Strong self esteem is not something all of us have, a grounded self esteem that helps us to honor our good qualities and make the most of those thing in us and in our life that are good. In codependency we learn as youngsters to place our value outside, we come to learn the power lays out there, we may often have been subject to devaluation. Also, as a child, we could not stop bad treatment or invasion of our physical, emotional, mental and even spiritual boundaries and as I look at my own young life there was a lot of that. Our active attempts to make boundaries may often be ridiculed shamed or mocked too.
Kat clarified with me in therapy yesterday that she did believe I got a lot of love as a young child and baby but when I grew to be myself and want and need often that was not acceptable to my family.. I rapidly got the message I needed to bury my self and needs, that connection as unhelpful or absent, most of the time no one was there and both my parents and all of my siblings were over preoccupied and mean at times.. .So I had no stability at all to draw upon and that is why I have allowed into my life takers and destabilizing influences so often…….. everything inside of me is burning as I write this.
A lovely new friend I have made in the past few weeks today encouraged me to use the pain of this and even the burning to work it through to self value.. I have not done anything wrong in trusting and opening my heart and trying to help but I have been taken advantage of with every excuse and apology made under the sun. In the end PEOPLE WILL TREAT YOU AS YOU ALLOW THEM TO TREAT YOU and when we do not put up a stop sign to abuse or undermining then we get knocked off our center.. As I see it my sister’s mental health struggles all lay around this giving away of power to others who really lacked the means to help her at all. And the reason I also fell apart so badly after the chat with my AA friend was that she also erased me in many ways during that conversation on Tuesday night. It also went on too long as he did not stop talking.. making meaning of the AA saying “take the cotton wool out of your ears and put it in your mouth!”
Louise Hay addresses the reclamation of power, owning of parental injuries and self love building work in her book The Power Is Within You. Sadly when we learn the power lies outside and with those who steal or undermine it that is where we come unstuck. Often as kind empathic deep feeling people others can use us to draw upon energy wise or alternatively download their angst and struggles into. As I think of how energetically my body responded to each contact with Scott I felt this draining and syphoning a lot.. at the same time there was often calm when we connected so that confused me..
With this Venus Pluto conjunction only 1 degree away from becoming exact today I am feeling that heat. Venus turns retrograde on the 19th and notoriously relationships can break during this transit.. I seem to recall my husband leaving me when Venus was retrograde over 17 years ago.. And it is interesting that when the Goddess of love planet goes into the Underworld a lot comes up for us.. In ancient cultures such the Mayan important sacrifices and battles were often launched with what is called the heliacal rising of Venus, this is when she becomes a morning star..
The current transit retrograde beginning with this Pluto influence in the sign related to grounding and authenticity Capricorn is an important one I am sure.. Saturn rules Capricorn and relates positively to boundaries and healthy limits.. I am sure, maybe many of us are going to start to feel very sore over this period in the places were we surrendered our power or legitimate self value and/or settled for less in relationships and in our own sense of self love and self value during the upcoming 6 weeks of the transit..
Bear in mind that after Venus turns direct in about 7 weeks that is when the buried energies, insights, challenges and emotions will begin to emerge, for a long time during the retrograde cycle they will smolder
Now maybe the time to explore what is most real FOR YOU.. it may be a time to pull back power from certain relationships or associations or it may even be a time that new ones come to you and you may attract those on a similar pathway, I am not at all sure if this does apply to Venus retrograde but lately I have noticed the appearance of helpers and similars in my own life lately.. people I am able to resonate with more genuinely..
A lot of inner exploring goes on with retrogrades, also you may feel a tiredness or reversion of energy over the next 10 days or so.. It might just be me but this was such a quicksand day for me today.. I woke in the night with soft fresh air blowing over me as the bedroom door had been flung open about 4 am as lots of soft rain fell. I even got up at one point and danced around in it for a while.
After that I had a tough start again with a lot of self recrimination this morning and I did feel sad having to close the door on Scott sometimes making the healthy choice actually is going to hurt us for a while.. I felt very raw earlier. .. It was a battle to notice and pull my thoughts back into a more positive space.. and to get it working to keep things around me nurtured.. Jasper is snoozing by me at the moment. He really knows how to take care of himself my pooch, I had gone out earlier and while I was out he managed to reorganize the heated pink throw and perch himself on top of it so that when I sat down to write this next to him a short while ago none of it was available for me to sit on.. We had a little tussle he and I. But that dog, by God is he my teacher.. I learn so much from him.. he is always true to himself in a way I have not been due to massively poor self esteem.
I also figured out over the past few days that I can only build self esteem by taking actions that support it.. Endlessly giving to others is not raising my self esteem at the moment. I will give when it is right to do it and always seek to build others up but at the moment I am the one that needs building up. As I said to Scott yesterday its well past time for me to start now being bloody selfish for a while….. its time to start seeking and practicing those things that make me feel happy and peaceful and grounded and nurtured or uplifted not endlessly drained those things and action that when I take them build rather than destroy my sense of self value.. This, it seems to be lately, is my most significant ever lesson.
After posting this I found this excellent video by Michael Sandler addressing the self same thing.. “How much love can I bring to this” Lovely !!
Emerging From The Dark Night 