I have been thinking a lot lately about what it costs us to think we have to earn love, to have been filled with shame about who we are as a youngster, or even worse, being denied access to our true self or been unable to develop as that one we truly are inside.
These thoughts have been prompted by reading a book on women in recovery from addictions. I just read the following quote
Everybody kind of understands, oh yeah, you take drugs and it does something to your brain and then you can’t stop. Its easier to describe than shame, that horrible feeling of being unable to control your life
How does it feel to be out of control in life and in your relationships? To feel that you have no boundaries, that you cannot express your true self, that you must cater to others needs and put your own last? How does it feel to be crying inside so loudly but know no one can hear you, they just don’t see YOU and you try to be yourself but you are not understood? The truth is it hurts and as Beverly Conyers points out in her book the hole in the soul that so many addicts and alcoholics describe in recovery relates to a void in the place of the true self and a wound in the self that may have been caused by the hurtful actions of others when we were young.
Coming into sobriety we slowly awaken to our wounds and developmental injuries or deficits. Many of us attract the partner who mirrors something to us about our own lack of self love and self value. We may work really hard to win that love, thinking that we have to make huge sacrifices but if the sacrifice is of our true self then the relationship is not going to heal whatever is missing inside of us and in our culture there are all kinds of romantic illusions which capture our hearts, we believe we will find that someone who completes our ‘missing piece’ rather than a complete person who can share their life with us and a true honest, respectful intimacy.
The truth is that healthy relationships require intimacy. I have heard intimacy described such : into me I see. But we also need to see into the true heart and soul of the other person, not just throwing out our own projections or expecting them to fill a void or hunger inside.
The journey to understand ourselves and our needs is a long one. In my own life my own needs were just things I did not consider really. I just thought that life was about responding to others who were in distress or might need care, but the sad thing is that lately as much care as I have given to others, especially in my family the more I have recognised that after the giving is done, very very little comes back and because of my focus on others I have not been able to keep the focus on my own heart except through the well of unmet need that lay there so hidden and did not get fulfilled in my family.
At times I have felt it was ‘selfish’ to care for myself (especially if that removes me from relationship) when the truth is that a happy healthy life rests in the balance between self and other, separation and connection, self care and care for others, self love and love for others. Recognising what our personal healthy boundaries are takes time, especially for children neglected emotionally or abused. Not blaming ourselves (a key sign of abuse or neglect involved turning the blame back upon ourselves rather than see it rest on lack of support for the true self by caregivers) but taking responsibility for the deficits and empty spaces in ourselves. Ideally we can best be related well to others when we are well related to our own insides.
At times it seems the hole in my soul has been very deep. I have time now to reflect coming up to the second anniversary of my mother’s death how this affected me and opened up that deep wound. I had undergone the challenge too with breast cancer only 20 months earlier and during that treatment a lot of anger and pain over my own emotional neglect and struggle to mother myself really came up. But I have seen even more of this playing out over the past years, coping with my sister’s own reaction and trying to support through several psychiatric hospitalisations. I still really struggle in this relationship. Each time the phone rings, I long for it to be my sister. I know I can call and in Al Anon we say to “Let it Begin With Me” but sometimes it would be nice not to be the one calling 9 times out of 10. Do I need my sister more? Do I just not figure in her mind (as my therapist sometimes seems to feel?) Is she down some deep anxiety/lack of self esteem rabbit hole and therefore unable to reach out? Am I expecting too much longing for her calls?
Well maybe in the end the lesson is to get on with my own life. Maybe in the end the lesson is to keep bringing my attention back to me. To filling up my own holes with things that bring joy? To know its okay to be happy? To live my own life? To know that I do have the power to make myself feel calm and settled and nurtured and fulfilled by the quality of the decisions I make?
There is a way to happy inside, even when I feel sad. I feel it rests in holding my own hand and liking myself because I know myself now and my own values as well as the things that make me feel better. No one else can decide what those things are and just sometimes when I make those choices they are not going to sit well with others who want something more of me. Yet, I can only be me in the end and if I lose their love by practicing self care, what is that love truly worth? Your true friends will love you with your boundaries. They will care for your heart. This is something I am learning. And that no one can fill my hole inside but a good friend can definitely make that heart feel less alone in this life.
All kinds of stories are told in the Beverly Conyers book The Recovering Heart : Emotional Sobriety for Women. There are stories of those in recovery coming to terms with their own needs and self love. In the end it is a journey we all must make, but most especially those of us who struggled to be loved and nurtured and accepted for who we truly were, deep down inside.
A few hours after posting this I came across the following writing from Paul Ferrini. I thought it really fitted in nicely as an end quote for this post.
Activity and rest go hand in hand. You cannot have one without the other. As in all things, balance is to be sought. Balanced people know when to stand up for themselves and when to defer to others. They do not allow their rights to be compromised, nor do they impose their will on others. Because they are balanced within, they find equality without.
That is the secret. That is the Tao.
Emerging From The Dark Night 