name the bitch in your head🍝
dinner with roger
There is a sign up in my therapist's office that I hate. In big bold letters, it says "YOU HAVE SURVIVED ALL OF YOUR WORST DAYS". To be fair I would hate, anything any sign in any therapist's office. Whatever gene, or personality trait, or makeup of my birth chart or direction the wind is blowing, I have dislikes listening to any sign or authoritative human pretending to be a sign. I think it is wildly unfair to ask any human to act according to a message written in a positive way. I fucking hate mantras, I don't wanna be my best me and I don't care about your good vibes. The advent of "live laugh loves" signs (no hate, you do you boo) probably makes me the minority and that "YOU HAVE SURVIVED ALL OF YOUR WORST DAYS" written in giant blue letters is a fair thing to say to anyone and maybe "YOU HAVE SURVIVED ALL OF YOUR WORST DAYS" has saved someone.
I was having a conversation with a friend about being triggered and how much of a wild idea it may seem for some people because they don't even know they're being triggered. AND THEN today in my pilates reformer training my friend Sarah called the reformer a "highlighter for all the things I have going on in my life". Never have I felt such CLARITY. Triggers can look and feel one way or they can be a highlighter for all the shit you have going on. This sign HIGHLIGHTS my brain's baseline and the evil voice in my head that constantly whispers "today is the day you fail", yelling at my me my achievements of surviving previous days does not even kind of work. Surviving is painful. I do not want to survive whatever awful whispers of anxiety and grief have to say to me. Highlighting how today is the day all of my survival efforts come crashing down
So, I named the bitch in my head, the little gremlin that keeps me up at night, the asshole with the highlighter. Its name is Roger. I can distinguish Roger's voice from my own actual worries or triggers. Roger pulls out the highlighter and tells me all the ways I can fuck-up or fail. I sit with Roger, I tell Roger how they need to chill because highlighter pens are messy and I don't really love stationery that much.
Sitting with anxiety and grief and welcoming it to the table and saying, "hi I hear you but you need to sush. No more whispering or yelling back there. I got you, you cute little Roger. Put down your pens and chill."
I think it is part weird and funny how these have mostly been about the ways I take care of myself. Taking care of myself has become my artistic practice. I can't feed one without feeding the other. I feel no responsibility to my art but I feel responsible for myself. So I am taking Roger to dinner, feeding it whatever it needs to shut up for another day so we can survive like the signs and mantras tell us too. It just looks and feels different.
xx
phoebe