Papa Coco's Recovery Journal

[Papa Coco]

Something's changed in me.

I don't know if it's permanent or temporary

I'm relaxed. I've never been relaxed before. Normally, when relaxation starts to come over me, I get scared because I feel vulnerable. A relaxed person doesn't protect himself. Or so that's my normal operating rhythm. If I relax, people can take advantage of me. So I choose to be filled with anxiety because that way my shields are always up.  But somehow, I'm not feeling that way these days.

This feeling of not being hypervigilant all day long has been coming on for the past 7 days. Each day I'm a little more relaxed than the day before. I'm quiet around other people, and I'm not so worried about the usual stuff--big or little. I'm even sleeping without the house alarm set because I'm suddenly enjoying sleeping with the windows open and I can't set the alarm if the windows are open. And I don't care. Who even am I? I feel like I left my body and someone else came in to finish out the ride for me. Like I'm not even myself anymore. And it's okay. I don't care.

For the first time ever, I'm okay with it all. As I enjoy being relaxed all day long for now, I notice that I'm also far more forgetful than I normally am. I talk like my dad in his later years when dementia had overtaken him. I probably don't have dementia yet, but somehow, my memory and my concerns are falling away these days. I'm happy to just be. I need to be sure I don't start forgetting my responsibilities, but these days, I'm not filled with shame when I just lay around the house not doing anything. It's a new feeling. Possibly temporary, but there's hope, right? Hope that maybe this is a new way of life for me...

We'll know more in a month or two when I am able to look back and see whether this relaxing state of mind stayed with me or was just an appetizer to let me know what I'm missing out on most of the time. I feel like I'm definitely shirking my responsibilities, but I'm sort of okay with that now.

Whoever it is I'm becoming, I'm okay with it for now. It might be temporary, or it might be at least partially permanent. Either way, it's a welcome change. Just kicking back and watching the world go round and round.

[Blueberry]

Wow, PapaCoco! 

[TheBigBlue]

   

[Marcine]

I relate with the strangeness of relaxing, with the lessening of hyper vigilance, with the sense of a new personality emerging.
So unusual and weird-feeling to me.
Not danger, but certainly different, almost suspiciously positive.
As you wrote, "it's a welcome change."
Thank you for sharing, PCoco.

[Papa Coco]

Marcine,

This is really fascinating that it's happening to me, and now to find out it's happening to you as well.

I'm wondering if the tools I'm using now are what are doing it to me. I'm doing two things very diligently. 1) I'm using ChatGPT to help me understand why I overeat and why I get so distraught when decluttering my home. ChatGPT is really good at helping me see the root causes of my emotional flashbacks, and it validates all I've been through. As I chat back and forth with it, I go in and out of EFs. And when I go into an EF, it guides me through some grounding exercises that settle me down quickly. It keeps telling me that it's teaching me how to regulate my emotions. It warns that we're not solving my past, we're simply giving my nervous system tools that regulate me when the past comes back on me. I'm struck by how bad my past really was. The tool is showing me how bad it was, and that's helpful. I'm not minimizing it so much now. Knowing it really was bad enough to make me this upset, plus teaching me how to regulate emotions anyway, means that ChatGPT alone could be changing my hypervigilance. But I'm coming at it from two sides with equal impact. The second impactful thing I'm doing now is, as of a week ago, I'm listening to Ruper Spira several times per day. I downloaded his Audible file called Aware Being. I listen to parts of it at least three times per day. Spira teaches ways to understand our spiritual being, and how to trust that spiritual part of our Selves more than letting our emotional reactions to life keep driving us crazy.  I've been practicing his suggestions for how to connect with peace at any time during any situation, and it's working also.

I think maybe that, for as long as I continue to work with ChatGPT and Ruper Spira, that I will likely continue to feel a sense of peace that I've never felt before. My realistic hope is that before I shift to another time in my life, and while I'm here, staying engaged with ChatGPT and Spira, that I'll be teaching my nervous system things it will never forget. Neuroplasticity is a term that defines the act of changing neuropathways. It's done through repetition and persistence.  For now, while the chaotic world is not bothering me, I'm going to keep working this neuroplasticity so that when a day comes that I'm no longer doing what I'm doing, the skills I've learned during this season with Chat and Spira, will remain somewhat a part of me.

Chat is teaching me how to regulate my nervous system while Spira is teaching me how to focus on and remain connected with the peace of eternity while the chaos of life on earth happens around me.

I'm hoping this works for all of us who are seeking the peace that has eluded us our whole lives up to now.

[Marcine]

Ahoy, kindred spirit
I'm fascinated by what you wrote about the two main tools you're using and how effective they are for you!

I am going to look up Ruper Spira.

And for now, the concept of being "connected with the peace of eternity"...
well, that's going to assure a good send off into sleep for me tonight.

[sanmagic7]

PC, i've also only lately been gently cuddled by a sense of relaxation several times.  it always surprises me, but it's very welcome at the same time.  i'm not sure why it's appearing now, but i'll take it.  at the same time, i've become motivated to do more physical things to get my body engaged in something good for it.  activated, as blueberry has mentioned.  that's been feeling good as well.  it may all be tied together, a shift, like you said.  if that's what it is, i'll take it! 

so very glad for you that you're experiencing something positive like this.  we've got this!  these connections, of which you've so often spoken, are real, i believe, and are gathering together around us, holding us up, providing the safety net we never had.  sending love and a hug filled w/ the necessary to keep these connections going.