Papa Coco's Recovery Journal

[Hope67]

 

[Papa Coco]

I'm really glad I found these Binaural meditations when I did, because I really need them now, and they are helping me to connect with a more peaceful sense of calm energy.

My family is struggling. My kids are struggling. If I didn't have the OOTS forum, my therapist, and the tools I have been able to connect with, I'd be in pretty bad shape right now.

So, as I'm dealing with the chaos of human life, and of trauma life, I'm also connecting with the peace of the meditations. I do one each morning, another after lunch, and I go to sleep with one each night.

This morning, during my 40 minute meditation I thought of how there are three ways to propel forward. 1) Incremental Propulsion: A bird flaps its wings, both wings at the same time propel it up and forward, but then the wings stop propelling so they can recoil for the next "flap." Why doesn't the bird fall to the ground at the end of each downward flap? Because of the momentum it achieved with the flap. The momentum gives it a chance to recoil and get ready for the next flap. The momentum keeps it moving while it readies for the next propelling flap. 2) Continuous Propulsion: A jet engine needs no recoil. It burns fuel and provides constant propulsion. But, momentum is still a part of it. Most airplanes can fly for a little while if the engine shuts off. A 767 can fly for up to 18 minutes after it runs out of fuel. 3) Alternating Propulsion: The third way I think of how propulsion works is the two legs of a person walking. Each leg does like the wings of the bird. Each leg propels us forward incrementally, then recoils for the next step. The bird flaps both wings at once and then recoils both at once. But the legs of a person take turns propelling. We're like half bird, half jet engine. Momentum isn't as needed when we walk, because one leg or the other is always pushing us forward.

My meditations, for now, are like the flapping of the wings. I go up and forward three times a day. The momentum of what I get from the meditation keeps me moving forward, but, like the bird, if I stop flapping, I'll fall back down to the earth. Momentum between "flaps" only lasts for a little while.

Posting on the forum, or participating in any therapy, are also like the bird's wings. I sometimes wish I could see my therapist every day, but I've learned that the two-week intervals between sessions gives me enough momentum to keep moving forward, while the true healing happens in the two weeks where I practice whatever I learned in the session.

I guess the healing happens during the moments between propelling flaps. Sometimes I think that true peace is found in the space between past and future and in the brief silence between words or the pause between inhales and exhales. The clutter of life is deafening, but between each and every breath is a moment of silence and peace.

My goal for today is to try and anchor myself to the silent moments between the words and the empty space between the flaps of the wings.  Chaos and clutter are happening all around me, but so is the peace between each flap of the wing. Maybe, if I keep focusing on those moments of recoil, I'll connect better with the peace that's happening between each flap.

[Chart]

May that harmonious momentum carry you into a blue sky of beauty and love, PapaCoco.
 

[sanmagic7]

hey, PC, i'm glad you've found some way to explain what's working for you.  i'm not so good at that, can't seem to keep on w/ much of anything on a regular basis.  i'm gonna look up binaural meditations, see if they help, so thanks for posting about them here.   ooops, i just thought about the word 'binaural' and i'm thinking headphones are needed, which i don't have.  we'll see.

at any rate, finding something that works, even if only for a while, i think is helpful.  i hope you can keep it up, and that the intervals between will continue to fill with what you got from your 'flap'.  love and hugs

[Chart]

Yeah, headphones are imperative otherwise you don't get the left-right (right-left?) effect. Remember Led Zeppelin's Kashmir? :-)
I'm actually relating because last night I got Hope's link, made the "link" in my head with PapaCoco's talking about it already, actually remembered where my headphones were... realized last time I tried they weren't working... plugged them in, found they worked and was off on the experience... And just like Hope, I found myself thinking of Hope and all the others on the forum perhaps doing (nearly) similar things at that very moment of time and I felt a wave of connectedness with you good people and the Universe in general... And then I woke up this morning not feeling good at all...
 
But I'm feeling better tonight.
(How was that for a non sequitur)?
 

[Papa Coco]

San and Chart and everyone else who reads these posts,

I've been finding that binaural beats are available in many places. These meditations I'm doing on this app are only one place. I have iTunes, and plenty of binaural beats are available there. Also on YouTube. I'm exploring some of them also now.

I'm reading My Big TOE, by Physicist Thomas Campbell. (TOE stands for Theory Of Everything) He said that in early EKG tests of people during binaural beats that if one ear is being fed 100Hz, and the other is being fed 104 Hz that the difference of 4 Hz is where the healing happens.

There's a great deal of science behind how this effects brain function. I'm no physicist, so I have to take their word for it.

One of the big changes for me is that these Binaural beats have been altering my digestion. I thought I was imagining it at first, but it turns out after some Ai Google searches, that it's well known that Binaural beats do alter digestion by calming the nerves in the Digestive tract. This includes my tummy and below. At first I was experiencing some needs to stay near a bathroom for about 2 weeks, but now I'm settling into a new, more relaxed digestive state, and I'm normalizing to the new vibration.

I guess it makes sense: My dentist uses a sonic cleaner on my nightguards when I visit her. Sound waves clean any bacteria off the plastic without harming the plastic. I guess that even without a physicist, I can see now that sound does affect bacteria, and our digestive systems work by digestive enzymes and bacteria. So, I guess if I can accept that sound cleans my appliances, it can clean my tummy too. Right?


----Holidays and Traumas----


New topic: Thanksgiving in the US tomorrow.  Big trigger for millions of us. Why we do this to ourselves is the mystery. If most people dread Thanksgiving, maybe we are just gluttons for punishment for keeping it going.

Here, we don't know if this will be our last Thanksgiving dinner or not. Our family and friends have mostly died or left the state. There's a sadness there, mixed in with the 64 years of memories of big events on this day. One of our sons was born this week 41 years ago. He's now off grid, dealing with schizophrenia alone, refusing to connect with anyone anywhere ever. He was such a beautiful boy. He's, of course, on our minds constantly. The sadness is deafening at times.

Traumas are still happening. We deal with past traumas all the time, but I sometimes forget that there are still more traumas in the chute awaiting their chance to burst into my life. While the family wars of past years continue to trigger residual traumas, there are some new ones happening now in my old age that have to be dealt with also. Losing our son is one of them. My former best friend from my career died ON Thanksgiving two years ago. Losses just keep building up.

There's a lot of acceptance that needs to happen within me. If I keep thinking that I'll find that happiness that little PC thought I'd have when I grew up, then I'll keep expecting things that aren't coming. (Self-induced torture?) It reminds me of that quote, "Hope, in reality, is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man." ― Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900).
   Nietzsche is said to have been a pretty badly traumatized man who'd lost all hope in his life, and sometimes I feel like I can really resonate with him. But that's a road I can choose to take or not take. I can rely on my own newfound understanding of how micro-moments of peace are found between the familiar moments of pain and focus on those micro-moments instead. I guess the Law of Attraction sort of says that if I focus on what peace I can find that I will attract more peace. I'll become better and better at finding peaceful moments if I'll start looking for them as much as I can.

Baby steps. We don't heal from trauma quickly, but we do make progress if we work at it. I'll take any progress as it comes along.


The Chesire Cat once told Alice in Wonderland that if you don't know where you're going, all roads take you there. I can see in my own life that if I can stop worrying about where I'm going, perhaps I can sit back and enjoy the ride to "wherever this train is going".

I was reading a novel last week about a guy walking Route 66 and was getting frustrated with how long the journey was taking, where the author had the realization that, "The journey IS the destination". Might as well enjoy it. Maybe life will be a lot easier for me to deal with if I'll stop worrying about where I'm going and just enjoy the journey itself. In any given moment, I can take a deep breath and just love the feeling of air going in and coming out. The Traumas of Thanksgiving are there, but between each breath is a microscopic moment of pure peace. I guess I can endure the sadness of the Holidays if I will focus on the peace between each triggered memory.

For any and all of my OOTS friends who are being triggered by the Holiday season this year, I wish you all the peace you can find in the moments between breaths.

We've survived them every year up until now, and we can survive this one too.

To everyone here on the forum and everywhere that someone is working to find peace, my heart is with yours. I pray for inner peace to befall all of us, not just myself.

I believe that through sharing on the Forum and by connecting our own hearts in the ethereal world, we can endure this Holiday season together.

PC

[Desert Flower]

Hi Papa Coco, thank you for sharing your wonderful thoughts once again, they are ever so helpful to me.

Yes, dreading the holiday season over here too, just filled out a questionnaire about that for a trauma patients panel I am on. I wish we could do without any of these 'festive' days where we should, should, should all 'enjoy' ourselves (when in reality we are only being triggered, triggered, triggered). But we will get through them together on OOTS!

 

The only difference is, just a few days ago it struck me, this year might be different because this year, with my M gone, I will not have to deal with any of her opinions, rejections, non-support etc. etc. throughout these days. I can just be me (I hope, whatever the others think of me, let them think  - I'm trying to install this new path here).

Apologies for rambling in your journal.

[TheBigBlue]

  

[Papa Coco]

TheBigBlue,
Your hugs are well received. Thank you!

Desert Flower,
Your hugs are also as well received and thank you too. AND No apologies are needed about responding to my post. I welcome the responses. I love the responses!!! I always hope for responses. I feel less alone in the world when we all respond to one another. I don't see your response as rambling, I see it as joining with me and connecting our Holiday stressors in the spirit of togetherness. I hope that the absence of your mother's criticisms this year does indeed make this Thanksgiving a lot less stressful than any in the past. I hope that as the remaining family becomes allowed now to view you through their own eyes, rather than through hers, that you find some rest and inner peace within your relations with a few of them too.

My critical family is mostly all gone now, and I do, I truly DO find it nice to not have to defend myself against their twisted perspectives of who I am and have always been. I'm finding it easier to forgive a few relatives now that the antagonist is gone and the abuse has pretty much stopped finally. (I remain No Contact with them, but I don't hate or even fear them anymore. I just remain NC because it's just better to leave sleeping dogs lie).

I wish you a new Thanksgiving wish with an extra dose of relaxation this year.

PC.