Co-existing awareness

Before I turn off my computer for several days, and even though I am in a hurry to get on the road, I felt the desire to make a note of my thoughts.

What comes to say is that in my city it is a superb  afternoon, which comes after a little rain last night, a great relief, and prior to that, a very dangerously hot day.

As I tend to my garden, Confidoring the aphids off the new plantings, aware of the peace and quiet in my garden, a few hours away are horrendous fires, forcing thousands of stranded and isolated people onto a pier and perhaps later into the water. The fires in this state are out of control. Already people have lost their lives and many homes have burned.

In fact, our holiday home may well burn too. Most of my family are currently overseas, but even if they were here, the roads are closed and it would be suicide to attempt to get to the property. It is in the lap of the Gods.

My younger self would have found this deeply disturbing and worrying. Today, I am philosophical. Bad things happen to good people every day and I have no story around the fact that it shouldn't happen. It is happening and there is no reason it shouldn't happen to me in the same way that it may happen to anyone. It is eerie. The calm before the the storm perhaps, but I am at peace with this.

Lately, I have become less optimistic about the state of the planet. It's possible we won't be here as long as we think. Certainly, we can't take for granted what we once did, but maybe that's the wake up call; to stop being complacent and to start being more mindful about everything.

I have become far more comfortable with the idea that I am not in control. Oh sure, I can't stop loving things in their place and feeling good when I am on top of the details of life. But, I recognize I can't make every post a winner, and nor should every post be a winner.

I've been more or less alone now for a few days. I can feel the magic of alone time, and silence, weave its magic on me, like it did for me earlier in the year when I was fortunate enough to be on retreat in India.

Silence quite naturally restores us back to our natural selves; not bogged down in anxiety and thinking, but free to let the mind wander in a 'no thinking' sort of way. My goodness, how I love that!

I get in the car now and go down to visit my mother. Will she trigger me; will I feel an intense tightness in my chest, a number of times during the visit? I think this is inevitable.

Perhaps the answer lies in not having a story around that either. It's not an easy time for me with her, although I will do my best to make it as pleasant as possible, for both of us.

It's not the relationship I'd like it to be, that's for sure, but I can't do anything about that either. I can make it as good as it can be, but 63 years later I recognize that there are reasons why it became problematic for me (thought not at all for her). And, that's just the way it is.

What's really important to note here, I believe, is that life is this weird experience of good and bad happening at the one very moment. Yes, my holiday house is in peril and at the very least the surrounding land is burning, and yet, in this moment I feel an abiding peace with the fact that today on this planet there is both good and bad happening; that no matter how bad it is gets, there is good. You might say this mindset is a co-exising awareness. Like people, the situation is never all bad.

Recuperation

A dozen years younger, I could never have predicted that my sexuality would change with me; that I would feel as I do today. In another dozen years, should I live so long, I feel certain that the situation will be vastly different than what it is today. We are in constant change in fact, flowing along, sometimes moving so automatically and steadily that we are unaware of the change, until it boldly demands our attention.

As a young girl, I had certain fantasies that dominated my mind as I drifted off to sleep, and when I woke. To some extent, they have endured. I see them for what they are now, with the benefit of hindsight, and talking in the past few months with a very good older psychologist.

They were bound in fear. I will probably never know why I was so fearful as a child. It probably related to growing up in a hotel where there wasn’t much security for me. As well, and most importantly, I think it related to a sense that I needed to be ‘good’. To be in trouble seemed as bad as it could get. 

The fantasies related to people, both men and women, who were stern, punishing and quite uncaring and unloving. I do still have those fantasies today but only around orgasm. It’s a quick route from one to the other and sometimes I succumb to them, even though I wish the fantasies were different. I wish I could completely outgrow them, but so far, no luck.

Of course, any reader of old here knows that I dabbled in power exchange and BDSM. This lasted for some years with much passion and pleasure afforded.

It wasn’t always as I had hoped. It’s remarkably tricky to align sexuality with another person when the sexuality is on the margins. If you read relationship advice it’s generally for those in the middle of the curve and the rest of us have to more or less make it up as we go, or adjust, and experiment, and yes, change for the other.

I’m unquestionably a quiet living person. Without doubt, I was attracted to the opposite of me. As a quiet living person and a non-competitor, I was attracted to the more aggressive and competitive man.

As someone who instinctively wanted to be succumbed, I was attracted to the type of man who enjoyed succumbing me.

It became not just a passion but an obsession and all the entries of the past here attest to that obsession.

I think it is a fair call to say that through psych sessions it has been well established that my childhood created a situation in adulthood where I could easily become enmeshed with a man. It’s an attachment problem. I was not securely attached with either parent. That can lead to attachment issues in relationships as adults as well, unfortunately. It’s like getting doubly punished.

When there is an attachment issue, conflict in the relationship can seem overwhelming. It’s an ideal set up for a sadist because without this secure attachment in childhood as one’s psychological backbone, the partner will do almost anything in order to gain approval.

I have, without doubt, got off on being dominated, but I don’t consider myself a masochist. I could be wrong. I suppose it depends on the definition. 

I don’t want to be hurt. Some pain, or discomfort, or some psychological dominance, like taking me places I may not at first want to go, can be very appealing ultimately – quite delicious. In my mind, that’s different to being hurt; like sad; distressed; a feeling of being unloved; a sense of distance.

I wonder if sometimes the wires get crossed about that. A sexually dominant person who is consistent – as in right across his (or her) life – may not understand the need for expressions of love and affection. It’s possible his (or her) brain works in a different way since love and affection are expressed so differently sexually.

If there are different modes of expression of sexuality is it not possible that there are different modes of expressing love and affection in words and actions? Perhaps there is even an inability to offer comfort in a way that is so natural to those whose sexual expression is more mainstream. In the same way as it is hard to get sexuality to align on the fringes perhaps it is just as hard to get the need for expression of feelings and emotions to align as well.

All relationships can go through tough patches but those on the fringe are particularly tricky through the years, I think, for these reasons and others.

Feelings and emotions evolve as we age and particularly so for people like me who may not have had the full component of feelings and emotions available to them as children. If you feel the need to be ‘good’ over your lifetime that’s going to cause issues and it’s going to have you susceptible to shame any time that people aren’t happy with you. It’s going to demand that other people have their way, and your needs are quite secondary to theirs. This is the way it has been. Don’t rock the boat.

Over this year, as I completed a course where I had to read books about emotions, I came to see that I had suppressed emotions. Emotions tumbled out after that. Anger, sadness, frustration – they came at me quite violently at first.

Masochism, particularly on the psychological domain, became as much of a ‘turn off’ as it had been a turn on. I complained bitterly to the psych about being spoken to harshly or out of turn at home. I could no longer tolerate rudeness. I wanted very much to be treated like an equal, with kindness, care and consideration. I wanted to be able to talk without people talking over me or raising their voice; with consideration.

I have struggled to feel at peace with my mother. With her zero awareness of the damage caused to me in childhood and the misery this has caused in adulthood, especially over the past year,  a conversation is and will always be impossible. The silver lining there is that my brother and I, each other’s witness, have become close. We have talked often this year and been able to make sense of our lives and the damage caused through these discussions.

My husband, aware of my trials, but perhaps not all the repercussions of the angst, tends to think that along with respect, patience and kindness, I need a little sexual dominance. Perhaps. I am not so sure. I can feel myself moving towards him, but it feels delicate. I am delicate.I want it to be organic. I don't ever want to be hurt again.

 I don’t want a dark place. I want very much to move towards light. I want to experience happiness as my default. To be honest, joy is only fleeting, but a part of my life. I adore to guide people in meditation. I love to be with my family. My grandson fills up my cup.

Mostly, I love to be alone. I come home in the afternoon with ingredients to make a meal from scratch, turn on some meditative music, and feel perfectly happy with my own company.

I don’t expect it to stay this way for all that long. At some stage, the healing process will be complete. I feel sure that instinctively I will know how to get back into life in a more complete way.

Right now, everything, my body and mind, tells me to take my time; walk, write, read, listen to music, garden, take yoga classes, sleep and meditate; teach others to meditate.

Years ago, people would recuperate from being unwell in sanitariums; laze about in the sun and drink cups of tea until their energy rose quite naturally. I am taking a leaf out of that book, as much as I can. 

I am happy to be writing again here. I waited until it felt right, and it does.

Time to say goodbye

This blog has been going for a long time. I still enjoy having a writing outlet but I think a blog with a particular theme might work better for me these days.

My interests in meditation, yoga and going deeper into the self are stronger than ever. It therefore makes sense to me to have a blog devoted to those topics, when I can get to it. It will be a fresh start. We all need to have fresh starts from time to time.

To anyone out there still reading the workings of my mind, thank you very much for your anonymous kinship.

Betrayal

It has been by way of my attraction to power exchange relationships that I came to eventually see that I am a 'Giver' who was therefore naturally inclined to a 'Taker'. But, it goes well beyond that scope.

I can see the dynamic present in my family of origin, where I allowed the situation to endure well beyond being a child whereby I gave of myself, making sure they were fine at every turn. The emphasis in my mind was my responsibility to them and not the other way round.

I only have one sibling and this applies to him also, perhaps particularly to him. In my 62 years on this Earth I only asked, for the first time a couple of weeks ago, for some consideration to be given to me on a very important matter. This put the cat amongst the pigeons in ways I could never have imagined.

They wanted to know if something had happened. They didn't use these words, but the subtext was, "You've never asked let alone demanded anything ever before. You've always given in for the greater good, done our bidding; never asked for equality. What's changed? What could you be thinking? You know that's not how this game is played."

It got, from my point of view, quite ugly; insufferably so. I had a point and I wasn't so inclined to let go of such an important point after one most unpleasant meeting, so I asked to speak to my brother alone a week later. By now, I was armed for his dirty tricks but mind blown nonetheless to see how easily he moved from one argument to the other according to my responses. Was he prepared to lie? Endlessly. Countless lies and underhand manoeuvres and manipulations; anything to have his way.

If you are a meditator you might know that the mind tends to open up after a while; that instinct becomes quite precise and tuned. I wondered, is there any chance I was adopted? Had I seen a photo of myself as a baby? Not one photo. There is a photo of me at around 1 year old but I had never seen a photo earlier than that? Is it possible that in the mid-1950s cameras were still not readily owned? My mind considered all sorts of scenarios because there had to be some other explanation than that I had been such a perfect Caretaker that I didn't consciously compute the dynamic for six decades.

In the exterior world, outside family, people can be hell bent to have their way, but you expect that. We have few expectations of relationships that are loose and distant. We don't expect the lawyer of an adversary to play fair, or I don't. There's no loyalty there, no respect; no fondness. So, we are ready for foul play; for ugliness; for greed and hostility.

Not that I play in that arena for a second longer than I have to. I hang out with sweet minded people as often as possible. I am not the least suited to hostility and conflict.

Even so, after all the writing on this blog and elsewhere, all this consideration of my nature and the pitfalls of that nature, and how to protect myself and so on, I never expected so called 'loved ones' to turn, bite and scratch.

I have had some time to digest it all; to consider my position. There isn't a chance, and I mean not the slightest possibility that I can see them as I once did. I chose to ignore all the disappointments of the relationships to that point because what are you going to do? You don't get to choose family and I certainly didn't choose them; didn't get much succor from the relationships but just flowed along without rocking the boat as steadily as I could. But, any feelings of fondness are no longer there. This is just the way it is inside me and there is nothing I can do about it.

In fact, there's a sort of little group text set up between the traitors and myself only in terms of my mother's care. My statements there are all factual, and only made when I think they might be helpful to her. That's the extent of it and so it will always be unless and until I have to make a factual statement relating to finances, which someday I shall. If they really misbehave I shall have to make statements via a lawyer, but let's see how it goes.

For a while there, I was shattered. Now, I am okay with it, so long as I don't have to lay eyes on them. It's all so difficult because I can't be guaranteed that I won't see them when I visit my mother and if I were to do so I'd be physically ill. I am trying to figure out how to sort this because I'd happily have my mother believe that all is well. Her mental faculties are failing her and the best outcome is for her to prattle on about them and for me to say, 'Yes, yes' as I do, her thinking all is well.

The good news is that I have been studying dharma wisdom for some time now and one of my favorite pieces of advice is to accept 'what is'. What happened is not what I would have wanted but it is what happened. I have no argument with the fact it happened this way. Would it have been wonderful to have a family of origin that was close and caring? It goes without saying that would have been lovely, but I no longer concern myself with the fact that this wasn't my lot any more than that it's somebody else's lot to lose something that means a great deal to them: a career, a spouse, a home.

There's no 'why me?' in this story. There is no pre-written plan for any of us. It just is as it is. It's about learning to let go; let go of all that is not serving you; to recognize when the time comes to say 'I did my best.' It is time to move on now without looking back.

The benefits of a meditation practice

Often, perhaps once a month, my husband will say to me how different I am now, and he attributes that to my regular meditation practice. I agree. Meditation has provided me with tools that I had not accessed any other way.

It's a bit of a farce really, all that money spent on medical costs and mental health costs, probably often legitimate therapies, but when you consider meditation is virtually free, save a small cost for a group meditation sit or a few classes to get you going, it has been most underrated as a self-help therapy.

Most people who are asked why they have come to a meditation class will say that their minds are full of thoughts. They don't want that. Or, they want to be less anxious.

Meditation is quite simple really. First, you settle the body. Once you begin to pay attention to your breath, the body gets that cue and begins to understand what you want. A body scan works nicely, perhaps starting at the scalp and letting go one bit at a time, all the way down to your toes. Insight Timer gives you a range of guided meditations to try.

Feeling grounded is good, noting where you feet rest on the floor. If you are experiencing anxiety, breathe into the belly.

Once your body is feeling relaxed, noting any painful sections and breathing into those also, letting go, letting go, you can move onto calming your mind, which in fact you have already begun to do, due to the mind body connection.

Become aware of the sensory world. What does it feel like to touch one hand with the other? Is it smooth or rough? What sounds do you hear, faraway or close by, inside the room or out? Perhaps you hear nothing. Enjoy the sound of silence. Can you detect a scent? Explore that. Be curious about the sensory world. Radiate in it. Notice bird song. Notice a plane flying across you. Bring your focus to the world that is often closed off from your awareness and enjoy that.

By now, you will have noticed thoughts going by, perhaps as fast as city traffic, or just floating by like a cloud. Take one mind step back and be the quiet, silent observer. What is actually going on? Did you notice every thought has a beginning and an end? Your own mind is fascinating if you pay attention for a minute of two.

Perhaps, this isn't a good time for you. You are sitting calming and blow me down some really most unwanted emotions are taking up your mind space. All emotions, in all their nuances, are normal. What is this emotion about? It has arrived with a message. What is it trying to tell you? Don't judge or belittle the emotion or thought. Don't drive it away. Give it the attention it seeks and it will go exactly when it is ready to go.

Allow your mind to float from one thought or emotion or sense. If things are too troubling in there, move back to the breath, or your feet on the floor or your shoulders moving further away from your ears as you relax. The sit is yours. You do what you need to do. Rest in your whole body sitting on the chair or lying on the floor or on your cushion.

Perhaps today you want to feel love and that feeling isn't available to you in the 'real world'. Take yourself to a place you love, the mountains, the sea, whatever pleases you, and remember how that felt.

Or, see in your mind's eye, the little girl or boy you once were, who simply craved some parental attention and care. Pour into yourself the love you want. Remind yourself that you are a good person doing your best. Guilty about something in the past? Remind yourself that at that time you did the best you could based on what you knew then.

There is no much richness in a meditation sit. Each one is unique and that is proven if you keep a meditation journal, although you may well find that certain themes keep coming up. Well, that's rich material for you right there.

If you need a therapist, and so many of us do at some stage to iron out some struggle, meditation goes hand in hand with therapy. It will enrich therapy. It will get you to revelations faster.

Above all, meditation will help you to see that there is a co-existing awareness available to us. We all go through really troubling situations but sitting behind that challenging state of mind is a still mind. It's always there and always available to us. There is more to life than what you see.

Going to quiet (or underground?)

There have been some decisions made in my family of origin that they didn't think twice about, in terms of the effect on me, or how I might feel about those matters. When I think about it sitting here at my lap top, why would they? It is completely normal for them, my mother and my brother, to go about making decisions without in any way consulting me, even when the actions they are taking might well have an impact on me.

It's so normal for them to do this, to treat me in a particular way, that even I was flummoxed when a panic attack, or some sort of extreme bodily reaction on the way home in the car occurred, returning home from visiting my mother. To put myself back there, it felt like every cell in my body was in overdrive. It was extreme agitation, brought on perhaps by the other fact about my relationship with my mother and my brother, that I have never spoken my mind. Whatever they do, whatever they say, I just agree. In fact, I think there has been a lifetime of even thinking I agreed.

It seems so late in the day for denial to lift, to be angry about the relationships, and yet the simple fact is that I am angry, and disappointed.  Sad. There's even a 'why me?' aspect to my feelings. Why couldn't I have a normal family?

I say this a bit tongue in cheek since there are so few of us in this category. But, there's also a serious component. It would be so lovely to arrive at my mother's house having not seen her for over a month, having been overseas, for her to smile and come towards me with open arms and ready to hug. 'Hello, darling, how lovely to see you.' It doesn't go this way. It never goes this way. Perhaps she will accept a peck on the cheek, but if you don't do that, and she doesn't really want it, there's nothing physical about the greeting, and I think that's odd.

Of course, this is the 'isness' of the situation. My complaining won't fix it. Nothing will fix it, but in the past few weeks this 'triggering', this reaction both physical and emotional, has me trying to understand my own reactions. Was I living in denial, or making the best of a bad lot, or have I been mothered by someone quite miserly in her affections and I just didn't want to face that fact?

It's a funny thing because my mother encouraged me to go to university after school, but she didn't come to my graduation, and a few years ago when she did come to the graduation of my Masters it was all about her; how long the ceremony went for and how tired she was. In fact, a photo my son took at the lunch right after the ceremony shows she looked very well that day, but there was no 'congratulations, darling' from her, and even though she is loaded I paid for the celebratory lunch with her and whatever children could make it.

I cannot ignore my filial responsibilities to my mother, and I do have to hold my brother to account for the financial situation that has accrued owing to his further demands on my mother, but my instincts are to honor myself at this time, and to go to quiet, in an effort to provide myself self care.

I want to believe that I can recapture some warm feelings towards my family of origin and yet I doubt that's actually going to happen. When the flood gates finally opened, they came off their hinges and may not be able to be repaired.

I was without boundaries. I was tossed and turned and I never insisted that they stop. Finally, I spoke up for myself with my brother but he's used to getting what he wants. I should fight for my rights but I so want to walk to away and be done with it. Honestly, I wish I could have stayed in denial.

Empty headed

I have heard people talk of spiritual homes and if there is such a thing, mine is on mountains. I thrive in the thin air at the same time as it slows me down. Life up there reduced to its bare essentials seems right to me. Most importantly, what happens to me is that I become like an animal. I just am. Very little thinking goes on.

When we were training back at home for the adventure we went on, I often found that my head was filled with unpleasant thought. I thought  of it at the time as toxicity. Technically, the challenge of the training should have emptied my mind, but it rarely did.

On the adventure, it was a different story. My mind totally emptied such that when people express their admiration for what I did at my age I tell them that it wasn't me that did that trek. I really wasn't there at all.

I have a few specific memories. Perhaps with two, maybe three hours to climb to get to the Summit, having no idea at that stage how much longer it would take, I became aware I was walking alone. A Sherpa wasn't that far behind me and later he was in front of me, so technically I wasn't walking alone, except to say that is how it felt. I had a safety valve but also the feeling that I was in the wilderness alone.

I felt invincible. I felt like a machine that simply has one task: to put one foot in front of the other. I'm not inclined to tell myself 'Good job' but it was at the moment of the rocks being sort of wide and flattish that the thought came into my mind something like, 'Nothing can stop you.'

On the way back to the bus on the final day, maybe 3 hours walk, I purposefully stayed about 30 seconds behind the main group and a minute in front of the final group. In this blessed space I could feel alone but supported; a creature walking through the Andes aware of my feet, the gushing water beside me, the sound of the water rolling over rocks, and the sacredness of being there. I was in my bliss state. So alive!

To change the subject somewhat I just finished eating lunch listening to Shirley MacLaine being interviewed.  She made the statement that her greatest teachers have been the people who hurt her the most. This resonated with me.

I always knew in my bones that when I was exploring the BDSM space that it was a scary place to go. Yet, I felt absolutely compelled; drawn to it like a moth to a flame. When I was deeply hurt in that arena I needed to know why these were such open wounds and why it took so long to heal. I also felt compelled to understand this.

In this way, it was all quite inevitable, necessary and productive. Through the emotional pain I explored the wounds and healed. Without the pain I would have been hurt in some other way, or else I might have had to live with the wounds forever.

Fortunately, I am strong and not silly, so the pain was contained. I listened to my intuition. I never went further than to investigate the physiological responses and the emotion responses, although there was plenty of looping; repeating the material enough times until the wound had completely healed; almost as if the wound needed to be dressed again and again until the seeping stopped.

I wasn't meant to think much; as little as necessary. This is what makes the mountains so appealing. This is what made the doll state so luxurious.

My confidence in the ability or desire of man to engineer this state is not intact. Possibly, I just didn't have a lot of luck there, but more likely I think is that there are next to no men who are that steady. I don't say that in a critical way entirely. I just think men become overcome with their careers and their place in their world and the state of the world. It's almost an impossible thing to ask, I think. So, I have no expectations and I've made my peace with that.

I engineer those experiences now for myself. I empty myself of the contents of mind and I float in my bubble of bliss, as often as I can. It's finding happiness (happiness? perhaps 'authenticity is a better word), again. It's all good.

Suppressed Emotions

In the past year my brother and I began to share observations and memories about our childhood. He'd remembered more than me, but I had done more research than him, and together we began to piece together what had happened.

In the end, we realized that we had been searching for what had happened, when in fact we needed to look at what did not happen. What didn't happen is that we were able to be our authentic selves with opinions and feelings. We had both quickly realized at an early age that having feelings, unless they were to say how wonderful things were for us, was not going to be well received, and was going to cause our parents great angst. We obliged by keeping our internal world very well masked.

I told him something last night for the first time and he told me something that he had never told a living soul, which is amazing because he is joined at the hip with his wife. I can't share here but suffice to say that we both had beliefs that make clear that we felt completely alienated from our parents.

So, that's where we are. Now, where to go?

For my brother's part, he has reinvented his life. The music that he loved but went completely unappreciated by our parents is a big part of his life now; so too is fitness, health, and well being. He plans to live every last day.

For my part, I have to get into all those suppressed emotions. This is vital for longevity. Suppressed emotions are known to lead to illness, so this isn't some fancy notion of mine but more about survival, as well as contentment.

I am a capable person in many ways. I have proven that. But, I know I haven't met my potential. I can feel disappointed with myself and I can feel like I am on the inside looking in. You would not likely pick it up to meet me but I can struggle with self-discipline, with assertiveness, with my feeling states. This is all very common for someone who has experienced emotional neglect as a child. None of these feelings are remotely new. I have lived with them all my life.

Since taking up the Meditation Teachers' Certification course I have been meditating in a new way, with full appreciation for my emotions, and I journal about that, as required. I love leading meditation groups where I introduce this idea to them. Even if you have cancer and are scared, getting in touch with that fear in a meditative state isn't as scary as it sounds. When you face your fears and bring up other suppressed emotions, the body appreciates that. It is part of healing and courage building.

I think I have an ongoing emotion of being lonely, sad. I know that it is best not to rely on another person for my happiness but I do miss my husband and the bond we had. His trading keeps him up at night nearly every night now so we aren't often in bed and awake at the same time, and in any case, he is profoundly asleep when he finally comes to bed, very overtired. So, I feel sad about this state of affairs and conscious that there is not much I can do outside of holiday times, best taken thousands of miles from home and his screens. The difference between home time and holiday time is like night and day.

I feel abandoned. I'm told that's silly, but I do feel abandoned. That's the truth. Yes, maybe it's true, probably is true, that some cancer type therapies, as in supplements, affect his libido, but in all my years on the planet I have been a sexual creature. I miss that state so much.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon with my grandson and my daughter and we ran into old friends; showed the lad off. It was an afternoon filled with so much joy. I felt abundant joy. I absolutely adore him. It's a love I didn't truly expect to feel. Sure, I would love all my grandchildren, that's always been a given. But I simply love every moment of being with the little thing. He fills my cup, that's for sure.

It's harder than I ever knew it would be to come out of denial. All those years I held to the story we'd had a happy childhood until it all came flooding back in a whoosh. I barely knew my father. He loved me, absolutely, but he only really wanted the company of my mother. It's just the facts of the matter. He never expected to be a father, was a relatively old father, and had no parenting skills. I loved him and he loved me but we were worlds apart and never bridged the gap. That's the way it was.

So now I go about getting in touch with my true nature, as they say. No more painting a pretty picture of the past for myself. We keep the pretty picture for my mother, of course, because that's the picture she has always seen. But, my brother and I know what we know now. Thank the Lord we've been each other's witness. It's all about moving forward now, finding a place inside ourselves where we may be comfortable, at last.

Emotions

If I hadn't been to meditation retreats, or started Meditation Teacher training, or explored the BDSM space, I doubt I would know much about emotions. Well, that's not quite right. I bought a book called 'Emotions' in 1981.

I was first introduced to the idea of suppressed emotions causing cancer several years ago on retreat and I've mulled it ever since.

Recently, I have also considered the idea of creating good and happy emotions. This has been found to be one of the many things people do when they have a radical remission from cancer.

Articles I have read have suggested releasing anger by writing; a journal, a blog, a letter you never send. Or, exercise. Or, do chair work. In this case, you'd put a chair in front of you and speak to the invisible person you are angry with and tell them how you feel, and why.

Personally, I experience anger towards those very few people who make promises to me, or commitments, but don't follow through. That definitely makes me angry. I stay calm for longer than I should. Patience only goes so far before it feels like a waste of time. You can feel a bit of a dill when someone makes promises but doesn't keep them, over and over again.

Eventually, I say how I really feel. There is fall out, hurt feelings, but to hold in my anger after being remarkably patient for long periods of time would undoubtedly be detrimental to my health. Instinctively, I knew that I had to say what I felt because I was just too uncomfortable in my mind and my body keeping it all held in.

I attended a meditation retreat this past weekend and I used a receptive method of meditation to simply allow my thoughts and feelings to reside and be front and center. After each sitting we journaled what we remembered. I noticed on the last half hour sit that my mind's position had mellowed, but only so far. Promises made still hadn't been delivered and I was angry about that; about being taken for a fool, or being taken advantage of as the empath that I am, with an abundance of desire to create a pleasing state, no matter what; to put happiness first.

People tend to think of meditation being creating a state of calm and bliss. Sometimes. Sure. But, without allowing the mind to be receptive to thoughts and feelings, you are missing out on the opportunity to know the mind and to get at repressed emotions; lethal to your health.

The good news is that once repressed emotions are expressed the mind and the body heave a sigh of relief; abnormal levels start to come back into healthy zones. The mind settles more and the opportunity exists to problem solve in a normal and rational way.

It makes sense to almost everyone, I am sure, that elevated emotions, serve our health well. This is where metta meditations serve us very well. To sit and think of one's loved ones, to cast one's mind over a sense of care for the World, to recite a loving kindness mantra, to have one's heart swell with loving feelings is not only lovely but also wonderful for the mind and body.  Singing, dancing, laughing is all highly recommended.

This is where my life gets stuck. At home, there is a lot of expressing emotions, though rarely mine. I listen and listen, trying very hard to 'observe, don't absorb'. This opportunity to vent is not afforded to me, since regular rants would be most uncomfortable for both of us. I tend to sort my emotions out myself. Every now and again, I disregard these unwritten rules and let it be known exactly how I feel. This is my life saver; perhaps literally.

It is interesting (to me) that I dwelled in the space of metta meditations for a couple of years, really building up 'feel good' and healing emotional states. Once that was in good shape I needed to work on the repressed emotions. This has accomplished two things:

- I needed to acknowledge that my mother was fundamentally absent in my childhood. Once I acknowledged that,  and the damage, I had made space for forgiveness in my heart. I feel very close to her these days.

- I needed to acknowledge my personality - an empath who has a deep need to bond, who has a strong internal critic and a strong need to please. I have been, without doubt, prey to the Narcissist who wanted a devotee, happy to be led, such that he could pretty much do as he pleased.

Older now, I have no interest in this game. If you make me a promise, keep it, or experience my expression of my deep disappointment. No more excuses. No more repressed emotions. Say what you mean. Mean what you say.

Behavior

Raising memories and feelings from the sub-conscious can take a long time. If I had been absorbed in a life of full time employment I am not sure that I would have been able to see the full picture of my life, and the lives of other people who I know well. It's not just come to me in snippets here and there; a thought that has halted me such that my mind insists on it being further explored, or a piece of conversation that has struck me as happening thousands of times before, but ultimately as the complete story of an era, of several families over the generations whose lives have intertwined to bring us to the modern day.

It has a unique quality about it - certainly the characters are unique - but also a universal quality about it; that there are soul mates all about me nearly all of whom I will never meet, who have vaguely similar stories with the same theme. I wonder if they are still trying to nut it out - why he responds the way he does, why she responds the way she does...some sort of dance with a vaguely familiar tune. How did we finds ourselves here on the dance floor again, she wonders. Unless you can break it down for yourself, it's a language and a scene from the movie of your life that seems indecipherable.

When and if you do come to realize that you got where you are, or where you were, through a series of  events where little people weren't treated well and grew up with deficits that they then exposed other people to, especially their own children, but perhaps too their siblings and people at their work place, or just in the wider world, you begin to see the damage delivered to the world by the behavior of the individual.

If we posit that even huge world events such as a World War can begin with an event, with individuals not being able to have a conversation that is reasonable and fair, we begin to see how devastating it is to have individuals in any sort of power situation who are not fully formed; rather living out their lives in terms of an inflated ego and crippled morality.

The crisis of a World War, or any war, leaves countless human beings having seen and experienced devastating carnage; the physical body and mind broken.

Survivors return to a more peaceful world once the conflict has reached an end, for now, but with broken minds, they often are in no position to parent the next generation. But, they do, and therein the damage is inflicted once again on innocent children. It goes on and on.

Until, with luck, the behavior is brought to the surface. Until, somehow it gets through to the person that these are people you love and you don't really want to hurt those you love, do you?

Awareness is everything. For as long as we allow unaware behavior to march on into the future, behavior that carries the scars of the past, we can't break out of the cycle of toxic shame, of mental anguish, of an egoic identity that demands its way. For as long as the more empathic souls amongst us allow this demonic egoic identity to thrive in others, refusing to build barriers against such outlandish behavior, we can't stop the devastation of a tidal wave of destruction knocking down the doors of our homes and our world.

This is, if for no other reason, why it seems such a downward turn for our civilization to be satisfied when any person who is so full of himself as to say that he thinks he is the best at nearly everything, to have great power. What the World needs now is full understanding of the overarching damage done by narcissistic abuse; not more people wrapped up in their own importance, but more people willing to devote themselves to providing the love, attention and care that the next generation need in order to stabilize this world and recover from the last century.

It sometimes feels to me like we are living in a world where so many people walk around like aliens without a brain that can decipher right from wrong; that think of manipulative strategies as downright clever. If we don't wake up by the millions pretty darn soon I think we are writing our own death warrants here. The world won't withstand the neglect.

Emotional wound

I've been working on the basis that to heal an emotional wound you have to trace it back to the event or events that happened.

I am starting to think that there are two elements in place, not one; that one is a harmless sort of thing and the other is a wound that needs to be healed, as best I can.

First, the kinkiness: light, fun, harmless play. I think I probably developed it at a very young age. Remember when I was young, in the 1950s, spanking was a normal sort of thing, though not for me.

I think I was curious. I think I connected it with  a sort of loving approach, to the extent that the child received attention. I think I was starved for attention and so maybe that resonated for me.

I saw movies. I noticed my reaction to the scenes where there was a power dynamic of some sort.

In short, spanking was a turn on for me. Still is.

For whatever reason, feeling helpless, in a good way, is a lovely letting go response for me.

Much later, I got hooked into an objectification sort of kink, which fed me in some way at the same time as it was a power dynamic that humiliated me. It could leave me feeling heavy and damaged; angry and flawed.

Feeling a need to try to remember my childhood, I began to realize, piece by piece, that I carry a great deal of shame for my early years and probably carried even more then.

It isn't just that the circumstances of my exterior life involved shame. That's about 20% of it.

The major part of the shame comes from the fact that my parents spent very little time with me; an incredibly small amount. And, that I was so different to them in nearly every way. That I had no belief in the value of expressing my feelings. That I felt it a waste of time to have needs.

On the contrary, I developed a strong need to aid my mother in her emotional life, to prop her up when needed. Seeing clearly that my father had a great many needs, needs that he seemed to feel that only my mother could fulfill, that left me to handle life on my own, and to do for my younger brother whatever I possibly could.

It wasn't that they looked out for me but rather at a tender age, I looked out for them.

This seemed to set me up for an adult life where I didn't feel it my place to have needs or to express them. I looked after other people. I was even proud of my ability to do so.

At the same time, giving and giving, I worked on the basis that if I gave over my agency to another, he would do the right thing by me. If I was brave enough to express my needs, he'd do his best to fulfill them.

Eventually, I did express my needs.

But, I learned that over the long haul, that wasn't enough, for the special people in my life had wounds of their own; needed to control their world, and me.

Somewhere in there, my needs got prioritized further down on the list, rarely to make it to the top of the pile.

This is when I started to pay attention.

Why was I carrying around these days a great big boulder, a heavy heart?

The experts say that I have to develop more self love and self esteem. I have to understand that people rarely change and that I have been putting my faith in the wrong people. That I need to be assertive. Mostly they say it is best to go my own way.

I'm astounded at the depth and intensity of this wound. I don't really expect it to ever heal completely.

I wonder what my untapped potential would have been, if my life had been different from the beginning.

It's tempting to think this is one of several lives; that there is a lesson in all of this, preparing for the next merry go round.

Or, maybe, life will unfold from here in wonderful and positive ways; open up for me like the petals of a flower. It's a bold statement, but I think I deserve that outcome.

Guilt

In an episode of Wanderlust we see Joy in a session with her therapist where she is eventually confronted about a "pattern" that her therapist has identified. When something awful happens to Joy in her life (for example, the funeral of her mother when her father said to her in the car on the way to the church that 'nobody wanted her to make a fuss today'; or the time her client rang Joy (who is also a therapist), she didn't answer the call and he promptly decided to suicide off a bridge), she goes into a non-feeling state and subconsciously enacts various other crises in her life so that she doesn't have to feel the really awful thing.

Joy may be unaware of her own patterns but she is smart enough and educated enough to see the truth of what she is told in this session. This new awareness of her behaviors throughout her life shocks Joy into a deeply felt feeling state which then leads to a complete breakdown of emotion where she cries intensely. 'It feels good to feel, doesn't it, Joy?'

I was entranced throughout this episode by the brilliant writing and the even more brilliant acting abilities of Toni Collette who I have always admired for her courage to lose herself in a role. How clever to have the audience watch all her missteps, baffled by how dumb a therapist could actually be, only to be discover that her mind was, in all its deceptions, protecting her from discovering the deep emotional pain hidden inside.

In the more immediate experience in Joy's life, where she didn't answer the call from her client and it was the last call he ever made, she was later told by the police, a sense of betrayal, a sense of letting down this man, of possibly being able to save him, was too much for her mind to take in. It was a deeply sensed feeling of guilt. She felt responsible, when, as we know, his choice to take his life was his responsibility and his alone. Still, responsible types, empathic types, are always going to feel strongly, almost unbearably, responsible for the other.

So, the episode, as all good drama does, pointed out a fundamental truth; that some of us hold ourselves responsible for the behavior of others, so completely sometimes that we are prepared to make a good old mess of our own lives.

Will does a similar thing in his life. Beaten and battered by his father, Will hides his deeply troubled emotions behind a veneer. He lets the girl he loves, and who adores him, head off across the country and seems powerless to change, until his therapist, the much missed Robin Williams, manages to get through to him finally that "it is not your fault".

I am personally familiar with this dynamic; with this feeling of responsibility, at the same time as I register the irrationality of the thought. The mind twists and turns trying to make sense of things. I remember someone saying this to me, "It is not your fault. You did nothing wrong." 'I know, I know," I said, almost in the exact way as did Will. So she repeated it, much like Will's therapist, until it finally sunk in.

Guilt. Responsibility. What powerful words they are for humans!

At this juncture in my life I do better with simply letting go; with accepting that there are some things over which I have influence, but I can't, nor should I, change what cannot be changed.

It is what it is. It will always be thus. Who I am to think I can alter the grand scheme?