A foundation of love : afternoon reflections

Surely a renewing force or foundation of love gives birth to this existence.. It can be hard to see when the ways of humans seem so painful, it can be difficult to nurture a hopeful, love based view when things hurt, when we meet stone walls or others do not seem to care.. And yet there is a way to keep believing, to keep seeking the foundation of goodness or true refuge (thanks Tara Brach) within and also without.. In the end it rests on self talk and self perception as well as our perception of life and relationships, as well as the things we do and the feelings, actions, ideas or thoughts we choose to nurture..

The trauma loop can keep us stuck in a negative spin or a spiral down.. I have noticed this more and more in myself when it has happened in past weeks.. I get on a roll with my thoughts and they take me down into negativity as anger can rise.. According to trauma specialist, Peter Levine there are two kinds of spins we energetically experience in trauma, centrigfugal and centripetal, and our life is like this, our emotions are like this, our grief is like this, our will is like this.. Sometimes the impulse is to turn within, to fold up within ourselves and seek peace and rest, sadly for those of us who have had very bad body or emotional trauma when we try to rest the energy can begin to spin the other way it has something to do with our parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems getting out of kilter, then its hard to rest, relax or fall asleep… At times like this I have learned its important to try my best to concentrate on my breath or try to blow the air out of my nose, as my tendency due to the kind of high impact body trauma I have gone through with the resulting need to self protect and lock down is to SUCK MY BREATH IN.. Lately if emotions start to rise I remind myself to keep breathing and focus on my body rather than thoughts but sometimes body symptoms enslave me..

For me I also find nature is the place I am better able to step this kind of energy down and relax, and if I go the other way too much in terms of reaching out and tend to over-extend myself or get compulsive with certain activities (which was a pattern in our family and due to my past neglect and addiction issues) nature can be a good go too.. .. It has taken me some time to learn that time grounding in nature or being around green or peaceful places with vistas that have a view can slow me down and contribute to a sense of peace and contentment and most of all safety. .Also as I see the beauty of nature its hard not to believe loving creative forces gave birth to it all and that those forces know how to keep all in balance and this balance involves natural cycles or flows… In nature I try to attune to this flow…

The other force or urge is to get active and externalize.. For myself I now know that over time I lost a sense of the alive, vibrancy within my own body.. I think having the shattering of that accident and being so deeply cut into by car parts had a lot to do with it.. This made me fearful and shy and caused me to revert for a time, it arrested my studies and then my sister’s trauma also had very significant impacts upon me only to be followed by my father’s death.. As I look at the young woman who emerged out of those 6 years of heavy impact trauma I see how affected I was.. I see how I reacted now, though made so much sense (even though it often confused or alienated me from others). Sent alone to the other side of the world I had no comfort of family and I still do not really, especially since Judy and Mum have passed on, though they do give me energetic comfort along with the angels when I really need it.

Still how could my Mum give to me something she could not give to herself? Sadly I now look back to how concerned she was when I began to spin out at 11 years of sobriety after my 40th birthday and I see how I pushed her love away, but as my therapist reminds me her way of coping was often to shut down or shut me down and this did cause a lot of problems. The ability to attach and bone with her or be attuned to was very disorganized and unpredictable.. she may abandon me without warning.. but then as a child she, too, was abandoned. She also shut my living sister down which is why I think she has so much internalised energy herself. These days peace only comes when I ACCEPT THAT THINGS WITH MY FAMILY WERE AS THEY WERE instead of trying to re-write history… None of my family ever sought therapy apart from my older sister who died who was under the care of a psychiatrist for a long time after her husband abandoned her following her cerebral bleed, but later she was also heavily medicated and, in time, became completely immobilized..

I need to remind myself when my own feelings burst out its a good thing, even if others do not know how to cope I can cope with that now.. I allow myself to feel (most of the time) even though I did come to fear my feelings in my family and marriage..As I see it the past 10 years have all been about me normalizing my trauma and realizing I DID NOTHING WRONG REACTING AS I DID.. Thank God for my therapist who reminds me of this..

My earlier post was titled ‘We Are Not Broken’ trauma is trauma and we need to try and understand it.. its a rare person who does not have some form of trauma.. For myself freedom from the demons of trauma that want to keep me entrapped within negativity and downward spirals comes through the sharing about it.. I feel great gratitude for the beautiful people here too who have come and gone over the past 7 years that I have been running this blog.. As I look back I remember you all, even after you go and the support I get here well its truly more precious than gold. So this afternoon I am expressing my appreciation to all of you. Love you lots lovely blogger friends.. Thanks for being here and sharing your own trauma so we can normalize it and understand together.. We Are Not Broken.