On self rejection and suppression

Self rejection is a way of life for many of us in this culture. Being caught to run and hide from feelings or over react as a result of finding it difficult to contain them, can become a way of life and one that is socially sanctioned and condoned.. In fact if you feel your feelings and try to express them sometimes you will just meet with punishment or derision.. As a result, self rejection and emotional suppression can become so entrenched we often do not even realize we are doing them and suppression is what we learned very early especially when we began to absorb the lie that there is something inherently wrong with who we are or the even deeper lie that our value is related to what we do or achieve rather than who we really are.

I have never been an ambitious person for anything but personal and emotional growth and I read this in John Ruskan’s book on Emotional Clearing today, it seemed to relate to my father and my brother and the ways they run (ran) and hide (hId).

Ambition is one of the most common attributes of the isolated ego. The pain of isolation is felt, and it is assumed that its release will come when personal success, wealth, possessions, or fame are achieved. This is the essence of materialism and still the popular (American) dream.

We become conditioned in childhood to reject ourselves and our present condition and to want more. We enter the race to nowhere, sometimes never waking up from the dream. (except when tragedy hits!)

Ambition is one of the most acute forms of self rejection, because a great deal of energy is mobilized to achieve goals. The same energy then serves to form suppressing shields around feelings. We become highly goal oriented and out of touch with ourselves.. .. Ambition is the addiction of the ego to the attainment of goals. The ego thinks it enlarges the self when it achieves. Goals become non humanistic. We become selfish and self isolated. Yet, ambition seems to be part of growing up.

Dropping ambition involves learning to be happy as you are, in the moment with no projections into the future.. Happiness results from the acceptance of all of life – and life lived holistically.

I just watched a movie called Submission in which the ambition of a young student destroys the academic career of her male teacher (played by Stanley Tucci). The woman uses the vulnerabilities of the teacher to try to bend him to her purpose (reading her writing while being ambitious to get it published.) Using persuasion and all he wiles she manages to engage him in an (almost) affair which she then reveals to the powers that be when he ‘fails’ her.. She plays the victim while he, in the end, uses the experience to grow and learn.. It showed how much ego can be used to cancel out the being of another person and to use their kindness and it rocked me to the core watching it on Friday.

I know that I have a thousand ways of rejecting myself. John Ruskan names and explains a number of him in this enlightening book. For me over thinking often involves both the rejection of myself as well as others.. For me I am taking on advisement the ways I reject and run from myself more lately as well as trying to be more aware of where I react when anxiety hits… I am trying to spend more time being instead of thinking about being.. Sometimes I can get so caught up in my ideas and projections I notice I lose touch with the moment, but with so much unfelt emotion when I first got sober no wonder I needed to end up losing a lot in the outer world that only ended up serving as a distraction. This too, involves relationships and the many ways I bent myself out of shape at times to fit into them.

Its enlightening to me the number of ways we can learn to use to run from feelings.. I was heart broken to receive no reply at all from my brother to the heart felt email I sent him last week.. In the end he reacted as I expected.. Anytime I have mentioned any emotion or needs to him they have been pooh poohed or fended off, but reading this this morning made me realise who he is and why he is the way he is.. He once told me “you have no ambition. “

My father also ran through ambition and in the end his family carried the burden.. This is not to ‘blame’ my father only to say I see it as so sad that a person ends up remaining this out of touch to the inner world.. But then this is really how our society is geared to the point that it really is an achievement for any of us to stop that pattern and use the tough experiences to wake up. To at last, finally turn inward to find the place where true serenity and true happiness lives.