Another development, another update. Oy.

[recoveringenabler]

"We are lost for a little while, without the script. "

That is so true Cedar. But we get to create a brand new one based on our own integrity and self love.

Thank you. We are both courageous and I am equally as proud of you my friend.

 

[recoveringenabler]

Oh boy, this one is gruesome, but geez, so true..........

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Oh, Recovering...it is like that, isn't it. We are in that place where the shock is wearing off and cold, gray reality is setting in. It absolutely helps to remember how hard this is. These are hard, hard things. It isn't going to be pleasant, nor should we expect it to be. We are strong. We will make the best choices and take the best actions we know. It will not be perfect...but it will be the best we know or can learn. I've been thinking so much lately about Brene Brown's observation that we humans are hard wired for challenge. It helps me to think that way, to remember that.

And to remember that time will unfold what is to come next in ways we cannot predict. It is mandatory that we open our eyes, that we keep them open, that we expect the pain and the woundedness, spit into the dust, and survive it intentionally.

It took much courage to post that for me, Recovering.

The imagery is strong enough to touch and heal that hurt, bewildered place I have been stumbling around in for the past day or so.

Okay, then. I am determinedly upright.

Thank you, Recovering.

Cedar

Shocking as that imagery is, it is exactly, exactly right.

Beautiful.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

While you and husband ruminate about what is going to happen next, you are stuck in control and fear and anger and resentment and blame.

Let it all go.

There is nothing you need to do or even should be doing or could be doing.

Do not step in.

...allow your daughter to be a grown up and figure this out for herself.

give it time without stepping in to lessen the guilt you feel.

You must sit with that guilt and recognize that it is an illusion to keep you behaving in the same manner over and over again.

Step out of that place, step out of all of it and wait.

Stop caring what others think of your parenting or your choices, they are not living your life

In my humble opinion you and husband have unrealistic expectations of yourselves

...in reality, we are all flawed human beings

You did not create this Cedar, this is the destiny your kids created for themselves to learn something, to discover something for themselves.

...don't take that away from them.

The truth is you do not want your daughter or your granddaughter to live with you.

you feel you SHOULD take in your daughter

you override what you want and give in to that illusion and then the blame game begins all over again.

In the dynamic of the victim, rescuer, persecutor, the victim has all the power.

A victims only power is over those who rescue her and then the dynamic turns to the victim persecuting the rescuer............it's an endless game.

Step out Cedar, stop allowing your daughter to control your life with her victim stance.

Let her empower herself instead of being a perpetual victim.

Stay in the space of non doing and allow it to unfold.

I am seeing that victim/rescuer/persecuter/guilt/victim/rescuer thing, Recovering.

I am thinking that over.

That, and the part about not taking the opportunity for growth away from my kids.

This is an amazing way to see it, and is probably absolutely the way it truly is.

Your comments about the part guilt and demanding / pretending perfection / playing the roles of victims ourselves plays in all this were very perceptive.

(I saw it between the lines.)

:O)

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

as we detach and deal with our own responses... life evolves for our difficult child kids

they are the ones who should be seeking options, answers and solutions since they are the ones who put it all in play in the first place.

once WE stop BEING AN OPTION for our kids, they find other means and other means find them.

you and husband may be observers who are there to listen and advise, provide understanding and support while difficult child daughter and difficult child granddaughter figure it out for themselves.

As you and husband stop providing all the answers other answers will be provided by other means.

I like the staying at the shelter plan more because now that difficult child granddaughter has moved into difficult child status, difficult child daughter may pull out of her own GFGness to help her own daughter through this time....

she would be better off doing that if she were on her own so she could develop the skill set to take care of herself and her daughter now

difficult child daughter will gain strength and find her own way.

But, you have to stay out of her way.

While you are staying the course, don't forget to have fun, dance, play, enjoy, laugh, nurture yourselves, do your yoga, meditate, walk, run, goof off and just BE.

As we detach and deal with our own responses....

Yes.

True.

Cedar

 

[recoveringenabler]

Good place to look Cedar.............that was all once explained to me by a wonderful therapist who told me that the rescuer/victim/persecutor is a triangle within which we actually roll around in all the roles, but we have a favorite.............mine was rescuer. That process often plays itself out in dysfunctional families. I could not see myself in the other two roles. She explained that after you rescue the victim, the victim persecutes the rescuer (for ripping them off of being seen as capable of handling their own lives, which although they seek the help, they hate you for it)...........so now you're a victim of the victim who is now the persecutor. (all that anger our kids have had towards us)

But, how would I be the persecutor? Oh Boy. She told me that in rescuing someone I was harming them by repeatedly taking care of what they needed to take care of and that in itself was a form of persecution, taking away what was rightfully theirs and presuming I could do it better. Yikes. I recall going home and being devastated because I never, ever saw the rescuer role as anything but good and positive. I never had before seen it as destructive, harmful and in fact, arrogant. It was very difficult for me to take all of that in and it was like a sucker punch which knocked me over because I always saw myself as being a really good guy who never hurt anyone.

She explained to me that in order to step out of that triangle, I had to own all three roles. It was hard because it interfered with my own self perception. When the true magnitude of my part in all of it made it through my own denial, I was utterly appalled and I broke down. It was very hard for me to see that in myself, however, once I did, just as she had promised, I was out of the triangle. Yikes. That was a big deal for me and I believe it began the process of being able to not only see my enabling patterns, but to stop them. It was all so tied in to how I viewed myself, that role I had, the one I felt so valued for. A paradox. Those inauthentic roles die hard, they are so tied to our fragile and wounded egos. For me, seeing how my rescuing was harmful to anyone was a devastating blow to that role I was in..................and thankfully, quite liberating at the very same time.

My own path through all of this stuff has undeniably been to recognize the part I played and how harmful that was to myself and to those I rescued............that was quite the process...........once I could see it, own it and feel it, I could let it go, heal myself and move out of it........

As the mother here, being the central figure in this drama, my belief is that in making these rather large changes, it changes the very atmosphere around me and those in that atmosphere are forced to change along with me............or leave that atmosphere. I don't know how invested my daughter is in her own inauthentic self, it may be that at 41 she is now pretty cemented in what that is. But, she cannot any longer play in that triangle with ME, so around, ME, she has to be different. How that translates in to her own existence, I don't know. And, I don't have the authority to step in to save her, (really, I never did) she has to do that on her own now. I have learned that I can only do that for myself...........

It's a lot to take in Cedar and I am impressed at your commitment to do just that............through all of the pain of breaking up the distorted perceptions from our childhoods, there is an expanded perception developing...........an opening..........I believe that new perception frees everyone..........

 

[recoveringenabler]

It just occurred to me Cedar, ...........your eyes are opened now..............keep looking around and really seeing.........that "cold grey reality" you mentioned is the worst part..................but it will pass..........hang in there..........you're doing great.........

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Thank you, Recovering. I feel fortunate that you are reading and commenting on my posts. It would totally suck to go through this on my own, and would take so much longer that I might never see my own patterns, at all.

On to the persecutor role.

I can see part of it, already. All of my wonderfulness, all of their badness in return. Labels, unspoken ones, unvoiced assumptions and beliefs being most harmful of all, maybe. I can see myself riding a certain kind of validation throughout; can even see the put upon, depressed martyr. That is probably why Scott G's post on not judging keeps repeating itself in my thoughts.

I can see the patterns reaching into areas not having to do with my kids. Not just perfectionism out of fear of not being enough, but of riding that wave of better than, smarter than, more than.

Cedar

 

[recoveringenabler]

Yeah, to look in the mirror and see ourselves truthfully takes some courage............and to also have compassion for the children within us that designed those roles to begin with...........we're just human, doing the best we can do.

I see those false facades in others and although I have compassion for the reasons we choose them, I have found now that I don't want to be around others whose masks for the world hide their true selves. As I have gotten healthier, it is easier for me to identify others roles. When it is out of their awareness, it becomes a real problem for me since negative stuff always leaks out of the masks..........the undeniable shame sneaks in and through judgement, criticism, holier then thou superiority and comparisons, harm is then done to ME. Seeing my own mask makes it easier to see others masks. As with your sister. Religious or spiritual superiority is a common theme among the 'masked characters'.........if you look closely, you can even see that superiority on their face, sort of looking down from that lofty place above you. Well, I must have had that same look on my face when I was busy rescuing others.............sigh............I'm so glad to live in the land of truth, without the masks, we can just BE.

Cedar, you're right, it would definitely suck to go through this alone. Observing your process validates my own and solidifies my own commitment to my path and seeing the truth. I admire your courage and tenacity and then I am able to see my own as well. It takes guts to go through this and take apart the persona we created to reveal the truth of who we are, warts and all. One has to gain some real ego strength in order to endeavor down that path..........but the good news is, then we can integrate the light and the dark of us...........and be whole. To own our dark side is the way to consciousness, health, wholeness and truth. What a ride, huh Cedar??

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

It takes guts to go through this and take apart the persona we created to reveal the truth of who we are

It does take guts, Recovering. I always feel like the bottom dropped out. Now, I am trying to celebrate those bottomless places where I flounder around, splashing and drawing attention to myself. It has always been next to impossible for me to feel I deserve assistance.

Interesting, to choose the bottomless places, now.

Fear so sucks.

:O)

So, I googled the Drama Triangle this morning, Recovering. I found excellent information. Interestingly enough, psychologically-based sites were more accusatory than helpful. But I found other sites which described the triangle as the guiding factor in all of our lives. The roles are interchangeable. The solution is to be aware, and not to play destructive games. I will list the better sites, for those reading along to explore.

www.executive coaching.be/Article_Triangle.Dramatique_En_1.htm


www.fortrefuge.com/Karpman-Drama-Triangle.php

holisitcworld.co.uk/your_say.php?article_id=77

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I was looking at the posting about opening our eyes being so difficult, Recovering. I remembered a dream I had so many years ago.

Actually, there have been two dreams about not being able to open my eyes, or to keep my eyes open.

During the time difficult child daughter began acting out, I dreamed husband was terribly sick. He was in the passenger seat, and I had to drive through the storm. But I could not keep my eyes open. I was doing it, but I could not stay awake. There was lots of shouting, lots of accusation about how it was I could not know where we were going, when I was the driver. Lots of lightning, incredible bolts of lightning ~ which was the only time I could see.

Thunder, everywhere. Trees crashing down.

Scary.

The meaning had to have something to do with my taking over, or stepping up, to help husband, who had not been able to keep us safe from the terrible things that were going on with difficult child daughter. We had a traditional marriage. husband worked, I did not. husband was Tarzan, I wasn't. As we have discussed, I stepped into that wife/mother role and persona to create a positive self-identity. So, this was the first indication that I was soon to change, and that everything was soon to change. Interestingly enough, one of the first images I dealt with in therapy had to do with shoes. Tenners, ballet slippers, sandals, bare feet. I realized the sandals I'd chosen were not mine. They were way too big. It turned out the sandals were my grandmother's size...and the meaning there was the persona I'd chosen, though I did not understand that, at first.

I only knew I preferred going barefoot.

I do, to this day.

So, that was actually a good dream.

:O)

Around that same time, maybe a little later, I dreamed I was in the back seat of my own car. My mother was driving. Her sister was in the passenger seat in the front. I was afraid to speak, or could not speak, but I was trying. I kept struggling to open my eyes. We went to a drive through for food. (I never, hardly ever, eat fast food of any kind.) I was to say what I wanted, when I didn't want any of it. In anger and celebration and triumph, my mother screamed, "Pepper!"

To this day? I have issues around driving ~ especially over large bodies of water.

I am going to do some work on that imagery.

I told a therapist once, when all this began with difficult child daughter and I didn't know what to do, that I felt like one of those water spiders, balancing, such a fragile balance, on the surface tension of the water. Know what he told me? Great imagery. Water spiders triumphantly exist in their own element. They are evolved and created to thrive in, on, or under, the water.

Dive in.

So I did.

And sure enough, I could breathe and function and move all around with incredible facility.

Water, breath, vision, movement.

Courage, to demand vision, after I'd gone to all that trouble of growing my eyelids closed.

I love this imagery, Recovering.

Very helpful, to me.

:O)

Cedar

More water imagery? Jaws. The movie I kept referring to.

Huh.

Would you like to share your dreams of awakening with me, Recovering?

We will both learn. I am feeling a little selfish, taking and taking from you.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

If there is anyone reading along who would like to, please share your journeys, too.

Cedar

The site is anonymous. There is so little need for shame, and so much opportunity for growth. It isn't so much about what the respondent says as it is about the growth that happens for us as we recognize and clarify and change our own thought patterns.

*******************

In a far land of witches and ogres
in a time of Princesses on strings
There would come, to those trapped on that Island
a staunch ally, from the Valley of Horses and Kings

On the Wind they would ride, the Princesses and the ally
through Fire and through Smoke
to the Land, far and fair

On white horses with reigns of
black satin
Seeded pearl ribbands
in their sun-scented hair

Draped in veils sewn of silk and
white cotton
Beneath which fly the colors of each Lady
fair

So they traveled
the ally and the Ladies
toward the Dawning
Through black, blasted lands wherein each Lady's past
had its lair.

So they traveled, the ally and the Ladies
princesses of dark, timeless lands without water or air
Toward a sunstruck aerie of white and cupolaed pavilions
at the behest of the ally, gone before them
on the back of a white and a spirited mare.

So they traveled, the ally and the Ladies
single file, to the land far and fair
On white horses with reigns of...black satin
seeded pearl ribbands in their sun-scented hair

So they traveled, the ally and the Ladies
spending the coin of those dark, timeless realms
Purchasing...courage
with coins minted in fear

Telling tales of old scars and of dark, unhealed wounds
that the Child within each might...appear.

******

I wrote this for and about our Family of Origins group therapy.

Reigns is spelled as it is, on purpose.

Cedar

 

[recoveringenabler]

I love your poetry Cedar, it is so visual and real...........our creativity is a healing salve for our Child within............. to appear..........and become whole. I imagine your poetry has been a soul saver, for you and for those fortunate enough to be a part of it............thank you so much for sharing it with us.

I believe that in many cultures horses are seen as power, there is a comforting symbolism in the ladies riding white horses...........white meaning purity............traveling over "black blasted lands"..........toward the dawning.........very nice Cedar..........just beautiful. Your words touch the child within me who shared a similar early fate.

Those dreams about you not being able to see are so powerful and you gleaned the messages they were showing you. Interesting that the picture of the eye being torn open was so meaningful to you...........I hesitated to include that picture because it really is so graphic............but it also seemed so true............and your willingness to "see" now is profound.

I've been thinking about dreams since you asked and although there are many, one comes to mind which eclipses all the others.....I think I shared this already...........I remember reading that certain Native American people believed that periodically we have what they called "big" dreams which depict ones life in a meaningful way. .............this dream is that for me..... On my 40th birthday I had a dream which had me in my grandmothers home finding a locked room which I found the key for. Once inside I discovered a closet which had red dresses hanging of the smallest size to a women's size. I instantly understood that that meant that women had been abused on both sides of my family for many generations and it was my job to stop it. I found my daughter and placed her on a table (she was about 9 in the dream, not her actual age) and I very carefully shined a light over her, which in the dream meant that I was cleansing her of the past family history. In real life I felt from an early age that my "job" was to stop the abuse. From 7th grade to now, that has been my primary commitment even though it wasn't always that clear to me.............it is now.

Like in your poem, I have had many a staunch ally, which fits my own belief system of "when the student is ready the teacher appears." I have been most fortunate with therapists, healers, friends, people who've shown up to help me and I believe wholeheartedly in being available to be OF support to others as I have been supported. There are MANY of us wounded children creating new lives for ourselves and ensuring that the children after us grow up healthy and loved and safe.

If we can open our eyes and see the truth, change our perceptions, heal our wounded inner child and change our responses to our own children so that they can see the truth of who they are, we will have, in my opinion, fulfilled our parental responsibility and at the same time, we free ourselves.

On New Years Eve, my daughter posted a FB message that said she wanted to mend her relationship with her daughter and her step daughters. That she missed them. I could be wrong, but it seemed like a small step in the right direction. She has never said anything like that before. That last email I sent her that I mentioned to you, said a lot about how much she has hurt her daughter and me. I believe her actions of the past have caught up with her and she is facing her truth..........and I'm sure it ain't pretty either. But for her or any of us, that is the only way out of our own darkness.........we have to walk through it to get out in to the light.

I also believe that if we have an intention, a commitment, no matter how challenging that is, if we hold on and maintain our commitment, we are given the tools, people, insight, help and information we require to make that intention happen. Like that quote by Goethe, one of my favorites............

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.”

I think that quote exemplifies the path I undertook at 12 years old, to heal myself so that the abuse stopped with me. I've worked very hard to untangle myself from the unhealthy ties with my family members, so now, all the responsibility for them is on them, no longer on me.........exactly where it all belongs. I believe we are now ALL free........

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

On my 40th birthday I had a dream which had me in my grandmothers home finding a locked room which I found the key for. Once inside I discovered a closet which had red dresses hanging of the smallest size to a women's size. I instantly understood that that meant that women had been abused on both sides of my family for many generations and it was my job to stop it. I found my daughter and placed her on a table (she was about 9 in the dream, not her actual age) and I very carefully shined a light over her, which in the dream meant that I was cleansing her of the past family history.



“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.”

Re: The Dream of the Red Dresses.

What was the key, Recovering? What did it look like, where was it hanging or hidden away?

How did you find it?

Was the hand with which you unlocked the door your adult hand, or your child hand? Or was it the hand of your grandmother?

*****

I love the quote. I believe it is true.

*******

In rereading the thread this morning, it occurs to me that the anger you have mentioned as part of your awakening Recovering, and that I am coping with as the most intense and remarkable constant in my own process, is come of fear for the vulnerable new aspects of self and legitimacy being rebirthed. Shut down as the horrifying result of whatever the incident of abuse entailed, we taught ourselves (or were taught, in the most graphic ways) that we had no right to self-define, to expect decency or respect or even, kindness. We are standing for and protecting ourselves now, Recovering. Probably facing down the internal abuser on all levels. No wonder we are short tempered, lately.

Well, I am, for sure.

The anger we feel is normal. It is so prickly sometimes that I don't even know what to make of myself.

Learning how to listen and accept and respond to it appropriately is our task. Our "practice", ala that Buddhist monk, if you will.

We are creating, now, safe places for these newly rebirthed aspects of self to take root, and to grow.

How cool is that?

Thank goodness. Though I am feeling better about things, this morning? I was beginning to wonder whether I was turning into a total biatch. Anger at things I have taken for granted for so long seems to be my go to response, these days!

Awakening...something to savor.

Like a pregnancy, or really spicy food. We can go through this part with our eyes open and our senses fully engaged, laughing and celebrating and being surprised and sometimes, horrified at our angers and times of darkness, or we can close our eyes and hang on until the ride slows and then, stops.

Either way, we are going, going, gone.

:O)

*********

Another dream, Recovering. This one recent. I have shared it, before.

Flying through the night SO FAST. Landing, so hard.

I lived. I was fine. I got to where I needed to be before the sun rose.

*******************

Red dresses, baby to adult size, kept in a matriarch's closet....

Interesting that so much of what I do has to do with wind and water and yours, with passionate color.

Fire, then.

Cedar

 

[recoveringenabler]

I thought of you Cedar.........

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

You know the meaning of Namaste, Recovering?

Namaste, Recovering.

From my heart, my being, my awakening, strengthening self, to yours, Recovering.

And like always, in all times and everywhere...the leave-taking is what the banquet was all about. Stronger, more centered.

Well nourished, Recovering.

Namaste.

Cedar

Have you had the opportunity to read Charles Williams Descent Into Hell, yet? It revolves around the central mystery of Christendom, about the capacity to give, and to receive, strength, about carrying the other's burden so easily, because the burning shame of personal resentment does not exist, for the one who chooses to hold the burden for someone else.

It's called: The Doctrine of Substituted Love, in the book.

Here is a quote I love, too. Not from this book, but relevant, here.

"I will this morning climb up in spirit to the high places, bearing with me the hopes and miseries of my mother; and there...upon all that in the world of human flesh is now about to be born or to die beneath the rising sun, I will call down the Fire."

Pierre Tielhard de Chardin

I don't know which book that was. Hymn to the Universe, maybe?

Interesting to note that the Fire is love...and that the dresses in your dream are red.

Passionate, fiery red.

Like fire.

Like love.

*********************

Let's see if I can find that quote. It's beautifully written. In the story too, is a person who chooses not to see. Lilith is there, too. An altogether beautiful book.

My favorite book, my favorite writer.

Found it.

"The body of his flesh received her alien terror, his mind carried the burden of her world. The burden was inevitably lighter for him than for her, for the rage of a personal resentment was lacking. He endured her sensitiveness, but not her sin; the substitution there, if indeed there is a substitution, is hidden in the central mystery of Christendom which Christendom itself has never understood, nor can."

The story, which I am sure I have related at some point on our journey, reveals that, freed of her fear, the heroine goes on to meet the buried parts of herself ~ which turn out to be the color and passion and courage she had always found just out of her reach. It turns out that the fear she was carrying was intergenerational. The fear she had been holding was fear taken from an ancestor praying for relief from the fear he felt as he awaited being burnt at the stake for heresy. In the book, she steps up through time, and directs her ancestor to give the fear to her. He does. He dies in a blaze of glory, unafraid.

*****************

"I looked and tried to see each face, not to fail each face, to meet the warmth of each face, when the song was done, not ever to slip back into pain and shyness and cringing as if my past was my shell and I a snail too weak for this ascent, too bound to the old track of ugliness, too full of self-loathing."

Anne Rice

******
For all the world's woundedness...an infinite compassion. Not anger, and not retaliation.

?Etty Hilesum?
An Interrupted Life

*********************

...and between our eyes and hands and mouths there now flows a constant stream of tenderness; a stream in which all petty desires seem to have been extinguished. All that matters now is to be kind to one another with all the goodness that is in us.

And every encounter is also a farewell.

Etty Hilesum
An Interrupted Life

********

The highest function of love is that it makes the loved one a unique and irreplaceable being.

T. Robbins
Literary Encyclopedia of the Atomic Age

:O)

 

[recoveringenabler]

I so enjoyed reading all the quotes.......

Namaste Cedar. I read once that one meaning for Namaste is 'the God in me celebrates/honors/sees the God in you.' Right back at ya Cedar!

SO and I are off on our weekly "date" to go explore, hike, drive, eat, whatever shows up............

I'll be pondering what you've written as the day progresses and check in later............

Enjoy your day Cedar...........have fun out there!

 

[recoveringenabler]

Actually Cedar, I don't recall the details of the red dresses dream anymore to be able to answer your questions. I recall you mentioning the meaning of the color red the last time I shared that dream..........I always forget that part and concentrate on the shock I felt in the knowing and the determination I felt in the making sure my daughter would not be harmed...............the red.........the passion........the vitality, life, life force, all hidden in the closet from way back when .........................and I experienced the females in my family as being removed, lifeless in some ways, void of feelings, empathy, connection......LIFE..........now that I feel I am beyond the destiny of not allowing the abuse to go through me.............I can see how the color, the passion, the vital force of life was hidden in the females.............closeted.........

I think those dresses are seeing the light of day now.............

Something Brene Brown said in reference to when we push down our fears, our hurts, our pain..........we also push down our joy and aliveness............our life force suffers in the blanket of denial thrown over the fire..............somehow I feel I am released from that dream now.............released back out in to the universe to play with my own fire.........

That anger you speak of needs to find it's expression ......appropriate anger I think happens when someone crosses a line we've drawn..............as a child, one can't respond to parents who've crossed boundaries in any kind of healthy appropriate way.................... and as a wise person once told me, 'the body doesn't forget'..................those feelings are stored in there somewhere...............that's how I interpreted my own anger from the last year...........hard to go through and feel but once felt, it's gone. It erupted and was gone. As many have said, we adults are designed to be able to express as freely as babies, each moment new and our expression of any feeling simply presents itself and is complete, rather then the cultural agreement to CONTROL our feelings and present ourselves as something different. Quite vulnerable to be honest in our emotional responses...........fear, anger, love, intimacy........positive and negative...........all are often repressed. Certainly that was true in my family of origin...............a legacy I "practice" everyday to move beyond.

I feel somehow "caught up" now. Well maybe living in the NOW is the next step........no ruminating about the past or preparing or worrying about the future..............right here in the present moment........

Well, some of my own symbolism has had to do with water too........feelings I believe. I am also always drawn to tropical places or the ocean. SO and I went to the ocean today, as we do almost every week, it's a ritual now. In a way I feel that I've ridden those 'feeling' waves to shore now and at this point in my life (and perhaps yours too) it feels important to unify the elements within, emotional (water), mental (air), physical (earth) and spiritual (fire).

I am reading Anne Lamott's Stitches and Pema Chodron's Comfortable with Uncertainty right now.............here's a wonderful quote for you Cedar (by Pema Chodron)........"What everyone on this path shares is the inspiration to rest in uncertainty---cheerfully. The root of suffering is resisting the certainty that no matter what the circumstances, uncertainty is all we truly have. What we call uncertainty is actually the open quality of any given moment. When we can be present for this openness--as it is always present for us--we discover that our capacity to love and care for others is limitless."

Well, that's the opposite of enabling for sure!!!

I love the "cheerfully" part............made me laugh out loud when I read it, because cheerfully is rarely how any of us approach uncertainty..............so this is my new guiding principal.............(smile)............my "practice"...............to be cheerful in the face of uncertainty..............to live in the present moment.............to open to that limitless capacity to love.................

I just recently had a dream where I was in the home I had when my daughter was growing up.............it is in the woods, rather remote.............in it I had promised the people who live there now that I would stay there and house-sit yet one of the doors had a broken door knob which meant staying there would not be safe. Two women friends approached on a motorcycle but ignored my requests to just drive me to town to get a doorknob so I could stay, keep my word and not be afraid. They left. As I was trying to "figure it out" (a favored position for my active mind................ and even the dilemma, being responsible for something or someone else versus making sure I have my needs met and that I'm safe) SO walks in, as easy and smooth as he usually is and says, "I have a door knob." I was instantly profoundly relieved. I woke up smiling.

It all worked out. I didn't have to DO anything..........

That's the kind of dream I'm having now...........they feel more like a completion and tying things up............. reconciliation..........

Cedar, just in these last couple of weeks things seem to be smoothing out...........so many of the rough edges of detachment which can snag you when you least expect it............have become benign............for awhile there I felt like I had climbed Mt. Everest without oxygen, but seems I have descended the mountain and arrived at base camp............I think I'll take a moment and rest on this summit.................I think one travels pretty light from this point on...................

 

[recoveringenabler]

Thinking about you Cedar.............how is it going with your daughter? Sending caring thoughts..........

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

"What everyone on this path shares is the inspiration to rest in uncertainty---cheerfully. The root of suffering is resisting the certainty that no matter what the circumstances, uncertainty is all we truly have. What we call uncertainty is actually the open quality of any given moment. When we can be present for this openness--as it is always present for us--we discover that our capacity to love and care for others is limitless."

It all worked out. I didn't have to DO anything..........

Interesting that you dreamed it all worked out, and that there was nothing you had to do. That understanding ~ that there was nothing I had to do ~ has been a paramount value through this process for me, too. Sitting with the feelings, riding the uncomfortable edge of day to day events, pushing the boundaries of my comfort zone. Nothing I need to do, nothing I need to watch for or be aware of and all at once, I am more open, more aware, of what is happening in the moment.

I think we are rewiring the limbic system, Recovering.

****************

I agree things get clearer, things seem lighter, and probably, we function differently altogether as we recover access our full selves. I mean, think of the incredible difference between the reality of the so-determined to be good, constructed self, and the breathing openness of now.

We could never have envisioned this reality from the hard places where we were formed, Recovering. We have been fortunate.

:O)

Cedar