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Work and Germany Part II: Abandonment Recovery
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<blockquote data-quote="Scent of Cedar *" data-source="post: 673975" data-attributes="member: 17461"><p>The discussion yesterday was: Love, and what that is. </p><p></p><p>Faith, I think. More than anything, faith. Faith is what enables us to touch our belief that there is more; that life itself is inherently abundantly generous. To believe it so much that more comes into being, just as we knew the potential for it all along through our faith in it. </p><p></p><p>A circle.</p><p></p><p>More strength, more happy, funny stories and good will, more kindness, more generosity. More food, more money, more time simply by wishing to be present to the time we are in, and to be so happy, to feel so successful, for the food and the money we do have, already.</p><p></p><p>Abused or ignored or worse as little girls or little boys, we will not have seen faith modeled, when we were children. Not where we are concerned, we will not. Probably, our people could not believe in or model faith for themselves either, maybe. That is a piece of why we cannot hold faith with ourselves, now.</p><p></p><p>But it's out there, right here.</p><p></p><p>It will be an act of rebellion then ~ it will feel like that ~ for us to cherish ourselves with generous spirits. It will feel wrong. Resentment will come, over what we do not have <em>because we bargained with that natural, life affirming joy, with that energy abundant in all newly born things, to control our abusers, to limit the chaos and fear of our environments by condemning ourselves before they did.</em></p><p></p><p>In defiance, we made sure there was no vulnerability; nothing we could not stand to lose.</p><p><em></em></p><p> <em></em>I watched that process happen, last night. I could feel it coming, and I could watch the process of change in my thinking and in the feeling state brought into being through my thinking <em>but not through my will </em>from bright and generous to dark and twisted and miserly.</p><p></p><p>Now, why would I do that?</p><p></p><p>That is why I say the secret to loving ourselves is faith that we merit generous, limitless loving.</p><p></p><p>This will be hard for us to believe. It involves letting go, letting in, opening as with a series of relaxing emotional muscles...and then, it is a as though a chill wind, a dark cloud. We can love and wish those good things for someone else, but not ourselves.</p><p></p><p>That is how it was, last night.</p><p></p><p>From generous and sunshine to ~ I don't know. Like, fence posts and barbed wire and I belonged over there or something awful would happen ~ some terribly destructive storm.</p><p></p><p>So I think that is the nature of the bargain that we made as children, and that we make now, out of habit. I think we do this, in part, because when, finding redemption in loving our children, we let our guard down (Copa's Sleeping Beauty kiss) and began believing in ourselves and our children and our lives, we began to stop choosing to hate ourselves, to make ourselves choose the fence and the barbed wire.</p><p></p><p>And sure as all the Hells that ever were, very, very bad things happened, and are happening now.</p><p></p><p>So, we have gone back to bargaining with our happiness, with our way we allow ourselves to see ourselves in our lives. We are wishing on a dark star when the Sun is right there, but we have to give ourselves permission to choose it and we can't out of fear of what we will lose.</p><p></p><p>That is a round about way of saying: Have nothing to protect. </p><p></p><p>We are the ones telling ourselves not to be happily in generous, trusting love with ourselves and our lives and our children. We may have done those same things with toys we especially loved as children, pretending they meant less to us than they did, to protect them from the attention of the abuser.</p><p></p><p>And feeling guilty for that.</p><p></p><p>Guilty enough to be safe from the abuser.</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>That is the secret of loving ourselves. I think this is true. It isn't about telling ourselves we are fine as we are and sort of pitching battle lines around our interpretations of self. It is like what happened to me last night when I awakened happily thinking about my mother and let it turn into resentment ~ or, more tellingly, given the way I am thinking about loving ourselves and happiness this morning, watched it turn into resentment through a series of incremental choices I was making to keep myself simmering at a lower level of happy than acceptance and generosity allowed.</p><p></p><p>Resentment is such an ugly feeling state. I wondered how it happened that I sabotaged my happiness reworking those feelings of resentment instead of trusting that what is happening now is just beautifully what it is.</p><p></p><p>Why was I punishing myself for something over which I have zero control?</p><p></p><p>And waking myself up in the middle of the night to do it?</p><p></p><p>That is where faith comes in. Faith in ourselves, in our worthiness to be loved by ourselves in a generous way ~ to bless ourselves in doing so instead of seeing even our own hearts through the eyes of those who were cruel to us.</p><p></p><p>We need to stop being cruel to ourselves.</p><p></p><p>We are being cruel, and that hurts us and we should stop doing that.</p><p></p><p>But I could not stop choosing that uglier interpretation of my reality last night.</p><p></p><p>Resentment and ugliness were my choices. But why?</p><p></p><p>I have been trying to stay conscious of those places where I punish myself like that. <em>There are literally ten thousand thought traces happening on every level of self in which we allow, or disallow, generosity or faith toward ourselves. </em>There is an internal dialogue happening that works like a thermostat, I think. What level of self is safe; what can I afford to lose and keep living. This has to do with trust, and with why for us, to trust is a choice with limits having to do with how much we can afford to risk and survive the loss of it.</p><p></p><p>So, those are the kinds of thoughts I have been observing, today. I am not changing them, just watching, just aware of them and wondering why I prefer that state of resentment to generous faith.</p><p></p><p>Those are good questions.</p><p></p><p>Cedar</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Scent of Cedar *, post: 673975, member: 17461"] The discussion yesterday was: Love, and what that is. Faith, I think. More than anything, faith. Faith is what enables us to touch our belief that there is more; that life itself is inherently abundantly generous. To believe it so much that more comes into being, just as we knew the potential for it all along through our faith in it. A circle. More strength, more happy, funny stories and good will, more kindness, more generosity. More food, more money, more time simply by wishing to be present to the time we are in, and to be so happy, to feel so successful, for the food and the money we do have, already. Abused or ignored or worse as little girls or little boys, we will not have seen faith modeled, when we were children. Not where we are concerned, we will not. Probably, our people could not believe in or model faith for themselves either, maybe. That is a piece of why we cannot hold faith with ourselves, now. But it's out there, right here. It will be an act of rebellion then ~ it will feel like that ~ for us to cherish ourselves with generous spirits. It will feel wrong. Resentment will come, over what we do not have [I]because we bargained with that natural, life affirming joy, with that energy abundant in all newly born things, to control our abusers, to limit the chaos and fear of our environments by condemning ourselves before they did.[/I] In defiance, we made sure there was no vulnerability; nothing we could not stand to lose. [I] [/I]I watched that process happen, last night. I could feel it coming, and I could watch the process of change in my thinking and in the feeling state brought into being through my thinking [I]but not through my will [/I]from bright and generous to dark and twisted and miserly. Now, why would I do that? That is why I say the secret to loving ourselves is faith that we merit generous, limitless loving. This will be hard for us to believe. It involves letting go, letting in, opening as with a series of relaxing emotional muscles...and then, it is a as though a chill wind, a dark cloud. We can love and wish those good things for someone else, but not ourselves. That is how it was, last night. From generous and sunshine to ~ I don't know. Like, fence posts and barbed wire and I belonged over there or something awful would happen ~ some terribly destructive storm. So I think that is the nature of the bargain that we made as children, and that we make now, out of habit. I think we do this, in part, because when, finding redemption in loving our children, we let our guard down (Copa's Sleeping Beauty kiss) and began believing in ourselves and our children and our lives, we began to stop choosing to hate ourselves, to make ourselves choose the fence and the barbed wire. And sure as all the Hells that ever were, very, very bad things happened, and are happening now. So, we have gone back to bargaining with our happiness, with our way we allow ourselves to see ourselves in our lives. We are wishing on a dark star when the Sun is right there, but we have to give ourselves permission to choose it and we can't out of fear of what we will lose. That is a round about way of saying: Have nothing to protect. We are the ones telling ourselves not to be happily in generous, trusting love with ourselves and our lives and our children. We may have done those same things with toys we especially loved as children, pretending they meant less to us than they did, to protect them from the attention of the abuser. And feeling guilty for that. Guilty enough to be safe from the abuser. *** That is the secret of loving ourselves. I think this is true. It isn't about telling ourselves we are fine as we are and sort of pitching battle lines around our interpretations of self. It is like what happened to me last night when I awakened happily thinking about my mother and let it turn into resentment ~ or, more tellingly, given the way I am thinking about loving ourselves and happiness this morning, watched it turn into resentment through a series of incremental choices I was making to keep myself simmering at a lower level of happy than acceptance and generosity allowed. Resentment is such an ugly feeling state. I wondered how it happened that I sabotaged my happiness reworking those feelings of resentment instead of trusting that what is happening now is just beautifully what it is. Why was I punishing myself for something over which I have zero control? And waking myself up in the middle of the night to do it? That is where faith comes in. Faith in ourselves, in our worthiness to be loved by ourselves in a generous way ~ to bless ourselves in doing so instead of seeing even our own hearts through the eyes of those who were cruel to us. We need to stop being cruel to ourselves. We are being cruel, and that hurts us and we should stop doing that. But I could not stop choosing that uglier interpretation of my reality last night. Resentment and ugliness were my choices. But why? I have been trying to stay conscious of those places where I punish myself like that. [I]There are literally ten thousand thought traces happening on every level of self in which we allow, or disallow, generosity or faith toward ourselves. [/I]There is an internal dialogue happening that works like a thermostat, I think. What level of self is safe; what can I afford to lose and keep living. This has to do with trust, and with why for us, to trust is a choice with limits having to do with how much we can afford to risk and survive the loss of it. So, those are the kinds of thoughts I have been observing, today. I am not changing them, just watching, just aware of them and wondering why I prefer that state of resentment to generous faith. Those are good questions. Cedar [/QUOTE]
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