Being real with myself

The problem with our psychological defences is we cannot see them until a way down the road often after they have caused us enormous pain.  If we do not know deeply our own inner landscape which can be full of dark holes and mountains and perilous crevices we can be in problems and we can also blame others.  The further I go in emotional recovery the more I see the true meaning of intimacy = in to me I see and only by seeing myself and being honest can I see and know others at depth.  And if I have not had their experiences or if my temperament and psychological makeup differs I can also misunderstand or be misunderstood, one of the reasons I love the astrological understanding of elements, fire, earth, air and water.

Someone commented to me last night that their understanding is that the opposite of or antidote to addiction is connection.  It is something I realised or knew way before 20 or more years of so called ‘sobriety’, when at 11 years sober I began to isolate myself, but I also understand at that point I was chosen for an encounter with the abyss not only in myself but in my family and society.  Its only in the last 6 years or so after coming across the writings of Tian Dayton that I share a lot about here as well as the book Addiction as Attachment Disorder by therapist Philip Flores that I came to understand how unresolved wounds led to emotional disconnection and stress and isolation in my own family.

My early connections or absence of them dictates my relationship with inner and outer worlds and hearts and souls and has multigeneratinal links.  I need to know myself inside deeply to be capable of true intimacy and connection with others.  I see the basis of much so called ‘mental illness’ as coming out of wounds in attachment and identity building due to trauma in earlier life or compound losses which were hard to process or deal with in a climate of low emotional intelligence.  Unpacking my insides takes time and is something addressed in this brilliant quote from my daily reader The Soul’s Companion.

Today I will not hide pieces and corners of myself from my inner view.  When I fail to live up to an image of what I think I should be, I hide who I fear I am.  Spirit cannot live a lie.  I lie to myself when I pretend not to be who I am, and the person I lie most to is me.  When I do not tell the truth to myself, I undermine my connection with self.  I weaken my most important link – with my own insides, my intellect within my heart.  Soul comes to me through my own inner depths.  When my inner depths are littered with unopened boxes or rejected pieces of self, it barricades the smooth entry of soul.

I will know myself

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.  What is called resignation is often confirmed desperation…. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called games and amusements of mankind.  There is no play in them, for this comes after work  But it is a characteric of wisdom not to do desperate things

Henry David Thoreau