Heart ; some reflections on physical safety, loss, anxious attachment and moving on

A heart is designed to love not hurt. When we have hurt others by our reactions it can be hard to understand it all, we are so busy fighting our own corner and we may not really understand fully why we are reacting the way we are. I have been thinking a fair bit about anxious and avoidant attachment today. It may not be easy for all of us to feel safe and close to others due to painful past experiences. In reviewing the list of childhood need from Nancy Van Dyken’s book I shared in an earlier post I thought a lot about the one ‘physical safety’ over the past 24 hours . As a child due to parental actions or neglect I suffered serious injuries to my body.

my arm was pulled out of its socket when Mum held onto me as I was trying to run forward

I suffered 3rd degree burns to one foot on a caravanning holiday when my Mum was obsessively washing down the floors with a boiling bucket of water, I was drawing nearby and stepped in the bucket.

I got a fish hook stuck in the webbing between my big and second toe that Dad left lying about in the seagrass matting after working with his tackle at the coast house.

I got a cut that required 30 stiches after breaking a window trying to get into the house one afternoon. I was a latch key child and had to get the key off the hook in the shed in the garage and I had to put it back but I forgot.

Other injuries came too. There were the beatings with the wooden spoon, the flung hairbrushes when my Mum flew into a rage. All of this made me feel very very unsafe. My dog suffers now because due to clumsiness I often drop things due to trying to clean up or do too much. A short while ago a garden broom fell down sideways, it didn’t hit him but he had to jump out of the way…

There is always a reason why we develop either an avoidant or an anxious attachment style. If we are not recognised for our true feelings either but shamed or taught we are wrong for having them we can also distance from feelings, then it feels unsafe to be with others or we may bend our reality around in order to be loved, or gain approval or acceptance. There is an implicit understanding we have sacrificed ourselves but it may not be fully conscious for us.

Owning and understanding my own emotions and feelings and reactions is takingsome time. Emotions can also get in the way of action. I was reading a post on The Written Addiction site last night in which he spoke of how if we want success and happiness in our lives we have to take good actions, we cannot rely on others. Becoming too passive may be a defence, it may be a way of trying to stay safe, learning to take positive self action and move out of victim hood can take some realisation.

Lately I am trying more and more to reach toward relationship but lately I also am recognising my need to also stay with my real self at times and contain feelings, keeping busy can at times be an anxious response to being quiet and sitting in things. There are times sitting in things and excessive rumination is not good for me but there are times when feeling in is necessary.

I found my gut really responding last night during a television programme in which a man was being diagnosed with cancer. I was immediately back in the kitchen with my Dad in November 1984 when he first shared his diagnosis with me. I felt the tears and sadness as real. What this showed me is that old pain and injuries and feelings do live on. The expectation in society is that we ‘get over things’ and move on and yes we do at some point need to make a conscious decision to keep on living even after loss, but the point is when we have lost that loss stays with us. Its not self pitying to feel it.

I had the self pity/victim accusation thrown at me last week again. I tried to look to see if it was true but what I sometimes feel is that people are actually in flight from their own level of pain and sadness over losses. So rarely is loss truly validated, so often we are fed platitudes or made to feel there is something deeply wrong with us if we have not ‘moved on from loss’ after a certain time. Recently there was a decision made that grief would be listed in the DSM as a mental illness if it went on for over a year???? It is something author Johann Hari addressed in his book Lost Connections.

The truth is that we are going to feel better and move on from loss when we can actually acknowledge its full impact and not deny it. We don’t have to stay endlessly trapped in sad feelings and we can take action for happiness but loss needs to be recognised. The impact of unresolved grief can go on for years and years.

There is not a lot of help with grieving in our modern society. Most certainly we need to acknowledge the inherent impermanence of people, situations and experiences; change is a part of life. but certain losses and injuries may end up leaving fears and scars that go on affecting us for many years to come. To recognise we all carry certain levels of trauma is important. Many of us come from childhoods were important needs or valid emotions were not allowed or met.

Healing and understanding the impact takes a lot of inner work and validation and is something we must face often alone in the deepest interior of our own souls since not many people or society at large can always validate such experiences.

The loss of important connections and attachments or the failure to find them as a youngster and growing person is hard. If we had to go on alone at times its hard to acknowledge the need we have and the comfort we can draw from others. Not all of our needs can be met from within, many of them can. But life is inherently about connection and when our capacity to connect is wounded something in the soul suffers so so deeply, healing may be found via connections with transcendent and natural forces but nothing really beats the true unconditional love of another open, loving, emotionally available human heart.