The one who triggers our wounds

How is it that life knows just the partner or person to bring into our lives to trigger our deepest wounds and how skilful can be become at dealing with this as creatively as we can.

I know that in my case I suffer from twin fears, that of engulfment and that of abandonment. The fear of engulfment comes partly from being an empath with her own wounds that can resonate with those of others and as I think about it this is the one gift our wounding can give us, we know how it feels so we can extend ourselves to reach out in compassion and empathy but at times we can also fear being overpowered when we suffer from emotional contagion or over empathising and taking things on board that are NOT ours. As a young child in an unresponsive family I know I struggled and that my Mum struggled also with buried emotions from her own past adult child legacy of multigenerational trauma and addiction.

The fear of abandonment is very real as it comes from having been left multiple times so that even the whiff of loss now can cause my heart to race, and blood to pound. I noticed it particularly today when Scott got in touch and I was upset that he had not managed to contact me as he promised after patrol yesterday. The reality of the situation is that thing are very tough where he is a present and so it wasn’t really fair to demand he honour a promise he was not human able to. But at the same time know my feelings of abandonment had a truth to them and would have been echoes of other times. In my last relationship my ex would go off surfing sometimes before I even woke up and to be alone again would trigger such deep imprints of BEING SO ALONE SO MANY TIMES that I would feel like I was dying or being sucked into the most awful darkness and if he was gone up to 2 hours or more it would make me so scared he had died. I know it isn’t rational but then traumatic imprints are not. THEY JUST ARE and its how we react that is the problem.

Today the situation with Scott was salvageable as I was able to express my feelings and needs in an unviolent way (thankfully) because sometimes with my ex my feelings would build into a frenzy. And I am learning that paradoxically even though my feelings are real they don’t always speak to the fact of the other’s situation (i.e. the degree of love and care they have for me.)

I just got back from the dog park where I had some very indepth conversations with two women and I noticed both my abandonment and engulfment fears playing out in my own head. But what I am also noticing lately is that my ability to connect emotionally and at a deeper level with others is growing as I come to know myself better. These convesations about life help me to understand myself and my fellow humans more. I see that we all struggle in similar ways. I see those who try to maintain an attitude of gratitude end up happier. I see also how my own upset when held onto can become abusive towards others when I react a certain way or can drive them away. And with seeing all this I see that although my inner critic tells me all the time what a bad person I am and how much I have stuffed up my life the truth is that I am healing and growing and learning. It hit me full force today that what I am being asked to understand it that my life is very far from perfect, at times it is very messy but it is still okay actually more than okay, if only I can keep a positive attitude that understands and embraces past pain and negativities and sees the necessity of them to grow and learn. AND FOR ALL OF THIS I AM VERY GRATEFUL TODAY.