Hi! It's been a tough week, Better today.

I have been exhausted for the last week or so, and a supervision meeting didn't go too well Monday. I felt a little angry, and disrespected by the "Boss"; something to the effect of: "Well if you can't do this while you're doing this other stuff you may want to decide if you want to continue doing this job!" Bitch! That was my wounded-ego's response, at first. Hell, I was ready to quit, then I remembered what happened about 40 years ago that didn't work out so well, and decided to "Let It Go". It is common knowledge that there is a lot of turn-over in the employees who do this job, with the conditions and responsibilities. It is stressful. 
A contributing factor to my exhaustion is a sleep disorder, from a slight but irritating chest congestion, throat irritation, and nasal congestion, that make it difficult to sleep without snoring (which my wife is more than kind enough to "poke" me and get me to turn over to stop snoring) and which causes me to breathe through my mouth and not my nose. So I'm not getting restful sleep and I'm getting up tired, which makes me irritable, which makes me stressed, etc, blah, blah, blah. So, ... I'm in the shower Wednesday morning, ... PACING!... so I know I was anxious, and that something was wrong. So I finally realized, contrary to how I would respond in the past, that this was a "learning opportunity!" Plus, after all the "crap" I espouse to my friends, here and to clients, I decided I had better review and practice what I "preach", otherwise what I teach is not valid. So I did! "LET IT GO, whatever it is, it's okay. accept it, whatever "it" is, and stop trying to control something. It is what it is". And it DID help, it worked. I had to repeat it several times, but it worked.
I then had a supervision meeting with another Supervisor, a better one, where I see private clients, and got it all out. The rest of the day went well, and I worked until 7:00 PM, ending my last appointment then. I WAS glad that the next day, actually FOUR days, I was off to recuperate.
Yesterday, Thursday, I almost couldn't get out of bed, I did of course, but before Thanksgiving Dinner I took a nap. And afterwards, I did my work homework and got a lot accomplished and finished. Then I started reading one of the two new books I ordered and received in the mail Wednesday ("OH, NO! He's reading AGAIN!!!) Yep, but with the help of my supervisor, I accept it is something I'm passionate about, psychology, my career, mindfulness. Dave's passion is dancing, mine is mental health. This one is "Overcoming Social Anxiety and Shyness" by Gillian Butler. I have third one I got and won't read until I finish these two: "The Anxiety Food Solution", by Trudy Scott. To determine if it will help my anxious clients.
Oddly enough, or synchronisticly enough (there are no accidents), I "just-happened" to pick up my latest copy of Counseling Today and saw an article about bulimia, and I have a client recovering from bulimia, that I am helping develop social-interaction coping skills that she lacks, so I read the article, and "by golly" it was worth it, because in it was a very important concept for all of us CO's:
"Validating 'reflective appraisals' of a child or person allows them to accept ALL their feelings of ALL their affective states as being authentic, normal, and shared by all humans. The goal is learning to self-soothe and manage their emotional experiences without being 'DEPENDENT' on other external care-givers,objects, or events." (As in "Co-dependent".)
"In-validating the identity of a child is done by conditioning the child to believe that feeling fear, or some other emotion, is shameful, and creates feelings of punishment and rejection so that those authentic feelings they actually feel are rejected and resisted as an "un-welcome part of their identity", causing a disconnect from their authentic internal thoughts, feelings, and experiences, ie, "Who they are". "Affective states" (feeling states) met with in-validation become disavowed and denied integrations for the "socially acceptable self's identity". The individual is "taught" (conditioned) to reject parts of themselves, attack themselves, and become depressed, anxious, and stressed over the impossibility of feeling the normal and natural emotions of a human being."
What this has to do with CO's is the "dissociated identity" where we deny some of our feelings (OKAY! ME! I do that, YOU decide if the shoe fits for you!) and reject them because we wanted to please our care-taker's view of the "right" feelings, so we would not be rejected by them. Essentially, we learned to reflect the feelings of others, "co-depend" on them for our feelings, and distrust our own feelings, or admit to them. We are not "integrated" with ALL our feelings, and we feel "guilty and ashamed" when we do, and criticize ourselves. We were taught to be "split", from our "bad self's" feelings, in order to be accepted. We don't accept OUR feelings, but are more than willing to accept and protect other's feelings over our own, and our own best interests. "We" feel our feelings may be "wrong", so WE are wrong, our identity is the wrong one to be, and are constantly anxious about shame and guilt in the event the "wrongness" of our feared identity will be exposed to others through some faux pas or embarrassing event.  
The cure is in stopping the judging and "Labeling" (as Vicki pointed out in her journal) and to accept what is as what is, and not try to control or resist, or avoid it. Let the feelings pass through, don't hold on to them; they're just events. We do not 'have to' obsessively evaluate every event as good or bad. That's just a bad habit we learned from our original care-takers, accidentally, who thought they were helping us avoid pain, as though that is ever possible. Accepting ALL our feelings, "Good or Bad" ones, allows us to let them go. We can't change them once we have them; they become the past as soon as they happen. Holding on to them, refusing and resisting to feel them keeps them ever-present, to be constantly re-felt and attacked until they are let go. We experience our lives with our feelings, all of them; and they are real, and natural. Living is about experiencing all those feelings of all those events, and letting them go, let them pass into the past.
Sounds simple, doesn't it? In order to break the habit, the "letting go" habit needs to be practiced, failed many times, and practiced again. It's called "the process"; and is not the "outcome".
Toodles Ya'll,
Rich