An island in a storm

I awoke in the most intense anxiety this morning.  I literally felt like my body was about to explode and my chest was racing like a thousand wild horses I felt the threat which is a huge combination of fear due to this recent connection I made online and the fact the person, if they are real is in a very terrifying situation and doesn’t want to load me with it but their heart seems to be just crying out for love.  I made a few demands yesterday about being kept in the loop which is not easy for me.  I was able to share all of our latest discussions in therapy, whether or not the person is real I am learning lessons here and what came to me today as I took steps to gather back my serenity and ground and get out of my mind into my body by cleaning and sweeping up the wreckage from Sunday’s storm is that I can only be a force of love, once I start to long for love from others I am in trouble as I become so vulnerable and all my unresolved need comes to the surface like a flood or a tsumani as well as the total sum aggregate of abandonment experiences I have gone through in a body over 56 years of life.  That pain is just no one else’s responsibility but mine and I am not even responsible on one level for what resulted out of an unconscious past where profound ancestral patterns were playing out.  I am also with my past likely to attract another abandoned child in some form who is also longing for love (as with my ex) but i wont be able to accept they NEED because i have not been able to accept that I also need a lot, have a lot of needs frustrated and unfulfilled that now in recovery I am seeking to discover and full fill and address.   But if I try to do that from the wounded child or hungry child part of me without inner adult’ s help (and yes good mothering and fathering energies internalised) then I am in trouble and could be too vulnerable to the wrong person.

Phew even writing all of that out shows to me I am coming a long way now.  I realised yesterday how vulnerable I am to words of affirmation and love, promises of support coming from the other side that in 4 months may or may not prove to be true. Rather than jump ship together, with my therapist’s help I am going to use this latest challenge as an opportunity to learn more about myself and grow myself each day.

I thought today of how I need to become a serene island in a storm as in modern society now everyone is so super stressed, 17 years ago I opted to jump out of the rat race and it ended my marriage.   I was looking for a calmer more grounded type of life and I have a really good chance of building it if I use discrimination.  I don’t want to be a disconnected island but I once heard this saying somewhere years back and it came to me this morning while sweeping and grounding as something I need to practice:

By watching and waiting the Master builds for him(her)self

an island that the flood cannot overwhelm.

In my case, my little island has been overwhelmed many times.  I am seeking here rather a way as an empath to be in relationship without being overwhelmed with another’s emotions or ‘stuff’ without totally detatching, disengaging and distancing which is how I have coped in the past.  And yes, there does come a time to detach or disengage but not by cutting my heart off and totally protecting it either.   I am also finding a way to express my emotions and other ‘stuff’ in a balanced way that does not overwhelm others, that said I will overwhelm certain people because I am an emotional and passionate person.  That is a good thing and makes me who I am.  It is something though I have never felt totally accepted for and at times I have felt I had to hide it.  Now I am looking for ways to be serene with it, ways to be expressing it but in a peaceful way if that makes sense.

I don’t want to come from a hungry entitled place with others but I still need to learn to ask for what I need, but in the end I cannot expect it of those who cannot give.   I also need to remember I am developing the ability to contain my own emotions and anxiety or stress, to find ways to get out of my troubled mind and ground and self soothe or connect with and release old pain so I can be in the day, present in a fully alive, awake, feeling, intuitive, embodied and passionate way.