I'm being too hard on myself...

Warning: Me uncensored, raw and real.

Heck where to start, I don't know. All I know is that if I do find a train of thought in this mass of fog that I call my mind... this is going to be one hell of a long blog entry. I've had a rough day. I'm being too hard on myself. I need to be gentle with myself. But the nature of the beast is not to be so this is why I am here now, writing about how I can be a hard ass.
So we all know that I wanted to quit being a massage therapist back in level 100 of this whole journey that they call massage therapy school. However I didn't because I found passions and focused on them. I had great dreams of pregnancy massage and women's health. Those passions were what kept me going. This was shit I'd actually enjoy reading about and that when I was having a rough time with say... neuroanatomy or anatomy and physiology I'd think that if I could get though that I'd be that much closer to pregnancy massage and women's health. And so far it had been so good. Maybe I was too hyped up for this afternoon's massage on a pregnant lady. Maybe my personal standards were set too high. Fuck maybe I know they were! Somehow I figured I'd be a natural at this shit because it's what I enjoy. And honestly if I take away the PSMing emotional me right now and think with my head and not with my heart... I know that I did a pretty good job for a first timer at pregnancy massage. My client came in slightly skeptical and left content and relaxed. Couldn't really ask for better could you? Well I can ask for better of myself. I always can and I can beat myself up for it. Finished feeling incompetent and pretty lousy. I then realized that I forgot to get my client to sign the consent form. That's probably the most important part but fuck who's really paying attention to that?!
I guess all of this festered so that when I was writing my systemic treatment mid quarter, I was trying feverishly to write about how I would tell a guest about breast massage and it's benefits when the page started to get blurry... then sniffles. The familiar sound of falling tears on paper got me even more frustrated! I hadn't cried over a freaking exam in... well since level 100. Ok so I cry at the begging of my oral practical's when the teacher isn't looking but that's just so I can get it out of my system in case I get the urge to freak out while the teacher is over analyzing every thing I am doing with my patient/client/guest/whatever. I looked at the rest of my exam though teary eyes... tried to look for easy questions with easy answers but there were none.
Fortunately I was able to make it to the library and sob for a while. Sob at what? Fucked if I know. It was a mixture of my own incompetence at something I thought was my dream and something else. But now am not so sure of anymore.
I was able to have a nice long talk with my systemics teacher, now my mentor, about the frustration of all of this. It helped. She's really a wise woman and someone that I respect and admire a lot. She keeps it real and asks the questions that you don't often want to ask yourself. But that I appreciate. Makes me face shit that I would probably keep inside.
Because I give a lot of myself emotionally to this and to everything I do... she asked if I could cut back on it. When she asked that, she didn't specify what I should cut back on and I just assumed she meant workload and being hard on myself. I've done that and it's helped a lot! But then she specified... could I cut back emotionally. I thought for a while and said that I don't think I'd know how to cut back emotionally. All I know is how to fully invest myself emotionally into everything that I do. I don't know if I could separate myself even just partially. Hell there are all of these books on compassion, passion, caring, and all those fluffy emotional things but I don't think there are any books on how to care less. I am not saying that I am a walking/talking/living care bear but yeah... you know what I mean.
So what the hell am I going to do? Well I am going to start by seeing if someone wants to go out for dinner and possibly a movie now that I've offloaded this emotional something or other onto my blog (thanks blog), I am going to go to sleep, get up tomorrow morning at 5:45 am and go to school. They say that school is the hardest part of this whole thing. I am counting on the fact that they're right. I've heard that I've got what it takes... it's in my hands but right now my hands are cold and I wonder what they see. Well I know I've got it judging by the feedback I've gotten from clients and such but tonight I can't help but wonder what they see.

On that cheery note:
Happy 1st Birthday to my Blog!