT OF ALERTING INTUITIVE THOUGHT TO GO TO WORK, COAXING EMERGENT STRINGS OF INSIGHT TO FIGURE OUT HOW BEST TO DIRECT THE SUM OF MY SMARTS TO CLIMB OUT OF THAT BLACK HOLE WHERE ALL I CAN FEEL IS EVERY BIT AS CONFOUNDED, WORTHLESS, AND SO DEEPLY GUILTY OF SOME INEXPLICABLE SIN AS TO DECLARE MYSELF AS UNLOVABLE AS WHEN GRANDPA AND JANET DIED, CATALYZING FROWNING FACES TO LOOK DOWN AT THREE YEAR OLD ME UNTIL MY MISPERCEIVED SENSE OF WORTHLESSNESS TRANSFORMED A SWEET, SCARED, DEEPLT SCARRED LITTLE GIRL INTO A HARMLESS FLY, CAUGHT IN THE WEB, SPUN BY A SPIDER SO POISONOUS IN NATURE AS TO EASILY BAMBOOZLE THE CONFOUNDED MIND OF A GOOD LITTLE GIRL TO BELIEVE HERSELF SAFE WHEN, IN TRUTH, A PERSON, WHOM I'D GROWN TO LOVE AND TRUST POUNCED ON MY LONELINESS WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY TROUNCING MY HIGHLY-VULNERABLE-SOON-TO-FEEL-SHATTERED-INNOCENCE, AGAIN AND AGAIN!


NEVER AGAIN!
WILL FEAR OF FROWNS SILENCE MY VOICE!

NEVER AGAIN!
WILL FEELINGS OF LONELINESS DROWN MY SELF RESPECT

NEVER AGAIN!
WILL I CONSENT TO CONDEMNING MYSELF UNWORTHY OF LOVE


NEVER NUFF PENNED ABOUT EVERYTHING WRITTEN ABOVE TILL EVERY HEALTHY MORSEL OF INSIGHT, CONCERNING THE PERSON I PROVE TO BE, TODAY, HAS BEEN SO DEEPLY ABSORBED AS TO REASSURE THE SUM OF MY REBALANCED TRAITS THAT A WHOLESOME AND LASTING SENSE OF CHANGE FOR THE BETTER IS SURE TO BE MINE MUCH SOONER THAN LATER, and since this alarming short story poured out of my mind on Friday, while my spirit flew high in a jet plane through a clear blue sky toward the Midwest where my love for extended family felt eager to attend a cousin's bridal shower, which is this afternoon, I'll pause my voice in hopes of having served your think tank sound reason to chew on, digest and absorb recurrent strings of insight, spotlighted, yet again, within the body of today's post—just in case your defense system needs a bit of extra encouragement to step aside, clearing space within your heartfelt smarts to graciously welcome intuitive trains of thought to tunnel, subconsciously, until strings of insights filter so freely through your wall of denial as to expand the narrowed framework of your conscious mind as has been true of mine ... and BTW ...

Please make no mistake—rather than intimating that, one day, you'll come to believe everything that I've come to believe, I'm suggesting that whence your personal quest to deepen your sense of self discovery commences, you, too, may be shocked to find that certain high minded principles, which have been guiding your path have actually narrowed the scope through which you set your sights, concerning fear based choices in need of identifying, because otherwise, you'll remain blind to decisions that stunt personal growth vs positively focused, adventurous choices that stimulate narrow comfort zones to expand for sound reason—and now that it's Sunday night, and a jet plane has landed me safely at home, I am good and ready to wish one and all a peaceful night's sleep till the first glimmer of sunlight rises at dawn when I'm sure to awaken sporting a smile, because Steven just texted, asking if G&G are free to enjoy a playdate with Ravi, Monday morning, and without even glancing at my calendar, knowing that I'll change whatever needs be, my reply rang out clear as a bell—Yes!  Please and thank you! ...

Hooray for this running back's celebratory dance as I reward myself with today's game ball, knowing full well that my corny think tank views the sum of my personal strengths as worthy of having earned most valuable player, and with that simply said I plan to enjoy sweet dreams! 

1373HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I NEED TO MAKE A CHANGE ...

Sooo—I need to stop suggesting what to expect before each next post appears on your screen, because the fact of the matter is this:  No matter what I had originally planned to write, intuitive trains of thought, percolating, overnight, redirect my conscious mind to awaken at sunrise with need to pen freshly emergent strings of insights for this reason:  During each writing process, I come to understand some aspect of whatever drives me 'to do this rather than that' more deeply than had been possible before each new string of insights filters through my wall of denial.  So, though I'd planned to write a detailed description, highlighting my new found ability to nip a sudden eruption of PTSD in the bud, I'm about to switch tracks with hopes that you, too, may find this next string of insights, which proves to be a compilation of new, woven with those that came before, as intriguing as was true for me—so okay—here they come, one by one:

Let's say that your brain fools you into thinking that you know what's causing you to feel guilty of this or that when deeper truth suggests that the primary catalyst, which has caused your anxiety to spike (over most of your life), is still hiding just beneath the surface of conscious awareness within a subconscious pocket of your mind.  And let's say that your power of intuition has not yet aroused your curiosity to sense an inner need to quest, consciously, toward correlating a terrifying childhood experience that left you feeling so shamefully devastated as to have summoned your defense system to block your conscious awareness from acknowledging this fear:  The terrifying nature of that experience shattered your sense of personal safety so completely as to have traumatized a portion of your mind into misbelieving yourself to be so bad as to feel unworthy of love unless you walk the narrow tightrope of perfection, every single day of your life, and since feeling unworthy of love scares (scars) a child's self esteem half to death, Mother Nature, in her infinite wisdom, directed your defense system to erect the first layer of your wall of denial, which, to this very day, blinds your conscious mind from growing aware of how often the festering nature of that terrifying childhood experience provokes a latent sense of guilt to arise, most especially T those times when your misperceived self assessment so much as thinks to lift one foot off of the tight rope of perfection upon which you have felt need to tread ever since your unidentified fear of imperfection threatened your traumatized sense of safety with sliding down a slippery slope into that same black hole, where a beloved adult's over-reaction smote your self perception to darken so drastically as to cause you to misbelieve that the only way to save yourself from feeling cast out, all alone, feeling miserably confounded by complexities that prove inherent to life and love was to close the door on the overwhelming nature of that fear by fastening denial's blinders to either side of your eyes, empowering denial to stuff the existential nature of your soul's longing to satisfy your spirit's most profoundly personal unmet needs inside a subconscious pocket of your mind, and as long as you wear those blinders, you'll continue to trot through each stage of life with no conscious clue of how much you need to cling to that high wired, false sense of safety, which perfection seems to guarantee, though deeper truth suggests that your soulful power of intuition has continued to coax your conscious awareness to wander off the beaten path of the safe and narrow by stimulating your curiosity to ponder over wondrous experiences that might have been yours to enjoy had subconscious fear of imperfection been swept aside. freeing conscious awareness to call forth the courage that proves necessary to remove denial's blinders and reconsider a closed mindset that has refused every invitation to explore the road not taken in hopes of freeing your innermost, unmet needs to express themselves more openly than had been possible before your higher power of intuition had felt stimulated to kick in and flip the light switch from darkly colored, tightly wired, unconscious negativity toward spotlighting the terrifying childhood experience that caused your bright sense of inner balance to darken so unexpectedly as to stuff the deeply wounded aspects of your self esteem into the dank chill of that black hole of subconscious despair where your primary source of anxiety waits to pounce on your spirit so heavily as to sink your positive attitude along with the sum of your strengths into layers of emotional quicksand grown so thick, over the years, as to feel as though warmth, sunlight and the freedom to liberate your truest existential self may never see the dawning of a brand new state of mind, until—an utterly mesmerizing experience flies in from out of the blue, blowing your safe sense of complacency right out of your mind, alerting your sleepy intuition to re-awaken and shine deeply soulful, yet high spirited spotlights onto strings of insight, based in specific moments of hindsight, which offer your conscious sense of self awareness reason to gain the foresight to make changes for the better by releasing a lifetime of subconscious pain, born of undeserved guilt, concerning those aspects of your self perception, which have been in need of brightening and re-balancing, pretty much forever.  WHEW!

As walking the slippery tightrope of perfection is a harrowing way to approach each next stage of your life, may I respectfully suggest that there's no time like the present to reconsider this fact:  Though we may be surrounded by loved ones, ignoring our soulful need for existential enrichment proves a lonely path, which is why common sense so often notes that a pair of intelligent, well educated heads may serve to expand the brainstorming scope of both  ...

Since the emergence of subconscious fear, left unprocessed and thus, unhealed during childhood is often the culprit that makes us feel anxious about what we are doing if what we are doing falls short of that which social convention has deemed to be perfect then deeper truth suggests that though we may feel guilty of wrong doing, that which we are choosing to do is not actually wrong for us ... and as two individuals work to develop the emotional stability that proves necessary to differentiate between that which feels wrong from that which is wrong, peace of mind gained is more readily maintained.

Each time I remember to take into account how little I've come to understand about the complex, inter-related functions of both sides of my brain (the narrow minded, fear-based defensively passive, silenced-by-denial side vs the open minded, expansively adventurous, courageously dynamic side that clearly identifies and gives voice to my soul's highly individualized unmet needs), I think to ask myself this question:  Have I been feeling spikes of anxiety, because intuitive thought is attempting to alert my conscious mind of my existential need to remove denial's blinders in favor of opening my eyes to refocusing my attention upon deepening my comprehension of self awareness so that I do not invite painful eruptions of yesteryear's unexamined fears to condemn my best character traits so harshly as to bind my think tank to a closed mindset that lashes my darkened self assessment with a latent sense of (undeserved) guilt, repeatedly ...

In short:  The nature of peace of mind depends upon gaining an ever deepening understanding of the brain's impulsive reactions that free subconscious fears to arouse anxiety to spike, distorting our sense of clarity so quickly that before we can blink twice, the light switch inside our heads turns our little corner of the world from cozy, warm and sunny to feeling so fearfully cold, dark and dank as to send anxious chills running down our spines  ... in short, the more we come to understand the turbulent ocean of emotional complexity churning just beneath the surface of conscious awareness, the more readily we grow capable of quelling anxious stabs of self imposed guilt that threatens our waiting sense of safety for reasons, which prove other than that which we perceive as true ...  And thus is it important to note that sudden spikes of subconscious fear can swirl the most intelligent, well balanced thought processor into such a mind-dizzying spin as to imagine a walk around a peaceful pond as suddenly feeling sucked into a shark tank with no way to climb out of this darkened state of mind, suggesting that you don't have to be in recovery from PTSD for subconscious guilt, left raw, unhealed and festering during childhood, to emerge, capsizing your adult sense of reality to the point of snapping your self worth into bite sized pieces as quickly as proved true of me, though the mind injured to the point of having been diagnosed with PTSD may swirl, ever more anxiously within that black hole, for weeks, and as that experience has swallowed my strengths more than once—Quoth the Raven:  Nevermore,  because I have done the work necessary to grow past guilting my soul, undeservedly, by way of calling forth my Line of Control to rein in the negatively fearful side of my imagination, which otherwise tends to paint my character traits as much darker than clarity, concerning reality, proves to be true.

If you ask what makes my intelligence believe that my intuitive powers have grown so hyper vigilant as to steer my think tank away from experiencing future eruptions of PTSD, which would otherwise drown my high-spirited sense of personal safety in anxiesty's swirling whirlpools of inexplicable confusion for weeks, I'd reply:  Life is short, and as much of my life has already been spent, that fact strengthens my resolve to consciously tame my defense system's natural reactiveness each time a sudden eruption of subconscious fear threatens to capsize my sense of clarity's hold onto reality so quickly that my think tank feels sucked down into that black hole of despair where the traumatized portion of my brain spins my self assessment into such a dizzied distortion of the adult, whom I've chosen to grow up to be, that I can't for the life of me stop my sanity from slip-sliding half way into the emotional madness that confounded my undeveloped think tank when I was three and could make no sense of loved ones disappearing, left and right ....  (Thank goodness, I've recently learned that a natural uprising of subconscious fear comes and goes, whereas an episode of unidentified PTSD can swirl my sense of personal safety ever more deeply into that shark tank, 24/7—for weeks.)

When next we meet, please place thinking cap on head in order to focus the sum of your smarts toward absorbing whatever intuitive thought directs me to write knowing full well that I hope my sense of readiness will tap into a detailed description of a recent moment in time when my need to tame a sudden eruption of inexplicable anxiety, which had seemed to make no sense, proved 100% effective.  And as you can imagine, no other goal that I've worked to achieve has ever made me feel as self empowered as had been true when my quest toward self discovery served to strengthen my connection to self awareness to the point of watching my most recent learning curve take a leap of faith toward successfully rescuing the traumatized portion of a good little girl's brain from being sucked into another lengthy, deeply painful subconscious episode of undeserved guilt!

Boy!  I sure do hope that after reviewing today's train of thought, I'll feel peacefully pleased to see that each sentence flowed out of my mind on a well-balanced stream of clarity.  The last thing I want to feel is compelled to rewrite today's string of insights as many times as proved true of the complex stream of consciousness published, last Friday.  As to what will pour out of my mind, tomorrow—well, hopefully readiness will describe the moment in time when, functioning as a whole, my mental strengths stopped a sudden eruption of PTSD from high jacking my sense of clarity—and hooray for that change for the better, which saw conscious awareness switching tracks so quickly as make my self assessment stand up and cheer:  Hip Hip Hooray for my newly expanded, Line of Control, which saved the day in the nick of time!

1373HHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HOLY MOLY, I FEEL LIKE BILL MURRAY IN GROUND HOG DAY

What can I say other than ... Yup ... upon awakening, today, feeling compelled to reread Friday's post, half baked trains of thought were spied (Grrrr) and newly emergent strings of insight were added ... in fact, I find myself drawn to simplify complex trains of thought in that post so frequently that my conscious awareness has been stirred to wonder whether intuitive thought has been busily interweaving (and then simplifying) the most important string of insights that I've ever penned, thus far ...

Memo from intuitive thought to conscious self:  Repetition is not redundant while conscious awareness continues to deepen absorptive retention of each insight-laden lesson, which flows out of the most knowledgable portion of my brain on trains of thought that will slow the speed with which future eruptions of subconscious fear will run interference with my intelligent sense of positively focused, solution-seeking sense of logic, and here is why that's so important:   Reflection suggests that episodes of PTSD have sacked my sense of clarity as quickly as lightening strikes a person unconscious, so with that slice of knowledge in hand, I charge my power of intuition to tap into my Line of Control as soon as the first hint of confusion suggests that a subconscious fear may be on the verge of high jacking my sense of clarity.

If you ask what makes my intelligence believe that my intuitive sense of self awareness has grown so hyper vigilant as to steer my think tank away from experiencing future episodes of PTSD, which would otherwise drown my high-spirited sense of happiness in the swirling rapids of inexplicable confusion for weeks, I'd reply:  Life is short, and as much of my life has already been spent, that fact strengthens my resolve to consciously tame my defense system's natural reactiveness each time a sudden eruption of subconscious fear threatens to capsize my sense of clarity's hold onto reality so quickly that my think tank feels sucked down into that black hole of despair where the traumatized portion of my brain spins my self assessment into such a dizzied distortion of the adult, whom I've grown up to be, that I can't for the life of me stop my sanity from slip-sliding half way into madness.  And if you ask how I plan to mastermind that mental feat, I'd reply:  Please tune in tomorrow, when I'll describe a recent moment in time when my need to tame a sudden eruption of inexplicable anxiety, which had seemed to make no sense, proved 100% successful.  So, when next we meet, I plan to pen a moment in time when hyper-vigilant self-awareness saved my sense of clarity from drowning in that sudden spike of mind-swirling anxiety before confusion could rise so high as to sweep my hold onto reality into another set of rapids that would have discombobulated my think tank until such time as my intelligence, which had felt knocked for a loop, had calmed down enough to reconnect with my storehouse of knowledge, whereby the sum of my smarts would hunker down  toward understanding which fear, long buried in subconscious memory, had triggered that sudden strike of anxious stress-producing confusion, which, in turn, triggered my heightened sense of self awareness to call forth my well-practiced Line of Control, and thus did a sudden strike of PTSD fail to high jack my sense of clarity for more than a few seconds, and as you can imagine, no other goal that I've worked to achieve has ever made me feel as self empowered as had been true when my quest toward self discovery served to strengthen my connection to self awareness to the point of watching my most recent learning curve take a leap of faith toward successfully rescuing the traumatized portion of a good little girl's brain from being sucked into another lengthy, deeply confounded episode of undeserved guilt!

If today's post has roused your curiosity at least enough to request just one hint as to how my heightened sense of self-awareness managed to pause that sudden eruption of PTSD on the spot, I'd reply:   Straight through this morning, I've worked, conscientiously, to simplify each string of insights in Friday's post, which now speak so clearly to me as to flow ever more meaningfully from my think tank into your thought processor, suggesting why I sincerely hope that you'll review Friday's post, one last time, because that's where the hint you seek can be found ... And with that request simply stated, tis time to switch tracks from posting to rising in readiness to greet a brand new, sunny day before the contractor, who is due to arrive, shortly, rings my bell, alerting me to open the door with a welcoming smile as if to say:  I truly appreciate your expertise in repairing the worn areas of my home, so that every nook and cranny will be as well structured as when we'd first moved in—I guess you could say that this licensed and bonded contractor repairs homes in similar fashion to the way that EMDR therapy encourages the traumatized portions of my brain (which have been in serious need of repair) to restructure my self assessment until the sum of my parts feels ... wholesomely, spiritually and healthily 'good' as new ...

1373HHHHHHHHHHHHHHAPPYFATHER'SDAY!

FIRST OF ALL ...
Wherever you reside
I'd like to wish
A HAPPY FATHER'S DAY
To one and all

SECONDLY ...
Upon awakening, this morning, I reached for my iPad, and intuitive thought popped so many additional insights into my post of two days ago as to ask you to track back for the third time for this reason:  If second thought proves deeper than first than my third reading, which stirred my subconscious to reveal additional insights that had not filtered into conscious awareness until this morning, may imprint more permanently into conscious awareness than had been possible before this newest set of positively focused insights had tunneled their way through the darkness of night, awakening my intuition to kick start my main source of mental energy to view my personal strengths in a lighter, brighter frame of mind than ever before ... And what, I ask, could feel better than being awakened by inter-connective trains of intuitive thought, which, upon directing my conscious mind to pick up my iPad and add new strings of insight to that which had already been written, reinforces my growing sense of clarity's grasp of today's reality, concerning changing-self-perceptions-for-the-better that serve to strengthen my spirit's sparkle as I greet each new day with sound reason to throw open the drapes and smile up at the sun, shining high above my mountain, which reaches clear up into the expanse of the desert's brilliant blue sky, and morning after morning, I remind myself of this fact:  Each time I remember to accept human imperfection—whether mine or another's—frustration lessens and with that positively focused change for the better, life feels great!

THIRDLY ... BUT NOT LASTLY ...
Since today is Father's Day, and as tomorrow is only a day away, I hope you'll feel utterly free to put off back tracking till Monday so as to fully enjoy today's every waking hour, freeing your spirit of deep thinking, because that's exactly what I plan for myself now that Will is stirring beside me, suggesting why I'll freely push publish before he's fully awake so as to turn my full attention to whatever pleasures the father of our three sons throughout the entirety of his special day.  As to reviewing the newest set of insights added to my last lengthy post, which, hints at intuitive readiness alerting my subconscious to shine a spotlight of insight onto the unprocessed, misperceived fear that my sense of courage is sure to excavate once this stage of my quest to exonerate a sweet little girl from guilting herself of sinning with a pediphile dives into the haunting nature of this next subconscious fear, which ravages my peace mind:  Upon unconsciously declaring myself as guilty of sinning as had been true of the pedophile, who'd violated my innocence, repeatedly, I'd felt more bereft, alone and worthless than anyone who'd loved me could possibly have fathomed, and as denial silenced this pain, which had festered rawly within my subconscious until fairly recently, thus does the conscious sum of my hard won, positively focused, adult strengths plan to carry the unconscious, good, little, traumatized girl, as though on a life raft, through the next stream of consciousness-raising rapids, which are sure to prove more healing than horrific whenever this current rest period deems my mind re-energized and my self confidence readied to steady the next lap of my ride through what I believe will be a better balanced, less lengthy, and therefore, less exhausting dive into the rushing river of adrenalin, which will certainly not rise so high as to cause this late stage of my recovery from subconscious PTSD to capsize and drown my clarified sense of reality now that I feel as lovable and worthwhile as common sense deems synonymous with the transparency of deeper truth.

Oh, wait—one more thing:  If it's true that my fatal flaw has been to work to meet my loved ones' needs until I'd repeatedly exhausted the sum of my inner strengths well, I'd rather reflect back over that less than balanced flaw in my character than to look back to find that I'd not done enough to assuage the heartache of others resultant from harboring a narrow mindset set that habitually, hastily and harshly misjudged the vulnerabilities of others so as to have colored the true depths of their inner struggle so darkly as to have blinded myself to the depths of their desperation without thinking to muster the humility that's necessary to dive beneath the surface of the little that can be comprehended by the conscious mind.  In short, if my primary energy source worked to exhaustion, more than once, while my empathetic reaction did its utmost to ease the anguish of others during their greatest times of need, most especially when intuition, combined with listening skills, offered me insight into clues as to why their quests for change for the better stalled so often in emotional quicksand that rose so high as to have covered their eyes and ears to any suggestion on my part that remotely resembled deeper truth, whispering:  Please let's work together to find the key to unlocking the fear-based door in your subconscious so that we can grow to know each other more deeply, tomorrow, than fear and denial allow for, right now, because you are harboring  darkly colored, subconscious misperceptions thst blind your intuition from seeing the light of day that is relentlessly attempting to expose this deeper truth to your conscious mind:  It's always darkest before the dawn—and—if that's my fatal flaw, well, I'm okay with that, because it's based in this hope:  change for the better is possible as long as a person is on this side of the grass  ... On the other hand, I'll no longer dive into quicksand with anyone whose negativity is habitually focused on disparaging my strength of character as to pull both of out spirits even farther down while I'm doing my best to pick us both up by setting my sights oh the high road until my energy exhausts and faints, dead away ...  And now that my husband has opened his eyes, suggesting why my time to write est finis, I'll fully attend to presenting Will's waking presence with this quartet of firsts:  First a smile, then his first happy father's day greeting, followed by his first kiss of the day while offering him Father's Day present #1 ...

1373HHHHHHHHHHHHH POPCORN FOR THE SOUL

Upon awakening, this morning, I reached for my iPad, and intuitive thought popped so many additional insights into yesterday's post as to alert my conscious awareness to ask you to read it, again, as if for the very first time ...

1373HHHHHHHHHHHH RECENT POSTS REFLECT TAIL SPIN TRANSITION FROM CONFUSION TOWARD CLARITY

Lately, I've felt as though my blog is a mess.
Certain trains of thought must be hard to follow, and I apologize for that.
Upon rereading my last few posts, I spied many streams of consciousness, which emerged in a disorganized manner, as well as a plethora of grammatical mistakes that frustrated the teacher in me ... If you ask why this series of posts leans toward mental discombobulation, I'd reply:  Each time my thought processor is busily transitioning away from yesteryear's denial of reality toward today's absorption of clarity, concerning fear-based misperceptions that have haunted me, subconsciously, ever since childhood, here is what happens ... While one portion of intuitive thought is still busily peeling away at another layer of denial, a latent sense of anxiety arises, pumping so much adrenalin into my bloodstream as to sabotage my think tank's natural ability to construct sentences with such attention to detail as to convey each insight-driven train of thought with the precision that proves necessary if your thought processor is to remain on track, absorbing strings of insight that flow so smoothly out of the depths of my mind as to be clearly absorbed into yours.

Each time anxiety disorients my train of thought, your think tank gets sucked into the same mental maze that throws my thought processor for a loop until anxiety passes, offering my mental clarity free passage to reconstruct trains of thought, which proved so complex as to have chugged out of my depths in such a raw, half baked state as to compel me to reconstruct every sentence that had grown to such extraordinary lengths as to have boggled your mind even more than surging spurts of adrenalin had boggled mine ... WHEW!  I've wanted to express that last train of thought for quite some time!

The fact of the matter is this:  After each session of EMDR therapy, subconscious fears (associated with terrifying memories) which had been blocked from my conscious awareness ever since I experienced childhood trauma, begin to stir deep within my mind until, as though out of the blue, a fear to which I'd been blind tumbles into the conscious portion of the highly complex machine (commonly known as my brain) and Having grown accustomed to writing my way toward clarity, my sense of mental disorganization draws me to the computer, where all ten of my fingers can be seen flying all over the keyboard so quickly as to tap the wrong keys as my typing speed tries but can't keep up with each next train of thought that pulses out of my intuitive depths as if each emergent string of inter-related insights (Exposing a subconscious fear, based in misperception, which had remained secreted from my conscious awareness since the age of three) is making its most valiant effort to swim through turbulent currents of adrenalin, which, turning my blood vessels into rushing rivers of churning rapids, propel the sum of my adult smarts to focus my mind's eye on the emergence of a deeper truth that has always swirled in an unprocessed state just beneath the surface of my persona's ever-ready smile, and not until both sides of my brain (the subconscious, traumatized portion and the conscious, intelligent portion) are wholly zoned in on exposing and penning secreted fears based in terrifying misperceptions, which were so beyond the conscious comprehension of a terrified child as to signal Mother Nature to save me from feeling so overwhelmed with fear too great to bear as to alert my defense system to construct the first layer of my wall of denial, right then and there, and once that wall divided my brain into two separate parts, each of which remained blind to the other, from that time till I was diagnosed with PTSD, every awareness that had proved too scary to bear, signaled my hypervigilant defense system to secret away anything that caused my sense of personal safety to quake with latent fear until EMDR therapy began to relax my hyper vigilance enough to filter individual details from this fearsome memory or that one through this crack or that crack in my wall of denial ... And eventually, there are so many cracks that another layer of that wall crashes to the ground, freeing a forgotten memory to tumble, unexpectedly, into my conscious awareness in such a garbled state as to terrify my sense of safety as much today as had been true when an adult had caused the defenseless mind of a child to feel utterly worthless, many decades ago, and not until I piece the shattered details of the forgotten memory into  comprehensible state does my episode of high anxiety have reason to relax ...

 Though it's true that my adult sense of safety feels threatened each time my conscious mind envisions myself as that traumatized, three year old child, whose misperceived self-assessments swirled through one set of anxious rapids after another, EMDR therapy charges my adult intelligence with fortifying my connection to courage in order to sweep the terrified child (I had been) into my strongly protective and loving embrace, so that she and I can reach the shoreline, directly ahead, before another wave of subconscious fear can overwhelm my resolve to dive every more deeply into my psyche.  And thus does my adult sense of courage wrestle with my defense system's natural reaction to maintain its wall of denial until the power struggle that pits my frightened, defensive state of mind against my courageous need to know myself in depth feels so totally exhausted of energy as to drown my current state of determination to fully comprehend whatever new eruption of personal imperfection is accusing the sum of my strengths with feeling as useless (worthless) as had felt true when the sudden deaths of my Grandpa and my baby sister (several weeks apart) rocked my family's entire world, spinning every adult brain off its axis, so that no matter how hard a terrified, good little girl tried to win a smile, not one adult, who had once basked in the sunshine of my natural sparkle, did anything but respond with perpetual frowns.  Then when crying and shouting, while casting blame for my angelic sister's death, forced terrified, three year old me to hide from the searing flames of adult fury in the closet until my dad (whom I'd run to and clung on to for dear life) arrived home from work—for so many weeks without end—and I, being as egocentric as is true of small children, who, feeling utterly confounded by complex emotional reactiveness on the parts of adults, had silently condemned myself guilty of having committed the unforgivable sin of being such a bad. unlovable, little girl as to have deserved to be forgotten by my mom and grandma, day after day, until that unprocessed pain grew so great as to alert Mother Nature to call forth my defense system, which shielded my traumatized psyche from emotional pain by constructing an impenetrable defensive wall of denial, behind which my conscious awareness habitually stuffed every fear or problem that might otherwise zombify the vulnerable nature of a child's hold on sanity in a world gone mad, and thus, from the time of Janet's death until Will and I separated, most of my troubles remained anesthetized and numbed from conscious awareness, most especially when any situation, fraught with emotional pain, felt too unbearable to bare to myself once I came to harbor this unprocessed fear:  If ever my subconsciously silenced, self-assertive voice speaks aloud, frowns will surely grow so loud as to draw forth my self assessment (which remained closeted since I was three), suggesting that I am unworthy of love, and thus did I smile and comply with every request, by day, while by night:  Throughout my childhood, an itch, more intense than words can describe, awakened me in the dark of the night, when I was seen scratching my arms so raw as to have drawn blood, while crying so hard that I'd actually gasp for each next breath as though subconscious pain had been desperately clawing its way out of my psyche's subterraneous tunnel exposing need to exhume unprocessed fears that surfaced by way of visceral reactions, year after year  ...

BTW—if you misthink that description of eruptive subconscious agony as melodrama then may I respectfully suggest that you know as little about the savage ravages that undiagnosed PTSD wreaks upon an intelligent, well-educated adult think tank as did I.  However, having worked determinedly to attain 'today's' crystal clear sense of mental clarity, you can see why I give thanks for EMDR therapy, which continues to coach my intuition to work at saving the haunting nature of a traumatized, little girl, who swims through swirling channels of my subconscious as I work, consciously, to free her from painfully guilting herself, undeservedly, repeatedly, and she and I transition away from childhood's confounded misperceptions toward refocusing my adult conscious sense of clarity toward growing ever more wholly aware of the admirable, free thinking character traits that I've conscientiously worked to develop over these past seven decades of my life, and though each turbulent ride through yesteryear's rapids causes my adult mind to tumble into a time machine that sucks my think tank into misbelieving that an anxiously confused, darkly colored misperception is true, I've grown ever more determined to disempower emergent episodes of PTSD from running interference with crystal clear reality.  And if you ask how I plan to minimize an episode of PTSD, I'd reply:  I plan to call upon the sum of my personal strengths to act like a life raft that will save my hold on clarity from capsizing each time an episode of PTSD attempts to fool my brain into believing that my imperfections make me unworthy of living the good life, because each time I feel need to frown, I feel so bad (subconsciously) as to condemn myself of being undeserving of love, and when I guilt myself as unlovable, all I want to do is to closet myself away from the rest of the world untilmy next session of EMDR therapy works to exhume, identify and assuage the subconscious fear that spurred each next eruptive episode of PTSD to highjack my adult think tank's connection to present day reality, and as soon as I feel calm enough to engage my think tank in the mental gymnastic wizardry necessary to exhume an unprocessed, subconscious fear that had choked my sense of personal safety half to death at the age of three—well—I'm sure you can see why my conscious awareness can't help but sigh with a surging sense of emotional release as soon as my current state of mental relief senses clarity replacing confusion, thus propelling my sense of wholeness to feel so eager to share insights that I've worked to absorb, concerning my ability to free a sweet natured child from serving out a lifetime sentence, which had shackled her spirit, 24/7, to internal chains of undeserved guilt, as to add strings of emergent insights to a published post as soon as each review of a previously written train of thought pulls into the next rest station.  And thus has it become my habit to feed my need to free freshly streaming strings of insights to fall wherever they pop out of my mind in hopes of conveying unidentified fears, which are in the process of tumbling out of deeply buried subconscious pockets in hopes of offering my conscious awareness a brand new vision of where my self assessment has been in need of change for the better, close to forever.  And not until I review each post do I realize which trains of thought flew out of the oven half baked, suggesting that certain morsels of self-empowering knowledge had been served as raw as sushi for public consumption  ... WHEW!

So, hopefully, you can see why, upon arising, feeling well-rested, morning after morning, intuition compels me to take a step back, pick up my iPad and review the previous day's work, at which time, the editing process develops a mind of its own in that I can't seem to stop additional strings of insights from surging up and pouring out, here, there and everywhere, until each half baked train of thought can be swallowed down as smoothly as Campbell's chicken noodle soup tastes Mmm Mmm Good!  And with that said, you now know why each post, penned or edited during the tail end of an episode of PTSD, tends to border on discombobulation no matter how much editing the teacher in me feels compelled to do.  In fact, if, weeks later, intuition pulls me back to review a series of posts published at the tail spin end of an episode of PTSD, I spy words that should have been deleted but were not, and I can also see where auto correct has made a mess of a sentence.  Geez!

At any rate, posts written while my brain is still transitioning from a painful episode of PTSD toward gaining a more conscious sense of today's reality, concerning the sum of my character traits, shows you what the inside of my head feels like while my brain is undergoing each stage of mental transition from traumatized misperception to healthier adult self assessment, suggesting that you are watching from the stands while I'm making my way safely around the bases.  And each time my think tank is 'up at bat', and I find myself home free of errors, fouls or striking out, you get to watch my wearied mind experience a peaceful rest stop on the bench, where I can sit back, relax, breath freely and whet my thirsty whistle with a sense of personal pride in having successfully completed another difficult task until the next inning of the game of life, sees me up at bat, sizing up another daunting, eruptive episode of PTSD, which suddenly flies straight at my head as though from out of the blue, scaring my conscious mind half to death; however, from now on, instead of quaking in my cleats, I'll invite you (if you continue to be a fan) to witness my sense of courage rising to the occasion with bat in hand, facing each curve ball, which, traveling at the speed of light, challenges my think tank to smack a homer straight out of the ball park, again and again, because when it comes to love and life, I admit to being an over achiever, who believes that tis good to take a seventh inning stretch without leaving the ballpark, mistaking the game to be over, when deeper truth suggests that the game's not over ... till one side wins to the other's loss.  And if you know me, at all, it comes as no surprise that I don't play to win or lose—I play until win/win is won ...

Ever since my current therapist astutely diagnosed PTSD, each emergent episode of PTSD proves less traumatically debilitating and therefore less lengthy than the last—why?  Because knowledge is self empowering, suggesting why change for the better demands that each person on the field of play is charged with consciously cultivating inner strengths such as patience and calmness under fire (think my Line of Control), courage, fortitude, resilience, humility (and between you and me, a corny sense of humor doesn't hurt).

Once armed with the sum of those strengths, the human brain can be trained to keep a keen eye focused on today's ball by readily steadying anxious reactiveness to rely on a think tank that has worked to assemble such a safe and peaceable, well balanced emotional environment inside your head, so that the sum of your personal strengths can grow ever more deeply attentive to absorbing every morsel of knowledge that an experienced coach is coaxing your conscious mind to field as you come to feel ever more capable of directing the sum of your smarts to tunnel ever more courageously into scary subconscious memories in order to progress through the pain-invoking series of mental breakthroughs that proves necessary to heal each portion of self esteem, which had been traumatized during childhood.  And with that insight in mind, here's what I'm training my brain to do whenever something flies in from out of the blue, catalyzing another episode of PTSD to erupt as swiftly as a pitched ball becomes a blur, speeding straight toward my noggin, altering my well practiced sense of courage and timing to rise to the occasion quick enough to smack that episode of PTSD right out of the park, or if the best I can do under extraordinary emotional pressure is to not get hit in the head so hard as to free subconscious fear to stunt the sum of my smarts to feel as useless as when I was three, well, common sense suggests that's a commendable sign of progressing toward change for the better, concerning improving my self assessment under fire, as well.

As you can see, facing each next inning of my recovery by training my brain to feel capable of regaining my lost sense of self empowerment proves to be exceptionally tiring work, which is why reality checks, concerning progress, during rest periods, encourages me to focus on pain leading straight toward gain, pinpointing the fact that, over the long haul, healing the shattered bones of my self esteem (without need to throw stones at the glass houses of others) proves personally strengthening as well as immeasurably worthwhile.  And as today is the first day of the rest of my life, I feel thankful for the fact that my think tank has dedicated so many waking hours to working toward exploring and absorbing a perspective, concerning love and life that proves to be as positively focused as are most of the posts that I pen, again and again, until clarity of thought is finally mine to share with you!

I saw my therapist, today, who explained that though David's psyche had most likely experienced deja vu (concerning the severity of his spine surgeries of several years ago) my son's sudden spike of anxiety did not necessarily point to PTSD for this reason:  The intensity of David's stress was proportionate to the length of time that he'd been controlling emotional frustration, concerning the depth of his physical pain, which has severely limited his freedom to enjoy life.  So when months of hard work to heal himself seemed for naught as his pain intensified, David's reactive, sudden spike in anxiety remained within the realm of that which is considered psychologically normal, considering the circumstances, suggesting, yet again, that two situations can seem the same on the surface when a knowledgable connection to deeper truth indicates that that is not the case in point.  Whereas David's (temporary) loss of personal safety made sense, my lost of personal safety (over several weeks) in the aftermath of having successfully created a memorable Passover weekend, enjoyed by twenty loved ones, made no sense, at all ... unless PTSD, correctly diagnosed, factored into the complicated story problem's equation.

If we stop to think about it, life is a lot like higher mathematics in that we need to grow ever more able to solve for the unknown X factor, and each time an episode of PTSD feels provoked, the problem at hand grows so complex to comprehend that the sum of our smarts must hunker down to correlate how the X factor interconnects with that which renains unknown until we solve for ...Y to the tenth degree.  (As I had been placed in an honors algebra class, during my fresh year of high school, where my teacher's sarcasm scared me half to death, my thought processor, fearing making a mistake, froze so often that I barely escaped at the end of each semester with an [unacceptable, unforgivable] 'C' ... Aha!  So that answers why I've had recurrent nightmares about taking those finals, again and again, and during the dream, if I don't achieve at least a B, landing me on the freshman honor role where intuitve frustration has always known I'd belonged, my current teaching certificate will be revoked!). So after bungling my way through algebra, which navigating the mind, successfully, through geometry depends upon, studying higher mathematics seemed out of my league ... on the other hand, the highly complex nature of the inter relational functions of the human brain fascinate my thirst to absorb depths of logic to no end ... Why?  Because the absorption of knowledge proves self-empowering ...  For example:

Whereas David had readily processed every logical point that his dad and I took turns orally conveying, concerning the fact that his frustration had spiked for sound reason, considering the fact that his physical injury has continued to painfully interfere with his enjoyment of life for more than six months, our son's mental connection to clarity would have been severely compromised had PTSD boggled his conscious mind.  Once an episode of PTSD high jacks a person's thought processor, the conscious mind may remain blind and deaf to logical reasoning for weeks before the traumatized portion of the subconscious calms down enough to stop imagining the presence of danger, closing in, so as to alert the adrenal glands to stop secreting such an over-production of adrenalin as to flash freeze every organ within the entire body to tense up in basic survival mode—and as the brain is an organ, it tenses too tightly to think clearly until the brain feels safe enough to melt tension down and relax, at last ...  BTW, that's not just personal experience talking—being an over achiever, I do my homework, and every sentence, clearly penned in today's post has been confirmed as a statement of psychological fact.

I sure do hope that upon rereading today's post, tomorrow, every word written will make so much sense to me as to believe my think tank is growing ever more capable of conveying deepening degrees of clarity (concerning strings of insight into self discovery) so as to be more easily absorbed by you, if not today, then tomorrow.  And with that thought, simply stated, today's stream of consciousness senses the shoreline, waving an all-clear flag, signaling this tired swimmer to head straight toward the next rest station, which awaits my safe arrival, directly ahead ... only a few laps of crystal clear water left to tread before my weary mind and a sweet natured child can be seen basking in a calm, sparkling spa, laughing at who-knows-what ... until something utterly unexpected flies in from out of the blue, driving the locomotive that's determined to heal from PTSD to tunnel, inner strengths intact, toward clarity, again ...

1373HHHHHHHHHHH HANDING THE LEARNING CURVE'S BATON TO MY SON

 Just to refresh your mind ... I've continued to make headway, during recent sessions of EMDR therapy, suggesting my gaining insight into empowering my conscious mind to recognize and therefore nip episodes of PTSD in the bud before the emergence of an unidentified subconscious fear grows so overwhelming as to create such a spike in anxiety, which, in turn, stimulates my adrenal glands to secrete such an over production of adrenalin as to free my limbic system to high jack clarity of thought until my strength of spirit exhausts. Though each step on my chosen path toward gaining insight in self discovery proves far from easy, sustaining the courage that's necessary to dive ever more deeply into my psyche in order to expose and disempower subconscious (unprocessed) fears, which had scared me half to death, has been worth my acquisition of every morsel of self awareness that continues to nourish my conscious absorption of fearsome secrets that I'd had no clue of keeping hidden from conscious awareness, over most of my life.  WHEW!

Each time Intuition compels me to muster the determination to penetrate another layer of my defense system's wall of denial, every gain in self awareness is synonymous with deepening my sense of  self empowerment, which is why my thought processor and spirit feel forever grateful for every change-for-the-better that proves as positively focused as that!  One day, the benefits of EMDR therapy will have become so widespread that every student, studying psychotherapy, will be required to take that course before earning his or her degree.  Fortunately, my therapist co-authored the textbook used in universities, today

The fact that I ask so many questions about the benefits of EMDR, during each therapy session, offered my intuition reason to hope that with patience, I'd make good use of the listening and speaking skills that I chose to acquire when my sons were young to (coach) coax David's subconscious to feel ready to reveal an unidentified fear to his conscious awareness, and here is why that train of thought, based in countless strings of insight, made my stomach stop churning:  Knowledge is power, and my recent accumulation of knowledge, concerning the cumulative effects of relentless periods of stress, jump started my thought processor's well oiled wheels to start turning ...

Assuming that you agree with my assessment that 'stress busters' gained should be passed forward, let's backtrack a bit so I can fill you in on what caused David, who proves to be a strongly independent free thinker (who had chosen to  leave law to drive to Hollywood, determined to write comedy, though everyone, except for his brothers and me, thought he's lost his mind) to change his mind and make that SOS call for help, after all:

About ten days ago, David, who has been dealing admirably with intense, relentless back pain, over these last six months, began to feel somewhat better, and over-confidently, he pushed it and exercised a bit too much ... His pain flared so much as to dash his hopes of recovery as though all of his valiant determination to heal himself, over these many difficult months, had been utterly futile, and as anxiety struck, like a flash of lightening, so much adrenalin rushed through his brain as to empower his limbic system to high jack his sense of logic, leaving him to feel that he will live in this utterly painful, physically debilitated, dependent state of worthless uselessness, forever ... And that's where PTSD takes center stage, because that was David's subconscious fear, left in an unidentified (unprocessed) state, six years ago, when he's suffered the acute trauma of two emergency spine surgeries, ten days apart, which left him completely dependent on Will and me for more than a year ...

Though he didn't say any of this to me when he called for moral support, I, knowing his history of spine injuries, requiring several surgeries, as well as his strength of character, surmised that after six months of dealing with the intensity of unrelenting pain, by himself, his mental courage was at its wits end, and as I sensed that David's positive focus was fully spent, my son was in need of emotional support as well as the calm perspective of knowledgable loved ones, (one knowledgable in orthopedics, the other who had worked to absorb the insight and ability to coach his exhausted mind to reset his inner compass from negatively focused fear [based in his traumatic spine injury, which had required emergency surgeries, several years back], toward recharging his positively focused attitude, which was hanging off of the edge of the cliff, staring straight down into the black hole of despair, which was threatening to swallow the exhausted sum of his many personal strengths, whole ... until he thought to call PTSD BUSTERS) so upon answering our son's 911 call, I knew that David was in need of brainstorming with his mother and father (who, as you may remember has an excellent reputation as an (retired) Orthopaedic surgeon, and while I was penning this post, (written while we were on the coast, though not posted until today) David's personal Orthopaedic surgeon was ubering over to fetch his son to confer with our son's doctor.  Though Dr. Will believes to know what happened to spike David's pain and though I believe I know what spiked his anxiety to high jack our highly intelligent son's sense of logic, I'll fill in those details and update you once I learn more, after David and Will return from the doctor's.  If David feels that his crises has passed, we'll fly home, if not, we'll stay ...   💞

1373HHHHHHHHHH POSITIVE SOLUTION-SEEKING ATTITUDES, BRAINSTORMING AND TEAMWORK

Two weeks ago, while on the phone, I heard a flatness in David's
Tone of voice, prompting my suggestion to fly out to be with him
I remember saying:  twice my nerve pain was so intense that
I could barely walk (each time for a year), but I got through
Those terribly painful times, when I felt so dependent, because
Dad came home, every night, and Angie stopped by, almost
Daily, after work ... Their emotional support offered
My wearied spirit a much needed lift, day after day ...
You've been handling the unrelenting nature of your pain
Every day, on your own for six months ...
Though David's voice was flat, his attitude remained connected to
Positive focus when he replied:  I'm feeling a bit of improvement, and
I have plans in place with several friends, over these
Next few days, and I can leave my apartment and drive so
Really Mom, I appreciate your concern but
I'm doing okay ... So though I remained tuned into
The flatness of his tone when we'd talk (every few days)
I knew to follow my son's lead, and I worked at
Relaxing my urge to fly to his side until the phone
Rang, last week, when David, waving the white flag
Surrendered his strong hearted spirit to
Succumbing to exhausted defeat, called to say:
The pain has increased,  I need you and Dad to come
Hearing that, we flew to the coast the next day ...

The fact that I've recently made such headway during recent sessions of EMDR as to have gained insight into empowering my conscious awareness to nip sudden episodes of PTSD in the bud before the emergence of an unidentified subconscious fear creates such a heightened degree of mental tension as to usurp control over my think tank, causing my spirit strength of spirit to collapse ... offered my intuition reason to hope that with patience and an astute sense of caution, I might be able to (coach) coax David's subconscious to reveal an unidentified fear to his conscious awareness, too ...
And if I was on target, perhaps, by making good use of the concept 'two heads, working toward regaining positive focus, can prove better than one' we could redirect David's mind away from imminent disaster, toward his recovering from intense nerve pain, which was proving to be 'two steps forward, one back' ... And speaking from personal experience, any long-lasting, profoundly painful recovery, whether it be psychological or physical in nature, proves exceptionally maddening ...

1373HHHHHHHHH GEEZ! HOW MANY H'S CAN WE EXPECT TO PILE UP!

We flew home last night
We would not have made that decision had

David's inner strengths not rallied to pass this
 Test of his endurance, concerning
What it takes to rebalance and restore
An exhausted person's sense of courage once
Hope for change for the better feels
Smashed into and shattered by that which seems like
And unending series of solid brick walls
And if you ask me to explain that train of thought
In greater depth, I'd reply:
My son's SOS call implied intuitive awareness alerting
His exhausted think tank of time to pass
The solution-seeking baton to a fresh, fully energized
Brain (a brain which has absorbed the importance of
Placing a positively focused perspective in
The driver's seat), offering the exhausted state of
The original driver to rest while a fresh mindset
Navigates the next leg of a complicated predicament by
Calmly coaching each supportive member of the team to
Set their sights on creating some fraction of
Change for the better, so that small stepping stones
Toward actual change for the better is set into motion, offering

The exhausted mind of the primary driver a much needed rest stop ...
More about creating reason to refocus on change for the better, which

Proves to be within reach of each supportive person's
Realm of control, later, because my time to write, today, is
Running out for this reason:  Upon awakening in my bed, this
Morning, intuition directed my conscious mind toward adding

A deeply meaningful string of insights to yesterday's post ...
BTW:  If counting all of those H's dizzies your brain
The same is true of mine;  however
My mental energy has focused so completely upon
(Role modeling) how best to coach a family's train of thought to
Brainstorm through a complicated time of crises by
Inspiring everyone's attitude to concentrate
Intuitive attentiveness upon a positively focused track that
You can see why I cared not a fig about
How many H's kept piling up ... And with that fact
Simply stated, I'm planning a quiet day in hopes that
Nothing, flying in from out of the blue
Runs interference with my need to do
Little more than relax the tension, that working
Through crises hot wires throughout my body, and
While resting the wearied mental strengths (effective
Solution-seeking techniques) that
My conscious mind has systematically sought to absorb, ever since
I read a book that clearly implied:
The word parent is synonymous with
Role model throughout every stage of life...
Hey!  I've just decided to reward my positively focused
Role modeling self for making good use of
My noodle, over these past several days, by booking a massage!
And as I have time to reduce my muscle tension, today,
I'll pass the thinking baton to you and make that call, right now
PS ... Thought you'd like to know that
Before Will and I fell soundly asleep, last night
(Mental gymnastics taxes the source of one's energy)
David called with a sweet slice of good news that
Served to lift all three wearied spirits
Then this morning, I read what our youngest son
Wrote on Facebook:
My parents and brothers are super heros!
I responded to his post with:
Pow!  Wham!  Bam!  Ala Batman
Why Batman?  Who knows?
Though I'm too tired to even venture a guess
I'm not too tired to draw my lips up into
A quiet, quite natural smile, which happens
Whenever I feel confident that our family's well practiced
Combination of teamwork, positive focus and
Line of control serve to nip a crises in the bud, indicating
That the baton has again, been accepted by David's intelligent
Courageous, positively focused, capable, yet humanly wearied hands ...
As for me, once again, I feel deeply gratified for EMDR therapy
Which offers keys that open doors in defensive walls that would
Otherwise block a person's conscious awareness from
Identifying need to expand the narrow framework, which limits
A negatively focused, subconscious mindset from seeking
A wide angled lens, and since, knowing my son's physical history
I'd thought to identify the subconscious fear to which
David's conscious mind had remained blind, and as
My intuitive train of thought proved on target, I understood why
David's positively focused spirit felt, suddenly, sucked up to
His ears into quicksand, where fear of drowning in
Physical waves of pain dimmed his brain's ability to
Think smart on his feet, and thanks to recent sessions of
EMDR therapy, I was able to maintain my focus on
Clarity, concerning brainstorming (which, over the expanse of
The next couple of days, served to encourage David's think tank to
Reframe this momentary crises) instead of falling into
My old pattern of reacting over-empathetically, which
Would have prolonged my son's exhausted sense of
Personal crises, (which generally erupts when
A person's mind is so depleted of energy as to empower
An unidentified subconscious fear to
Overwhelm the spirit's defeated sense of
Courage, which must be refueled before one can
Hope to understand the true source of inner conflict that
Interferes with an intelligent person's ability to brainstorm
So clearly and instinctively as to call forth
The thought processor's natural sense of creativity to function in
Tandem with reality to come up with a simple plan that
Will, over time, successfully resolve the inner conflict, which
Disrupting clarity, stimulates a subconsciously repressed
Unidentified anxiety to drive an intelligent mind half way to
Madness, because most of us cannot yet identify those times when
A limbic reaction is empowered to
High jack our sense of clarity as fast as
A flash of lightening strikes a person unconscious)

Each time I remember to
Consciously work to clue myself into
Those times when being true to my innermost self
Depends upon injecting my conscious awareness with
Sensitivity, patience and courage to quest toward excavating
Yet another subconscious fear, I, once again, gain yardage toward
Closing in on attaining a heartfelt but as yet, unmet
Personal goal ... And thank goodness, David's ears
Had not yet sunk into quicksand, because
I was able to gently coach my exhausted son to listen to
The same positively focused line of reasoning that has
Been penned in today's post, and over our four day stay
We worked in tandem to exhume the subconscious fear that
Had been stressing David's mind as intensely as nerve pain has been
Distressing his body for these past six months, and as it's time to
Book a massage to relax tension within my muscles ... More later ...

1373HHHHHHHH UNEXPECTED CHANGE STRIKES, AGAIN!

A specific reason kept me from penning a new post over these past several days, and I'll reveal a more detailed account of what happened once we fly home from the west coast, which is where Will and I have been ever since David, whose personal strengths had reason to reach the end of his rope, called for help, ASAP, spurring us to pack up in readiness to fly out and be of help, just after sunrise the next morning ...

BTW ... As David's current predicament has remained unresolved over these last six months, that fact offered me reason to review and edit my last post, which had p, originally been penned and published before we, receiving our son's SOS, flew to his side ...

At this moment, while I'm filling you in about my absence, Will is ubering from our hotel to David's apartment to pick up and accompany our youngest son to his Orthopaedic appointment ... As for me, I'm about to stop writing in favor of going down for breakfast, because of this change for the better within me:  Now that my engagement with EMDR therapy coaxed my subconscious to reveal my unidentified fear of sudden death (a loved one's or my own) the depth of my sensitivity to empathize with the pain of others to such an overactive degree as to have been unhealthy for me has rebalanced, which is why I feel a deep sense of compassion for David's pain without feeling so utterly enmeshed as to absorb his pain as my own, and with that change for the better came more:  With conscious awareness of my ability to differentiate David's pain from my own, my subconscious mind did not arouse my primary, unidentified source of anxiety-producing terror, which had been based in the fact that I was too young to process my reaction to my beloved grandpa's and baby sister's unexpected deaths, both of which had stunned my entire family, several weeks apart, and each time that fear felt subconscious reason to manifest itself in its unprocessed state within my conscious mind, I felt the same degree of us healed, traumatized terror arise, which in the past had depressed my appetite so profoundly as to have caused pounds to drop off my body as fast as the flash of a frown had struck me as senseless as a flash of lightening might burn my brain's natural connection to logic to a crisp with such spontaneity as to have catalyzed my anxiety to spike as though another healthy loved one had just been discovered dead, and as long as this remained my subconscious pattern. An unidentified threat to my personal sense of safety would alert my adrenal glands to flood my body with so much adrenalin as to have released episodes of PTSD, because this series of automatic, mental gymnastics had become hard wired into my brain as a result of Janet's sudden, tragic death when I was three ...  (No wonder why my intuition, which led me to read everything I could find about effective family communications, felt need to inspire my intelligence to team up with creativity to conjure up The Line of Control, so that I could empower myself to role model logical solution seeking skills while raising my sons). And thus do I give thanks for recent sessions of EMDR therapy, which saw my therapist coaching my sense of readiness to work toward healing that traumatized portion of my brain, and here's how I know that self assessment to be true:  Throughout this past week, my overactive sensitivity to empathetic reactiveness did not spike so high as to absorb David's pain as my own as had been true in the past, and resultant of that fact, my think tank's sense of solution-seeking logic remained as clear, calm and skillful as is true when the brain's well-balanced, problem-solving attitude reigns supreme, quelling anxiety, which rising to limbic levels, would have high jacked my positively focused attitude, suggesting that my well practiced line of self control was not high jacked by a sudden spike of subconscious fear, which would have happened if the automatic arousal of an unhealed trauma had zapped my think tank with this version of  yeateryear's taumatized misperceptive self assessment:  If I can not heal my loved one's pain, I must consider myself as useless and as worthless as I'd felt at the age of three, when my parents long-lasting frowns terrified my undeveloped sense of personal security.  As not one haunting hint of that subconscious fear had felt aroused during these past few days ... Well ... when I have time to write more, I'll fill you in on why I'd felt empowered to help David confront a subconscious fear that had began to attack the sum of his personal strengths, which had experienced sound reason to exhaust, over these past six months ... As for now, the grumbling rumbling within my tummy insists tis time to make my way to the dining room before the hotel stops serving breakfast ...