Standing on shaky ground

the ground of my ego self felt so very shaky this morning. I awoke to a dream about a scared childhood friend I was trying to encourage to text Scott. I shared with him what people are saying about military and contracts and he told me that not everything is not made public when it comes to the net due to opsec and persec. My heart just felt so so sad when I said I could not help him any more yesterday and I told him I am scared of the banks because in the past they blocked us on suspicion of something that he cannot actually prove until he gets to Australia. He is very angry with the ‘shit’ he says the military is causing with regard to secrecy around banks and banking and I probably should not even be sharing this but you know me I am a rebel.

That said I was still hovering all betwixt and between in regards to us. I wonder if I am taking on too much of his karma by helping and yet I want to help, but it seems to me that I have all kinds of fears from childhood and from my trauma history too that are resurfacing lately.

Today I just felt so young and small. I was trying to groom Jasper’s ears and they always get in such a tangle and I hate hurting him so I try to soothe him with scratching him in a comforting way in between brushing the difficult places where his ears meet his neck. I had all this cascade of thoughts earlier too. We had unexpected rain last night and I had left two of my favourite books outside and they all got water logged and ruined and that triggered a painful panic attack as well as a lot of shame from my inner critic about how untogether, messy and disorganised I am. I am glad that I could just sit with myself during the trauma cascade which I am recognising has a huge element of shame to it. It became hard to breathe and my body which is where my unconscious and inner child lives was in so much distress from IC that I had to sit down and do my presence process breathing and talk to my scared inner child from my adult self. My inner child was crying a lot. Still the shame attack went on and on about how I am not responsible and have not held down a job for some time or stuck out a career. On and on and on it went. It was relentless.

I am sure many of us with addictions use them to shut this voice up. I had a powerful dream about this in my first serious therapy where my self was hitting my Inner Critic over the head with a wine bottle, that was my therapists interpretation and I think it is true. As I share more and more with others about shame and impression management I get the same feedback so many of us are ruled by or on the run from these punishing guilt/blame/shame voices.

Writing always helps me to sort out the tangle. It was late by the time I got to eat breakfast today and I didn’t walk Jasper as it was a bit cold, but went out and got a coffee which I know isn’t great and sometimes give me a headache. I then settled down to write this and had some computer issues but when I calmed my breath and slowed down my computer came right for me. I am grateful to write and last night was so touched my such a favourite blogger friend of mine giving me so much support and understanding. I know how many of us feel we have to hide our pain or challenges and there are all kinds of ways we can be invalidated or told to ‘get over it’. The truth is that most of us are doing the very best we can with what we know. We often get demonised or others try to demonise us for our reactions or ways of being but the deeper cure for all of this, to my mind is empathy and understanding as well as appreciating that others can operate differently to us. A good book I am reading from the library on non violent communication addresses how once we learn to identify and speak in a loving assertive way for our own needs, while taking into consideration those of others we manage to resolve conflict better and more non violently.

I had a lovely chat with my nephew yesterday so I sent him a text to say thank you today. I shared with Scott the fears that my brother in law (his father) abandoning my sister left me with this morning. I told him how Ron had another woman set up in New Zealand when he took Judy and the boys away from us in 1982, but I know my sister was a bit of a handful at that stage and it was her overworking and pushing the envelope which led to her aneurysm, I see how the stress was carried from Mum’s great grandfather’s alcoholism in NZ. I see it all now all the inter connections. My mother blamed my sister’s husband and only left her boys a pittance in the will leaving it up to me to address the imbalance. But my brother has control of all of our funds as executor so I don’t have a hope in hell of seeing a more equal distribution for some time. I will not say ever as I have stuck up for those four boys many times now. This son was flat our refused help by my brother when he wanted to move back to here to be closer to my sister who died. My nephew is great, he holds no resentment but we had a long talk about the failure of empathy in our family yesterday. He is also a fan of Franciscan brother Richard Rohr whose writing on wounding and healing I adore.

So all in all there are a lot of good things happening. If I can help my love out of the pickle he is in with the military I will be so pleased. I will try because in life there is either fear of insecurity that ties us up in a thousand knots or faith in the power of hope and love and generosity. I may be misguided and the bank may still try to block this. Maybe my rescuing him is not right. Maybe if I try and it gets blocked again the Universe will have spoken but the feeling I have is that if now in this world if we don’t try to help each other and risk vulnerability continuing along with a toxic cult of individuality where it is every man for himself and terrified of being hurt then what kind of world will we end up building in the long run?