Needing Help is a familiar interior to me. I do all I can not to cross that border. I step out of line, fumble in my pocket for my passport and come up empty-handed, hide and furtively run the opposite direction, or I set up an activist booth and loudly shout from my platform why those who cross that particular border are weak, spineless, and that if they follow me I will teach them to be strong.
My shame cloak has been long dragged in the mud, clutched around me as my only warmth, has been my shelter in the storm, my oppressor and suicide accelerant. I pull it tightly around me at the mere mention of Needing Help. Recently I have found that there are times I hang it up in the closet where it is content to glow quietly. But, that’s been a long time coming.
Feel Bad is a stepchild of Shame and Need Help. Need Help mocks me, makes fun of my helplessness, my frozen, covered up shape slogging against a wall of mud, snow, through bogs and toxic minefields. Feel Bad is what took me into annihilation, that vast country of endless no breath, loss of personality and purpose, rejected as a vessel, a container of urgency.
I go through my Empty the Pot of mental chatter/stories movement sequence to a selection of music from the Loss and Grief category. I do the double pot Empty the Pot, shift to the Dump Judgment movement sequence, selecting Leon Russell Into the Woods, a song about being lost and finding the way to a rich guitar beat. I finish up my morning ritual with a thorough Scrub of cover-up and stale shame fumes.
My first car was a long, blue Dodge Dart that had to be started with a screwdriver under the hood. It was my business partner, easily transporting all of my house painting tools. When I officially entered my darkest days at age 34, I could no longer paint houses. My body refused to cover up imperfection. I descended into the basement five days a week to go ten rounds on my trusted punching bag. I played music and slowly made my way toward the core. Those were terrible days. I lost my ability to write — I had no strength to unlock my slick cover-ups, re-direct my subversive intent. I ran into marriage with a controlling purpose difficult to refuse and shoved my signal box alerting me to severe Needing Help warnings under piles of stuff.
I’m slowly filling in my Needing Help personalities. I actually included my Inner Critic; I found that, when closely connected to the Inner Coach, he had wisdom I listened to. I fought the “inner child” placement for a long time. I kicked the idea to the curb every time it was presented. I’m grudgingly kneeling down on occasion to put a caring hand to a small forehead. I’ve been known to gather one of the small, terrified forms into my arms and provide a safe surround. I routinely do my movement sequences, follow music, have great conversations with a few trekkers I’ve encountered out in the field, mining the likes of Needing Help shame. We sit around campfires at the end of a meal and share notes. We tip our glasses of water and beer to the sky and laugh, rejuvenated.
