Hi -
I am new..and have been reading some amazing posts and responses..its refeshing to read really intelligent expression as opposed to a lot of the new age fluff that is around.
I'm tentatively putting this out there to see what comes back...I feel a mess
I think I'm coming out of a period of denial and that has been triggered by having to admit overspending habits to my partner. Reading a post about anger and that been the main emotion associated with such issues, I am also wondering if my 'anti-socialness' is more than it appears to be. I dont like anything other than a one to one, and generally prefer my own company - I'm terrified of situations such as a gathering of people who are not my nearest and dearest. I avoid parties like the plague, and dread anything my partner is invited to. My self-esteem is fragile I know - and I have big trust issues.
Depression is a regular visitor, and the latest round was post natal - it was so all pervading I resorted to medication - interestingly the overpsending has increased since becoming a mother. Generally -(this is hard to admit...)I have found it hard being a mum, mainly because of the huge new load of emotions/demands it brings. I love my child unconditionally - but in my rose tinted ideals I never imagined it would be so emotionally and physically demanding (call me naive!).
My journey of self help has covered about 14 yrs - beginning with an attempted overdose at 19, I began my introspection and healing process with various forms ..counselling, psychotherapy all adds up to about 7 years or more, mixed in with books and nutrition and some transformational workshops to boot.
And here I am! I completed my last course of therapy a few months back. It felt right, and my fella and me have couples therapy (woody allen eat yer heart out) so that seems a natural progression as most 'issues' present withing the relationship.
Well, my point is I thought I'd resolved a lot, and I believe that to be true, however, I have been doing some visualisation and meditation lately, particualrly around finance. Interestingly I dont think this present reality check is any coincidence. Someone here made a fantastic point about not trying to affirm positive feelings which are false,(ie;pretending to feel great about your bum when you hate it only causes further inner conflict)I realise this to be true. However, i do find it fascinating that by practising affirmation techniques, it appears that my subconcious is processing it bt chucking out some heavy garbage which is thwarting progress ie: suddenly being confronted by financial issues is one thing I am being forced to confront. Another link in the chain has led me here to be reminded of ANGER.
ANGER the enigma - positive or destructive a two faced energy. Thought I'd grasped this one. My partner (love of my life) has prized it out of me..he just doesnt do passive aggressive, so I have had to express my anger positviely (still work in prgress).
And - in the last few months the latest is all my anger and hatred has become focused on my so called father. Funny - that throughout therapy I held him in the shadows, not really addressing how much pain he has caused. Now I hate him, right now I am block up like a bad drain. Something deep down tells me (my partner does too) that to move on I need to resolve this humdinger. I surrender - tried to control, withdraw, discuss, forgive, accept , confront - and it hasnt worked. So I'm 'letting go', because I really am stuck and dont know what to do.
I'm furious, and raging that negative patterns are still bubbling away under the surface, and its all work work work on my part...will it ever end, and how the hell does one resolve a relationship with their parents who repeatedly hurt and disappoint, and continue to keeps the wounds open throughout adulthood. Is life different for others? Is this the result of a certain mindset, physiology, karma - is death the only light.
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anger..how do I move on
#2 Guest_Guest_Trying_*
Posted 24 July 2005 - 12:08 PM
Hello there,
I'd been posting in the anger thread that I think you are referring to, as it has been a big thing in my life at the moment. I don't think anger is either positive or destructive - it just is. But our feelings about it create the tension, the conflict and the problems, and affect whether becomes constructive or not.
Of late my anger has become more apparent to me as I feel it more intensely, but the interesting thing - and something I'm very thankful I happened to notice - is that other people's behaviour wasn't the catalyst for these new intense feelings, but rather my latest understanding of my problems. The people in my life haven't changed, but I have in my conduct towards them. It seems that I react less in response to my environment, and more in response to what I have recently learnt about emotional behaviour, and in an instant believe I should be doing. If I have read I need to get more in touch with my anger, that is what I become determined to do.
What I see so clearly now is that I have created every single feeling. I permantantly act as though the problem is out there, hoping my anger will change what I see, but fail to see that I am writing the drama of this play which each step I take.
I have all the classic signs of someone who is a codependant. I am refusing to look at myself and the relationship I have with myself (my therapist continually points out that I talk in terms of others rather than myself). Forgive me for not relating or responding more personaly to your own post, but I was wondering if you can identify with the feelings? It sounds as though you are into healing work and personal growth in a big way, which can also be a sign of looking for something outside of ourselves (I'm sure plenty of people would disagree with me).
What we feel about others always says more about ourselves. Anger is no exception. Of course, the feelings are routed in past hurt, but it is we who carry around that hurt, and we live day by day as though we are waiting for someone to remove that hurt - a friend, a doctor, even a therapist. But that is not there job, they are there to help us see that it is our job.
Here's a great book:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0...3670642-3989214
Best wishes
I'd been posting in the anger thread that I think you are referring to, as it has been a big thing in my life at the moment. I don't think anger is either positive or destructive - it just is. But our feelings about it create the tension, the conflict and the problems, and affect whether becomes constructive or not.
Of late my anger has become more apparent to me as I feel it more intensely, but the interesting thing - and something I'm very thankful I happened to notice - is that other people's behaviour wasn't the catalyst for these new intense feelings, but rather my latest understanding of my problems. The people in my life haven't changed, but I have in my conduct towards them. It seems that I react less in response to my environment, and more in response to what I have recently learnt about emotional behaviour, and in an instant believe I should be doing. If I have read I need to get more in touch with my anger, that is what I become determined to do.
What I see so clearly now is that I have created every single feeling. I permantantly act as though the problem is out there, hoping my anger will change what I see, but fail to see that I am writing the drama of this play which each step I take.
I have all the classic signs of someone who is a codependant. I am refusing to look at myself and the relationship I have with myself (my therapist continually points out that I talk in terms of others rather than myself). Forgive me for not relating or responding more personaly to your own post, but I was wondering if you can identify with the feelings? It sounds as though you are into healing work and personal growth in a big way, which can also be a sign of looking for something outside of ourselves (I'm sure plenty of people would disagree with me).
What we feel about others always says more about ourselves. Anger is no exception. Of course, the feelings are routed in past hurt, but it is we who carry around that hurt, and we live day by day as though we are waiting for someone to remove that hurt - a friend, a doctor, even a therapist. But that is not there job, they are there to help us see that it is our job.
Here's a great book:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0...3670642-3989214
Best wishes
#3 Guest_honesty rocks_*
Posted 24 July 2005 - 10:39 PM
Hi trying...
I appreciate your response, I totally get your wise words. Forgive me for sounding arrogant, but I am familiar with what you are saying...co-dependency and projecting feelings onto outer experiences and people/relationships. I feel world weary though, I've learned a lot, and have had periods of 'enlightened' being, where it all seems clear and I feel I can bear witness to my mind and just be with it all - I have had emmensely clear periods where I have had inner peace which has been reflected by my outer perception. Its hard not to become attatched to any particular way of being, and just as black cloud passes so does a clear spell.It feeds my sense of disappoinment that one has to practice being clear even though I'm led to believe it is inherent! Ugh I'm so miserable.
It takes something profound to occur to initiate an inner shift, and often when its happened to me its so subtle I cant exactly articulate the change in itself.
The trouble I am having now is that I have hit a wall, and feel regression in that a lot of old stuff is re-appearing post therapy. My life is now such that I neither have the time nor inclination for introspection - meditation, nutrition and therapeutic excercise are key to my daily routine. I agree with you - there is no-one to fix us or our problems, but I am lost for direction and these people are meant to help us gain insight to help ourselves are they not? I think books tend to oversimplify rather complex issues - 'co-dependency' could be another blanket term to latch on to without any valid personal evaluation - labels just box us in, and help others to identify, but generally I find labels a bit clinically convenient and vacuous.
I'm struggling in the here and now, to process my inner stuff, fighting off a depression, I am again realising that habits such as shopping which I thought of as a reward to myself has actually become another addiction and escape from self-acceptance. I loathe myself, physically and emotionally most of the time..and my inner voice is harsh and punitive, paranoid and distrustful, sabotaging my evolution. I crave a blank diary with no reponsibility and no pressure to resolve my problems, completely insane I know..its that claustrophobia of never having enough space to process stuff, or not. I feel no resonance during mediation, and am blocked somewhere I'm sure.
I just envy people who can just get on with it - denial drives me crazy, yet living in the truth is so hard, and to even do that one has to clear up a lifetime of inner debris, facing oneself is tough. distinguishing between our inner and outer worlds is near impossible - how can we live in acceptance when we are force fed desire daily in our consumerist society. My mind drives me mad.
Apologies for being so dreary
I appreciate your response, I totally get your wise words. Forgive me for sounding arrogant, but I am familiar with what you are saying...co-dependency and projecting feelings onto outer experiences and people/relationships. I feel world weary though, I've learned a lot, and have had periods of 'enlightened' being, where it all seems clear and I feel I can bear witness to my mind and just be with it all - I have had emmensely clear periods where I have had inner peace which has been reflected by my outer perception. Its hard not to become attatched to any particular way of being, and just as black cloud passes so does a clear spell.It feeds my sense of disappoinment that one has to practice being clear even though I'm led to believe it is inherent! Ugh I'm so miserable.
It takes something profound to occur to initiate an inner shift, and often when its happened to me its so subtle I cant exactly articulate the change in itself.
The trouble I am having now is that I have hit a wall, and feel regression in that a lot of old stuff is re-appearing post therapy. My life is now such that I neither have the time nor inclination for introspection - meditation, nutrition and therapeutic excercise are key to my daily routine. I agree with you - there is no-one to fix us or our problems, but I am lost for direction and these people are meant to help us gain insight to help ourselves are they not? I think books tend to oversimplify rather complex issues - 'co-dependency' could be another blanket term to latch on to without any valid personal evaluation - labels just box us in, and help others to identify, but generally I find labels a bit clinically convenient and vacuous.
I'm struggling in the here and now, to process my inner stuff, fighting off a depression, I am again realising that habits such as shopping which I thought of as a reward to myself has actually become another addiction and escape from self-acceptance. I loathe myself, physically and emotionally most of the time..and my inner voice is harsh and punitive, paranoid and distrustful, sabotaging my evolution. I crave a blank diary with no reponsibility and no pressure to resolve my problems, completely insane I know..its that claustrophobia of never having enough space to process stuff, or not. I feel no resonance during mediation, and am blocked somewhere I'm sure.
I just envy people who can just get on with it - denial drives me crazy, yet living in the truth is so hard, and to even do that one has to clear up a lifetime of inner debris, facing oneself is tough. distinguishing between our inner and outer worlds is near impossible - how can we live in acceptance when we are force fed desire daily in our consumerist society. My mind drives me mad.
Apologies for being so dreary
#4 Guest_Guest_Trying_*
Posted 25 July 2005 - 05:48 PM
Hello,
Thanks OK, don't think you sound arrogant - thought I might go just going over familiar territory for you. All I can say is I feel I am in exactly the same boat. I have hit that wall - I have finally hung up my positive thinking, self-help bravado way of approaching my problems because I am so much more deeply scarred. I am currently thinking the crazy people are the ones telling us to be positive and keep going. Who, in their right mind, would want to keep going when life is like this? Existence for me has become nothing more than the bare essentials of survival. This survival appears to care not whether my happiness is written into the deal or not.
So the most consoling worlds I think I can offer is that, 'the wall' you talk about - I'm sure that is the right stage for you to be at. Moving into a new happiness and a new way of being, we will resist and protest every step of the way, but somehow the wiser part of us still manages to push us where we need to go. T
Thanks OK, don't think you sound arrogant - thought I might go just going over familiar territory for you. All I can say is I feel I am in exactly the same boat. I have hit that wall - I have finally hung up my positive thinking, self-help bravado way of approaching my problems because I am so much more deeply scarred. I am currently thinking the crazy people are the ones telling us to be positive and keep going. Who, in their right mind, would want to keep going when life is like this? Existence for me has become nothing more than the bare essentials of survival. This survival appears to care not whether my happiness is written into the deal or not.
So the most consoling worlds I think I can offer is that, 'the wall' you talk about - I'm sure that is the right stage for you to be at. Moving into a new happiness and a new way of being, we will resist and protest every step of the way, but somehow the wiser part of us still manages to push us where we need to go. T
#5 Guest_honesty rocks_*
Posted 25 July 2005 - 09:53 PM
Thankyou angel, the simple act of your reply makes me feel better, for at least another human being bothered to acknowledge my existence, so that simple act is also a great one.
I kiss you for that.
I kiss you for that.
#6
Deb 
- Member
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- Joined: 23-May 05
Posted 05 August 2005 - 02:13 AM
Your issues with your parents - about the way they continue to hurt and disappoint you, resonated with me. When it comes to parents, I suspect our rage is the 'child' of betrayal. Our parents are meant to love us, care for us, cherish us and above all protect us. But so often they don't. Maybe they had us at a time when they were struggling with their own feelings of rejection and despair.
My dad was a lovely man who used to get quite depressed. I did feel betrayed by him because he failed to protect me from my mother. But I didn't have the full picture. At the time he seemed quite timid and fearful of physical confrontation, which I didn't understand then, but it turns out he was violently abused by his father, something I didn't find out until after his death. And I know for sure my mother struggled with the kind of pain and disappointment you talk of, from her own mother's treatment of her, even though she was often in denial about it. I was quite close to my grandmother, and the way she explained it to me was that she always had the sense, with my grandfather and her two sons, that she 'knew' them, as if they were bonded to her by past lives, but with my Mum she never had the same affinity, as if she were a stranger in their midst.
Perhaps the purpose of children born into such families, where they are not nurtured or properly cared for and protected, is to learn how to deal with the resulting rage. Perhaps without such conditions there would be no rage to deal with.
My dad was a lovely man who used to get quite depressed. I did feel betrayed by him because he failed to protect me from my mother. But I didn't have the full picture. At the time he seemed quite timid and fearful of physical confrontation, which I didn't understand then, but it turns out he was violently abused by his father, something I didn't find out until after his death. And I know for sure my mother struggled with the kind of pain and disappointment you talk of, from her own mother's treatment of her, even though she was often in denial about it. I was quite close to my grandmother, and the way she explained it to me was that she always had the sense, with my grandfather and her two sons, that she 'knew' them, as if they were bonded to her by past lives, but with my Mum she never had the same affinity, as if she were a stranger in their midst.
Perhaps the purpose of children born into such families, where they are not nurtured or properly cared for and protected, is to learn how to deal with the resulting rage. Perhaps without such conditions there would be no rage to deal with.
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