At times we may go about the world seeking a place to be seen, a place to be embraced, a place of shelter, a place where we can express ourselves. This is why I decided to go back to a 12 step meeting this week despite the fact my therapist tried to tell me I had moved on a lot further than others in the meeting. I just don’t know if this is true and even if it is I would still want to go just to be part of a community of souls who are open to being present with each other and willing to express their own process of recovery as it is for them. By listening I can always learn something and identification makes me realise I am not really ever truly alone in my struggles, though at times it can seem that I am.
I have been thinking a lot this week about how as child I looked around trying to find a way to connect and belong but also of how I didn’t end up finding that with other people. I heard someone share today how full of fear they were as a child and how they then tried to do all they could to survive and be safe. For myself I never got to develop a feeling of safety or of having a home or person to turn to and so I turned to other things and that was not all bad as some of them gave me a sense of meaning, like writi g, reading, poetry and art and psychology, but I also see how much I was also trying to make sense of the world and my place in it.
I also see that I didn’t really know how to relate very well to my insides or understand the motivations, feelings and insides of others. The focus in our family was very much about externals and doing all we could so Mum would not explode (and that meant trying to keep things as tidy as possible and be as much help as we could and always complete all our chores before we could have any fun). It was not a relaxed way of living, there was not the sense of being safe but there was the sense of running as hard as you could to get it ‘right’, but right according to someone else’s standards.
Today some of these standards can still rule my life. I look for myself in others now and sometimes I find myself and somwtimes I learn how differently others cope but I also enjoy being a person others can look to for understanding and acceptance of their humanity. Just listening to shares today I realised that so many of us carry shame, so many of us feel we have try extra hard to do well, some of us want to belong some of us would rather be on the outside and are comfortable with being a self that we know is authentic and in line with our true values. Some of us are not hooked on approval or people pleasing where as others of us look to others for confirmation. This is not all unhealthy, to my mind it only becomes unhealthy when we learn we need to sacrifice our authenticity to belong or be a part of someone’s life. Then we are often being driven by a fear of how it might be to be with no one but ourselves and if we have not yet made a home for ourselves inside ourselves then we can struggle with all kinds of avoidances and escapes or other coping mechanisms.
I am reading a wonderful book on expectations at the moment called Expectation Hangover. I came across it by chance on the library website and its helping me to understand how much expectations and a desire for control over the uncontrollable can mar our emotional lives and relationships. There is a saying in the fellowship that an expectation is a premediated resentment, because the truth is life has it is own plan that just does not always fit our will, needs, desires or expectations and it is what we do when we suffer disappointment that can create what author calls ‘an expectation hangover’ that can easily devolve into a downward spiral of depression if we don’t try to understand how and why we are reacting as we do as well as some of the erroneous conclusions we may then draw.
I was just inspired to read the start of the chapter on anger in my book on Letting Go of feelings and in it he spoke of the many faces anger can assume in our lives, outrage, indignation, resentment, fury, agitation, abusiveness, rebellion, sarcasm, spite, contempt and wrath, just to name a few. These reactions to resentment or having needs desires will or pride thwarted say a lot about us, ideally we use our anger to motivate ourselves towards change, rather than target others with the blame, which I am beginning lately to see only ends up leaving us more stuck, and takes away the locus of control and power from ourselves, placing it upon others in our lives. It may also lead us to a permanent victim stance.
David Dawkins makes the point that there is more energy in anger than in apathy or depression, but much depends on how the spiritual/spirited movement of anger is expressed by us. Just where is it that we point our arrow of desire and what steps to we take to shape our lives in the ways that can bring true and lasting happiness to us.
Surely for as long as we live too, we will both find and lose homes in the hearts of others. Loved ones will die and leave us and the removal of that home may launch is into a profound pit of grief, some of us will fight against the loss rather than feel it and work it through.
In her book on expectations, Christine Hassler explains how the fastest path to freedom when it comes to the pain of loss and disappointments is to actually feel the feelings and learn from them rather than seek methods of distraction or diversion. When we lose something or someone we pinned hopes on there will be a period of adjustment that will of necessity require the feeling of certain somewhat difficult emotions.
I resonated with Christine when she spoke of how as a youngster she was not helped to feel or understand her feelings. She ended up on medication very very young and it was not until she began to learn from and trust her feelings she was able to go medication free and learn how to ride the tide of her expectation hangovers in order to reshape her life in new directions.
Coming home to our true self and our feelings instead of running means we get to learn essential lessons. And sometimes others will give us a home where feelings are accepted and allowed, never the less we should not give the power away to others to always be there to provide for all that we need or desire in this life and always require them to be perfect mirrors, coming to know ourselves in depth frees us from always placing this burden upon others. For some of us achieving psychological separation may take a lot of work, and it is my experience that it is truly only when we achieve this that we can be there in any useful way for others.
Emerging From The Dark Night 