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.