Often when triggered by a situation we do not respond, we actually react. This is something we can learn to slow down, in order to do it we have to be aware of wounded feelings and triggers, we need to know where old sore spots and frustrations lay, otherwise its my experience that we pretty much keep getting caught up in the old cycling and recycling of frustration, helplessness, lashing out, partly out of not knowing how the hell to handle or hold or make sense of our mixed up feelings and then harness or direct them in better ways.
I keep thinking on this with regards to this messy complex entanglement I got embroiled in after Mum died.. Partly its happened as I handed over the need to be loved to someone else who made promises (not only of love but of providing the missing contact, connection and support from family.) I guess its how a lot of us get captured.. especially if we suffered great loneliness or parental absences as a child.. A hunger lives on deep inside of us something that Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron talks of as cool loneliness. Being able to connect the dots on feeling lonely enough to identify with it and then front up for the lonely part of us takes work and lies in OUR ABILITY TO RESPOND TO AND MAKE SENSE OF OUR OWN FEELINGS as well as developing the capacity to sit with them until they pass on through. Sometimes we have to surrender reactive activity, or its better if we do.
Some of us with wounded inner children have a hell of a lonely frustrated, lonely, pain body living inside of us… We can then feel if only we try to find something outside to help with it, we will feel better, but the truth is, that as an adult much of that connection can be rare and if we cannot self parent we end up in a lot of hot water.. We may also chase illusions or be vulnerable to those who offer us what seems to fill us but is really only temporary or counterfeit.
This week I saw how much I can unconsciously react when triggered.. I cried a lot feeling the wound of loneliness when it was all going down.. I guess I have to just make friends with being alone right now I don’t see another way.. I reach out now to those I can connect with who are healthier, I hope I am waking up on some level, but sometimes human relationships just seem too goddam complex. And so often I fear I fall short in all kinds of ways due to my past conditioning and parenting.
Emerging From The Dark Night 