from the quiet cold woods to the warm hilly ozarks

I've been living at Teaching Drum for about 2 1/2 months now, and I'm currently in Missouri visiting friends at East Wind, and family in Kansas City.

Being away from Teaching Drum has helped me look at my life there more objectively. I spent a lot of emotional energy there trying to catch up to others, and getting down when I perceived myself falling behind.

I think that going through the yearlong makes people more adaptable, creative, and strong-emotionally and physically. I haven't done the yearlong, and most of the people I live with right now have.
I've seen my clanmates run from place to place, do push ups, climb trees, eat fish heads, canoe for miles on the lake without exhaustion, and then at the end of the day, speak their truth even when they are afraid.

To get an idea of some of the people I live with, here's a video someone at Teaching Drum just made, about running in the woods. It's called intuitive running.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6540kY_498

I was recorded to be in it for the shadowing piece, but then wasn't put in it because apparently I'm not "very easy or fun to shadow" because I'm not very expressive when I talk.

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So, the more I pushed myself to become stronger and heal my emotional wounds, the more I got victimized and closed myself off from others.
We're all a little too hard on ourselves, and I'm guilty of that. I want to remember that I can choose to be kinder to myself.

I recognize my strengths and weaknesses more clearly now. I have grown stronger from being at the Drum. I've been running a few days a week, and doing strength training on the off days. I've been eating wild caught fish and deer, and loads of veggies. I've become more assertive and confident in myself, and also more aware of my unhealthy patterns.

Now that I'm currently at East Wind, I'm still running and doing other exercise, flagging myself, and communicating as well as I know how. I have fallen short with food stuff, though. There's an abundance of food here-especially sugar and wheat-and I've been feeling overwhelmed with all of it. I've eaten it a few times, and then felt like I was hungover the next day. The first time I ate sugar here, my teeth hurt! I could feel how it was affecting my body immediately.

Lately, I've been feeling kind of afraid of how to relate to world when I'm not at Teaching Drum. Most of those fears come up around food. The second biggest fear comes up with communicating honestly and non-violently with other people. I've been living inside this bubble there, of limited food that fuels my body and makes me feel good, and a pre-set structure of communicating and doing healing work with other people, and I was feeling kind of safe in it.
My question now, is how do I encorporate what I've learned into the outside world? How do I adapt, and still be happy and fulfilled?

Also, how do I bring back to Teaching Drum the things I miss? I miss things like gardening and close female friends.

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Me--entering a birch bark and marsh grass wigwam at Teaching Drum-June 2013??
And when I'm not at the Drum, I miss the quiet of the place. The cold became less scary after a while. The snow would simply settle against the deep greens of the pines and firs. So calm; and that was it. Nothing to say, really. I would just watch, and take a deep breath, and know that I don't need an answer to all the questions of my rattling mind. Everything comes slowly, and in time.