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<blockquote data-quote="Scent of Cedar *" data-source="post: 679653" data-attributes="member: 17461"><p>Maybe Copa, this is a gift. These feelings, for us. As IC said, we are thrown back into FOO patterns...but now we are adults. Now, if we have the courage to sit with the feelings, we can understand our responses and trace them back and heal the initial hurt.</p><p></p><p>Or simply, change the thought pattern going forward.</p><p></p><p>That is the key. Sitting with the feelings.</p><p></p><p>You were brave Copa, to confront the feelings and seek the cousin out the second time.</p><p></p><p>I love that you did that.</p><p></p><p>So there is the answer to the destroyed reputation question. There is no answer. The good people, the people we want in our lives, will know what is true about us. The others will need to decide, and that has nothing in the world to do with us. We need to face up to our situations relative to our families of origin, and stop buying in to their versions of reality. Wishing for family when we already know how our families work is a way we punish ourselves ~ again, having to do with how we were raised to perceive ourselves ~ at their unspoken (because they aren't speaking to us, those dirty rats) behest, and is probably the dynamic at the heart of all shunning.</p><p></p><p>A living thing, the shun.</p><p></p><p>Like a kaleidoscope, in that way.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>So, I am not sure how this stage of healing proceeds, but I am aware of diametrically opposed choice in a way I have not been for some time. This morning, as I awakened, I found myself contrasting ways of thought, ways of thinking and being and feeling and believing. I lost whatever it is I was dream thinking about. One of the choices: Jealousy, the wormy little hurt of envy: The life wasted, the heart a blackened thing, the death so bitter. Or to live life from a full heart, from a heart bubbling up and overflowing. The blood thundering, the river taking us where it will, without fear. Which has to do with the Culture of Scarcity Brene Brown writes about, and with how we interpret it.</p><p></p><p>Isn't that something. How simple it seems now, I mean. And there again, I feel laughter bubbling up ~ like the deep, rich laughter of a Jamaican, so happy and gentle and wise.</p><p></p><p>I thought about the stupid dentist, and the role fear would play or not play in a tooth I am soon to have a crown made for.</p><p></p><p>?</p><p></p><p>Things like that, replete with imagery and sound.</p><p></p><p>A little girl who was in my Brownie troop, who told us about her grandmother and how the grandmother would always tell them that she loved them too much, and laugh and laugh with them, all of them happy.</p><p></p><p>And that good, rich laughter feeling I posted about whenever I began this post is beginning. </p><p></p><p>So, this must be a place along the path to wholeness, too.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>You are so welcome, Leafy. It is a hard thing, to face and examine and put to rest those old feelings, unquestioned for so long and assumed to be true things when they were lies, all along.</p><p></p><p>Would it help you to post about the feelings in more depth? Whose voice is it, speaking the phrases you chose to describe yourself? What would balanced look and feel like, and whose voice is it telling you that to be unbalanced is wrong?</p><p></p><p>To be unbalanced means we have shaken things up, and will come into a new, brighter place of balance.</p><p></p><p>Remember my posting about "That'll do, pig." And about other things that were shaming. But those things were there, whirring away on those negative tapes just beneath the level of conscious acknowledgment all along. Though it is very hard to sit with the feelings of sadness or deep regret or shame or whatever it is, if we can learn to envision ourselves as those little girls that we were, and if we can learn to see and hear her with compassion, we can help her. We can provide for her now what she needed, then.</p><p></p><p>If you were to envision the little girl that you were, what is it that she needs you to hear about her sadness? What does she need from you, Leafy. Coming through this, I learned that, whatever else happened to that little girl that was me, the worst thing that happened to her was when I deserted her, too.</p><p></p><p>I had been taught to see myself through such harsh and condemning eyes Leafy, that no matter what I did, what I accomplished or lost, until I fell into love with my children, there was a lonely, guarded center at the heart of me. It was wrong that this happened to me, and it is wrong that it happened to you. </p><p></p><p>Or to anyone.</p><p></p><p>So, we are going to go in now and save those little girls (or little boys) that we were from the things they were taught were true about them.</p><p></p><p>It helped me to envision my adult self witnessing for the little girl who was me. I assured her we had lived. I assured her I was her, all grown up. She was ashamed in front of me, Leafy.</p><p></p><p>Imagine.</p><p></p><p>But I was not ashamed of her. And so, there grew up a kind of trust between us. It is a matter of guided envisionment Leafy, and symbolism.</p><p></p><p>And determination to ~ I don't know. To heal, or to be whole, or whatever it is. To be and create a center, maybe.</p><p></p><p>I had not been able to trust, before.</p><p></p><p>Someone taught the little girl who was you to feel badly about the way you feel. What would it have looked and sounded like for that little girl to have heard what she needed to hear when that happened?</p><p></p><p>Who could have helped her to cherish and respect her feelings, instead of feeling defensive about how she feels? What words could they have spoken to comfort and teach you? </p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>If we can see her Leafy, if we can envision that little girl who was us, and if we can make a determined choice ~ whatever the initial feelings about her are, and they will not be good ones ~ if we determine to hear her with compassion and if we will not be shaken from our decision to love and protect her, then everything about our lives begins to change. Subtle things, at first. Just a full, unrestricted breath. Things begin to take on new color. There is a different sense of time. It seems to stretch out forever or to compress into an instant. Leafy, if you can hear her sadness with deep compassion instead of judging her by some system of value that seems to have been a cruel and lonely thing, then you will be your own safe harbor.</p><p></p><p>Once you are your own safe harbor, if the sibs are mean, that will be (rightly so) about them. Nothing to do with you ~ unless you desert yourself to believe them when the truth is that no one else can know your heart. Only you can know your heart.</p><p></p><p>No one else.</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>Somehow, one day, we realize we already are perfect because we are imperfect. When that happens, we lose our fear...maybe what I mean is we have broken through another level of fear. Another, deeper or roomier level of self opens, and it's a very cool place to be coming from. It's like we develop curiosity. Instead of believing we already know, we bumble around trying new things and falling down, alot. But somehow, we don't mind it. Everything looks so different then, and there is quiet and limitless time.</p><p></p><p>That is what was taken from us, that kind of peaceful curiosity and ~ well, I don't know. If it's bravery or joy or both, or just what it is. But everyone else functions from that place Leafy, and they always have. When we were little kids in school, when we were adolescents, most of the people around us were functioning from that secure place of curiosity and passionate exploration. They were functioning from a place where there was access to every facet of self. We should have always been able to function from that place within, too. But somehow, we came to believe terrible things about ourselves, and were not able to feel safe enough for compassion or centering in the self, or for believing we were able to withstand challenge without being destroyed by having questioned ourselves. Imagine that. Imagine what our lives might have been, had we been able to live from our own centers, instead of having learned to protect ourselves.</p><p></p><p>We can, now.</p><p></p><p>You will feel differently in another day or two, Leafy. I think you are doing good work. I am sorry it is so hurtful...but I can tell you with all my heart that it is worth it.</p><p></p><p>It is about taking away the barriers to honoring the self.</p><p></p><p>Some of the barriers have teeth. None of them fall easily. The barriers were created by us, to protect ourselves from whoever our abusers were.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>There was no uproar or turmoil, Leafy. </p><p></p><p>All is well. </p><p></p><p>Be gentle with yourself, honor your own intentions, even if it seems very hard, okay, Leafy? Your decision to heal the hurt places means everything. As long as your effort is sincere (or as long as my effort is sincere) we will grow. We will begin to feel stronger, clearer, more amenable to joy. In my way of thinking, healing the hurt places has to do with internal versus external locus of control.</p><p></p><p>Something so simple to me about that concept.</p><p></p><p>Another of us will describe her (or his) process differently and that is okay, too. </p><p></p><p>We all are doing the best we know.</p><p></p><p>As long as we are sincere in our Heroes' questing, we are going to be okay.</p><p></p><p>Cedar</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Scent of Cedar *, post: 679653, member: 17461"] Maybe Copa, this is a gift. These feelings, for us. As IC said, we are thrown back into FOO patterns...but now we are adults. Now, if we have the courage to sit with the feelings, we can understand our responses and trace them back and heal the initial hurt. Or simply, change the thought pattern going forward. That is the key. Sitting with the feelings. You were brave Copa, to confront the feelings and seek the cousin out the second time. I love that you did that. So there is the answer to the destroyed reputation question. There is no answer. The good people, the people we want in our lives, will know what is true about us. The others will need to decide, and that has nothing in the world to do with us. We need to face up to our situations relative to our families of origin, and stop buying in to their versions of reality. Wishing for family when we already know how our families work is a way we punish ourselves ~ again, having to do with how we were raised to perceive ourselves ~ at their unspoken (because they aren't speaking to us, those dirty rats) behest, and is probably the dynamic at the heart of all shunning. A living thing, the shun. Like a kaleidoscope, in that way. So, I am not sure how this stage of healing proceeds, but I am aware of diametrically opposed choice in a way I have not been for some time. This morning, as I awakened, I found myself contrasting ways of thought, ways of thinking and being and feeling and believing. I lost whatever it is I was dream thinking about. One of the choices: Jealousy, the wormy little hurt of envy: The life wasted, the heart a blackened thing, the death so bitter. Or to live life from a full heart, from a heart bubbling up and overflowing. The blood thundering, the river taking us where it will, without fear. Which has to do with the Culture of Scarcity Brene Brown writes about, and with how we interpret it. Isn't that something. How simple it seems now, I mean. And there again, I feel laughter bubbling up ~ like the deep, rich laughter of a Jamaican, so happy and gentle and wise. I thought about the stupid dentist, and the role fear would play or not play in a tooth I am soon to have a crown made for. ? Things like that, replete with imagery and sound. A little girl who was in my Brownie troop, who told us about her grandmother and how the grandmother would always tell them that she loved them too much, and laugh and laugh with them, all of them happy. And that good, rich laughter feeling I posted about whenever I began this post is beginning. So, this must be a place along the path to wholeness, too. You are so welcome, Leafy. It is a hard thing, to face and examine and put to rest those old feelings, unquestioned for so long and assumed to be true things when they were lies, all along. Would it help you to post about the feelings in more depth? Whose voice is it, speaking the phrases you chose to describe yourself? What would balanced look and feel like, and whose voice is it telling you that to be unbalanced is wrong? To be unbalanced means we have shaken things up, and will come into a new, brighter place of balance. Remember my posting about "That'll do, pig." And about other things that were shaming. But those things were there, whirring away on those negative tapes just beneath the level of conscious acknowledgment all along. Though it is very hard to sit with the feelings of sadness or deep regret or shame or whatever it is, if we can learn to envision ourselves as those little girls that we were, and if we can learn to see and hear her with compassion, we can help her. We can provide for her now what she needed, then. If you were to envision the little girl that you were, what is it that she needs you to hear about her sadness? What does she need from you, Leafy. Coming through this, I learned that, whatever else happened to that little girl that was me, the worst thing that happened to her was when I deserted her, too. I had been taught to see myself through such harsh and condemning eyes Leafy, that no matter what I did, what I accomplished or lost, until I fell into love with my children, there was a lonely, guarded center at the heart of me. It was wrong that this happened to me, and it is wrong that it happened to you. Or to anyone. So, we are going to go in now and save those little girls (or little boys) that we were from the things they were taught were true about them. It helped me to envision my adult self witnessing for the little girl who was me. I assured her we had lived. I assured her I was her, all grown up. She was ashamed in front of me, Leafy. Imagine. But I was not ashamed of her. And so, there grew up a kind of trust between us. It is a matter of guided envisionment Leafy, and symbolism. And determination to ~ I don't know. To heal, or to be whole, or whatever it is. To be and create a center, maybe. I had not been able to trust, before. Someone taught the little girl who was you to feel badly about the way you feel. What would it have looked and sounded like for that little girl to have heard what she needed to hear when that happened? Who could have helped her to cherish and respect her feelings, instead of feeling defensive about how she feels? What words could they have spoken to comfort and teach you? *** If we can see her Leafy, if we can envision that little girl who was us, and if we can make a determined choice ~ whatever the initial feelings about her are, and they will not be good ones ~ if we determine to hear her with compassion and if we will not be shaken from our decision to love and protect her, then everything about our lives begins to change. Subtle things, at first. Just a full, unrestricted breath. Things begin to take on new color. There is a different sense of time. It seems to stretch out forever or to compress into an instant. Leafy, if you can hear her sadness with deep compassion instead of judging her by some system of value that seems to have been a cruel and lonely thing, then you will be your own safe harbor. Once you are your own safe harbor, if the sibs are mean, that will be (rightly so) about them. Nothing to do with you ~ unless you desert yourself to believe them when the truth is that no one else can know your heart. Only you can know your heart. No one else. *** Somehow, one day, we realize we already are perfect because we are imperfect. When that happens, we lose our fear...maybe what I mean is we have broken through another level of fear. Another, deeper or roomier level of self opens, and it's a very cool place to be coming from. It's like we develop curiosity. Instead of believing we already know, we bumble around trying new things and falling down, alot. But somehow, we don't mind it. Everything looks so different then, and there is quiet and limitless time. That is what was taken from us, that kind of peaceful curiosity and ~ well, I don't know. If it's bravery or joy or both, or just what it is. But everyone else functions from that place Leafy, and they always have. When we were little kids in school, when we were adolescents, most of the people around us were functioning from that secure place of curiosity and passionate exploration. They were functioning from a place where there was access to every facet of self. We should have always been able to function from that place within, too. But somehow, we came to believe terrible things about ourselves, and were not able to feel safe enough for compassion or centering in the self, or for believing we were able to withstand challenge without being destroyed by having questioned ourselves. Imagine that. Imagine what our lives might have been, had we been able to live from our own centers, instead of having learned to protect ourselves. We can, now. You will feel differently in another day or two, Leafy. I think you are doing good work. I am sorry it is so hurtful...but I can tell you with all my heart that it is worth it. It is about taking away the barriers to honoring the self. Some of the barriers have teeth. None of them fall easily. The barriers were created by us, to protect ourselves from whoever our abusers were. There was no uproar or turmoil, Leafy. All is well. Be gentle with yourself, honor your own intentions, even if it seems very hard, okay, Leafy? Your decision to heal the hurt places means everything. As long as your effort is sincere (or as long as my effort is sincere) we will grow. We will begin to feel stronger, clearer, more amenable to joy. In my way of thinking, healing the hurt places has to do with internal versus external locus of control. Something so simple to me about that concept. Another of us will describe her (or his) process differently and that is okay, too. We all are doing the best we know. As long as we are sincere in our Heroes' questing, we are going to be okay. Cedar [/QUOTE]
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