What Do I Do?!? Decompression by Chessa Peak
Part 2 of a 3 part series. Read part 1 here.
To me the word decompress really just sums up what I had to do to begin releasing the emotional baggage. I was completely inundated with feelings of loss, betrayal, resentment, hopelessness, disappointment, anger, self-hate, and I was pissed off at God. I’m sure emotional habit played into this because of my physical state before my surgery but that is not an excuse for how far I allowed myself to fall. Being in off and on dysfunctional, self-sacrificing relationships didn’t help this either. Not to say that they were violent or physically abusive but they were dysfunctional. I knew I had to hold myself accountable to my recovery but didn’t know what that meant. I was inundated with everything and didn’t know how to stop everything that was flooding me until I observed and reflected with a dear friend who was in the process of what she called “deeply introverting”(Loonar).
This intrigued me as words often do so I began doing the same. I withdrew into myself and allowed myself to be honest with myself. By removing all the external influences in my life other than those that provided some reflection of the personal evolution I was taking, I was able to 
remove some of the factors that would cause me to doubt myself. Which is when I found myself staring point blank at self-doubt.
I had nothing to lose in being honest with myself and as a result would focus on words that were causing me pain. Repetitive words in my writing and thoughts showed me where the root of my pain was, and there were several, but self-doubt was the biggest ruling bitch of them all. Rather than listening and reading, I allowed myself to feel the words that had the most power to me, the words that resonated within me the strongest. To cure my emotional self I began focusing on the extreme opposite of the words I knew were causing me pain.
The opposite of self-doubt as I came to define it was self-trust. I took a psychology class at the local 
university and found that I had been locking myself in co-dependent/enabling relationships where I found myself mostly on the enabling side of the dynamic though both have to exist in a person for this to be a problem. As a result of this dynamic I had learned to go against what I KNEW was right for me hence, self-sacrificing. I had learned to distrust my ability to make good decisions for myself. When we give up what we know in our gut is right for someone else and we do this to the extent that it becomes self sacrificing, we are actually teaching ourselves that our instinct is wrong.
We learn best through rhythm and repetition. It’s no wonder I was so lost. I had thrown away my instinct for the betterment of those around me. I have learned now that I must, “critically scrutinize” as another friend said to me (Dougie), anyone I allow close to my world in order to safe guard the progress I’ve made.
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Chessa Peak has been in New Mexico since the age of 4 and is an honorary New Mexican. A bartender of over 10 years in the Duke City, musician, entrepreneur, and current student at CNM, Chessa is now currently working towards her own non-profit group that will support literacy, art and music programs for Albuquerque residents and her immediate community. Having come through a negative past, her writings deeply reflect the nature of her personal struggles in an attempt to help others overcome their personal battles.
Community Publishing brings local artists of all mediums together in creative collaborations for distribution as multimedia books while promoting literacy in our communities. #JoinOurCommunity at http://communitypublishing.org We are proud to be Marketers for the Rail Yards Market.
