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Post by desire2bme on Aug 6, 2014 2:01:25 GMT 10
Today I want to do some work on what I discovered happening the other day in me when I was listening to an 80 year old woman share about her own childhood. I happened to walk into a store looking for a piece of pottery and soon found myself being asked a question by this shopkeeper that opened up her desire to talk with me for about an hour. Because it's so rare for anyone to own up and admit to one's fucked up-ness, when she heard from me that I do, a lot of her own feelings she had locked up under shame began to roll out of her. The outcome of our time together brought out a desire in her to want to meet again some time when she is not working, to talk some more.
As I drove home, it really hit me how drained I felt, like the energy had just been sucked out of me. I had started to feel this even while I was with her and as I allowed myself to feel it while she was talking she would stop and say, "Am I keeping you? I hope I am not interrupting what you need to do to get on with your day." I assured her that no, I didn't have anything pressing and that I had the time and was enjoying finding another who wanted to speak about these kinds of things. After hearing this, she would then pick up again with where she left off, dropping here and there into pockets of tears that came with sharing her story. This happened a few times while I was with her.
If I had really been honest and given myself what I felt I needed, putting my needs first, I would have spent less time with her taking note of my feeling drained and allowing myself the room to stop our conversation. But I would not give myself that permission. The savior role took over in me and I moved into the idea that I was given this opportunity by God and needed to allow her as much time and attention that she would take with having me there to let her keep on talking...until she chose when it was time for her to be done with me. That phrase feels icky as I look at it now. Is the consequence of setting myself up as a savior having the feeling of my life energy sucked out of me? Giving myself over to another in order to feel I have a purpose, to feel "used by God"...be God's servant, God's "good girl"...what the hell is all of this?
As I lay awake last night the words Hansel and Gretel came to me and I realized I really didn't remember what that fable all contained (http://ivyjoy.com/fables/hansel.html). I made a note of it saying to myself I needed to read it come daylight. As I did, the part that had the most impact was when the wicked witch was trying to fatten up the children in order to eat them. This is the sense of what had come the night before as I had begun to think on being born to a mother who used the life in her children to live off from. The word cannibal actually came as I thought on my mother - it was like an ugly nightmare wanting to show itself to me. How dark and evil this is. And to be this child, feeling that the connection to my mother was what would keep me alive (in the home where it was my father who was see to be the "problem", the alcoholic). How can this be? Mothers don't eat their own children, they protect, provide and love them...and as a child even though it doesn't at all feel like I am being cared for in this way, I have to believe it is so and I can not ever speak of how it is really feeling for me...feeling abandoned, all alone, and uncared for.
Unless I admit the truth of what was really happening between my mother and I - allowing myself to really feel how she used my life energy and cut off any road for me to express myself honestly, I will feel an obligation to man/womankind, to NOT be that kind of "mother" to them. I will never take from them but only be there for them to draw out of me what they need and always put their needs before my own.
So I allow this conversation to go on within myself as I go back to learn from the child I was/am: Am I feeling drained by her? Yes. Well, that's not her problem, it's YOUR problem. There's something wrong with YOU if you are feeling drained!! How dare you put this on your mother, blaming her for your own shitty problems and desire to want to just die. What have you to feel hopeless about?! Look what she has to put up with, with your father being the drunk that he is and a house full of children and all her household chores. Don't you DARE start picking on your mother for what she can't do for you, you self-centered little bitch...you little cry baby. I'll give you something to cry about! Ma, please, no, I'm sorry, I'll never put any pressure on you again for anything. I'll be here for you, to be your help, your protection, to be the "look out" for trouble brewing. Don't hate me, I'm sorry for giving you one more thing to be responsible for by showing up in your day. I'll be quiet and stay out of your way and always be near when dad is around you so that you won't get hurt. That's a GOOD GIRL...such a good little girl.
What an evil monster you are!!! A cannibal, turning me out into having to play a role that has me catering to your depraved appetites. I hate you, you wicked witch!!! I don't want to be here to take care of what YOU need, it's me who is the child needing a mother to be here for her. I can't help you! I can't protect you! I can't make the shit hole of a life you live better! It's not my job and if you keep at me, I will fucking disappear on you. (The last couple years of high school I became anorexic right under her nose becoming skin and bones and it was years after, I told her about this time in my life, and she said she never saw what I was talking about...she was blind to my trying to disappear.) How much more NOT AT HOME could she be! Yes, I am furious with her. I want to pull HER hair, slap her out of her blindness to make her feel how much she's hurt me! And I will make a vow - to never be like her, how she lives without feeling for other's pain, living without any time to ever listen or care how much another is hurting. I will be different. I will prove how it is to live concerned and loving of others, taking all the time they need with me to begin to feel better about their own lives. This is the Godly way to live, this is what a real good girl does. I'll show YOU how it's done so you will finally wake up and feel bad about what you've done to me!
So here I am, these are my motives, the reasons why I am moved toward others needing to pour out their sorrows. My hidden agenda of wanting to stay stewed in all of my rage toward my mother, because I could not give myself permission to let it out...after all she'd done for me. Unless I am willing to see the picture that was unfolding for me last night while I lay in bed, to really feel how a child would feel under the conditions I lived under, giving myself infinite room to let it all come up and out, I will live in this place of still wanting to punish my mother, proving to her that she could have lived differently if she had loved me. I couldn't tell her how much she hurt me, so I would hurt her back by not giving her an ounce of my time anymore, moving far away from her, never calling her proving to her she can NEVER make it up to me. The door is fucking closed. I will live and act civil on the outside going for visits now and then, but all the while living with this white foamy rage toward her. Such a nice girl, that Desire, hard to believe she could still have all of this going on. Well, don't let me fool you...it's here, it's all waiting and it's fucking time for the volcano to spew!!!!!!!!!
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Post by wesley on Aug 7, 2014 11:47:34 GMT 10
It only takes me 10 to 15 minutes and I'm drained from the elderly. I spent have my life dodging and ducking relatives like my uncles and aunts if I see them go into stores that I'm in. Shear terror to stand there and talk. There was only one man that my wife and I appreciate talking to and because he said what he wanted to and he let you go in a matter a few minutes. Why can't all elders be that way. I'm pretty sure they had repressed children so do that to them not us. Don't they know we're trying to heal. Do you know what is that drew her toward you? And how do you think is the best way to prevent that from happening next time so I know?
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Post by desire2bme on Aug 8, 2014 2:01:54 GMT 10
Hi Wes, Please tell me more about the sheer terror you feel that has you dodging relatives. And do you also feel this with others who are not elderly? Do you feel more obligation to stand there and listen longer than you desire the more "fragile" the person seems to you? What do you think is going to happen to you when you don't try to dodge them in the store? What did you have to do as a child to keep others from "draining" you, using you? Is there any relationship that sticks out to you from your childhood that taught you the rules of what you must do for your elders? Okay, now that I've asked you enough questions, I'll answer yours "Don't they know we're trying to heal. Do you know what is that drew her toward you? And how do you think is the best way to prevent that from happening next time so I know?"Since I have changed directions in my life and started asking for all of my childhood repressed emotions to help me know the truth (instead of the other way of living...wanting to stay blind to it, wanting to live in denial) I basically scour out everything I can feel and learn from all of my interactions with the very few people I run into in my life. I am amazed at all of what I wrote in the post and have begun to discover about my mother's relationship with me that came through that interaction with the 80 year old shopkeeper. When I got home and felt myself dreading getting together again with this woman, I just allowed this dread and started to follow it (after I first felt guilty and ashamed about having the dread). These feelings were all mixed up with my other feelings I learned from being a good christian...our need to always self sacrifice and be there for others who are experiencing distress, esp. those seeming to be more powerless like the elderly. And when my cat, Sarah took me into feeling the depths of my own abandonment when she died, and I discovered what a gift it is to be right dead center in the midst of these kinds of feelings of abandonment (that we don't die, but heal), I prayed to God that I stay always near this raw place of feeling so deeply. I realized on a deeper level how I want to spend my lifetime here on the planet doing my own soul work and being an example to those who I run into who are at the place of wanting to do their own. So when I was talking to this woman, there were some things going on simultaneously (old crap coming up and new truths that I have experienced being lived out.) I feel like I am a tuning fork with the resonation coming out of me that will bring those who are ready and willing toward me wanting to speak about their own childhood repression. On one level I want this and on all my childhood fears level, I am just like what you feel..."How can I prevent this from happening next time!" My "I want this" trumps my "I want to avoid this" because I know that trying to control my life to avoid getting in touch with all that I have repressed will only take me against the flow of loving myself and coming to know the truth. But no emotions along the way can be skipped over or all I get is STUCK. And I do get stuck many many times and ask what it is I am afraid of feeling or seeing. Sometimes the child in me is just needing to throw an "I am sick of this CR work, I hate this" tantrum and I discover that I think I'm too "grown up" to allow these tantrums anymore. And I learn from that. Once I began to really see that all I am going to discover is going to be dark and evil (as it must be) it chopped down my shame tree that has kept me for most my life from being open to learn from my repressed emotions. So will I stop into her shop to say hello the next time I go into town? I don't know now, but I will know when it comes time. Who knows what all will keep unfolding for me to feel and see before that time comes. Right now I still feel this obligation thing so heavy in me that really makes my motive impure while connecting with her. It's what I am bringing into the relationship in this way that opens me up to feeling drained. And my curiosity to learn more about how this all works between us is what will bring me back to her, seeing her as a gift to teach me more...and at the same time, while being so incredibly imperfect as I am, she can still gain from what I have experienced through my own CR work. It's a big thing for me to get over - this idea that I am further along or have more to offer (God's gift to humanity) because I am beginning to do my soul work. Every interaction shows me how much wealth of teaching can be given me by those who have whatever level of wanting to come out of their denial they are in. I know that there are parts of myself still in such fear of knowing the truth just like everybody else while other parts of me are longing and thirsty to see the truth, so I truly am equal with all people I bump into. I am coming back to this again today: Unless I admit the truth of what was really happening between my mother and I - allowing myself to really feel how she used my life energy and cut off any road for me to express myself honestly, I will feel an obligation to man/womankind, to NOT be that kind of "mother" to them. I will never take from them but only be there for them to draw out of me what they need and always put their needs before my own. This is an impossible thing to live - never taking, sucking and draining others - unless I keep working through all of my pain from being used as a child. What I am feeling from this woman at the shop, I am doing (having conscious and unconscious expectations upon others) to keep me from having to feel all of my YUK (as James so lovingly calls his crap). As a child I was powerless to over-ride being used having to fit and format my life into what would bring as much acceptance as I could find from my mother. She was my life line and so what ever it took to stay tethered to her was what I would make of myself always feeling guilty for wanting or needing any of her time and attention. So I got really really good at feeling ashamed and guilty any time the real me came up out of hiding (simply wanting to be heard and seen) and created my own set of rules for how I never wanted to do that to anyone when I grew up. But that logic unfortunately does nothing to correct the evil I learned to live in habitual ways of learning how to survive. I have to be willing to feel through all of the emotional pain that my modes/patterns of surviving bring. That magical thinking that I used as a child to help me survive my childhood has to be put away now if I desire to see the necessity of doing my childhood repression work. The logic of thinking I can overthrow my childhood pain by using my mind telling myself I will just not use people like I was used...that's the magical thinking I'm talking about. Instead, I will give up trying to believe I am not like everyone else, living by using others to stay a distance away from my pain, and just feel the pain now that surfaces in my relationships. YUK...yeah, it's a good word for it.
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Post by wesley on Aug 8, 2014 7:36:04 GMT 10
I feel this with the elderly in my life only. Just from my experience with them. Knowing that they never cared about me so what is going to happen in a one on one meeting. First thing is how is your parents doing. Ok I can lie and say fine or say I don't know haven't seen them in a while. Bring up the situation of not checking in on your own loving parents. What a joke these scenarios seem to be. All fake portraits of my entire life. I'm happy and they are happy. If not there will be something that has seriously went wrong with me. My relatives use to make me happy on occasions and turn around and act as if I wasn't there. So which one will I be talking to would be the terror part of it all. My head use to spin back and forth all the time who likes me and who doesn't. That was my whole life. Be liked was a big thing for me growing up and to find out later that nobody cared. Never gave myself a chance to feel obligated to the fragile ones but I would out of a false since of respect. When I was drained I just stop talking and remained silent to get people from draining me. It was pretty easy since I had nothing to talk about anyway. The relationship I had with my grandmother sticks out to me about the rules of what you must do for your elders. She was paralyzed since I could remember. So my mother always had me either feed her or spend time with. It was always you will be blessed if you did. So doing things for the elderly was an automatic blessing so to speak. Good trick to do what they didn't want too.
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Post by James on Aug 8, 2014 21:23:16 GMT 10
“it really hit me how drained I felt, like the energy had just been sucked out of me.” Today I have felt so tired, as if a constant cloud is around and in me. I only have to relax and my eyes start to close and before I know it I’ve drifted off whilst sitting on the couch or at the computer. My head feelings like it’s cotton wool inside. I feel very strange, as if I’ve been drugged and can hardly stay awake. And in speaking about how I was feeling to Marion, again, as I’ve had it a lot through my healing, the awareness of how I used to feel, but had blocked out of my memory, of mum being with me came up stronger in me. She had such force, and I couldn’t fight or resist her. She would blast into me making me feel like my whole essence was being pushed out of my body in some way. I’d disappear, try and shut her out, shutting down, the fog would descend, I’d start to fade off as my essence was being annihilated and prevented from existing. I feel increasingly tired, I couldn’t stand in the gale of her onslaught any longer, which was just her normal state, so I had to sleep; perhaps when I awoke it would be better and I could start over. So many stops starts. I never got going properly. And I still haven’t.
Then at other times I’ve felt so drained of all my life force as if it has been sucked out of me. I could feel her attaching herself to me like a parasite leeching me of my all I had to give - all my light. And I couldn’t say no, I couldn’t close off to her, I wanted and needed her so much, so I gave and gave and floated off into my mind pretending it wasn’t really happing. So again I felt so tried, drained, sucked dry.
Then at other times I’ve become aware of how she was the Star Performer in her one person show and I had to be her faithful audience. It was all about her. The same with Gran. So I’d sit there watching the show which I wrongly back then believed was for my enjoyment. And gradually as I didn’t do anything other than watch, just like watching the television, I’d start to fade away, as I no longer existed, it was all only about them - their existence, not mine. So again the cloud would descend and I’ll feel so tried, bored to death.
Then she’d give me medicine. Any headache, little complaint: “here, have some of this”. And again I’d fade off, the pain being numbed, myself being numbed, my soul dying a little more.
And all these things have become more apparent through my healing, I had no idea about any of them before. So I completely relate to what you’re saying about yourself this post. You giving yourself away to the old lady, she using you for her own needs, which of itself is fair enough, but without you putting in and adding your bits and making sure you are fully expressing yourself and all you feel as well; then as you say, it’s just you back home and that wasn’t fair because your parents didn’t allow you to fully and actively participate, wanting you to express yourself as you much as they wanted to express themselves.
“(The last couple years of high school I became anorexic right under her nose becoming skin and bones and it was years after, I told her about this time in my life, and she said she never saw what I was talking about...she was blind to my trying to disappear.)” How shocking for you to suffer like that! For them not to even notice - can you write more about how that makes you feel? I know you’ve written more about it, following on in your anger that you were feeling, but why I’m asking you the question is that it’s something Marion does to me all the time. She’ll go back and ask me to talk more about a specific part again, even if I’ve already talked about it. And there is always more that comes to light, even if I begin by going over the same as what I’d just said. And often too I will get angry with her because I’ve already said it, but then it’s what I’m getting angry with her about that becomes the new focus. And really as you no doubt know, one can go on talking about the same hurt and pain one felt forever, because it’s all connected until we finish our healing and there are no more bad feelings.
“it's all waiting and it's fucking time for the volcano to spew!!!!!!!!!” And to think they are worried about the Supervolcano Yellowstone blowing it’s top, when really it’s Desire letting out her pent up fury they should be taking notice of!!!!!!!!! Let it rip, and you might be able to wipe out your parents... if you’re lucky! She was such a nice girl that Desire, I don’t know what’s got into her... How about - the truth of her feelings? And at long last. At long last she’s doing something that’s really good for herself - paying attention to herself, the attention her parents denied her, so giving herself a little of that love and respect they should have given her.
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Post by James on Aug 8, 2014 21:29:25 GMT 10
Wes asked: “And how do you think is the best way to prevent that from happening next time so I know”, which brings up one of the most important aspects of trying to do your healing.
In wanting to do ones healing, then as I’ve repeatedly said, it’s all ONLY about staying focused on your feelings, accepting and expressing them, and longing to uncover the truth they are to show you. Nothing else. And for me, the theory is easy to understand, but doing it is another matter. I approach things as you do Wes. There’s an obvious problem, especially as it makes you feel bad, so what can you do to avoid it in future, which is fine in itself if you are not wanting to do your healing and just carry on as before. Marion is always picking me up on this. It’s to heavily ingrained in me, it’s my conditioned response: Problem = Fix it. Then problem and bad feelings go away. But no truth results. And doing our healing is ALL ABOUT our growing in truth, revealing to ourselves the whole truth of our soul. So first of all, the whole truth of our negative state. And as our feelings are the only way we can uncover the truth within us our soul and the Mother and Father want us to see, so we have to work with and use our feelings, not just try and fix the problem to stop ourselves from having such feelings.
So in regards to your question Wes, there are possibly many ways of doing things to prevent the experience from happening again, but that is not about doing your healing. So concerning doing your healing you go the other way, and you DON’T want to prevent anything, unless you are driven by your feelings to. So in this case, Desire would be wise to simply follow her feelings, and if they lead her back to being with that woman again, not trying to stop or prevent anything from happening, but just staying true to all feelings that come up. And so if she feels drained again, then go with these bad feelings, expressing them the best she can, whilst longing for their truth. And potentially she might have many interactions with this older lady coming away feeling drained in each one, but as she expresses and longs for the truth and it is revealed, each experience will lead her further into herself. So instead of looking to prevent these situations, if you can, it’s to welcome them, knowing they are yet another experience that will give rise to yet more bad feelings that you can then use to uncover more truth of yourself.
Now that’s the theory, and I would hope I’ve written it well enough for you to see it all sounds simple enough. However, like everything when you’re involved in the actual real life experience, things are of course not as easy they might sound. So then all you can do is all you can do, go with your feelings, talk about it all as much as can, see what happens, always looking for the bad feelings with the intention of using them to show you what you are to see about yourself.
Marion and I have often had to work about going back into the fray so we might feel bad again or staying away. Marion had one experience with a women whom she asked if she knew when daylight saving began as we were very much out of touch in those days and thought it must be about to start soon, and a simple enough question you might think. And yet the woman in her shop made it into such a difficult situation for Marion, making Marion wonder what she had done wrong to get the response she got, plunging her down into her self-doubt and self-hatred taking her days to work through all the bad feelings. Then what to do, as we wanted to go back to this woman’s shop but naturally didn’t want to go through anything like that again. But as we talked it all through, Marion decided it would be best if she did go through more yuk at the hands of this woman, but also, that if the woman said something odd again, this time around, Marion would ask her why she said it, which she didn’t do last time. So although Marion was still looking to feel bad and not stop this woman or herself from having another difficult situation, still she had a new approach resulting from all she had been through because of the first interaction with her. So, with her new approach in mind, in we went expecting the worst, and the woman wasn’t there. So Marion knew it wasn’t about the woman, it was in fact a deeper aspect to do with her parents that the women represented and Marion had worked through. And so having resolved to tackle her parents differently, as if they had been the owners of the shop, the women was taken out of the picture as she was no longer required.
On another experience we went to buy a doona, and a very ‘nice’ woman swept us up and with all the chat ended up trying to tell us what we wanted and what would be best for us as if she were us. And each time we tried to get back on track to what we wanted, she tried to steer us away to something else. This was early days in our healing and we were both becoming very angry, so it was very satisfying to close on the woman who through she had a sale, fuck her right off, and go back to the car and talk all our anger through. Then what to do, do we return, looking to feel bad again so we can go through more bad feelings with this woman - or go somewhere else. We went somewhere else.
Marion is much better at staying true to her feelings being fully aware of them as she’s in the experience with strangers, helping me to see that it’s not about whether or not we actually succeed in getting what we want, but it’s what we go through, all how it makes us feel. And sometimes we have problems other times it all flows smoothly. Sometimes we go time and time again to the same shop only to come away feeling odd and taking hours to work out why we feel bad, then to go back having uncovered the truth, only to have the complete opposite experience with the same person.
And as one progresses in ones healing, as ones healing is all really about uncovering all the parts in ourselves where we feel powerless and all the bad feelings to do with that, as we allow ourselves to feel as bad and powerless as we do, the victim and poor pathetic ones, the more we grow in truth and so change, giving ourselves back the power, but not as in empowering ourselves with our mind like how so many people try to do, but a far more deeper power, that of simply being yourself. And so as you’re parents have made you be the powerless person you are, then it’s to fully allow yourself to be that powerless person (as hard as that is), and not worrying about trying to get over it or heal it or avoid situations in which you’ll feel it, just to keep going feeling fucked and longing for the truth as you bring to light all the bad feelings you feel. And by the time we’re fully healed, we will be naturally fully empowered, yet all through our feelings and from a solid foundation of truth - knowing the truth of ourselves, who we really are, and not a false power derived from a scared mind.
And Desire, they were great questions to ask Wes.
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Post by desire2bme on Aug 10, 2014 2:09:39 GMT 10
"All fake portraits of my entire life. I'm happy and they are happy. If not there will be something that has seriously went wrong with me. " Hi Wes, Yes, it couldn't ever be the roles that your parents created you to dance with them and still want to dance with you that creates the unhappiness. (sarcasm) And so it's your fault to want a new dance or no dance at all...YOUR FAULT, you disrespectful son. Such a bowl of guilt shoved under your nose to eat, so eat it like a good boy and there may just be a chance that there isn't anything seriously wrong with you and you still may get their smile of approval. Giving ourselves permission to point at a flaw in our parents (instead of lying) really can bring out the police (in others and in our own heads) ready to cuff us and throw us in the jail cell. Bad, bad child! Terrorizing indeed!!!
"My relatives use to make me happy on occasions and turn around and act as if I wasn't there. So which one will I be talking to would be the terror part of it all. My head use to spin back and forth all the time who likes me and who doesn't. That was my whole life. Be liked was a big thing for me growing up and to find out later that nobody cared." These memories of trying to twist myself into a pretzel that they will like and enjoy...I still don't recall them. Maybe because the role I chose was to become invisible. How could someone invisible even create a memory? It is incredibly painful to learn to not need anything from those who are my lifeline...an impossibility to truly not need them. And to hide away out of their sight was the best I could do, because like you, it mattered to me to be liked and not seen as an additional burden esp. to my mother. What kinds of things did you learn to do to try to get liked, Wes? The way you describe your head spinning back and forth...so confusing for us as kids "When I did this before, they liked me, but today it makes them angry or they just make fun of me." No wonder we finally just give up and pull our heads under our turtle shells...getting real good at not bringing our head back out when we spot the ones that brought pain to us as kids in the store. The other picture that comes as I talk of turtles is a chameleon...being taught so well to tune into what another wants to hear from us to keep on trying to be liked. It's like putting our heads into meat-grinder of the pain and rejection we felt as kids to simply tell the truth instead of creating another "false portrait."
Did your grandmother live with you, Wes? When you spoke about being the child who was taught of the blessing for taking care of her in her paralyzed state I saw you between a rock and a hard place. The actual picture that came into my mind was cement being poured onto your feet making them SO HEAVY. The word "duty" also comes into my mind...not having a choice in the matter and how terrible you would be made to think of yourself should you want to just go out and play instead of feed your grandmother. You really had a double whammy here in this easily becoming an evil villain of a little boy to simply not want to do it.
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Post by desire2bme on Aug 11, 2014 3:27:02 GMT 10
James wrote: "You giving yourself away to the old lady, she using you for her own needs, which of itself is fair enough, but without you putting in and adding your bits and making sure you are fully expressing yourself and all you feel as well; then as you say, it’s just you back home and that wasn’t fair because your parents didn’t allow you to fully and actively participate, wanting you to express yourself as you much as they wanted to express themselves."
Reciprocal relationships...this question has been coming to me about them...Are you afraid to have one? And the answer right now is: Yes. What happened to me as a child when I tried to have one with my mother? The only way I knew (the feeling way, expressing myself through what I was feeling as a child) was what I found out would make my mother angry with me (because there is NO TIME for feelings and too much other work in the household needing to be done). Work is priority over sharing and expressing our feelings. There is not time for both because a woman's work is never done. If you don't work, you have nothing to connect yourself with into other people - work is identity, no work then nothing to talk about with others. So as my husband comes home from work, I ask: "How was work?" Not how are you or how did that make you feel when that happened at work because that makes him angry. It is in this place I get stuck and find an endless loop repeating itself in our relationship creating a memory once again for my husband telling him: "Don't share yourself, she will only start asking you more questions that you don't want to answer." And here I am playing my role of counselor (trying to get into his head at least if he won't share his emotions) one-sided expecting him to want to share himself while I safely stay withholding how I am really feeling.
So I saw this, and yesterday shared about how I was feeling when he shuts me out and closes me off from himself...and I kept my words about me without expecting him to chime in and open up unless he wanted to...no prompting him to reciprocate. And I felt some more about why I haven't tread this territory much in our relationship...it is painful to not have reciprocation or interest in what I have to say about my feelings. It is re-experiencing what I had with my parents...trying to "play" ball with them, throwing who I am and what I feel at them and only desiring that they would throw their own honest feelings back at me. But right now, here at home with my husband, I just have to keep being willing to throw my ball and even if it makes him angry or uncomfortable or just silent, it is part of us learning how to play. Why do I expect him to show himself to me, when I have not been willing to stick my neck out and keep it out...I am the one saying it is my work to take the lead. And I know this is not about trying to find a formula to be able to connect but feeling through my feelings while we are yet unable to have my goal of a reciprocal relationship.
While I was asking Wes some more questions the other day that I truly was interested in for the sake of wanting to know Wes better, I felt like I was doing something wrong...and that Wes was going to be irritated at me for not "leaving him alone." JUST LEAVE ME ALONE! What a bad child I felt I was for wanting to know them, for trying to find a way into their lives since I wasn't given a job to do to make myself part of the working relationships of my family, I had nothing...no way of connecting with them and they seemed only to be angry with me when I tried. I must have learned early that my chances were better if at least I asked them about themselves and to get what I could even if they did not want to reciprocate. And I got stuck in this role, not wanting to feel the pain of exposing how I felt to a wall who would not respond. That was too painful to do over and over again, so I would settle with just getting a smidgin of feeling connected by asking them questions about themselves. I got good at feeling who would get mad at me for asking questions about themselves and found those who loved endless conversation talking only of themselves. And I left those alone who would get angry not wanting to feel the pain from my childhood.
The child speaks: Why don't you care about me? What's the matter with me for needing you to care about me? Why do I have to learn ways to not make you mad and make sure I am not in your way? This is so much work for me, hard labor everyday to keep myself in check like this. I have to hold my breath, keep a straight face, try to hold everything I feel underneath the water like a beach ball...it is so much work to keep this beach ball underneath the water. If it pops up, I am toast, big trouble, in the way again, making others lives miserable. And how does that make me feel? Like I want to disappear, but I can't. I can stop trying though and give up on connecting and go away outside. I get some relief out there with nature...the only mother who has been there for me, the breezes on my skin, the sun warming me, the colors softening me inviting me to enjoy them, the birds communicating their songs to me without me having to ask them anything...they just simply offer their song to me, watching the ground squirrels want to play with each other as they make noises back and forth to each other...they live reciprocal relationships with no one needing to pull anyone into it...they want to. So much sadness here in my needing to disappear and give up on sharing myself and choosing instead to live as "a counselor" to those who will live the other side of my one-sided relationship game (not here to want to know anything about me, but using me to speak endlessly on about themselves.) And ultimately I burn out from even wanting to play this role and have to feel my emptiness inside and anger with myself for wanting and needing anyone.
James, you asked for me to speak more about my anorexic time in high school and my mom's lack of eye sight to see it was happening right under her nose. (At this point my mother and father were divorced). One of the things I believe that triggered me into this last ditch effort to be seen and also to want to punish my mother was an incident my younger sister reminded me of that I had blocked up from my memory. I had early on decided to be the good girl never causing any problems with my mother and found myself in my later teen years at one point talking back to my mother...actually saying how I felt and letting her know I wasn't happy with her...finding out you don't back talk your mother. My sister reminded me of when my mom slapped my face. What did I decide that day when she did this? I believe I would choose to actually do my best to die and disappear. I would not even need her to supply me with food anymore, I would not depend on her for anything...and she would then have to finally see I wasn't there. But like I said, it didn't phase her one bit. And what did that feel like? By that time, I was so very very numb and full of fear for my future feeling so very ill-equipped to know what I wanted to do for a job after high school, the only emotion that became a constant was anger. I was so angry for being abandoned and forsaken by her and there was nothing I could do about it. And I remember I felt so wrong for having ended up this way, that my sisters had figured it out and were not angry and depressed like me so this had to be my fault, not my mothers. I felt ashamed of myself for being me, such a messed up person that couldn't be fixed.
I know I am in my "telling my story mode" than feeling the truth of my story as I write this, and I pray and long to move deeper into my repressed emotions surrounding this.
Another part of what took me into the world of anorexia was finding a cartoon taped to my locker at school. There was a girl in it that had my name and arrow directed toward her showing that this girl was me....and she was fat. In school, I was always in some kind of sport because I enjoyed being on teams even if I never played in the actual games. I liked the practices we'd have after school and being part of a team. So I wasn't fat but not thin as a rail either. That cartoon really affected me...that someone would really think this is how I appeared and I felt so very very ashamed of myself for not knowing how I looked. I trusted what one person taking this action believed about me instead of being able to see myself clearly in the mirror. So the whole thing with my mom and this event all kind of got worked together to create the anorexia picture in my life.
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Post by James on Aug 11, 2014 19:41:19 GMT 10
“Don't share yourself, she will only start asking you more questions that you don't want to answer." And here I am playing my role of counselor (trying to get into his head at least if he won't share his emotions) one-sided expecting him to want to share himself while I safely stay withholding how I am really feeling.” Marion has fought for our relationship all the way along. She has always wanted me to be equal with her in being freely able to express herself. She wasn’t freely able to in the beginning but she felt that was surely the goal in any relationship for what else were they for? So she’s fought for it, having to yell and scream at me to come with her, to connect and be with her, all of which I’ve wanted to do when she paints the picture of how she thinks it should be, but all of which I’ve been too damaged to do, however her persistence is paying off as I’m slowly getting there. As I’m slowly coming to understand myself, things she was aware of me doing wrong years ago I’m now able to start seeing for myself, and as I do them I can see how right she was, I can feel the wrongness for myself, knowing why it is wrong. And as far as Marion is concerned, even if our relationship doesn’t keep going, she is doing her healing so she can have a true relationship with herself and whomever is in her life, ideally wanting to live in a world in which everyone is truly expressing themselves so she can have good and loving relationships in all her life. And currently she’s more aware of how her parents made her believe she couldn’t achieve that with everyone on Earth; and she couldn’t, because she wasn’t free in herself, yet not being able to do anything else, so kept being involved with people she couldn’t relate to. The crystal shop woman is the first person in her life she can freely relate to, now with her self-confidence growing daily in her self-expression, understanding that over all the years she never actually met anyone she could have freely expressed herself to, trying all those years with all those people when it was never going to happen on both sides. So pursuing relationships that were doomed to fail, which they did. And she’s letting go of all that, now moving into her own ‘new world’ she is creating within herself through and from her feelings - her true world, which is beginning so far as she is concerned, to manifest in the world. So she can be in the world but not off it, not off the wrong and false world of her parents, but of the good and true world now of her own inner doing. And I’m seeing daily now the tremendous results of all the hard healing work she’s done on herself. She’s starting to love herself and think good things about herself more so every day. I am witnessing the results of her healing, and they are all very good, it is the right way to go. She is feeling happier and happier about herself - more and more accepting herself, and understanding that her parents were wrong about her. And that she was right about herself - her feelings always told her so, but as her parents never confirmed those feelings - what was she to do, it was all too difficult a place to be. Now thankfully that is all coming to an end.
“While I was asking Wes some more questions the other day that I truly was interested in for the sake of wanting to know Wes better” And that Desire, being truly interested in the other person is what comes out in your writing, as you are truly interested in yourself too, which is how it is, one being only able to be with others as one is with oneself. One of my problems is that I’m not interested in myself, so not truly in Marion or others, so such questions don’t come to mind, so I’ve been no help to Marion. My parents scared me off myself and everyone else, I don’t want to know about myself and what I’m feeling as it was always bad feelings that scared me so much. So I preferred to keep looking at my beautiful little fish as I did when I was young, they being me, me living in their safe warm pretty tropical world. And for me, I see it as a wonderful quality you have, and one obviously that naturally comes to you, for you can easily, as Marion does, put yourself in the other persons situation feeling what you’d feel in it, this allowing you to be so empathetic with, then feeling sympathetic to, them. But possibly like you are saying, as it was for Marion too, you were forced to be more this way than you wanted to be when you were growing up, so you reject it, not wanting to do it when it is what you would naturally have done had you been free to do it following your own natural inclinations and inspiration. I used to believe that I too, once I had healed myself, would surely be able to be as you and Marion are, but now reading your words and feeling better about myself these days and understanding where my interests do lie, now I feel, no, perhaps it’s not for me after all, sure a little amount, but not my whole consuming life interest as it is for Marion, and perhaps might even turn out to be for you too? Anyway, I am really valuing you asking such questions, they are all so far as I’m concerned spot on, the right feeling-led questions that would lead one deeper into oneself helping to uncover all the hidden yuk were one needing and wanting such help from you. And it will be interesting to see how it all untangles for you, all your feelings of you should do it, feeling put upon to do it, having to take on everyone else’s burdens and help them to sort themselves out; and just your own true desire to get to know someone better - which is after all, a desire to simply have a good true relationship with another person, which surely is what life is all about first and foremost for us all?
And I want to add this here but it’s not directly to do with your post Desire, but it’s something Marion said today, which is as you know one of the foundation stones of the truth of our healing, but is always good - at least for me - to hear it again. She said that when she is talking about feelings and problems with anyone, such as she was the crystal shop woman, she always feels she wants to keep the conversation focused on helping them to understand that yes you have the problem, you are talking about that, so to deal with it properly you have to bring out all that is troubling you, not trying to do anything to cover it over, water it down and even pretend it’s not a part of you. To bring out what is in you, the pain and bad feelings, all so you will be able to see what it is all about, why you are feeling the pain and feeling so troubled. And that is loving yourself truly. And you need to give yourself that love, the time and space to do that, to accept yourself just as you are, all the yuk you are feeling, so that love will bring out the badness, all of which will help it go away. And we don’t have to do anything else other than see it for ourselves - just as it is for ourselves. We were forced to go against ourselves, to not love ourselves, to keep all the pain and suffering of that within ourselves, and now we just need to go the opposite way, bring it up and out, and that is our healing.
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Post by desire2bme on Aug 14, 2014 3:22:57 GMT 10
James writes speaking of Marion: "So she’s fought for it, having to yell and scream at me to come with her, to connect and be with her, all of which I’ve wanted to do when she paints the picture of how she thinks it should be, but all of which I’ve been too damaged to do, however her persistence is paying off as I’m slowly getting there." "And as far as Marion is concerned, even if our relationship doesn’t keep going, she is doing her healing so she can have a true relationship with herself and whomever is in her life, ideally wanting to live in a world in which everyone is truly expressing themselves so she can have good and loving relationships in all her life."
I can't tell you how much sharing this is helping me. And the help is bringing more balance into my black and white childhood conditioned mind. This work, keeping it pure by doing it for myself first and foremost...wanting to keep getting to know my real true self...helps me also to follow the feelings that move me toward inviting my husband to listen to me, without having the desire to control or manipulate him into it. My movements toward him (no not always without the control or manipulation) are out of doing my own work, not to try and make him do his. And what you share here with how it's worked with you and Marion is helping me see this dynamic and how it is so different when I have been unwilling to change and want him to do all of the changing so I won't have to feel my crap.
And for me, I see it as a wonderful quality you have, and one obviously that naturally comes to you, for you can easily, as Marion does, put yourself in the other persons situation feeling what you’d feel in it, this allowing you to be so empathetic with, then feeling sympathetic to, them. But possibly like you are saying, as it was for Marion too, you were forced to be more this way than you wanted to be when you were growing up, so you reject it, not wanting to do it when it is what you would naturally have done had you been free to do it following your own natural inclinations and inspiration.
Undoing some more of my black and white thinking/feeling/living here...I would say yes, it has been a natural inclination from very very early on to do this, but when I learned to deny myself and put myself and my own feelings LAST and everyone else's ahead of mine while I was feeling what was going on inside of them, it began my life of invisibility(my life, my own feelings becoming no longer visible) in order to make them know that their life and their feelings were important. The black and white thinking said, it's either me being the focus of attention or them, and I had enough experience of the painful kind growing up to see that me being the focus will always bring more pain, so I learned to rescue myself...or try to...through being there for others (rescuing them). Of course it never worked, but with black and white logic being the only thing to go by having my feelings buried, it's what I had to do to find a way to feel like I was surviving.
So to really get this - how important it is to value, honor and esteem my life as highly as it must be esteemed - it is no one else's job to do this only my own. And if my parents had been living their lives loving all that they found coming up and allowing themselves to feel through it all, I'd have learned from their example how them doing their own feeling work made them more present to who I really am without wanting or needing to control or manipulate me into someone more bearable. No, they would not have been perfect at it, but would have provided me with the way of living in the truth, loving what ever was needing to surface and help me heal. Me first, me first, me first...how selfish that sounds to this world, but when understood and used to lead us into our own soul work, what incredible Light and Truth we may then bring into our own lives and world.
There is something I have become aware of about how I got all twisted up that I feel is in a gradual untwist and it has to do with being honest about my weaknesses (which has been easier for me) and my strengths/talents (something I have always drawn a blank when trying to make a list of). As you have encouraged me in this email to take a look at what you are seeing as natural and good ways of trying to communicate that you are viewing in my life, I had room to take it in from you. Even if others have told me this in the past, I would not take it to heart feeling like they are just being "nice", but not able to really be honest with me. As I have watched your writings and see your own desire to not be fooled by your own self, but to want to know the bottom line truth, it brings me to take a better listen to someone like you who won't say things just to make me feel good about myself. So, I am grateful for this encouragement you have given me in this area, knowing there are plenty of layers yet to go where I live in impure motives, but also seeing the work I have been doing in putting myself first is affecting me for the good, untwisting the natural inclination that go twisted up from my childhood.
Thanks so much for sharing all you have James and Marion with me.
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Post by James on Aug 14, 2014 22:07:23 GMT 10
“Even if others have told me this in the past, I would not take it to heart feeling like they are just being "nice", but not able to really be honest with me.”
Things I told Marion when we first met that I liked about her and thought were good qualities - my doing so trying to bolster her self-esteem as it drowned in self-hatred, she is only now after all these years of staying true to her bad feelings and expressing them, coming to see and feel such things about herself without the need to be told she has them by anyone else. She still likes to be told as she’s only now waking up to the ‘new her’ feeling good and loving about herself, but still it’s what she feels about herself that’s so nice to see coming to fruition within her. And what a revelation it is for her awakening to the fact that she might not actually be the vile, evil, putrid, disgusting creature that no one will like and everyone will hate, to even feeling that she is not those bad things, and then that she is even good things. And it’s been an amazing experience for me to observe her, to see all she has said negative about herself has been real and true, but it’s all leaving, as she said it should one day.
Her lament still is, which applies to us all: But why do I have to feel so bad when I didn’t do anything wrong, I wasn’t bad?
I was too conceited to pick up the subtle rejections by people not wanting to be involved with me, nothing was wrong with me, so everyone liked me - what was all Marion’s fuss and bother about, as nothing was wrong with her, everyone liked her too - we all liked each other and were one big happy family. So I had all that rubbish steadily stripped away leaving me feeling stupid and humiliated at the preposterousness of being so conceited, and having to accept that I’m no better than Marion, just as vile, putrid and evil puke, and that how else can I be being evil and subjected to all such unlovingness. And the one thing that I keep coming back to through my healing, which I liken to my true yuk self living at the bottom of an antlion’s cone, is that I’m slowly spiralling back down into it like an ant that can’t escape, the more I surrender to and accept all the bad feelings about myself. And I try like mad to stop falling, yet also understanding I want to be dragged back into it. This week I’ve felt so much better within myself, and able to look back over my healing seeing how it’s all coming together, and how subtle and yet real our healing is. All so I can one day be at the bottom of that ant-lions cone (not that the antlion is bad mind you, as nature is pure and good and can never be evil - even when corrupted by us), being my true yuk self in all my shitty glory.
The inner transformation from being of darkness to being of light is sure a wonderment, it is fascinating reading your struggles Desire, and Samantha with her emotional intensity. I find your experiences reassuring, even helping me in my own healing to relax more into it, let it happen, to flow with it, not fight it as all such fight comes to light, knowing it is all happening and is all leading somewhere and is all good and right.
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Post by desire2bme on Aug 16, 2014 1:47:49 GMT 10
The confusion that must come with it all is the gift that taps out dry my life long desire to use my mental capacities to figure everything out in my head. When my mind wants to take hold and take the lead it now is something I feel deeper inside, the child I was, trying to grab a steering wheel feeling like if I let go of it I would die, I would drown.
The mistrust of my personal emotions was deeply imbedded in me and so the search was on to read book after book after book after book searching for the fix that would be permanent to save me away from any emotion asking to simply be acknowledged as it tried to surface in me. With the death of Robin Williams, one of the common threads I saw in his own life's way of thinking was that it was SELFISH to take care of your own life (and all of it's accumulated pain) and that he was here to ease everyone else's troubles. As it came out a few days after his death (that he also was moving into Parkinson's disease), the anxiety concerning his possible demise of not being able to perform his role for the world of taking care of us as Parkinson's would progress, would be a life not worth the taking up space. The planet would be better off without him if he couldn't be "giving" to others.
This is also what I learned...that if I was so down trodden with my own shit, I could never be of any use to anyone else and so for the first half of my life I continued to steer away from my true emotions waiting for me inside. I was so afraid to lance my first emotional boil believing that to allow and accept what my emotions were telling me would lead me to insanity.
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Post by James on Aug 16, 2014 19:54:56 GMT 10
Yes, it’s so sad having to put the show on for everyone else’s benefit, all whilst neglecting yourself and what you are really feeling. All of which, until you do your healing, in no way can you allow yourself to accept. It’s so sad that we believe we’ll go insane if we look into our bad feelings, when not looking into them and keeping them always under wraps is what makes one go insane. It’s so evil making us believe that if we look into and be truly ourselves - all we feel - that something very bad will happen to us. What better way, and possibly the only way, to control someone is there than to turn them against themselves by making them fear themselves. It took me a while to realise that it was actually mum and dad who I was scared of, and not all the unknown people in the world. Then even longer to realise that it was actually myself that I was scared of even more.
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Post by desire2bme on Aug 17, 2014 13:22:45 GMT 10
Being turned against myself...fearing myself (Myself: The sum of the combination of what I took in from my mother and my father).
What will she do next? What will she say? What's all that crap she's feeling inside? What is she going to do with it, where's she going to dump it? Oh no...here it comes, I see it rising out of her body. She's pissed, so angry and her hands need to pull my hair or push me aside. She's tired, so very very tired and I feel the weight of it, so heavy, too much to bear. So much to do, can't take a rest, gotta keep going, go go go, gotta get it done.
Here he comes walking through the door, button your lip, not a word out of your mouth. My way or the highway. Because I say so, I don't need to explain myself to you. Turn that television channel...now! Leave your big sister alone, your too old to need her attention....just a big baby, you are.
My own mixed bag of all I fear...fearing all I became, taking upon myself all of the parts of themselves they were ashamed of and rejected. To have this heads up on what's all stuffed down here inside me...it is helpful to see where it all has come from, why it's still here to be expressed out of myself.
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Post by desire2bme on Aug 20, 2014 4:45:34 GMT 10
More on this subject of feeling drained... It comes to me today to begin to open up to a greater understanding and desire to be taught about this. Yes, there comes within the womb, the infant being vulnerable to what is being experienced by the mother who carries the child...there is a bathing/immersion taking place and the child having no defense erecting ability yet to block it out. This is what continues to be re-enacted during these times of interaction now with others as I feel my powerlessness in it's purity...and I have not wanted to feel it, not wanting to be "a victim." I have been resisting the emotions that are packaged within this powerlessness.
I was born to look to my mother for my sustenance and nurturing and when we were separated physically, when the cord that provided what she experienced was severed, I was thrust naked and vulnerable out into the world open now to what or whoever would be moved to connect into this place in my belly. Did my mother want me to get to know me or to use me for her own purposes? What was I there for? I believe these questions answered provide the answer to what she would continue to do with me when I tried to reconnect back into her. And that pattern established between us, set up a resonation, a tone in my belly that would call out to anyone who knew and understood this kind of relationship...and we would join through this cord (chord) and "make use" of each other.
Without the Divine Mother yearned for and desired, there comes no flame to turn the light upon these interactions. But I see it more clearly now, as She has high-lighted my resistance to really allowing myself to feel the plundering that went on, the butchering, the cutting off of what did not fit, what was not desired a place in my mother's life. This false-love that I bought into as my "normal" with my mother was/is DRAINING ME! And now as I open up to and call upon my Divine Mother, all that is this anti-love still residing within me is being made visible through these current draining occasions. These dances of pretension, becoming for others what they need as the temporary fix for this God awful wound has finally become distasteful and I want to see and know and feel all of the dark corners of this evil still contained within me.
This feeling drained is taking my hand into what it truly feels like to not want to be known for who I am by the very one who carried me and brought me into this world. And as it is felt and suffered through, my Divine Mother is here waiting patiently to be to me the one who desires me to connect fully into Her living nurturing womb of truth and love. A bit at a time as I am willing to feel all of this grief while longing for my divine Mother's love, I will come into a new land of feeling Her wanting me to be here as I am and Her desire of me to become all that She created me to be. And I believe as this continues, this place where many now hook into me and bring me to feel drained must resonate with a new tone. My own evil practice of using them and theirs of using me...slowly but surely is something that shifts and transforms the more I am willing to surrender into my own pools of repressed pain and grief.
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