Resolve

It has been the loveliest of summers. We've been at the holiday house little more than a week and yet it feels like we have been here all summer. If we open the front doors, and we do, we get lovely breezes from the water and we've not yet had a day that has made life uncomfortable. If it gets too hot we simply get in the old boat and fish out in the middle of the lake, which is much cooler, or we go for a swim in the lake.

We've had company with us the whole time. The last person left a mere hour ago. There has been barely any time to think let alone write, although I've let my mind wander as I've held a lure to catch fish, and caught some, I did!

I have done a little reading: Wayne Dyer's Your Sacred Self, and the novel The Dry. I love Dyer's positivism and the simple statements and suggestions he makes to turn thinking around. I'm smitten too by Jane Harper's ability to create atmosphere and character by using just the right verb. It's inspiring how easily writing can improve for the reader when the writer lets go of adverbs and concentrates on finding the right word to describe the action in the scene. If you are ever looking for a book to describe the Australian countryside in drought, look no futher.

I've not had time to write in this space but nor have I had something worth saying. I did try one day and the attempt is saved in drafts, but it so annoyed me how the writing was inspired by a feeling of anger and that's so last year, that feeling. I don't want that feeling to be part of my new year, so I abandoned it and waited for a feeling that did in fact have an invitation into my life.

Of course, I am going through a 'process' right now, a process that I understood at the outset had long term positives but would have some shaky moments. I'm working on getting closer towards the centre. I'm looking to abandon unhealthy codependence traits and becoming closer to the middle of the range, or to put it another way, a more healthy codependence. I have no goal to alter my innate functioning. That is, I take care of people. I care about people. I'm the follower. That's not going to change. I can't and don't want to will myself to suddenly desire a job at the top of the corporate ladder, for example. I don't seek power, or limelight, although between you and me, I happily daydream of attending (my own) book launch and soaking up my time on the stage!!

It's been lovely lately to note that as I ask for a bit of assistance here and there, or when people ask me what they can do to help, this all seems to flow better. I offer them a job, or ask if they would mind doing something for me, and that's all gone smoothly. It's made my life a dream in that I am no longer feeling that I am slogging through the work, and I no longer feel secretly resentful that they don't do more.

One of the biggest tests of this process that I am in is that the codependent will feel her sense of  inner loneliness return; those same sort of feelings that she felt as a child; the sort of feelings that contributed to making her a codependent desiring to dance with her polar opposite in the first place. For a long time, my sub-conscious held onto the feeling that any behaviour of the other was acceptable, so long as I kept the inner loneliness at bay. The feeling is that strong and frightening; must not be felt at any cost. It took a great deal of research and inner investigation to realize that I could withstand it; that I had to go to the heart of that feeling.

This process, this first part of it, at least, should be done with the aid of a therapist. However, I don't feel I can do that. I feel, and I am bucking the best psychological advice here, that I have to do this alone. Having said that, I do have advice via books and Utube talks that I refer to in order to bolster my resolve. Dyer's book noted above helps me right now. You don't have to fear a lack of approval, he says, because you have a comfort in your own skin that you are on your own spiritual path.

For the first few weeks into the process I think I was probably private and somewhat withdrawn. I think I may have felt that I needed to try as much as I could to concentrate on holding onto my resolve. I wanted to let cindi run free but at the same time I feared what might happen if I did. Like, cindi has no resolve. But, yesterday morning my husband pinned by arms to either side of me while I lay on the bed and bit at my nipple jewellery. I could feel her rise. She has a life of her own that little thing, and my body responded to the force. Oh yes, she was enjoying herself. She liked being taken and used.

I am, in moments, still a little shaky. There is no doubt about that. Rome was not built in a day and one doesn't heal overnight. However, I do feel abundantly healthy right now. Nature has played its part, the lifestyle here, but I do feel better able to calculate what is and is not acceptable; or more aptly, what I will and won't tolerate. cindi is alive, no doubt about it, but she's not so helpless that she can't look out for herself. That's the difference. She won't again choose to dismiss her gut reactions or to rationalize her physiological reactions.

The point, for those struggling to understand what I am on about here, is that the closer you get to the middle of the behavioral spectrum the less inclined you are to going to be to accept, and even desire, the behaviour of those on the highest end of the spectrum, someone operating from self-interest and using various manipulative strategies to get his own way. It's not going to stop you, if you have a disposition such as mine to enjoy interacting with a respectful and polite person who operates on the opposite side of the spectrum, the dominantly inclined. However, your heckles will rise when you are not being treated with respect and civility; kindness; care. A doll's disposition doesn't mean that the requirements of human interaction go out the window; quite the opposite, I would have thought. It's critical, in my experience, to feel a sense of safety in those situations. How else one can let go and be less?

The vulnerability remains. The resolve is well in place. I think that resolve could be equated to self-respect/self esteem. There is a place for ego. It's fine to 'let go', desired in fact, but it's also okay to let self-respect define the limits of that letting go. Anyone who rejects your request for respectful behaviour is simply trying to manipulate your mind.

A review of 2016 at Christmas

Few people would disagree that it has been a turbulent year. One feels this turbulence in the air and there is little doubt that there's been a lot of anger and upset expressed, as evidenced in the American election process, to name just one oddity this year. I heard one psychologist express the opinion that Trump, an undeniable narcissistic individual, could not have been elected if the nation wasn't so full of people who felt perfectly fine with identifying with those qualities. Food for thought there.

On a personal level, the year has been something of a process for me as well. Ross Rosenberg, a psychologist who specializes in Love Deficit Disorder uses the analogy of a person who is wearing glasses that are foggy. Such a person can only see what he (or she) sees, but once fitted with suitable glasses where he (or she) is able to see quite clearly, the thinking transforms. That's the way I have felt.

When I look back on the last several years of my life I was somewhat blinded to what was going on inside of me. I knew that something felt very uncomfortable sometimes, but I didn't know how to fix that feeling. Part of that was to do with the fact that my husband really did become excessively preoccupied with a range of matters and I missed his attention and affection.

However, by looking too closely at his behaviour and not my own, I was missing a vital clue. Then, I started to examine my behaviour more closely and to listen to his observations without dismissing them as him making excuses for being distant.

I'm a researcher, by instinct and training. The Internet gave me the opportunity to delve into issues, but it took more than the reading itself. It was a giant jigsaw puzzle and I was often short of a piece or two of the puzzle. I'd read Pia Mellody, or Ross Rosenberg, and I'd get it, but only intellectually. By that I mean I couldn't quite understand how it related to me and to my life; what I thought, what I did; how I reacted to circumstances.

I identified, eventually, that I had been neglected in childhood and that was a major move in the right direction. I still don't and never will see it as a wilful act of neglect because it just was not that way. However, it was neglect. I was left to my own devices to bring myself and my younger brother up as best I could. I was often alone. I was forced to revert to a fantasy world. I never came first in anybody's eyes.

Still, I was loved. I could feel the love and that kept me whole. Or, so I thought. I didn't understand until earlier this year that there had been damage caused to me that left me vulnerable and open.

I am someone akin to an 'echoist'. I put others' needs first. I'm the opposite to someone who puts their own needs first.

Okay. So, I identified that about myself. The psychologist several years ago identified that about me too and tried to help me with 'boundaries' and doing something for myself and not feeling bad about all that. I tried hard to get it but that part of me just wasn't ready to understand what she was saying such that I could put it into practice. Oh, I did the Masters and did well, but my self-esteem still needed a great deal of work. I can't blame her, or anyone, for thoughts that I was useless at something for which I got very high grades. That was my issue and something that still needed a great deal of work.

The problem lay in the fact that I was relying on other people for my self-worth; good grades, successful husband and children; being a good bimbo; that sort of thing. I had to learn to esteem myself; to have a sense of inherent worth equal to others. Importantly, I needed to stop feeling 'better than' or less than' other people. I've a great deal of empathy for people so I didn't realize I was doing this until it occurred to me that I had always felt empty outside of relationship. Think carefully about that if this relates.

Next, I had to learn how to set boundaries; to stop just doing what other people wanted me to do and expected me to do. I had to learn to negotiate; to stand up for myself; to express my upset when I was upset and not hold it, eventually becoming over emotional when it seemed that I was being taken for granted. This is a work in progress. It has caused some dissent but on the whole I have received great encouragement. I have experienced some kick-back but most people have accepted that I must finally express and put in place some boundaries for myself. I'm proud of my work here. I can't stop being me, someone who cares, but I can explain what I need and that's apparently exactly what I need to do to develop interdependent skills.

When someone isn't sure who they are, they are susceptible to making up a personal identity and reality out of who they think they should be. I knew I wanted to be a mother and a wife, and I knew I loved to write and read; that I loved children and I trained as a teacher. However, my fantasy life was vivid, real in  a sense, and it became confused with my reality.

I love submission in the bedroom. I love to feel a helpmate. For example, on the whole, in the garden I'm happy for my husband to take the lead and I get to do what he lets me do. I follow his lead, offering suggestions that he takes up, or not. This is the way with us. It has always been this way. But, then I got into other things, honed down into darker fantasies, and it was confusing.

The challenge was to sort out the reality from the fantasy and this took a long time for reasons I'd prefer not to go into. Suffice to say that it is vital that a person sort out their reality from their fantasy in order to have a stable identity and to feel comfortable in their skin. 'Submissive' is difficult terminology because someone can so easily throw at you that you aren't submissive enough, as if that's a flaw. Watch that.

Finally, I had to learn how to identify my needs and my wants. I need intimacy.  Pia Mellody writes that 'children who are neglected and abandoned may grow up with issues of feeling needless/wantless.' I confused the two things, or I used the wants to deal with the lack in my life of my 'needs'. I have learned to go and ask for a hug, or to arrange to spend time together. I am learning how to do this and I am proud of that. This area still needs work.

In her book 'The Intimacy Factor' Pia writes on page 118, 'Without boundaries, there is no relationship. Without relationship there is no intimacy. Without intimacy there is no love, and without love the spiritual path is hidden from us. Boundaries create the experience of truth and respect in which love can grow. We recognize that our inherent worth cannot be taken away from us by the display of our authentic selves...Trauma work aims at identifying the abuse that first made us allergic to ourselves - to our flawed and imperfect humanity.'

All that to say that 2016 has for me been a year of extraordinary growth and vision. I can point to several wonderful successes in the family - my eldest son has become the youngest Director and Junior Partner of his company worldwide, and my youngest son has gained entry into the second year of the highly selective course he has set his sights on for several years, and I am very, very proud and happy for them - but I am also very proud of myself. I had to work extremely hard on myself this year to get the insight and vision into my own failings and the issues that held me back from happiness and peace. I look forward to my future and the future of all people. I do believe the best is yet to come.

May you all have a very happy and blessed Christmas. Please do think about inviting to your Christmas Day someone who may well not have somewhere to go. I have come across a good number of these people lately and it reminds me that 'family' includes anyone who needs a good dose of love and care.

Be well. With love.
xxx

Codependence

My reading about love and sex addiction has covered  much ground. My research led me to 'Sex and Love Addiction Anonymous' online and on that site 40 questions for self-diagnosis. In answering the questions truthfully for myself it became clear that I had a problem; not the sort of problem where I count the lovers. That number is meagre. This is not about sex addiction. However, as an example of the sort of questions where I answered 'Yes', no question is more relevant than Question 4: Do you get "high" from sex and/or romance? Do you crash? Oh my goodness, YES! I most certainly do.

I think of the codependent state of mind as being on a roller coaster. In terms of the real ride, I detest roller coasters, every bit of it. At times, the roller coaster ride of romance/connection is a delicious and most intoxicating 'high'. Other times it is a very low mood that germinates from that experience.

It's important to understand that I am not talking about a romance with a open and engaging partner who wants to know you and to be known; who wants to connect with you and talk about important matters such as emotions and boundaries. I'm talking about something that is expressed as being more manipulative than that. The love addict tends to connect with someone whose conscious and unconscious mind demands something different to this; a love avoidant.

In the initial stages of a power exchange dynamic it is completely exhilarating; so exhilarating that I was certainly able to ignore the lows almost completely. In fact, the lows were simply eroticized; part and parcel of the ride. Oddly and irrationally, I believed that I had overcome my fear and loathing of roller coaster rides.

Over time, it got to be more the case that the lows hung around. A sane mind, a healthy mind, doesn't take long to question the value of the ride where upset states endure. However, a codependent mind hangs in there, justifies the lows and remembers vividly the highs. How on earth does one give up on the highs? So, strong of mind and committed to the drug, one endures. There is a sense of a lack of respect at times, a sense of degrading oneself, of feeling weak to want this, but the girl has been 'hooked'. Once hooked, the need for the drug of choice endures.

Time marches on. The turbulence inside oneself continues and increases in decibal in one's brain until a moment comes when the thought is very much there: 'I have to stop this crazy-making situation. I just have to if I am ever to have peace of mind.' Not only was my brain tired of all this effort to stop something that felt unhealthy for me but I worried about the effect my unsettled mind might be having on my bodily health. Meditation, walking, yoga and writing all helped but so far there had been nothing I had found to achieve peace of mind; ongoing stability; a lack of upsetting jolts. Nothing overcame for too long the uneasy sense that the containing of my emotions was not a good thing.

One thing led to another. I read many texts. If any or all of this is making sense to you and you want to do some reading on codependency I found particularly helpful the following books. 'The Human Magnet Syndrome, Why We Love People Who Hurt US' by Ross Rosenberg is a bit repetitive and not especially well laid out, in my opinion. Ross admits that it was written in a rather 'stream of consciousness' way and I think it shows. Nevertheless, he has a lot of great material in his book and as a recovered co-dependent himself, he has huge credibility.

I cannot speak more highly of Kelly McDaniel's 'Ready to Heal'. I underline sentences in texts that are meaningful to me and my copy of this text is now heavily underlined.

I have yet to receive my copy of Pia Mallody's latest book but I have watched just about everything available on UTube and read all the material on her site and other locations. It is this woman who really spoke deep to the core of me.

For my own purposes I don't want today to type out quotes but rather to put her words into my words. It helps me to do this exercise. What impressed me the most was that her words spoke directly to me as if she had seen right into my head and my heart.

I put a great deal of emphasis in my life on a loving relationship. That's okay as far it goes. However, I choose, unwittingly, partners who are love avoidant. They create walls around themselves. I do this because if I can get through that wall, if I can get the attention of someone who insists on being unknowable, then I must not be as insufficient a person as I often feel. It's a self esteem issue as a carryover from a difficult childhood. It's not about achievements, or prettiness or capability. It's about my own internal lack of worth.

I've told my husband all about my feelings of inadequacy now, and have benefitted already with a greater sense of true intimacy, but as I said to him, "To read about that thought process and to own it as mine was a real kick in the guts."

This is what has caused the rollercoaster rides; those rides that seemed endless, taxing; exhausting; fruitless, failures. My desire to know someone wholly who categorically refused to be known was completely getting me down. Yet, I endured.

Not only that. It was made clear that I too was not to be known. Only a part of me was welcome. I just didn't know how to deal with that. I won't ever know. I learned that I am no good with walls. I am too innately curious to not know or to want to have the sort of intimacy where I am known for the complete woman that is writing these words.

Here's another thing. I lost track of me; of who I am and what I want. I wasn't sure in the end if my needs and wants were actually mine or if they had been impregnated into my mind.

It was time to stop everything and just learn to live in my own head without influence. That's what I do these days. I take it slow and I listen to my thoughts. I still love kinky stuff, but I won't be enmeshed again. I won't mistake submission, being a "good girl", with codependence ever again. I'm learning to accept the shame from childhood, to increase my self-esteem which will keep me happy and healthy, and to increase the self-care too. I am indeed not at all "worthless".