Standing on shaky ground : heart lessons

This morning I not only felt that I was standing on shaky ground but that that feeling was throughout my entire body which felt soft and weak and vulnerable and unsure.  I woke and sat quietly with Jasper next to me and just had time in the present moment.  It felt sweet.  I then had a bath and the old twist, dissolve, swirl started to happen for me in my body.  It took me about an hour to fight my way out of that.

I seem to be always fighting.  I look at the weak, insecure, vulnerable part of me and see a child turning this way and that in difficult circumstances not knowing where to go to get her needs met.  In time I just sat and phoned a friend who connects deeply to nature and we had a conversation about birds, trees and nature as I sat feeling the healing energy from the leaves under my tulip tree outside.  I was also able to express some of the pain, rawness and uncertainty to him.  In the middle of this my brother called to see if we could have dinner on Wednesday night before Christmas as he won’t be around on Christmas Day.

Later as I sat outside I had a sense of nothing solid to hang onto.  I had only eaten a banana and by this stage it was 11.30 am.  I felt a kind of deep existential insecurity and then I thought of the Buddhist concept of impermanence and of what Pema Chodron writes about how in our restless neuroticism we are always looking for something solid to hold onto and instead being confronted by shaky ground.  I wondered if that is true for everyone because I actually believe it is truer for those of us who have had a lot of trauma, instability , death, loss, change and significant endings in our lives.

I had the urge to go out into nature away from home, still feeling insecure and very vulnerable.  There wasn’t anyone there Jasper and I had met before but we did have a brief chat with two little children under the shade of the pine trees about their dog, Maggie.  Later tears began to fall.  We got into the car and went to the bakery for a toasted sandwich and there I read some of the daily readings in the book which gives me the most comfort in difficult times, The Soul’s Companion.  It is written by Tian Dayton.

I was thinking about how a few moments before on the way there in the car a huge spurt of rage had risen up within me at my therapist’s lack of contact.  In that moment I decided to focus instead on Jasper smiling beside me. I am not going to entertain those angry thoughts, I decided.  It was a moment of strength and power for me.

We got to the bakery I enjoyed my coffee and I read my book two readings spoke to me in particular, the first I copy here :

Living with Paradox

When I justify myself and my position in life through anger and blame, I miss the opportunity to grow spiritually.  I build a wall around myself for protection, but unfortunately, in keeping others out, I keep myself out as well.  I get stuck in my rationalisations and use them to hide my fears.

Fear is natural.  No one gets through life without feeling plenty of it.  Avoiding it is like trying to cross a river without getting wet.  Instead, I will create a safe holding environment within myself, within which I can experience my fears and anxieties. When I do this, I am surprised at how quickly they lift.  Feeling them in this way is ultimately more productive than the endless energy expended on trying to keep them from surfacing or showing.

I am willing to be uncomfortable.

This reading made me realise that on Friday when I had that painful feeling of scalding hot water inside my heart at my friend’s decision not to come to morning tea and instead chose work over me, I had a really hard time staying with it and experiencing the pain, rawness and uncomfortability of the feelings.  This morning in a different vein I actually let myself sit still and feel my broken heartedness and grief.

In the second reading Tian talks of how in allowing ourselves to feel a wound we are taking the very first step towards healing it.  Allowing ourselves to feel the wound is very uncomfortable.  It may be nearly intolerable.  We may often be tempted to run, blame, deny or numb ourselves.  The better option for healing is, using the words of Pema Chodron, to allow ourselves to feel the soft, painful, vulnerable, tender, raw spot inside.  When we stay with our wounds in this way we learn more about ourselves.  If we are mindful enough we may choose not to react using old patterns of attack, numbing or defence.

Not reacting may on some level feel like we are letting someone get away with something but at a deeper level I see that on Friday my friend only triggered my pain and wound.  She didn’t entirely cause it.  My reaction was understandable and made more intense by old pain over the many, many times both as a child and teenager and adult I was stood up by friends (my so called ‘best’ friend used to do it to me all of the time) and at this time of year I have been left twice in very, very painful ways but the wound was mine.

My friend actually texted me yesterday to say a kind of sorry, she justified her actions in a way which I thought didn’t really address how painful it was for me and yet she said that she too was disappointed.  I told her I appreciated her getting touch but I was actually not up for meeting again for a while. This wasn’t really defensive self protection, it was taking care of myself and realising my limits.  I have had so much hurt in my life that I do need to be more discriminating with who I engage with these days.  I need to take my pain seriously, but I also need to find ways to soothe that raw wound and treat myself with utmost loving care in the face of it.  Often in the past I have not done this.  I have given too many second, third and even fourth chances to those who hurt me.  Now I know my heart is telling me I just cannot keep doing this.

Last night I was lucky to connect with an old friend in sobriety and she spoke to me about how she has addressed her own abandonment wounds.  “I just don’t spend time around those who don’t accept me or hurt me these days”, she said.  This I believe is essential learning for those of us who have experienced repeated abandonments.  We don’t forever want to block our tender hearts from love but neither do we need to continually subject them to harm.  Learning where to draw that line is an ongoing work in progress and in order to do it we simply must keep listening and connecting deep within.

And on reflection it seem to me that living and choice making is a moment by moment thing.  We need to stay open to the feelings and intuitions coming to us through our bodies.  For myself I have to take instincts and signs much more seriously instead of dismissing myself with I feel a gut urge to cancel something. It just wont do either to keep knocking on a door that remains shut to me.  I have done this too much in the past and it didn’t allow me space for good things out there that may have wanted to come to me if only I didn’t let the other thing go.  Life is a work in progress and things and feelings all pass in time.