Being present to unspoken need

There may be times when saying little is needed, there may be times its best just to be with others, to be fully present with them.. It is something that can be hard to do with some people, just quietly spend time being together, allowing that person their process and to be where they are even if we find it a bit crazy or challenging.

I listened to a short video by Eckhart Tolle last night on dealing with unconscious people, he spoke of his step mother’s so called ‘mental illness’ which manifested in paraonia, he said that when he spent time just being present with her, in time her delusions of being watched and followed would finally dissipate.. he just let her talk on without challenging her. I have had to do this at times when my ex partner got onto one of his ‘rants’ there would be a trigger to him feeling hurt, abandoned, ignored, knowing about his childhood I knew what was being triggered, when his mother walked out on his abusive alcoholic father to save her own life he was told he was being sent to a farm and instead he ended up being sent to a children’s home. Knowing this history may make us feel compassion, whether or not he chose to feel his feelings about it was really out of anyone else’s control and only he would be, in time, able to stop projecting all of that pain onto new situations if he so chose. That never happened and I was often to blame for things due to the fact I was sad or not feeling well or just challenging him to look deeper.

In fact I was thinking about him so strongly last night after watching a few live performances from Dave Gilmour of Pink Floyd and Smoky Robinson, my ex loved his music and his guitar, the Pink Floyd song that most spoke to his reality has the lyric “I have become comfortably numb”. Initially he was attracted to me being sober, over time that grew to be a bone of contention, he felt judged for drinking and that is something that was never an issue between my ex husband I and he drank through all of our marriage. These days I can look back and see things with more clarity..At the time it was hard being with someone who I felt always wanted to change me and did not accept how it felt for me as a sober person who saw what was going on beneath other’s addictions and was opening up a lot of feelings of grief.. In the end we were not suited but I found it hard to let go. I read back some old journals from the year before we met last night and saw how my healing process began to open up.. It was interesting as on the day I had the head injury and bike accident, two years before meeting my ex partner I was feeling a lot of rage and I was reading in Louise Hay’s book yesterday that often accidents are a sign either of guilt or of repressed hostility…That rang true for me..

In the aftermath of it all I have had to work hard to understand where all of the frustation and anger came from.. There was a lot of hurt with this sister who is repeatedly hospitalised, and I feel a split at times between the sister I longed to love and the sister who I am never sure really had kind feelings for me.. .. Maybe we are not suited either to form a strong bond.. I am trying hard to work through feelings of responsibility and unearned guilt. It seems some people do not struggle as hard with these feelings maybe they have different family relationships.. I do not know..

Anyway these days I know better how to be present for myself, how to tune in to what I really feel and need.. I can also be present with others, Being present means I do not have to reach for answers or take things on board as much. It means I can understand where the boundary between you and me begins and ends.. God knows that was not always possible for me when my needy child was so in control. there was just so much repressed stuff I longed for from both parents that got buried and it has taken me quite a lot of years in therapy to understand this and to know what the true genesis of that “hole in the soul” spoken about so often in AA and the rooms of addiction recovery was and where it came from.. I see my sister trying to fill it with medicines and in the past with exercise. I saw her at times so far from the little one in her who is aching for her to hold her.. Maybe that part of her feels more held when she is in the hospital.. I just hand it all to /God these days knowing he has a plan for her and her life.. I keep reminding myself of all I have to be SO GRATEFUL FOR.. most especially my sobriety….and lately the dawning of what it might mean for me to finally be living happy, joyous and free.. nature helps me be present.. There is so much presence in nature.. that is where I am off to now. for a lovely long walk in nature.. where I can be present with Jasper and with my soul.