Sadness rises and falls within the empty space that lies here with your absence, I was grateful today for the support of another therapist as Kat my therapist has been away for two weeks now and there are two more to go. Sometimes, honestly it is a relief not to have to go to therapy to bring up feelings but today I was grateful. I know being out with people for two half days on the weekend brought up so many of what feel like human frailties and vulnerabilities and I cried a fair bit on the way home yesterday. I managed to settle down and come back to my centre after a chat with one of my grand nephews but today as soon as I got in the car for my stand in therapist’s house the well started rising again and more tears started to flow.
I went to this first appointment with a bit of apprehension at having to tell my trauma story again but it went well and what a lovely lady Marion is, so deep feeling and body centred in her approach. Its all behind me now but I read one of my blogs and cried through it as I shared some of the mixed feeling allowing myself to get close to others for a brief while brings up in me. And I heard a therapist say on the radio today that those of us who can hold both sadness and happiness and feel them both deeply are doing well. I now know its not a sign of emotional ill health to express your feelings, as my family led me to believe. Or a sin to come alive and feel things passionately. We discussed a lot about this today.
I know I struggle to regulate myself because my Mum couldn’t really regulate her own emotions or mirror mine back but instead would dismiss them and that is the struggle I go through inwardly. At times I feel arising with me the bereft young girl who had not a clue where to turn to except to substances or to those who were not really healthy to be around that said it was up to me to find out what I needed and where my deepest wounds, injuries and scars lay and I think I have gained a lot of ground with that over the past few years.
I now know I could not turn to one single member of my family for support, they are just not ‘present’ emotionally and so often it was like going to an empty well seeking to find water. I was lucky to finally find a very good therapist and the occasionally emotionally literate or attuned person to share with.
We live in such a ‘rational’ age as Marion was pointing out today that it’s really only recently that the true value of expressing feelings has begun to be recognised. I shared with her my fears over my ‘magical’ thinking with regard to lost loved ones. It may be that like native people I am more magically and mythologically attuned, and I was grateful to read Edward Whitmont’s book Return of the Goddess many years ago which explained the evolution of consciousness and how our heroic egoic age came to be born on the back of Moses 12 commandments and the terror of the Black Plague which decimated a lot of the population of Europe. The truth is thought there is a lot more to this life and experience than the purely rational and material. We seem to be a bit stuck there really.
Lots was exiled at that stage of the so called feminine, intuitive, irrational world of feelings and emotions and other aspects of the soul and Jung foretold the re-emergence of the repressed feminine in both men and women many years ago, charting the rise of a multitude of ‘isms’ of which we saw many throughout the 20th century.
Today I am glad I can own the power of my own feelings and no longer see them as strange or bad or wrong, I got to be labelled ‘difficult’ in my family or ‘too dramatic’ for the way I was and I probably had to struggle hard to be seen and get any attention at all, which is why at times this replays all silently in my own head when I am around others or other groups. I know now its to myself (or a loving inner parent) that it is most important to turn for the necessary ‘holding’, ‘containment’ and mirroring of my emotions. Marion gave me some help with a practice of attuning inwardly to my body when I get triggered or feel pain or panic, she explained how in our age pain is so often associated with intense fear and so, rather than be ‘with’ our pain or discomfort, often we seek ways to run from it.
I had a sense when I tuned into my own inner child today that the inner children of my ancestors were also present, and I had the realisation that the work all of us do on this we do for our ancestors too for they often didn’t get a great childhood either or carried a lot of injuries or deficits or scars. That said, we get great power from our ancestors too and I do believe the inner child has answers for us, I am with Jung on this one but we also need the adult self to show up and not squash the individuality and great creativity, imagination and insight that our inner soul child and that of others can carry.
Well is peaceful here now. I actually took some time to sit quietly in my armchair and read more of my Rupert Thomson novel a moment ago before popping up to write this. I survived my weekend Festival experience and am so glad I opened up to the opportunity. I would have liked to ask several people for a connection after the festival but I didn’t quite find the courage yesterday, that said I know the peace I do find in my own company. I no longer need to run away from myself and I know when I need to reach out because I have been spending a bit too much time alone, that said its not always easy to find the deeper connections. I find that here and am grateful for it. I think I will go and read some more of my book now and enjoy the peace and calm after all those emotions have now fallen away.
Emerging From The Dark Night 