Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Betty's Brainwork

Eye Movement and Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) Resetting Cicuits Session: 

This is a guided meditation therapy I participated in where it feels and looks like lucid dreaming. 

Anger:

“What does anger look like?”

I see a human form with an open mouth, wrinkled forehead, eyebrows pointed downward,  and arms tensed out beside the body with clenched fists. A red sunburst aura is surrounding and covering this figure while a sunbeam of red is coming out of the open mouth. The form manipulates its body to look like a tea pot and like the nursery rhyme “tips me over and pours out” the red aura. It becomes liquid form and pours into an empty glass coke bottle. The form drinks half of the liquid, and leaves the rest in the bottle, then angrily throws the bottle.  Glass shatters…shards everywhere. I assume the form is me at this point because I think about picking up the glass and cutting someone with it. I realize this is demented and unhealthy, so I decide to piece the bottle back together. Once glass is broken, sometimes the tiny shards are so broken or turn into a glass powder. I can’t completely piece the bottle back together because of this. I glue the bottle together the best that I can, but holes are still in the bottle. I spit, like a fountain, more red liquid into the bottle; however, the holes in the bottle cause the red liquid to pour out into a tiny stream. I follow this stream to my house where Doc and Jesse are. The stream flows to my mom’s house too. In real life, my calves tense up and my toes twitch. I think my eyes are open. I ask “Are my eyes open because all I see is black?”
“No.”
I see the word “No.” The word flips and mirrors itself and now it says “On.” This reminds me of a light switch. The image changes from an up and down light switch to a four sided light switch. It moves up and down and side to side which reminds me of a joystick or a stick shift in car. I’m now driving with Jesse, Doc, and my mom in the back seat. I’m in control. I drive them home. I turn on the radio and get distracted by a black spot I see. I see this in real life too even though my eyes are closed. I follow the black spot and it grows. Black spreads across my eyes. All I see is black.

Fear:
“What does fear look like?”

A ghost. …a dragon ghost… a ghost beside my bed when I was kid. I had this re-occurring dream of that as a kid. I have a vivid imagination. I remember getting scared a lot as a kid in bed at night. I would call for my parents. My dad would come and reassure me nothing was there except me and him.
I’m thinking about my grandmother being alone. I fear that.
 He would usually sit by me on my bed and wait until I fell asleep. Fear is being alone. This is related to my recent moving. I’m afraid of leaving those I love behind. I’m not alone. The relationships I make with people are forever in my heart, and if I’m lucky, they are just a plane ride away.”
 Fear now looks like someone who is overwhelmed. They are a tiny person, like Polly Pocket, in a big world that is towering over them.
The person is growing larger and larger while the once engulfing world is becoming smaller and smaller. Earth is now the size of a marble and sits in the hand of the admiring giant. The giant takes the tiny marble of the earth; put it in their pocket, and floats away into the dark void of space…like a ghost.

Panic:

"What does panic look like?" 

I see someone running. Nothing is around them; the mise-en-scene is a black void. It’s like they are running to nothing. I join them.  We aren’t running full-paced; it’s more like a light jog. I start to question “Why am I running? and “What are we running from?” I remember that I hate running. I tell the person next to me, “Hey, I hate running.” We both start laughing. The syncopated rhythms that were previously jogging morph into dancing. Now we are dancing and laughing instead of running. 

Sadness:

" What does sadness look like?" 

I see a genderless, long, skinny, pale face with translucent skin, black buttons for eyes, and a black open mouth. The face is elongated and continues to ooze itself in a downward stretch. It’s trippy because it keeps morphing itself to small and then long again while also turning counter clockwise. The face gets long again opens the mouth and vomits. The vomit is green, and I take my hands and begin scraping through the vomit to see what I can find. I see white pills, red flower petals, and a pom pom. I pick up one of the pom-poms and put it on the head of the face that is sadness. The pom-pom turns into hair and starts to grow long like the face. I take a piece of the hair and wrap it around both button eye to pop them off. I eat the buttons. I realize the face no longer has eyes. I pull out my own eyes and put them on the face. I hold up a mirror, similar to the magical mirror on Beauty and the Beast, and it’s a double sided mirror. I’m really looking at myself. The mirror begins to stretch itself into a needle and thread.  I’m holding thread all of the sudden. Was it the piece of hair? I run my fingers down the thread, and I feel several knots in the thread. My body starts to lengthen like a piece of thread. I try to push myself head first through the head of the needle. I look at the lower half of my body and see that just the lower half is thread; however, it’s not thread anymore. It’s my guts…my intestines. I’m starring at the puke and my guts and wondering what to do with it.  

* We ran out of session time on this one...to be continued.* 


Wednesday, July 6, 2016

Carte Blanche Betty

My favorite thing to do when I get home from work is give Indie a big ole momma bear hug. Usually, when she sees me come in the door, she is so excited. She runs up to me with her high-pitched, excited screams, and hops into my arms. 
She looks like she is flipping the camera off. lol 

For some strange reason, Indie likes to play outside when it is 100+ degrees outside. I'm all for outside time too, but I'm weak in the heat. It would be bearable if we had a pool. 

The heat doesn't stop us from having fun though. Indie likes swinging in the hammock. 

Indie also like to roam freely in the yard; she likes exploring new environments. I also think she is looking for the neighbors cat. She  walks around the yard and says "MEEH", not quite a "meow" but almost. :) 

On fourth of July weekend, we, Doc and Erin, went to eat at Pittsburg Hotlinks. I didn't eat hotlinks because they are so fattening, but I did have a burger, which is, believe it or not, less fattening than a hotlink. haha Then we all went swimming at the pool. That's about the only fun and comfortable thing to do in the Texas heat. 




Indie wasn't too fond of the pool at first. She cried because she didn't like being in her floaty. Once we took her out and just held her, she was having fun. She was death gripping my waist with her legs though. She was scared to let go. 

She found a tomato plant to pick outside on the patio. 

Playing with the ball! 




This little pale angel needed much sunscreen; even so, she still got a little sunburn. 

I was excited to wear my I-just-ate-a-burger one piece swimsuit. Even though I've been dieting and working out, my body isn't ready for a bikini. I've been on the look out for months for a swimsuit. I look at ModCloth regularly and find tons of cute swimsuits, but they are very pricey. I can't spend more than $50 bucks on a swimsuit. Anyway, I found this pinup style swimsuit at GOODWILL, of all places, for only $5.99. This is a brand that I know sells for at least $90, so I was proud of this thrifty shopping find. Most importantly, I feel confident and comfortable in it. I don't feel like my ass or gut is hanging out. 


Family pool pic 

 Indie is not too happy with pool time when she is in a float. 



Afterward, we ate (again- hey, it's what us food lovers do), and just relaxed. We had the BEST DAMN Texas BAR-B-Q I've ever eaten. Jesse's dad made the most tender brisket, smoked chicken leg quarters, and sausage along with all the traditional BBQ sides of course: potato salad, vegetable salad, corn casserole, squash casserole, zucchini and squash fritters, Hawaiian sweet rolls, and sweet tea. Just when I thought I couldn't eat another bite, they rolled out the fresh blackberry cobbler with vanilla ice cream. These blackberries had been freshly picked off the vine. Yeah, the diet plan went down the drain that day. It was SO worth it. I was so excited to eat it, that I forgot to get a picture of it. haha  

Indie chowed down on some goodies too! She had a lot of ice cream and blackberry cobbler with mommy. 

As Indie grows, I want to acknowledge and praise more than her physical appearance, but gosh, she is so pretty....those baby blues. 

Indie found two little ducks and she was carrying them around all weekend. 

Day 2: Back to the pool! 


Already got more tan. Man, I miss living right next to the pool. I was skinny and tan when I did. lol 

Dad invited us for pizza and fireworks. Tammy bought Indie the cutest 4th of July dress. 

Our little firecracker! 



Here is another example of the diet going down the drain. Teddy Grahams and Reese's Puff Cereal in vanilla ice cream. haha 

After eating ice cream Indie was "stirring" with the sand shovel. I think she might have watched me make cookies before ;) 

I was playing with Indie's dinosaur toy. 

Her expressions crack me up. This one says, " What do you mean I can't have more ice cream?" 

Indie wasn't too sure about fireworks either. I think the combination of the pool and fireworks was too much too soon. Poor girl was pooped! 






Watching fireworks...




Indie has been learning her "eyes," "ears", "nose,"and "mouth." She is much more aware of her face and the comedic potential it holds. She has also been learning fish face. This is her doing her fish face in the car. She was cracking me up. 

Making cookies!! ( They were healthy, well healthier-than-normal* cookies...back to diet..blah.)  

Putting on the oven mitt 

These are called "Easy Peasy Peanut Butter Cookies." They are just peanut butter, oatmeal, baking soda, salt, a little brown sugar, eggs, vanilla, dark chocolate chips, and honey. So good and easy! 

I've created a cookie monster!!  She didn't want to eat anything else but cookies. At least they are healthy. lol
 We got to enjoy more fireworks from mooching off the neighbors. We would hear some in the front yard and go watch, then we would hear them in the back yard and catch sight of those too. haha I enjoyed having an extra day off and actually having time to myself. I got to lay uninterrupted by the pool for two hours, tan. swim, and read my book. It was so nice! That got me amped up for vacation which is coming up in August. Before that, we've got to focus on getting moved to Georgia. Jes was accepted into the PhD program at the University of Athens. Indie is going to be our little Georgia Peach. Georgia, here we come!