Allowing myself to be alive

I know I am alive.  On any day my heart is beating and blood is pulsing through my veins, but that said coming from a family where if you were too happy or outspoken something was seen as bad or dysfunctional in that made my journey of seeking to be fully authentically alive has been a struggle.  I had an older sister go into a psychosis in my 20s and although I did not witness a lot of the very painful stuff such as her trying to set fire to all the clothes in her bathtub while using it as a toilet the sense of fear and dread surrounding it all was there for me.   Then with my other sister being considered as going off the rails when she was just bursting out of a very confining marriage only to be committed to a psych ward I also learned it wasnt that safe to be too full of yourself.

It`s something that comes up in therapy all the time and when I try to buy myself new things… I get the critic commenting on every choice and trying to veto it, reminding me to be sensible and not get too carried away and do I really need it and what about the starving children in Africa or those who cannot afford a brand new pair of shoes.  Speaking of which on Monday I lashed out and bought two new pairs as I did not have a good pair of walkers and its ages since I bought a pair of pumps.   Somehow I managed to sneak both of those past the critic without too much commentary going on.

The bigger issue of just feeling free to live my life and enjoy it is coming up lately.  There was a dream image the other night of a white tarpaulin with blood stains seeping through.  The idea of there being a horrible amount of blood around after a major disaster (which was literally true when I got smashed up at 17) appeared in one of my early dreams in my first Jungian therapy.  I was in a white bathroom with blood splashed all over the walls and hanging my head over a white sink while blood poured from my nose and this has actually happened twice in the few years that I have been back in my home town now.   As a dream image I am choosing to see this more recent dream as a positive sign : blood is life, its the pulse of life and pumped by a heart that is working and it is also about passion and aliveness, only trouble is that these two energies were not ones that were looked on too favourably in my repressed upbringing.  To me the white represents the climate of perfectionism in our home where everything needed to be spotless and esthetically beautiful or in order, something I am working hard to overcome in my own life and something analyst Marion Woodman addresses at depth in her book Addiction to Perfection.

Anyway I found myself singing at the top of my voice on the way home from therapy this afternoon.  It was good to be validated that after speaking to my sister this morning I was picking up on her with the pressure I was feeling on the phone which abated after I got out of the house and into the fresh autumn morning with my dog.   As an empath I am aware that I pick up other people`s energies and feelings a lot.  Kat pointed out to me how it is a form of infection or psychic contagion that I have to work hard to understand and not personalise.  I was telling her that when I asked my first therapist back in 1999 if I was a borderline personality, she said to me  No, Deborah you are just someone who lives very close to the collective unconscious and as Kat said this afternoon, being wired this way is not easy as it is not always simple to know what is coming from within us and what I am absorbing from others and the stratosphere.

Anyways as sensitives and empaths we do need to wise up to those who may also want to put a dampner on our energy at times.  The other problem being that since we are often kind, giving, feeling people it never occurs to us that others are not the same and may be more than willing vampirise our energy, or take our resources from us without really giving anything back in return.  Not that we always give to get but if we are giving and giving and giving and not receiving at all or feeling drained its important for us to understand what is going on and set boundaries not being too nice.

I was happy to come across the video I posted by Vital Mind Psychology this afternoon.  I really recommend taking a good look at some of his other videos if you are an empath who tends to give over power or energy in relationship with narcissists.  Although we never consciously choose these relationships it is a psychological truth that empaths and narcissists are drawn to each other like moths to a flame.    Becoming emotionally savvy about the motivations which are driving us to give and give is important so that we can become wise and not entrapped in a weakened victim stance.

Though such relationships are not chosen they are a source of learning, sadly often through suffering and pain.  We can grow stronger and wiser though.    We don’t want our lively energy to be depleted in this way long time and if we are passionate, open, sensitive and giving we also need to know its not a sign of something wrong with us, although at times we may need to learn to temper that passion with wisdom.