Hooray!!! It's Back Up!!!

I have this fabulous entry that I wrote as a followup to the entry before this, and I saved it in Word, but I can't seem to access it. It's telling me that it can't open the file, something about my anti-virus software won't allow it. I don't know what the fuck's up with that. Also, when I try to close the file (entitled LJ.doc), it says that the file Normal.dot already exists, and do I want to replace it. I've tried answering yes, no, and just shutting the computer down altogether without answering, and I've tried doing a search on Normal.dot, so see if my entry was somehow saved to that file. It wasn't.

The only thing I've done differently that I can think of is installing Firefox as my browser; also, there were a couple of times I couldn't get some popup on IE to close, so I ended up having to reboot.

Any thought, suggestions, comments on how to get it back?

This is the Entry I Thought I'd Lost...

It’s sad, really. LiveJournal’s servers do down, and instead of just going immediately to Word and typing it out, I wait. It’s like I can’t even express myself anymore without the LJ background.

But, anyway, I’ve finally resorted to Word, which I’ll paste into LJ later. I want to get this down before I go to bed. (Bed! With no wakeup time except that which lunenoire’s fabulous French toast inspires!)

So, blckwngdorcl and I went out to eat at the always-fabulous House of Chan (which, sadly, has no website I can link you to), and did much talking about the situation at work, and we/I came to several conclusions.

I kept asking/wondering what the Universe was trying to teach me with this. What I was trying to teach myself. One of the things that blckwngdorcl pointed out was my arrogance. Now, to backtrack a little, something during the last Core classes came up about my arrogance. I hadn’t really considered myself arrogant, but I could certainly see how I could come across that way, and I certainly do feel a sense of arrogance at times. (Ummm… that sounds an awful lot like it makes me arrogant, huh? *sigh*) I wasn’t feeling arrogant at the time I decided on the settings. At least I don’t think I was. At any rate, it was interesting that he brought that up, because that very thought had occurred to me while I was driving home – that my overconfidence and potential arrogance (it’s hard for me to own up to that… give me time) had contributed to the error, since I hadn’t even once considered that it might be necessary to have someone back me up on the settings I oh-so-carefully chose. So yeah. Certainly that’s a lesson to be learned. We can all use help, no one is an island, and most important: I don’t know it all, I’m not an expert – on ANYTHING. I need help. Being competent sometimes means that you don’t know the answer, and you need to ask for help. Or, in my case, be AWARE that I need the help to begin with. That’s certainly something I need to be mindful of. Always.

But I knew there was something else, something more elusive. The thing about the arrogance was true, but it wasn’t the Truth. “Best way to fool a mage”… but I wasn’t fooled. Not this time.

This is where I wax into Core Energetic stuff. I don’t feel like defining terms here. Most are self-explanatory, really, anyway, and if they’re not, I’ll be happy to play Core Dictionary in the comments section.

Without going into the details (‘cause it would be too long), I had a brief encounter with my Lower Self during the classes this past weekend. One of the things that Core talks about is that the Lower Self is the part that wants you to die. Not always physically, but energetically, emotionally, etc.. It’s also the place from which you want to kill others. These are PRIMAL urges, and don’t really care about societies rules or niceties. Of course, I didn’t really get this. Yeah, a nice theory, meant to illustrate the power of the Lower Self. Life, death, yadayadayada.

Except, when I had my experience, and we were walking around assimilating it later, all that kept going through my head was, “I didn’t die.” Which leads me to believe that, on some level, I really must have thought I would die if I let out those feelings. Who knew? (OK, OK, Pam and the ghost of John Pierrakos knew, but still…)

So, yeah… death wish. I remember logomancer read a book about that once, about how everything we do to ourselves really boils down to that, and it seems to be true. (That’s what I remember it seeming to be about, anyway. I never read it myself.)

But there’s a bit of a twist to it. The Lower Self has to kill you to survive.

*sigh* I do need to do some defining, lest this get way too confusing.

Core HONORS the Lower Self. I can see I’m not making that clear in the above statements. The Lower Self kept you alive when you were younger. All the things that hinder you now, helped you as a child – to survive, literally. But, as adults, those skills no longer serve us, and often, we use those skills without knowledge or consciousness, and it’s detrimental to us now. The same frozen face I use under stress now is the same frozen face I used as a child when things got too stressful. Back then, being pleasant-appearing to one’s caregivers was necessary to survival. Now, it hinders LIVING. Yet, the Lower Self doesn’t know that. It still thinks that, in order to survive, feelings have to be cut off. In order to do that, with the emerging autonomous adult, it has to do things like be the voice in your head that tells you you’re not good enough, not strong enough, not pretty enough, not this or that enough. The voice that keeps you down, holds you back. More specifically, this is the Saboteur aspect of the Lower Self. There is another aspect of the Lower Self, that houses all your emotions, “good”, “bad”, and indifferent, called the Wounded Child. But tonight, I’m discussing the Saboteur.***

(***disclaimer – I am a first-year student of Core Energetics, and have MUCH to learn. This is my CURRENT understanding of the concepts I’m discussing, and by no means should be taken as Core gospel, or any other kind of gospel. The semantics are somewhat irrelevant, anyway. Just follow the story. That’s what’s important here. The definitions I’m giving, such as they are, are only to help the reader understand what the fuck I’m talking about.)

Anyway, so here I am, in Core Energetics. I’m taking classes, and I’m in therapy, a minimum of which is required by the classes. The classes not only teach Core theory and practice, but they are also interspersed with what equates to group and individual therapy sessions in the Core modality. Right now, my focus is on accessing my Lower Self. It’s where my emotions are, the ones I’ve kept hidden. The anger, rage, and fear I am so terrified of experiencing. The Saboteur is what keeps me terrified of it. If I experience those things, they lose their power over me. I learn to access their power, and then the Saboteur loses its power. (Interesting… I almost said “his power”. Apparently, I personify my Saboteur as male.) The Saboteur dies if I feel those dark feelings.

So, what would a clever young Saboteur do in a case like this?

Why, exactly what MY sneaky ass would do in the same case!

Figure out a way to survive.

Not just any plan. Please, I’m too clever for that. And it knows it. But it’s clever, too. We are each other. It knows how I think. It knows how to fool me.

“The best way to fool a mage…….”

So, what’s threatening to us, her Lower Self? Why, those pesky Core classes, and that horrid therapy! We must find a way to get rid of those!

So, what’s the best way to do that, pray tell? Why, money, of course! Fuck with her finances! That’s been the biggest stumbling block to the classes and the therapy ALL ALONG!

But, how do we do that? She’s getting much better with her prosperity issues lately. Things are going in her favor, even! She’s got a new job, a new client, and things are looking up for her! Well, that’s exactly right! That’s why my plan is so PERFECT!!! Just listen…

We’ll fuck with her JOB. You know she has that problem of arrogance. It’s bound to fuck with her judgment sooner or later. When we see an opening, we’ll use our favorite weapon. It’s so easy to make her forget things.

And the best part is… get this… this is all part of an old pattern! Remember all those jobs she lost when she first moved here? She thinks she’s out of that pattern. She is, but she doesn’t need to know that. I needle her with doubts just often enough to keep it fresh in her mind, how it was back then. How powerless and confused she felt. How unsure of herself. She’ll think that her old prosperity issues are rearing their ugly head! She’ll fall into despair!

And best of all…
She’ll have to quit those fucking Core classes. And then we’ll be safe. She won’t be able to see us anymore, but we’ll be there, anyway, running the show just like always.

And it’ll go perfectly! We’ll use all her old patterns against her! We’ll do the same things for different reasons! She’ll never catch on! It’s brilliant! Fucking brilliant, I say!!!


During dinner, blckwngdorcl made an analogy.

He said that, by going through Core, I was basically going into a dark room and lighting all the candles, while, at the same time, my Lower Self is right next to me, puffing frantically to put them out.

It’s too late. I see you. I recognize you. And you’re not going to get away with it this time.

Besides, you silly git. I’m not trying to kill you.

I’m trying to embrace you.

Today

Today, I feel like shit. Achy, crampy, sinusy, and I think headachy is coming on. I'm not entirely please with this, considering I was supposed to be somewhere today. It's not nearly as fun being lazy if you're not enjoying yourself in the process.

jupitercornwall is stopping by later to drop off a monitor for me. Apparently Joe (I'm assuming he means jodydavidson) gave him a bunch of stuff, and he heard about my monitor woes, and he and Dec are gonna be out later today anyway, so he's gonna drop it off. He's the bestest that way. Not to mention other ways. :)

Anyway, I wanted to mention that, Friday night, I got a call from the charge nurse, wanting to see how I was doing, and offer her support. She said she'd been in my position in the past, and knew what it was like. She also said it wasn't her idea to send me home, and she would have handled things differently (which, she already had). She also said that, in her opinion, if they fired me, they were getting rid of a good nurse. She did say, though, that if I did get fired, I could just get another nursing job. Which is true. It was good of her to put that in perspective.

I'm hoping that the revelations I had (noted in my last post) are enough to keep the Universe from felling the final blow on this situation. If I do end up losing my job, I'm going to assume that it's all for the best, and that the Universe has something even better in store for me. I did find some information that profundis had sent me a while back on some stuff, so I may look into that.

Honestly, I'm feeling much better about the whole thing. Of course, come Monday when I go back, I'll be nervous as hell, but I do feel an underlying calm about it that wasn't there before. I'm hoping I feel better by tomorrow. Right now, for instance, I don't think I could work. But I figure even if I feel like shit, I should go at least long enough to see what's up. If they fire me, I can go home. If they don't, I can always ask to go home after that (although it might not be the best choice to do so). I'll play it by ear, I guess.

Anyway, that's where I stand. I'm caught up on all email and LJ, and I actually have some spare time now and again, so I should be better at keeping up LJ, and writing some REAL posts periodically.

Update

Well, I took a nap, and woke up feeling marginally OK. Enough to take a shower, which I hadn't been able to bring myself to do this morning. However, that, and throwing all the towels in the washer seems to have been the extent of my endurance.

My lovely and wonderful husband has done me the favor of taking the cats outside (actually, only Neg appeared to want to go out - he thinks Murke was trying to help me by staying in bed with me), and has also done the even more wonderful thing of providing me with maxi pads and various flavors of Ben and Jerrys. I have a chunky monkey next to me now, thawing to the proper eating consistency.

I have the bestest husband in the whole wide world.