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I am paying attention to myself as I walk somewhere between fearfully and courageously into the next moments of my life to my process.  HOW am I doing that?  HOW am I using my efforts and life energy to order and organize myself at the forefront — at the leading edge — of this sense of chaos I am trying to overcome rather than being overwhelmed by?

This is a personal inexact science.  I realize this at the same time I marvel at my self as I notice how I do this.  I find myself realizing that after I left my miserable home of origin and entered my adult life the pattern I notice TODAY is probably the same one I have used ALL OF MY ADULT LIFE!

What I did from the instant I posted my last piece of writing was look around the universe that is my tiny little piece of the world and asked, “What around me NEEDS me to take care of it?  What around me needs me to work with it so that it can achieve its own natural progress in its own life?”

As I asked these questions I realized that part of what probably contributes to altered development of an early abuse survivor’s left brain is that — as happened to me — is that nobody ever let me set my own individually-based PRIORITIES!  (My single priority as an infant-child-teen, unconscious and body-based as it was, was solely to endure and survive!)  Nobody was ever concerned with what I NEEDED or with what I WANTED.  So how could I begin to ‘train my brain’ to process my own priorities?

Priorities, I just now realized very clearly, are what humans use to ORDER and ORGANIZE their self in their life — which means moving through time one instant at a time.

My priority as an adult has most centrally always been to help, or to caregive to, someone else.

‘Experts’ say that it is only when our own internal attachment system is turned off that we are free to caregive.  They describe these two systems of being connected to one another like the ends of a teeter-totter.  One up/on the other down/off.

Well, I believe from inside my own life that in cases of severe abuse survivors we can operate differently.  I certainly did as a mother and I see myself doing the same thing today:  Taking care of someone/something outside of myself IS taking care of ME!

I had a terrible, nearly fatal reaction to my last child leaving home.  It was so far past ‘ordinary empty nest’ that I could almost laugh at the concept itself.  My entire BEING was ordered and organized around caregiving my children — and doing that job the best possible way.  No more kids at home?  Linda as a self disappeared again into the invisibility I spent my entire first 18 years surviving in.

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So my pick-for-the-start-of-ordering and organizing my self for this day?  The priority?  I headed outside, dull clippers in hand, to salvage my Pomegranate tree!  As its tiny new deep green leaves began to appear last week I realized that I had neglected to even consider that last winter’s 2-below-zero nights of freezing might have killed that tree!  But, oh does it look SAD!  A few leaves here, a few leaves there — among masses of obviously dead dead dead brown brittle branches.

While it might be somebody else’s priority to wash the dishes or put away all the goodies that litter the kitchen floor in plastic bags, doing so is NOT my heart’s desire!  THIS is Linda, not somebody else.  This is ME that desires to be outside and a part of the gentle wind, under the scooting shadows of the rare desert sky cloud cover, warmed by the sun but still needing several layers of clothing to stay warm out there.

It gives me joy to know that I have the power to act upon the future of that tree in such a way that I CAN save its life.  At the same time I know that helping that tree into a thriving future benefits me because its fruits are luscious and SO GOOD FOR ME!  I can productively apply myself to caregive that tree – and it is my priority at this moment and my desire and my passion to do so.

As I FOCUS on this job all anxiety leaves me.  There is no pressure to do this job ‘right’ because I am confident in my ability to automatically accomplish this task in the best way possible.

It strikes me that I intuitively and instinctively had this same sense as I raised my children.  True, my efforts with my firstborn (conceived when I was 18) were not what they grew to be later on.  But I know about myself that when I follow my OWN inner priorities I do the best I possibly can as I try in some small way to help the world become a better place.

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Next priority for this day:  Create the best home possible for the hundreds of red wiggler worms by beloved Seattle sister sent me for the garden!  Yup!  Caregiving worms so they can caregive the garden so it can feed me is part of The Bigger Plan for my life.  Gotta love this life!

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