Woodsgnome's New Life Journal

[woodsgnome]

Thanks for your observations, Radical.

Seems like how I use my curious sense makes a lot of difference in how I perceive how to handle the long road out of trauma. One bit of curiosity keeps me stagnant; the other seems an open-ended invitation to consider where I am now, where I can be, and who I really am without the traumas trapping me.

The curiosity that feeds the stagnant feeling is the past sort--the why and how this/that/other happened, the analytical critique that always comes up with the same answer--there is no answer. This can scare me and entice some pretty hefty self-pity, which to an extent is alright, even natural, but of course has its limits beyond which the hurt one would rather not have just kind of sits there. It's the same-old syndrome run riot.

The other sort of curiosity points away instead of towards the trauma residual--the latter is still present, but more in a peripheral way. The curiosity factor is always there, as you say; but it gets disguised, too, I suppose--hides because the storm of recall can rush in at anytime. Keeping it accessible involves work, especially at first; the next problem is how long and painstaking it can be to see anything else but this box of pain I drag around.

But it can be achieved. As you described it, curiosity is an observer with no stake in outcomes; it frees up so much of the mind-clutter weighing us down. If is the operative word, but curiosity remains the quality. That's why it fascinates me--as a pointer to hope--almost as a last chance to really break free. Hope for me always seemed scary; starting with devil's advocate caution reinforced by the screaming outside voices pounding their message that I'm no good, evil, a dreamer, stupid, and worthless.

And yes, the Inner Child is a huge part of any curiosity; and then, less so--because ideally its wordless joy and exploratory nature can blend with even the old parts of me that resist outside help (even from an "inner" state). Seems like that's recovery, but it starts with curiosity to plant the possibility that yes, there is a different way to re-frame this moment and those that will follow. And to finally realize that NO--the past can not be readjusted or analyzed to any useful purpose. Might happen--the mind will want to wander back of its own accord--but once the curiosity of what's now and up ahead is strong enough, it lessens the desperate backward looks, the what/if thoughts, the permanence of feeling stuck.

Curiosity is a good thing. Without it, who would even be using this forum? Even when it all seems hopeless, curiosity can help switch the focus to now, beyond the storm(s).

[woodsgnome]

Re-framing instead of recovery?

I tend to find thinking outside-the-box my preferred method for what's called recovery these days. I mean I tried so much over the years; so I look for alternatives in lieu of the failure to figure out what recovery really means. Thinking differently about something pretty much defines how I've chosen to alter my view of recovery.

To the extent that I'm no longer of the opinion that recovery is find-able  anyway. How would I know--recovery implies a return to some sort of normalcy and I never had that. So what would I be recovering and where would I go to find it?

Something that fits better is the word re-frame. I'm of a creative bent anyway, so I feel more comfortable using that term to describe what's really happening. If I can't recover peace I never had, what's the alternative? What this journey involves, after all, is not just painting over life's old canvas, but re-framing it, so to speak, so it honours the new creation I'm crafting, the life path I want to choose as I create the new picture. Putting that new frame on seems more meaningful than recovering the old pain and angst. It helps to see the new image emerge.

That's a minor word change to some; but a huge shift for me. Earlier in these journal jottings I expressed the notion of being open to surprise, to new discoveries, towards horizons I didn't know how to find. Lately I mused on where and how curiosity played any role in this. What it all amounts to is this re-framing of which I speak.

Here's the trick, though--not to get so hung up with anticipation that I waste my new discoveries dreaming about where I'm going instead of enjoying where I'm at. It's the familiar one step at a time advice. Dreaming is great, actually; but I want to incorporate the right now moment(s) into my ongoing someday, too--if my new picture includes finding ways to reach out, deal better with dissociation tendencies, and live with ef's and triggers better--I can start to turn the corner now, instead of waiting 'til all is perfect later. Perfectionist that I tend to be, I want to know my new painting and re-framing will be perfect, while forgetting the perfection I can have right now. And not beating myself up if I blotch a section...I can repair, and it might even turn out better.

It's like the old Japanese art of kintsugi--repairing shattered pottery with gold to craft an entirely new vessel out of the broken. Recovery is still an unknown for me; but re-framing makes more sense--finding even the tiniest of strands that can build the new art piece.

Makes me sound almost uncharacteristically optimistic; when in fact I've felt pretty blue the last couple of weeks. Therein lies the caution--labels aren't going to do a thing, attitudinal shifts will. Starting now, not someday. Even down the road, someday will still be now. Over the rainbow is fine; but maybe I'm also in the rainbow and don't even know it. If I remember to stay curious about where I'm headed, and start to re-frame all that pain with gold, the past can recede a bit further, and I don't have to wonder if I've recovered. It will be perfect, because its fragile beauty grew from imperfection. Who'd a thunk it?

[woodsgnome]

About power, vulnerability, and seeing through the tears.

Believing in myself isn't a simple matter of full-charge ahead, or believing anything I find will result in a surefire fix for all this pain.

There is no fix--until and unless time travel is truly possible. Science fiction aside, that's not likely, so a fix isn't doable there. While the past I hate so much can't be fixed and it causes sadness to know how those bad times were too real, the power to re-frame all that is almost antithetical. Instead of donning time travel gear and returning to subdue all those bad times, one has to take stock of the now, and tone down the urge to vanquish the past. With all its demons and memories burned into one's soul, it's definitely not easy. Imagination helps, a lot; but isn't the answer either.

With no possibility of a fix or a means to definitively alter the past, what good is all this power, then? Why talk about it, if it can't fix the back story? I look around, and have begun to realize that the cultural use of the term power has it all wrong. As shown in movies, books, TV (even the news!) and more, power as some bold smashing of an opponent, of whoever is in the way to whatever it is we're after. Pursuit is another popular theme, and then the vanquishing of the enemy, with celebration at the end.

When I step back, that description of power loses its meaning, if I can see through the tears that the same power also induces. The powerful? Most of those I saw--they're called abusers, and I generally I just reference them as monsters. Their power had no aim other than to brutalize, use, and abandon. Respect power? If that's what power is, then I want whatever its opposite is, not only to balance some equation between abuse and sharing unfiltered love, but as a topsy-turvy version of true power. Yet the cultural images keep churning out these triumphant images of control. Show your power and you're worthy of praise, otherwise you're a weak loser.

Believing in myself, the saying goes. To what end? To destroy and snuff out enemies? Of course that indicates that, if none are around, it would be nice for my self-belief to find someone, invent them even, to vanquish with my wonderful power. Huh? I just don't get it.   

What I do get is that power isn't like it's usually portrayed. Perhaps being vulnerable, often considered the opposite of power, is more indicative of a person's true strength. Yet it's sad to have to experience  so much grief and pain to find it, but however it comes about vulnerability has allowed me to see power in a different light entirely. Even if it does take the grief and pain I'd like to avoid, going low allows me to rebound and stand tall, too. Maybe it's not even just about opposites--instead of black/white, right/wrong notions, maybe there's a third way wherein what's called power is incorporated into what's known as weakness/vulnerability. A strange but wonderful tango might result if we allow that third way to emerge.

I like to play with breaking down words, and there at the end of vulnerable I see the word ability leap out, incorporated into the full expression. One dictionary definition insists on vulnerable as meaning weak; thus we're able to be weak. Fine. But I see that word ability tacked on behind, and to me it's like an invitation to look beyond the standard take. In this new sense, the power is there, it's not so obvious, hidden as it is behind all the cultural messaging and pomposity of how power is portrayed in warrior imagery. Win at all costs, that kind of thing heard daily. Really? And do you know all those costs? Are they ever along the lines of destroying the 'other', then going beyond to inflict shame, produce guilt, and then abandon the victim of your supposed "strength"? Athletic competitions, to which some inevitably point, are diversions--not indicative of how life should be lived. Life is more than these stupid winner/loser extravaganzas.

To those who used me as their toy, who harmed, shamed and abandoned me--go ahead, celebrate that sort of action if you want. I prefer to cry at the cruel way power gets twisted that way. The powerful will laugh and mock and cast me aside. I'll cry so hard I can only let go; more than they could ever do--they were too busy gloating at my utter pain. When all is said and done, I'll find the power in those tears they mock, in how they were so sure I was worthy of abuse only because I was so vulnerable, and after to reinforce their power to make me feel even worse. Angry, but powerless to fight back, I ran away; in a sense, I'm still running, but in my vulnerability there's a peace I could never find back in their clutches. Tell me that was wrong, and weak. I'm used to hearing that, too; and I don't care either. I survived.

It did play with my mind to where I sought ultimate escape in ending life. I may have clung to life by a thin strand, but I did...maybe that's power, and incredible strength besides? Strength I didn't consciously realize most of the time. Believe in myself? It didn't take belief; if it had, I wouldn't have made it as the mind told me I was worthless, just like the powerful told me I was. I truly didn't find a way forward by declarations of belief, in myself, in power, in anything. It was more like abandoning belief per the cultural hypocirisies about what power and strength are supposed to look like. 

Power is not about vanquishing or slaying. Call me a weak whatever. I've never known what love is, either; until I found it, inside. Now I can share it better, knowing that love is another of those misused concepts. How odd that humans consider themselves so uppity but unless one becomes vulnerable to the point of being hurt, the images of power and love are so distorted as to be meaningless.

I used to make it a point to hide my scars from people. After all, isn't "just get over it" another of those mottoes unthinkingly accepted, when in fact it's its own dodge. I know, now, that any power I have resulted from deep scarring. I'm willing to be vulnerable about that...now. I'm willing to cry, not in shame anymore either. Just vulnerable enough to allow those tears to be healing emblems.

"Go ahead and cry" was a phrase often hurled at me when young--yes, now I think I just will; and I'm proud not to hide that I hurt, all the while looking for the essence of being vulnerable enough to know my power to heal. Believe in myself? Yes, I think so, and seeing through those same tears I have the joy of finding new ways forward...to peace...and love; in some ways, for the first time. Believe it? Maybe just BE, allow my healing scars to show, be vulnerable, and even happy to have the ability to cry. Just BE...more power than I've ever had, in two words.

[radical]

Just BE...more power than I've ever had, in two words.


You are not weak - your heart survived intact.  That, to me, is the ultimate strength.

I believe there is a third way, but it depends on finding other people who are also, genuinely, seeking that path, otherwise it is a solitary one.

We all have a personal kind of power, one we should never have to give away. Sometimes we can be forced to, temporarily or permanently, but just as often, as adults in the west, we just hand it over in memory of a past in which we had no choice.  It doesn't have to be used to abuse or to win.  It can be used to protect, nurture, to give and receive love and to honour our own and others' dignity.  The fact it isn't usually used that way in this crazy world, doesn't mean we can't use it that way.

But if we give it away, it is more likely than not, going to be used to exploit or abuse or just added to a stash used to meet another's goals, because picking up or taking someone esle's power, even if the other has offered it in supplication, is rarely an unselfish or benevolent act. There is a responsibility to be aware of, and be discerning in knowing, holding, using, and giving away, our own power, imo.

[jdcooper]

Go ahead and cry" was a phrase often hurled at me when young--yes, now I think I just will; and I'm proud not to hide that I hurt, all the while looking for the essence of being vulnerable enough to know my power to heal. Believe in myself? Yes, I think so, and seeing through those same tears I have the joy of finding new ways forward...to peace...and love; in some ways, for the first time. Believe it? Maybe just BE, allow my healing scars to show, be vulnerable, and even happy to have the ability to cry. Just BE...more power than I've ever had, in two words.

Beautifully said Woodsgnome.  Just to be happy to have the ability to cry.  I thank god I can cry.  Just be....

If that's what power is, then I want whatever its opposite is, not only to balance some equation between abuse and sharing unfiltered love, but as a topsy-turvy version of true power. Yet the cultural images keep churning out these triumphant images of control. Show your power and you're worthy of praise, otherwise you're a weak loser.

The abusers had power over us and we have to take back that power but not by being what they are.  To me their kind of power is sick, twisted.  Unfortunately, like radical said we have so many terrible reminders of the abuse of power everyday in this world.  We have to somehow reconcile that lots of powerful people resemble our abusers in their misuse of power.  There has to be better examples of power.  I am on a search for those better examples.  I don't want to be cynical.  I want to believe that some use power for goodness and dignity for everyone.

[woodsgnome]

Trying to fully understand myself as hard as I've pursued that path has often just made me feel worse. I still see the flaws and not the contribution I've made in spite of the terror I lived with as a youth. When I tone seeking so hard down, it eases the tendency to fault-find when indeed the evidence runs contrary to the core belief that underneath it all I'm still no good, useless, don't matter, and all the rest I heard endlessly.

That all this negativity stuck seems more illness than disorder derived, though. How can reactions of fear and terror be a dis-order? Seemed pretty natural to me. While I sensed it wasn't the norm, I still felt trapped and reacted accordingly. What good is a norm when one's life is in peril?. I can only accept and go from there, trying to avoid succumbing to the traumas. Who would want that? But wondering does no good; if those traumas are my only starting point, all I can do is keep traveling as best I know how. Whether I'm truly progressing or not--please, I'd rather not judge anymore. 

Feeling worse can be relative, in the sense that one absorbs the pain. But what about just labeling it as life? Positive/negative, it all happened. What would over-critiquing that do in helping the pace towards healing? And/or even help me find it now, inside where it's always been?

Even being hung up on understanding, then absorbing other's pain can turn when one realizes from where it grows: Compassion. It's been easier for me to have it for others and not believe I'm worthy, however. It's why I could act, work in hospice and with pre-school kids as effectively as others said I did. The I-did-this part escaped me; I'd learned to expect the other shoe to drop, as it were, and was petrified that I not accept credit for being a good person--incredibly it was accolades that scared me, a lot. I've won 'compassion awards' and couldn't accept that I deserved them. Sadly, those sorts of things could even trigger me back to those times when such recognition I'd suspect could only be a set-up for retribution in the form of abuse that was sure to follow. 

That's the way it had been so often in my development; more arrested development, perhaps, but what else can it be called? Anyway, when things seemed the least bit better back then--boom, the sky fell again and I felt worthless. In fact, I was sometimes punished for doing good deeds! Sometimes the very things I was told I should be doing blew up when I did them. Now I see that the abusers couldn't stand seeing me in any other light than the trash heap they preferred for me. Now I can see that; then it was mostly just pain and confusion.

So I guess I came to regard myself as being without merit, and it scared me that what might follow would harm me. Somehow I had enough inner strength to keep on doing what felt good, and something I grew to love (in my world devoid of love) was helping others. It almost felt like an experiment; and it felt good to help. Now I think I have an answer--partly I wanted to do the reverse of what I saw. When I saw and experienced hypocrisy from the supposedly religious people surrounding me, something inside led me to the opposite, including the compassion and service I've been noted for...by others; even if I couldn't fully accept credit and didn't seek it, it was there, in the mess of my life.

This started with the negative reactionary need to do for others what those who mouthed the holy words couldn't do--reversing their hypocritical model. The other part of this is why I was so strongly pulled in that regard when others weren't. Sad but true, I think even the abuse might have induced a resilience, even rebellion, simply by having compassion for others. Go figure, how an utter lack of compassion from others can still produce the same in reverse. Figuring it out, though, doesn't come near producing the vibes of being compassionate without regard for credit.

Even today, I prefer working behind-the-scenes, especially if what I do draws notice. I do know the why to that, I think. Being noticed still seems like I'm in danger. The early people I was around turned on me consistently. My learning curve has been to find truly compassionate people for me, for a change. In that I haven't succeeded, but I'm not giving up, either. Sometimes it seems that the arrested development side of me has won out, though. I'm going to resist judging that--otherwise I feel worse when in fact it's not me, it's what happened to me, for reasons I'll never know; never want to know. I'm angry about it, cry about it, but all I can do is keep on.

I want nothing other than peace with all of this. It obsesses me, draws me to its beauty. I don't have to ever fully develop the missing ingredients called arrested development if I can hold to that. Beauty is its own reward, and free; I want to take it and treasure it.

[Candid]

Being noticed still seems like I'm in danger.

[woodsgnome]

"I want to stop transforming and just start being."
~ Ursula Burns

This quote resonates deeply with me. My ego-intellect didn't care for it much; it's always in for striving; this just sounded too, well, simple. Too bad--I'm always perusing these sorts of snippets and aphorisms, or short pithy statements. Some are more pointed and meaningful than 500 page books (albeit you need to read the books to know that  .) That's how this quote has been for me; to the point of serving as a mantra for where I feel I'm at right now. And need to be.

I've been down many long, wandering trails in the aftermath of cptsd. I no longer think I'm past the danger zone with some of its freakish side effects--EF's and triggers being the most obvious, plus personality quirks like a desperate need to keep people contacts at a minimum. What some consider mere shyness encapsulates much more; I'm talking crippling fears, although I do usually manage to function okay. But I'm hampered trying to start, nurture, and maintain appropriate relationships, inability to reach out for help, and keeping out those who say they'd like to know me better.

Along the way I've tried numerous strategies for coping, mind-altering, and healing; even held onto hope for a transformative, earth-shattering cure (still makes for a nice daydream  ). I've tried approaches ranging from atheism to other 'spiritual' isms and back again across a wide spectrum of philosophies East and West. Friendly, familiar, foreign, and near, mine was a constant frantic search in naive hopes of finding sure answers to the miserable person I felt inside.

The term 'spiritual bypass' covers a lot of how I learned lots of information, all of which did little to change or soothe my core wounds and crippled feelings (or more, my inability to feel). No spiritual system or philosophy could bandage or cover over those wounds, I found. They stepped around the pain, to the point of feeling I couldn't get it right (shame on top of shame). For a time I was in and out of therapy with many therapists, but they were so ineffective that I often fell back into an anti-therapy stance, seeing it as just another attempt at feel-good, shallow happy talk. While I currently have an excellent, with-it  therapist, neither am I relying on her to change or transform me--that, with her help, I can only accomplish on my own.

Always I had an eye out for the transformation or series of transformations that would do the trick. Yeah, right. It's hard enough to navigate past the senselessness of a trauma-filled youth followed by some adult versions of emotional abuse; let alone land on THE one answer to it all; the route to the promised land, to borrow a religious metaphor.

This is beginning to sound peevish, or at least poor-me defeatist. It really isn't, though (and wouldn't be WRONG if it was). It's my way of stepping back from the seeking to appreciating JUST BEING, as the quote that started this entry suggests. Or, in reverse, am I perhaps falling upwards --to the next level? It's not like all the seeming dead-ends I sought to improve myself were abysmal failures. Many carried unique seeds. And seeds take time to germinate, you have to be patient and nurturing with them, and not even be 100% certain some event (storm, animal, etc.) won't alter all of it by harvest season.

Full of words, I am. Still looking outside myself, but if I truly accept the power of just being, they fall away; while I fall upwards, as it were--with the side effect of furthering the distance between painful past and just being, now, and in the future.. Funny fleeting thought; but I'll take it--after all, I'm still adjusting to this new landscape where the past is over there, still lurking; but over there isn't here, either. Small seeds, patient if unseen growth, and no desperate searches for transformation can stop and be replaced by just being. So simple as to sound ludicrous--thank you, mind/ego/self-critic, you may now shut up and go play cards for your amusement.

Transformations do happen. They always are happening--even when the seed is in the ground, I trust it'll make it; I'm struggling, but still trying, to make it. The seed, just by being itself, will transform to a new form where I can hold it, cherish it, and in turn just be with its graceful elegance. It seemed to do this all on its own. Who planted the seed, though? Transforming is never done, but being is always here. "Just start being" becomes "just be". It's not where I want to be; it's where I am.

[Candid]

... personality quirks like a desperate need to keep people contacts at a minimum. What some consider mere shyness encapsulates much more; I'm talking crippling fears, although I do usually manage to function okay. But I'm hampered trying to start, nurture, and maintain appropriate relationships, inability to reach out for help, and keeping out those who say they'd like to know me better.

I can't even make the effort. Being with most people just makes me tired, because it's an acting job. I thought "fake it until you make it" might be good for me, but it isn't.

No spiritual system or philosophy could bandage or cover over those wounds, I found. They stepped around the pain, to the point of feeling I couldn't get it right (shame on top of shame).

No. I believe there is such a thing as a transformative point of view (such as Eckhart Tolle's, for instance), but that we don't get there until we get there. It comes from within... or it doesn't. I feel enthusiastic, even excited, when I read this kind of stuff, but it soon fades back to the misery I've been accustomed to for so long.

For a time I was in and out of therapy with many therapists, but they were so ineffective that I often fell back into an anti-therapy stance, seeing it as just another attempt at feel-good, shallow happy talk.

Yeah, that too. And now I'm waiting for the next round. 

This is beginning to sound peevish, or at least poor-me defeatist. It really isn't, though (and wouldn't be WRONG if it was). It's my way of stepping back from the seeking to appreciating JUST BEING

I'm peevish and defeatist these days, and too bad if it were wrong because I can't help it. Can't appreciate just being either.

Full of words, I am.

I noticed. :wink: But it does sound as though you've found a comfortable way of Being.  Will watch this space!

[woodsgnome]

Heading off into darkness...not knowing...

I signed up a while back for a 5-day 'intensive' workshop that starts in 8 days. I attended a couple of these years ago--limited to at most 8-12 people, they were characterized by very powerful personal/interpersonal insights. The facilitator is very skilled with what's called attitudinal healing, but her intuitive senses also allows the event not to be wrapped around her and her ideas, but be truly driven by the group energy.

She's also very attuned to providing a safe atmosphere for an event that can touch on raw and vulnerable feelings. It's not like those old-fashioned encounter groups I've heard about, but as all of life's pitfalls and potentials are fair game, there can be rough patches en route to discovering inner strength.

This event is a giant and scary leap out of my comfort zone. There are days when I don't see a single person, being 10 miles from even a tiny town. Which is what I wanted when I chose this way of life--pure escape from being around people. While my vocational life brought me in contact with lots of folks over the years, trusting anyone beyond surface niceties has been difficult. I learned early not to trust, period. The couple of genuine friends I had have died. My extreme isolation has thus grown.

The first time I attended the intensive workshop, 20+ years ago, I was mostly in awe (and of course inwardly scared; aware of details like exit doors, etc.). The biggest hurdle was sharing with real people in meaningful ways, beyond what I usually experienced. Lots of dissociation, but I hope to lessen that 'freeze' instinct this time.

So it could be a launching pad for my experiment in finding life again. It's certainly not about finding a giddy happiness-is-all outlook. The downsides become as apparent as the up in this sort of event, reflecting real life's daily positive/negative pulls. Personally, while anytime would be good, this one seems ideally scheduled in the midst of large efforts (especially therapy) to leave my old life's movie script behind; or alter it to where it feels better suited to my being. The scenes are still on the film, but the mind/spirit's theatre has switched to a new show--and I'm needing to adjust the focus forward, starting at this moment; not some time down the road, when I'm supposedly more "ready". I can change or redraft life anytime; daily even, until I don't even notice it, and exist in the flow of being instead of expectations/rewards/goals or any of the buzzword subterfuges I'm over-familiar with. And sick of.

Unmasking and re-framing so much of 'me' in 5 days seems daunting, but worth the experiment. It seems good to anticipate magic, but not glorify it to heights I can't attain. Better yet, undo all words and just settle in for an adventure in living, free of concepts but open to whatever comes. Most important--it's safe.

So I'll light the candle within, then shelter it as indeed I am entering the darkness again, but where it can merge with a  greater light once the door is fully opened. That sounds bold. Maybe it is, but inside I'm also scared--of fallback into a disbelief that any of this will really turn a corner for me; and by extension for how I can meaningfully connect with others. Part of me steps back and says, "Oh?--nice try, but this isn't for you. Your time is done and frankly, you don't deserve this either." Well said, inner critic...now,  SHUT UP!    

Really stepping beyond mere words will be a key. All I know--I want to try. I've been disappointed so often, but I want to try. Sometimes this doesn't even make sense to me, but I'll take the candle stub yet again, journey into the dark, and see what I find. It will take loads of internal, and perhaps external, support. Words are nice, but at this end of desperation they don't cut it as much as...exploration, discovery, and freedom to enter lands I have yet to fathom.

[radical]

This is so immensely brave.  It is so important to be able to respect and express our disenfranchised grief and to be safely 'met' by others in doing so.  It can be a transformative experience. 

I know how frightening it is to do this, allowing ourselves to be seen and responded to.  For CPTSD, finding safe places in which we can show our authentic selves, and to have our selves reflected back to us  be others as being okay and welcomed, is to be allowed to be.

I had this experience yesterday, and the feeling of freedom, of being released from shame - I can't express what it has meant to me.

I will be with you in spirit, Woodsgnome.  Your light shines brighter than you know.  It has helped light my path, from thousands of miles away.  I'm lighting a candle for you.

[woodsgnome]

Re-framing; soon to include the new picture?

A major stumbling block for me at this stage of wanting to forge a new outlook as I continue to move through the swamp of life post-cptsd is believing in myself. Except I swap out the belief word for trust. Believing holds too many trigger potentials as that word was misused by the religious GAWD-awful abusers of my rough up-bringing (or lack of same) spent in their clutches.

Even on OOTS, where it felt safe...lately I've often agonized over the right way to say things, and often withdraw entire pieces, feeling I won't be understood anyway. I'm sensitive to being misunderstood, even without evidence that such is the case. I realize I'm wordy and that's scary to some, but that's part of the problem--feeling misunderstood unless I thoroughly explain.

There's an automatic assumption going on in my mind that I don't matter. The understanding part is that of course--when I was a kid (a pattern repeated in adulthood) it seemed that the most innocent things I'd say or ask about had a put-down retort from an adult attached, and it was basically simple: You're a bad person; your only hope is listening to us tell you g's plan, etc.,  yippity yap yip.

I understand, ten times over, and am thoroughly sick of being unable to stretch beyond the understanding level only. As in--wouldn't it be cool to really feel good about where I'm at? Like floating on a pure cloud, supported by whatever I consider my spirit base. Excuse me, I may have to break for a daydream about that, it's so peaceful.   

While that's the background, the anxiety still seems ramped up. It's like I'm still seeking approval to be me. Still wading through the grief of being set aside as an unwanted, unloved/unlovable nothing, and abandoned; the latter with the proviso that anything wrong with anything is always my own fault. Wow--what a monstrous start in an atmosphere of being stifled daily, if not hourly...oh *, it was just constant.

Lots of 'shoulding' still prevails; as in the catch-all should be goal...you should be better. What a loaded term that can be! Anxiety finds a new horse to ride. Miles to go before I sleep--ha ha, can't do that well either.

At least, or at last, I'm now willing to gamble. Next week's 5-day intensive gathering I've signed on for bodes well, if I tamp down thinking of that as some desperate act to get my life together. I had some wonderful vibes coming away from these in past years (albeit the last time being 12 years ago). I love how it's facilitated by someone well-versed in attitudinal healing. Boy, do I need that!

Hopefully it will be worth the stretch it's taking me to get there. Trip to the big metro hub of the region, having to find a ride to/from, billeting with a host family (I freak out with triggers/efs in real family situations, but...attitudinal healing, right?), and a host of other roadblocks I've overcome because I have such a strong pull to this event. I just used the word overcome, I notice--aha, a sign of attitude shifting if not healing.

In this journal I've written about re-framing. Seems like this workshop has become my frame. Now I need to paint the new picture. There, I feel better all of a sudden. Accepted the anxiety, but brushed it aside for some thoughts pertinent to my real goal: re-framing my life's story from one of absolute defeatism to one of ongoing strength and beauty--an art project. Stepping beyond the knowledge-only parts of life to, dare I say, living. And about those dreams...

...despite last night's nightmare, I recall it ended with promise. Full of metaphors right now. I need 'em. Next, it's finding ways to live them out. And without realizing it, or being anxious about it, I'll look up and see the new picture. 

[woodsgnome]

So okay, this is what it feels like to be mellow? It's all better now? I'm cured?

Those reactions swivel through the mind, now and then. Following this recent 5-day experience of intensive group work, those self-same questions matter less than they did only recently. I have to say that by staying alive for this, I feel a shift that I've been waiting for (or pushing back for too long).

Here's the trick--keep moving ahead, and I'm trying not to let it become a cliche. I don't need any more of those. I have a tendency to fall back into just surviving, instead of thriving. Keeping it going will present its own challenges, but I know what I need better than ever. That need is...

...people. And what's been my biggest phobia in life? People. Everyone I encountered in my youth, and well beyond actually, seemed ready to pounce on me physically, emotionally, or they just abandoned me as a used-up toy. All people, all the time...even when my career involved huge amounts of working with people, that phobia never was loosened.

Now it has. I now know I need people. Slowly I think I can fix that, that I can believe in myself enough to turn towards that need. Isn't going to make me a social gadfly, that I know--I still have my personality and my boundaries. But I feel less fearful; and there's nothing wrong with that--those with no fear are in trouble all the time. It's just that my hyper-avoidance can be diminished, if not eliminated. Again, it's alright--as long as I don't dwell on it, ruminate it over and over, know myself so well that I end up hating myself again.

But it's easier when I reflect on what were the strongest moments for me in this recent intensive workshop. When I was helping people, and in reverse when I received help, the relief gates were wide open. It was powerful, to say the least. Yet it was swathed in love, something that I thought had passed me by, and was maybe just a forsaken dream anyway. It was definitely misunderstood.

That's a big takeaway for me, to realize that all those tears and all that pain didn't happen in a vacuum or in vain. Sure it hurt, but avoiding it never did me any good. I wish I had someone in the group--from whom and with I shared these lessons-- who lived closer to me, but alas I'm on my own again. Still I have discovered a new road, with people who will help me; because, for the first time, I think I really do deserve love. Even me. We're talking the deep layers of love that defy words, from which all can draw mutual strength and support. One doesn't give love; they share and experience it in its totality. Unconditional love? I think I finally understand what it feels like, not just what some self-help 'expert' says it's supposed to be.

I used to rely on saying well, I never had a good experience with love. Kind of my ongoing excuse, mostly to myself. I never got over the early poundings and worse from those who misused the word love, and twisted it to their own forms of hatred and lies. But even 'never' can be left behind, I'm discovering. Paradoxical but true. There really are people who get the idea of love; I hope to find some more.

[Three Roses]

What a lovely post! Thank you, woodsgnome ♡

[woodsgnome]

When? That little word tantalizes, teases, prods, and answers itself with a "you'll never make it" response. Over and over, I've tried to be social, and relaxed when doing so. Letting go to be me, as it were.

This weekend I had 2 of the most loving visitors I could. And spent so much of the time anxious--what will they think if I do this, say that, or reveal an opinion without gauging it's effects on them first.

Ugly stuff, to have to pay such close attention to everything one does, says, or even thinks about. Strains all the reserves, it seems. And yet letting go would be just as easy. There are times when I feel its lack and it seems almost too free. Not allowed. Pay attention, strain to know if these kind people might turn on you, is what the inner critic whispers continually. Then the painful self-judgements mount in an awful sense of defeatism. Why joins when in its self-attack mode. 

The frustration mounts with this sort of crap. The 'when' question becomes irrelevant, as the repetitive false belief of "I'm no good" seems settled firmly in place and I'm helpless to budge it.

When? I'm so lonely, know I can reach out, but if I can't relax in doing so, everything comes back to bite and haunt, make me want to give up again. All I do know is how sad/angry I am about this. I know I can relax, but can't. It seems like others have a high opinion of me, and I can't take it in; won't accept it. Or I deflect it as if it's not real, and I deny my own strength. Again.

When? I don't want any more of this self-sabotage.