OK, I'm ready.

So I told you all I did a workshop on Saturday.

Now I am ready to talk about it. Well, maybe I am ready to stop beating myself up so I figure talking about it and all the shit it brought up would be a better alternative than eating myself into a ruptured stomach which is what I have been doing for the last 3 or 4 days since the workshop.

I think it dug up a lot of stuff that needed digging up. And even as I write this all I want to do is go downstairs and eat until I feel nothing.

So the workshop was a voice dialogue/soul collage workshop. We watched a movie called As It Is In Heaven and if you have not seen it SEE IT!!!!! It is profound and wonderful and sad and moving and happy and moving and lovely. One of the best films I have ever seen. It is Swedish with subtitles so be prepared.

While watching the movie we were supposed to notice and take notes on what was coming up in us while we watched. And what came up for me was fear and vulnerability. Lots and lots of fear and vulnerability.

We were then to take about 3 hours to cut pictures out of magazines and make soul collages from the part of us that came up.  Here is mine. This is the part of me that comes up and "protects" when I feel afraid and vulnerable.

 

 The Protector Self

Let me first say that I love this collage. It is raw and real and informative and loving.

And the process was incredible.

I am going to explain it because I want to remember the process.

We started by looking for a background. This is one of my favorite parts. It is hard to see completely but the wet blue is a glacier washing up in a rough black sea. So the water on the bottom right is in the same picture as the ice blue glacier. And I knew I wanted a tumultuous sea as my background because that is how this part of me sees fear and vulnerability. Rough, dangerous water. And the glacier was a bonus. The idea of long ago frozen pieces bobbing to the surface and washing up on shore? Perfect.

Then I found this picture of the baby. This startled frightened baby cradled in a set of hands. How perfect an image of my vulnerability and fear.

I then began thinking of all the ways I "layer on" to avoid exposing my vulnerability and protect myself from that which i am afraid of. I thought of my anger, my performing, my behaving, my drinking, my stubbornness, my ability to throw money at it, my acting like the queen ruler who cannot be over ridden, my rigid good girl rule following, my bolting, my reasoning and staying in my head to "solve" the problem, my ability/drive to talk myself into or out of something with my head and reasoning. And food. Bread to be exact. It is all there. Just take a look.

But a remarkable thing happened as I began to layer the pictures around this terrified and vulnerable baby. I placed the angry woman and the crazy, wild stage performer and the over the top woman trying to reason first. 

Then the crossed arms (from an angry bouncer-apropos) and the drunk Carrie Fisher. Then the money and credit card and then the baguettes at the bottom.

When I pulled back and looked at it, I saw a shape. 

MY SHAPE.

I added the suitcase and the dark, rigid ballerina. I added the bagels like a rounded out hip. The more I filled in the more it looked like my body to me.

I added a bagel as a head. With an open mouth. And a crown of a dominant queen.

And a couple pieces of lightning and it was done.

Not a single space around this frightened and vulnerable and unprotected little baby. Layer upon layer keeping her safe from the outside.

For the first time I saw how I got my body to where it is. Why I got my body to where it is. And what is underneath it all.

I wasn't mad or panic-y or sad. I was kind of relieved. And I loved it.

Oh and there is another little secret. There is a picture of a slim, strong, powerful woman doing a yoga pose directly beneath that frightened baby. And After I found her and glued her in. I found a bigger picture of her and had to do another collage. But that is to share for another day.

And now I am going to leave this and then write another post about my binging now that i have this all out in the open.

I am breathing a bit easier now.