When basic trust in life, along with a feeling of safety is lost, we struggle. This is why so many abused people end up struggling in life and often end up isolating.. Its a point made by Judith Herman at length in her book on trauma, Trauma and Recovery.
Trust and safety are things I am thinking about a lot lately.. We cannot base our sense of faith and trust in what happened to us in the past, as the present offers us new chance and opportunities, and we have to learn to be savvy over time. That said when body safety is violated through our physical boundaries being overcome or violated in childhood that core imprint can be carried on. In childhood I could not stop my parents hurting me through neglect, or penetrating my body with painful things. I know as a baby my older siblings often burst in on me,rupturing sleep. Last night I forgot to turn my phone off and a late text from Scott woke me at a time I needed an early night. I had told him this and also told him my morning would be the best time to chat but he ignored it.. I woke at 11.30 after an hours sleep to his text and then felt a surge of anger.. That said so much is out of our control.
Every morning on waking I so often do not feel ‘safe’ I check the body arrangement of my limbs, I can feel various pulls and spirals going on and it takes some movement and time to get myself going.. Lately I am relying a lot on both yoga stretches as well as tai chi moves to help bring my energy forward. I feel the shock of knowing my sister is undergoing shock treatment has also disturbed my thoughts and emotions somewhat.. Each day as I come awake in this new reality I need to remind myself it is not happening to me and that she is separate to me, even if, at times, I feel we are so deeply connected.
I do not think my sister feels entirely safe in the world either and she has erased certain memories of how she was hurt by a husband who often put her down or was always trying to tell her to calm down. That said it was not easy for him as we all suffered from a form of OCD in our family and busyness or over doing it along perfectionistic/fearful inner scripts and self talk. Self regulating is not easy for me and at times reaching out or being involved in the world and with other people felt tough as well.
These days I enjoy the times when something pulls me out into the world and involves me with others, I aso enjoy my moments of solitude but I feel good connecting too. It is something I am reaching for more. It is interesting to me how much past experiences can color present ones…. and that a basic sense of trust and safety if not developed does end up restricting our lives in so many ways.. In childhood developmental theory these needs (safety and trust) are the first ones we need to have met in order to develop with a good base of support or foundation beneath us to build others upon, when they are missing it makes it far harder for us to blossom and develop, though later in life this may turn us towards a creative inner pathway.
A safe therapist has been essential for me.. She is my go to at times as I work on examining what went wrong while working to build on what can go right. But at times I am also going to have to take risks in this regard. For we cannot always be assured of an outcome of safety or things turning out or according to our design no matter how hard we try to spin the axis of the world to our hoped for orientatin.
When I spoke to my AA friend on Sunday she said her sponsor often used to say to her “try less and trust more” When we don’t trust in the Universe we so often burn ourselves out with taking action and trying in ways that often prove to be futile. There is a saying in Al Anon, ‘we become irritable and discontented without even knowing it and try to force (unhelpful) solutions”. Having an unrecovered person in our life can be crazy making, because they do not know how to be happy, there is no way we can make them be, and sometimes they may use unconscious manipulation tactics to make us feel responsible for what we are not, even bringing us down to their level at times if guilt is used. This issomething I am becoming more wary of lately…in the end I have to trust my own gut instincts, but for those of us who had these ‘injured’ as young ones later life becomes harder. We lack then that grounded primal sense of what to do and what actions to take for self care and self love, and feel unsafe taking them.
What the answer is I do not fully know but I do think it rests on coming to know and trust God did not make a mistake when he made us.. We do have a right to be here and follow our path.. and learn ways to better centre within so that we can hear that still quiet voice that nurtures us.. staying in touch with it while caught up in the world takes time, at least it is for me…for as I have said before, I am still very much a work in progress. Probably will be until the day I die. I can only say later I encourage myself more with the self talk ‘you are safe’, for so so long it just felt so very unsafe to be here.. and so joy got lost along with forward movement. I no longer want that state of affairs to be my life.
Emerging From The Dark Night 