On letting things (old reactions) go.

I have been thinking this afternoon about the concepts of surrender and letting things. fears and feeling and problems space to breathe after reblogging Tiffany’s post on The Antidote to Fear and learning that she will be following that post up with one on surrender.

This brings into my mind the idea of those things that happened to us in the past over which we had no control and are powerless to change.  We all know no matter how hard we try we can never have different parents to the ones we did.  Certain traumas that befell us we had little control over. Certain people who came into our lives may have been attracted because of our past and until we can come to understand that we don’t have a lot of power to change things.  I was also just listening to two more Richard Grannon videos on Borderline Personality and emotion re regulation in which he explains that if we are around people flying off the handle or reacting in dysregulated or extreme ways our nervous systems end up dysregulated as well.   We learn to have reactions to triggering situations which remind us of earlier ones and then some of us lash out as well probably out of anger or fear.  It takes some time to learn to step back and in BPD fear of abandonment is a huge trigger.  If someone doesn’t return a call or turn up on time we can react and it feels insanely life threatening at the time since these events are often stirring up older feelings.  Surrendering to them may seem like the last thing we want to do but my experience is that if we find the courage to face them and feel them, in time they do integrate and we learn more about our past.

When we feel the abandonment trauma we need all of our wits about us to catch the reaction and then pause before we amplify it. This is the time we might ask help from a power greater than ourselves to hold us through and help us to feel the fear instead of flying immediately to a response which may prove to be counter productive in getting us what we really need, loving connection with another person and a way to communicate how we felt in response to certain behaviours.

My own fears of abandonment have been triggered a lot over the past 36 hours after opening up to someone about some things that triggered me with them on Saturday.  It’s taken some time to get my nervous system back into a state of calm.  This afternoon I know I am powerless over when or if I will hear from the person again.  I have just been relaxing, watching the videos as well as one of my old favourites Moon Struck.  I feel a lot calmer now.  I don’t know if the price of connection with this person is currently worth the kind of stress it is provoking for me.  Am I meant to be facing these situations from my past in order to heal the recognise the original traum?.  I don’t want to stay stuck there though so after some time of relaxing and surrender I must also take positive steps for self care tomorrow hopefully when the weather is brighter.   For now its just lovely to be able to hand the situation over and relax.