I seem to be on a fine hair trigger and bursting with anger and repressed life energy over the past week. I struggle with thoughts of being there for my sister then get disabled and resentful. I struggle with the amount of financial help I gave to Scott who still isn’t off deployment and I’ve been lashing out. Id rather see it as a good thing though.
I listened to doctor who heads up the Anxiety Clinic in Sydney being interviewed on the radio today and she said how in our culture we come to believe its ‘weak’ to feel strong feelings, or to struggle with anxiety, when actually it is NOT…. I remembered while listening to this how Jungian Analyst Robert Johnson always says we live in a ‘feeling wounded’ culture, ie. feeling strong feelings or deeply is seen as being kind of ‘crazy’ when the reverse is true. The Doctor from the clinic said that distress tolerance actually shows resilience, those who don’t tolerate emotions are actually ‘weaker’ in many ways than those of us who do.
She also said if we judge ourselves adversely for how we naturally are and what we most naturally feel, we are more likely to become addicted or seek for something to mood alter. So what if anxiety isn’t actually a disorder but a natural response to the amount of toxic stressors we are subjected to in an increasingly out of touch and traumatised society where emotional violence is there everywhere, both subtly and overtly? What if its more important to know we are actually strong for taking steps to recognise and deal with it?
When I think of the amount of trauma and stress I have had to contain over the past 20 or so years as well as the legacy in my family I am trying to address I actually thing I have done SO WELL to be drug free (apart from one cup of coffee and some icecream every night). I think I have been doing quite well, all things considered but that doesn’t stop me shaming and blaming myself and I do also shame and blame others at times for just being human and flawed and imperfect too, when they diss me!
Even the friend who told me I am ‘too emotional’ last week said to me with a wry smile after confessing how she told her tenant to murder his cat many years ago ‘everyone is dysfunctional.” Why did I have to get SOOO bent out of shape by her saying that to me? Is there a part of me that believes it? Or am I being too hard on myself? For God’s sake she is just a fallible human not a monster though that comment about killing the cat really frightened me about her level of sensitivity and sanity and it calls to mind how my Mum (her best friend) used to tell me how ‘hard’ she was.
Anyway the fight to LIVE AS THE REAL ME has been a long one and any of us who get scapegoated or scapegoat identified know this. We know what it is to be put down by our families who would rather we shut the fuck up and don’t feel or address things in a real or authentic way. We start to think there is something wrong with us, especially when we get subjected to gaslighting or foisted with others negative projections. Such things for those of us who lack solid positive and healthy ego strength can be difficult.
In fact I noticed a comment on the Facebook Awakened Empath page where someone wrote “I didn’t know there was such a thing as healthy narcissism.” Well to my mind a balanced sense of both our strengths and weaknesses is healthy narcissism. We only get into troubles when we suffer from what Tian Dayton calls ‘dark narcissism’ (thinking we are the lowest of the low and good for nothing), or too puffed up with an unrealistic sense of self importance.
I know my own dark narcissism in the past has expressed in the belief I am responsible for others problems and it was refreshing to hear a young person interviewed today in the programme on anxiety say ‘that as far as my families issues go, I just don’t worry any more as I know they are not my responsibility’. Youngest children from dysfunctional addictive families who take on the scapegoat/saviour role will identify most often with this overblown sense of responsibility.
I look back to sacrifices I made of my own life for family and see I did myself no huge favours, that said in some ways I am glad I was there for them when they were sick but in later life I am pretty goddam angry about the sacrifices at times. I am sorry I must be honest here. I honestly wish at times I cared more for myself and less for others but its not really how I am wired or was wired until now.
I have a bit of a thumping head ache even writing this right now. I have a sense the full moon is stirring all of this up across the polarity of Virgo (practicality and efficiency) versus Pisces (deep sensitive emotional feeling and self sacrifice) not sure how close it is to exact but I will go look it up now. I got woken by the moon shining in through the French doors in my house about 4.30 am it was a lovely sunrise by the time I got to sleep around 6.15 again as the sky lightened as it held the moon aloft. Scott texted me then to apologise but I let the message go and let myself drop back into a deep sleep until 8.30 am which is late for me.
A lot of stuff and rumblings of frustration and angst have been running around in my head. I got Jasper out to the oval and picked some wattle for a sweet spring floral arrangement to add to my lavender and wild apricot tree blossoms. Maybe with spring life energy is rising again in the Southern Hemisphere after a long long winter of gestation and hibernation things are coming to life in me as I see more of how ‘stuck’ I have been in old patterns. Maybe I just need to ride the full moon energy out until it has it way with me an reveals yet more layers of the journey. Ill keep you posted!
Note : the Moon is actually at 3 degrees Aries right now, the Sun is at 22 Virgo so the Full Moon took place 22 hours ago. Aries rules the head so it explains the rush of energy I am feeling today.
Emerging From The Dark Night 