Like me, and like Serenity too Copa, you were hard wired from the beginning to meet the challenges that come to all of us. You can do this. There is no need for anger; there is nothing to fear. Fear is the mind-killer, as nerfherder and Frank Herbert remind us. A decision has been made; action has been taken.
You are healing.
And we are moving quickly, now.
Bless him and let go, Copa. It helped me to repeat: "
Pray for their peace, and therein, find our own."
Peace, Copa.
Determined intent to heal.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
I think he sees his role as speaking for what is reality. Like trying to tell me how impaired my son is. Even though he does not know him.
Here is the thing, Copa: He knows only what you tell him. From what you tell him, he constructs your reality and gives it back essentially unchanged.
That's the problem I have with the way he is doing what he is doing. There are a thousand ways to see all things, from the beauty and comfort in a cloudy day to the scent of fresh coffee. Some of us detest cloudy days. That is because of what we tell ourselves about cloudy days. Some of us love the scent of fresh coffee. Some of us detest the smell of coffee. Again, we think as we do because of what that scent, or those clouds, awaken in us; it's a habit, to think as we do, Copa.
It has nothing to do with actual coffee, or with the weather on any given day.
It has everything to do with how we think about coffee, and about cloudy days.
Those we trust to help us see differently will not effectively help us if they are focused on how we already see. Those who help us effectively will be those who can travel with us as we learn that we are the ones defining our realities.
When we can do that, when we can know that one, simple thing ~ everything, every smallest thing, changes.
We are present. We begin to see through our own eyes and never again do we consent to see ourselves through the eyes of our abusers. This is hard work. We know what we need to heal. Other methods of healing are not working, so we stop doing that.
This person has not been able to help you to see through your own eyes, Copa.
Nothing to do with him. He may be a fine man. But he is only human, like everyone, here.
You did the right thing I think, Copa.
***
Here is another way to see:
The core issue of our abuse is that we were hurt into believing someone else knew everthing better than we did. The right to self-definition was beat out of us, physically or metaphorically. That is what we are reclaiming, now.
The right to define ourselves. The right to trust that life is a crapshoot sometimes, and that good and bad things happen to us all.
We are damaged; not defective.
Like everyone does, we will make good choices and bad choices. Trusting ourselves means we are okay with that. That's all it means. That we are flexible, open; that we are not afraid to rest in the moment, fully present to it.
What trusting ourselves does not mean is that we will feel confident with our choices.
We are learning to think for ourselves, now. That's a little scary, because we were brought up never, ever to do that.
But here's the thing: We know the difference between love and hatred. So, we know how to guide ourselves, then.
It will be scary. We have been hurt into believing we are inept. We have been taught Copa, that we cannot trust ourselves to define our own realities. But just look what they taught us, instead! And just look who we are discovering our teachers to have been.
Mean. Really mean people.
Huh.
We did not know that important thing.
So, this is a legitimate quest we have undertaken, here. We are coming through it beautifully.
We are very brave. The scariest part was the beginning. We did not know then, whether we would be retraumatizing ourselves or healing.
We are healing.
You did the right thing, Copa.
It will only be scary for a little while.
The psychiatrist? Was like the mother chicken that little dragon imprinted on. And all that stupid chicken could see was that the dragon that came out of that egg that was so different to start with ~ that big, shining from within, rainbow colored egg ~ just kept not being a good chicken.
And the beautiful, snowy white chicken whispered and whispered into the little dragon's ear all the ways she was not a good chicken.
And that's how the little dragon grew up. And her feathers never did come in, and she felt so badly that she had beautiful iridescent scales, and she never once knew they were beautiful, and were meant to protect her, when she breathed fire.
Which she also did.
And puffs of smoke, that the little dragon tried so hard to hide.
So, the beautiful dragon, the fire in her heart a reflection of the roaring spirit within (that she also felt so terribly embarrassed about) began to soar, as dragons are meant to do. The beautifully fierce dragon felt so wrong, felt so badly that the beautiful, snowy white mother was not happy with her.
The little dragon just felt so...green.
Like Kermit, in a way.
And it was not easy for her to be green, either.
She may have spent some time believing that the problem here was that she had been a frog all along, and not a chicken, at all.
Frogs are green; she was green, too.
No matter how she tried to hide her dragonhood away, she would soar; she would breathe living fire; she would expel little puffs of smoke at the most inopportune times.
So. Not a frog either, then.
So when she grew up, the confused dragon found someone to help her become a better chicken. And what her helping professional, shielding his eyes from the flashing iridescence of the dragon's shining scales, told the beautiful dragon was that he would help her figure out how to be a better chicken. Which is, to be fair to the helping professional, what she had asked him to do.
So, they discussed and discussed, all the reasons the dragon was defective; all the reasons why she was not, after all, a good enough chicken.
And neither the dragon nor the helping professional could figure out why it wasn't working.
So, both blamed it on the dragon.
***
Unless they are God (or my new mom, Ben Carson :O) Copa, psychiatrists are just human beings too, like everyone here. He can never teach you how to be that chicken, Copa.
You are a dragon.
That's the problem here.
No one ever taught you dragons are beautiful. But more importantly, no one taught you that, unless the dragon believes in herself as she is, she will spend all the precious time of her life mourning the very true fact that she finds the chicken reality constraining; that in fact, this whole chicken business just isn't working for her.
One of the secrets the dragon harbors has to do with roosters.
Their feathers are iridescent too, like the dragon's own scales. So, once she figured out she wasn't a frog after all, the dragon thought those fierce, pretty roosters might be able to help her figure out how to be a better chicken.
All they could teach the beautiful young dragon was what they knew: she was not a rooster.
What they could not know, the roosters, is that not only was the dragon not a rooster...she was not even a chicken.
She was a dragon.
Knowing two things for sure by the time she was grown (that though she was green, she was not a frog, and that, though she was iridescent, she was not a rooster, either...the young dragon concluded she did not know who the Hell she was and sought out a second helping professional.
Another rooster.
***
Regarding your son, Copa? Whether he is or is not impaired, the issue here is how to guide son to the rich center of his own life.
That is the issue.
Your son is working. He is learning how to be responsible to his life. Son is doing well, for today. If something that is not good happens, you will be there. We cannot keep seeing them in the ways we did when they were little boys. They are men. They need us to let them be dragons, too.
***
Copa, I think Julia Cameron's
The Artist's Way at Work will be beneficial as you come through and reclaim this layer of self. Every chapter speaks to the dragon's learning and terror and triumph as she rises from the fog of unknowing and into self definition. There are nine dragons; nine stages of transformation, every one of them requiring determination and courage, every level scarier and more dangerous than the last.
I love this book, for us. For me, and for Serenity, too. Maybe, we should each get a copy and go through it here together, linking the dragon's challenges and risings to events in our own lives as we go forward with our own transformations.
What do you think about that, Serenity and IC and nerfherder and anyone reading along?
If you haven't read Shogun, I suggest that as well. The concepts of duty and strength, of bravery and personal pride are at the heart of this book. Of the spiritual steel that results in the beauty of a shining, perfectly balanced sword.
You are meant to claim your strength, Copa. So are Serenity and I. Strength, kindness, honor; the wonder of believing love is a real thing, and of the power in it.
Those are the things that were taken from us.
Images of bravery.
That is the imagery we need, to heal, Copa.
And the Rocky imagery, and the imagery of Joe Friday, because this really is a hard thing we are doing. And the Wizard of Oz imagery, because the witch's castle is scary, and all we have to do this thing are ourselves and each other.
But we are doing good work, and we are coming through it so well.
Cedar
