Today (yesterday now) has been emotional and tough, facing hard truths and crying to the depths of myself with how vulnerable I feel. Maybe it is a good thing to face all of this, possibly it will make me more human, after don’t all we all erect defenses and against the truth, wishing and hoping for a change that can often only come through harsh lessons? It can be a big task to deeply know ourselves and our hidden motivations or psychic blind spots.. And a glimpse into our wound shows where we were at one time vulnerable and actually had not a clue at all about how to self protect.
I listened to a talk by Gabor Mate that I have linked to below in which he said our society is currently so toxic as we are alienated in four ways, Firstly from nature, secondly from our fellow man, thirdly from our work and finally from our real selves and intuitions, this final alientation is something Anita Moorjani addresses in a lot of her books.
When I look back to the signs that being pulled into something just seemed wrong to me and then I over rid that to be convinced to help and surrender money I get so angry with myself.. Yesterday was tough as I found out I had been scammed.. Luckily my second cousin was there at the end of the phone to listen to me castigating and berating myself. And later I managed to talk to Kat but prior to this I had been driving round and round and round in circles at our airport trying to locate ‘customs’ as I had been told by the scammers I needed to go there and that more fees would be charged. I didnt find the place in the end and when I rang Border Security and falteringly through so many tears told the whole story he said to me “I am sorry love, you have been scammed”. I felt so upset as part of me on some level just knew it.. my gut response at first was a big ‘no’ on that Tuesday about a month ago but I did not listen to myself, sadly.
It’s in the past now but boy oh boy did my inner critic savage me over this, lately it is bloody tough work facing how toxic, vitriolic and rampantly aggressive and ferocious my inner critic can be. It literally wants me dead. And I know many in recovery from addictions with mental illness and C PTSD also experience this.
On another note yesterday I had someone leave a very long advisory comment on a piece I wrote about my older sister and our family trauma. The person tried to tell me her family was ‘crazy’ like mine and I need decent therapy to get to the space where i am as well as she is. I didnt reply, I just binned it.. I choose not to use the word ‘crazy’ for my older sister’s suffering, it makes complete sense to me.. I do not want to discard my wounded family, I love them, even when they hurt me.. This has made me vulnerable to toxic people but cutting off the love would make me less of a humanbeing, after all its carried inter generational trauma and traumatic responses are NOT CRAZY THEY MAKE PERFECT SENSE.
I felt reduced, shredded and devalued by her comments and with her putting herself in the strong and ‘healed’ position, sorry this is just not the dualistic way in which I choose to see the world.
I own that I’m fallible, human and make mistakes, that I struggle. That’s also the only way I get to grow in compassion for others. And you know what? God loves us all unconditionally it’s not to say we can’t be evil at times and even do harmful things but deep inside we do all have a Buddha nature, as concealed and obscured as it can be. We grow more by facing hard facts and not reducing others with reductive ‘terms’ or jargon.
Just a moment ago, I had someone I know again asking my help then only to blame me for turning by back on his daughter’s due to her illness. I have never met this person or his daughter.. I agreed to talk to her when he asked, since she had lost her mother.. But they then started asking money at the same time I was helping two other people. I had to put myself in a column of light following this, If I do not stay strong people will just use me to dump all their issue into. He left his daughter alone and now I am to blame? it does not compute only on the level of attraction. I have been abandoned overseas after being hurt with no one willing to come and help and we all know how I now struggle due to that head injury.. Yes I did chose to go away a year after Jonathan left, I chose to have the session that awakened all the trauma of my 1979 crash only to have another one.. But even though it hurt I did learn more and I do not blame myself or anyone else any more.. After all is it not just mixed up messy life? We can only live it forwards and understand it backwards.. Do we need to be pilloried if we do not get it ‘right.’
Anway in his recent June talk Lee Harris mentioned the issue of empathy fatigue as a big one for June.. I am most certainly there. I put all my resources out to help others and keep only a little for myself. But that has to start to turn around now.. Maybe I needed to make that last mistake in order to learn just as my dear cousin Julies said to me yesterday when I was so so sad and down on myself. Yet I still honor that helping others is a good thing.. even if it sometimes goes wrong.. So many do need help, we do need each other I just have to keep working to me more able to discriminate.
Anyway I will close this out with this excerpt from a talk that Gabor Mate gave on how the need for connection underlies most modern mental illness and many other issues.. As a society we do worship the material but we need to turn this around.. If people are that desperate for money and that wantonly psychopathic that they are willing to make others sick in order to gain power, wealth or money what does it say about our society? Is it not just a symptom of something.. And of course as an unmothered child I fell victim to it. It was the only way to learn.
Emerging From The Dark Night 