Sad : evening reflections

I met a friend this afternoon. I came away sad, sad for the things going down in her family and in the world, but knowing too that the things that I felt sad about made perfect sense to feel sad about.

Nancy Van Dyken addresses the issue of distraction in her book on Everyday Narcissism.. In fact we are probably a culture versed in a million ways of distraction (and I include myself here). We do not really know very well how to sit in pain and not try and fix it. And there is the symptomatic relief that really does nothing much to heal an inner ache we may have to learn to live with and may actually even prove, in time, to be a source of healing wisdom or insight.. For it seems so much goes down in our world we do not like or even get to choose and then we look for something outside of us to feel full but that ends up derailing us.. Case in point.. Me giving nearly all of my life savings to someone. The jury is out on if he is or is not genuine, it may not be the point anyway.. I just think I am growing a little tired of distracting myself and distancing even if at times I need to distance to stay ‘safe’.

Sometimes a follower will put a like on a post that you wrote a while ago..today it was a relatively new follower Ryan who liked a post that had me struggling with all of my family issues in the final few months before my Mum died in December 2017

https://emergingfromthedarknight.wordpress.com/2017/09/22/sore-inside/

Thinking about how much she suffered in those final years in her body is sad. Today the grief my friend is going through due to family problems made me realise again how hard it can be to be a parent.. To be blamed for something that you ’caused’ which came out of your own battle to survive..well it is just not easy.. So is there some way we can lighten up a little on all of the judgement while taking a wider view that its all part of our mixed up evolution as humans in a world so full of natural trauma and tragedy?.

For me I cried a little today thinking of the times I reached out to family and told the truth of my trauma and it was ignored, I was then made to feel that certain members of my family did not want me around other members.. it was so hard at the time and I cried over it for many years, but in time I had to let it go as we must.. what we cannot change can only hurt us more if we cannot let go somehow but it does not mean that the wound is not still there but my experience is that over time with acceptance of painful realities we do end up finding a kind of weary peace.

I am glad for my blog in some ways even if recent things a nephew said made me feel real guilt for sharing my own perceptions at times.. I am glad I can speak up even if I get in trouble over it.. what’s the loss in that, isn’t it better I said it, even if I got it wrong? For so long I had no place to go with everything and while blogging may be a distraction at times, at others it contains me and links me to others I am ever so grateful to share life and blogging with.

Anyway I am not sad tonight.. I gave my friend a hug and thought more of how others can blame someone else for a trauma they carry maybe be because its easier to deflect the pain outside the self onto innocent targets or scapegoats.. you just send that old goat out into the wilderness with all the unacknowledged pain of the ancestors on its head.. How many die alone in just such a painful state? My friend was wise to what was going on so much as she was hurting she did not take it personally.

Anyway dinner is in the oven.. I am going to close down computer for tonight. I allowed myself some computer free days lately and got into my body, did more walks with Jasper and got into the garden but I also need to sit with myself.. Finding the doorway into my soul gives me peace and I am grateful for the times now I distract myself less and be with myself more.. in peace.