Feeling excluded

Feeling excluded from an inner circle of containment is a very familiar experience for me. I discussed in therapy with Kat yesterday my reaction to that scene in the show This Is Us Where Kevin comes into the bedroom of his parents to see his sister and brother in bed with them asleep in the midst of a storm after having been accused of something he didnt do.  I shared about it in another post.   A similar feeling was triggered yesterday at the dog park where two people connected on the top bench while Jasper and I moved away to the lower bench.   I remember thinking, I wish Jasper would bond or play with the two other dogs but it didnt happen, my little minx was off in the other direction doing his own thing, but never the less I sat on that bench and just cried feeling so excluded and as though there was no place for me and an oh so familiar feeling that others just connect so naturally and easily and that I lack those kind of skills and for all I know it may be something about me that others dont relate to but then my therapist reminds me that I DO connect just in deeper ways with people its taken me some time to get to know.

I have been thinking a bit about the expression used a lot in A.A.   “accept life on life’s terms”. If such a thing triggers me and makes me sad maybe I just need to notice that, I dont have to push the feeling away, I can allow it to deepen in my heart and then if tears come they do move through me and flow and I am not resisting them with my mind telling myself I do belong or dont feel really sad about it.  In times feelings do pass like a wave and they show me things, often churning up deeper realisations from the bottom of my ocean (unconscious) if I dont fight it.

Yesterday in therapy I was able to admit that I am wanting to judge my older brother less and let him know I do need him, its hard as my brother is pretty self focused and often doesnt seem to see or know the real me, we have clashes and there is a big age difference.  I see him try but then putting his foot in it and my heart wants to love and not block from my hurt place with defence any more but its catch 22 as I need not to give myself away over it either.   My brother left shortly after Mum died for his 3 month in the USA and is only just back, he takes distance and rationalises a great deal and its taken me time to see this, its just the way he was raised to be by two parents and he was lucky to be the older son as he had more of both my parents and in a very different way to me, who was largely unseen and the impacted by all the traumas of age 17 to 23 when my father died.

I want to ask my brother this visit if he realises how its been for me to have had no Dad since 23 and to have not been able to bond with a father preoccupied with business life rather than emotions and relationships?  I dont know if its a good idea or if Ill have the courage or if he will even really care, but I DO know now how left out I felt and how unnoticed I was for all of those years, and then misjudged just like Kevin (the character with active alcoholism in the series This Is Us).  I am glad I watched that episode as sad as it was it echoed issues that are clearer for me.  My left all alone and emotionally neglected wound is only just becoming clear and more conscious after nearly 23 years of sobriety and my higher power is showing me aspects of myself that need healing with these two encounters shared here.  Painful as those things are to be shown them as well as my reactions to them is a gift.  And I notice too that when I get home and back to inner connection I feel so much less alone which is how I can so often feel in that wide world beyond the boundaries of my own home.