In the chapter of Marian Keyes novel I am reading she has had to remind an alcoholic in recovery whose family are angry with him not to give in and always apologise but learn to sit with the discomfort.. This spoke to me because as a neglected child and empath as well as someone with a very shaky ego as well as anxious attachment I would often give myself up to belong just to feel safe and connected, but what I am seeing lately is how much that derailed me.
For me, my level of self and ego was so low I have needed a lot of therapy and to find the right therapist.. I abandoned several good ones and many not so good ones who didn’t get my trauma or me.. That was all part of my path. It does no good to look back now and wish I made different choices when I could not with the level of insight I had at the time, and the level of trauma, neglect and suffering my family with certain ones I loved was huge and so I felt I needed to be there but that also,at times, that was down to not wanting to feel discomfort either..
Lately with my living sister finally pulling back I have to learn not to try to fix or control like I was, what I was doing made no difference anyway it got me offside with other family. That felt painful but in the end it turned out okay, as I had to speak my truth despite fear of being rejected and the did not like it but, perhaps they too were just humanaand also struggling with what was happening and their own limits of power and control at that time.
These days I know there are few things I have ultimate control over and other people are most certainly one of the things so far outside of my control I will only run my self ragged if I try to control or deny I am not in control. Lately life is more about making sure I also meet my own needs which also can make me feel unsafe and uncomfortable at times as it goes against the grain of all of the ‘how dare you be so selfish’ voices of my childhood. According to Alain de Botton at The School of Life, I am not alone in this in a society that makes an enemy out of ‘selfishness’.
That said we need to connect to others but not at the cost of connection to our deepest soul. All of the connections and ‘friends’ in the world may not take us any closer to connection if we cannot bear the power of our own feelings of aloneness or loneliness, in fact Buddhist Nun Pema Chodron talks about this as cool loneliness. Staying with it to touch our needy or aching core and bring presence to it may well be one of the most healing things we can do both for ourselves and for the planet.
Anyway that insight prompted today by reading the next chapter in the novel Again, Rachel sparked more recognition for me.. It bought to mind times I abandoned myself to make others comfortable and foster an opinion of me that was not even genuine.. In the end those people did not see the real me and judged me for my PTSD, sadly despite the fact one of them called for my help over something else way more superficial than self esteem. But there you go I am a work in progress and I never get it perfect. In the end its just about the daily journey and the important thing for me lately seems to be celebrating the small wins and incremental changes I make on any day to grown in self and other awareness.
Emerging From The Dark Night 
I think most people can only name what they see through their own eyes of perception. It’s only very recently that I’ve learned that when others “take my inventory,” they are really expressing a level of discomfort they don’t want to or don’t have the capacity to express. This is why it’s so very important to know one’s own True North. I think you know it and support you in following it.
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Yes I was helped to see that when my own family treated me so cruelly. It’s down to their useless and lack of depth or insight to that particular experience. But then they live a different pathway.
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