Still need to work through early trauma

[Gaining Strength]

The goal for me is to heal some of the deepest pain through  mindfulness, acknowledging the pain and separating myself from the hurt while not repressing it.

[Gaining Strength]

Staying connected here helps me move forward, experience the shame and anxiety, name it and move forward.  I'm making incremental progress. The key for me is to experience the shame and be able to move anyway. That has been difficult to date. But I am finding a way forward.

[Hopalong]

GS,

Would it help you to visualize the steel door as a "mistake" of your mind,
and intentionally decide that it's actually a bamboo curtain, through which
light and air can move?

love
Hops

[Gaining Strength]

I am on a healing path at long last. The issues have always been the same but finding and believing in the techniques that will help me move forward through all of this has been painstakingly slow.

The mind-body connection is crucial and I applaud those who have understood that including Peter Levine and many others. I decry those who flaunt the belief that every action is a choice. That philosophy completely denies the unconscious which is  so much larger than the conscious. Bringing those unconscious forces into the light has been important for me. As I do the indescribable pain associated with it has been crippling . But no longer. I now have the means to process the pain , no longer repressing it, with the determination to get to the other side. This may need to be repeated countless times until the brain paths are shifted but I can do that. No longer do I need to avoid this pain. I know it's source and I know the release is on the other side.

This simple understanding dissolves a layer of shame and fear. With this knowledge, simply naming the anticipatory anxiety and accompanying shame is like pouring water on hard crystallized sugar, it softens and melts and dissolves away.

I know where the paralysis came from and why it has crippled me for so long. I understand why I have been impotent to overcome it. I know that all of my strengths and good characteristics are there waiting to be freed at long last. Finally I can foresee being able to be present to condemnation and rejection and name it and observe it but not own it or claim it. As a child I took all that was meted out as I saw it necessary for survival. My unconscious continued the pattern. But I am free now. The unbending surgery is complete. Now comes the  work of realigning my mind.

It will not be easy but I can do it.  After I progress with overcoming paralysis then I can do the same process with rejection. They are profoundly intertwined. I sold my identity early on in order to have fleeting moments of acceptance. The long run was just the opposite. The fear of rejection is so powerful but the experience of it ironically, has a way of inciting more alienating behaviour. By processing the grief of rejection; past, present and future, I expect to be able to grieve and move on. Letting go and no longer dwelling.grieving is a process of mourning and moving on.

I am reminded of the line, " Take what you need and leave the rest."  Even as I write I am aware of cracks forming in the iceberg. Lifelong I have countered every thought with all possible arguments against my own. These seeds were planted by my father who would later be diagnosed with many mental illnesses including OCD PD. I internalized these voices my entire life. They are part of what has crippled me. But that ice is cracking.

[Gaining Strength]

What a great metaphor Hops.

[Gaining Strength]

Today and the next few will be interesting as this breakthrough comes to  some kind of a state of equilibrium. As the process begins to unravel I am seeing what has bee going on throughout my life. 

Years ago I recognizd that I worked on a kind of radio runer. I would get this feeling of dissonance and my mind would start rolling trying to figure out what this  ominous feeling was about.  It would inevitably land on some memory or thought of how I didn't measure up and in time it would be about what I had not done and what I needed to to - a form of shaming (that inevitably lead to paralysis because I was unconsciously trapped by "damned if you do and damned if you don't." But damned if you do was always more paralyzingly.

As this unravels I see how my body and thoughts played off one another. My my would look for what was wrong and my stomach would cramp up and I would either sek a distraction to repress the wretchedness or would plot through knowing more shame was coming on. And this cycle would repeat itself over and over throughout each and every day.

Now, I a,m able to process bits and piece though I still use quite a bit of diversion. But my ability to process is growing and there will come a day when I am more able to function than not.  That is the day I am looking forward to. It will be life changing.

[Gaining Strength]

Writing about this is like talking about it. It gets it straight in my head.

My normal posture is one guarding against the horrific stomach pain that comes from tightness in my gut anticipating the shame and rejection and failure awaiting my every breath. As this grip begins to loosen , I am flooded with memory and shame and pain that has been repressed for years. It is so complicated.

The doors are opening because at long last I have the tools to process the feelings behind them. But the flood is too much. The only thing I know to do is to just process, process, process and let the tide take care of itself.

[Dr. Richard Grossman]

Hi G.S.,

I don't want to interfere with your wonderful work here, so we can talk about theoretical "stuff" on another thread at another time.  Keep going!

Richard

[Gaining Strength]

Serendipitously I discovered an article which closely  describes what I have been doing. It is in Psychology Today, written by Beverly Engel entitled How Compassion Can Heal  shame from Childhood.

[Gaining Strength]

Dr. Grossman I value anything you have to say. This thread is open to any subject. I am thankful that you provide this forum. It has been  at times for me the only place I had to come to work through my struggles or my healing.

My journey has been a very slow one but I have never given up.

Yesterday was a day when I made great progress today is proving difficult. I am reminded that  somewhere in my unconscious it appears that I was greatly punished for achieving. I always seem to pay a price for it. But with that belief I can take it and work with it to offer support and kindness to that broken and shamed child and transfer to her courage and love and support. 

This little sed Ned's nourishment, light sun, water and love to grow. Through out my life I have fed the dark but hope was never extinguished. I fed resentment and jealousy but still hope flourished. Now I am feeding compassion and love as though to an infant and that will grow and flourish and life will be abundant. Like much in life the curve is slow at first but in time it will shoot up..

[Gaining Strength]

One of the things that is difficult about this process us that as I process and heal memories and levels of shame more and more emerges to be healed. It feels as though no progress us being made and the intensity is enormous. But I have been at this long enough to know to just keep at it. There is a critical mass where it all cracks open ando moves forward., not unlike some other natural processes. I am finding it very easy to focus on the compassion for the first time in years of trying. All in the presence of the shaming memories that have controlled my entire life. That alone is progress. That shame is still horrifically painful but this compassion is slowly but surely dissolving the block and replacing the dark with the light. Bearing the pain in the presence of love dissipates it rather than represses it. For years I could not sustain that connection with love because my father's and mother's message that I was undeserving was too strong. But no longer.

[Gaining Strength]

I am. Already feeling a shift in several areas: the intense longing is softening, as is the powerful pain of being left out. The anger and resentment have abated. I am primarily left with the raw pain and unfortunately the paralysis. But I am keeping my focus on the positive shifts. With that focus they will grow.

Friday my child found and online obit for his father. He brought it up to me because I was not mentioned in it. I realized it must have been done by his half sister. In the past this would have both shamed me and enraged me. But this time I went online, found it, tried to correct it, discovered that the author has to make changes unless they have abandoned it. At first I felt helpless, but after a day I sent a message to the organization and explained the situation and asked them to correct it. Whether or not  they do is less important to me than the fact that I found the power to stand up and ask. And  another layer of healing that shame is that I am able to write about it here and open myself up, make myself vulnerable.

It's all so fragile but strengthening bit by bit. Writing here helps me tremendously. It encourages me, emboldens me, strengthens me.

[Gaining Strength]

I found another article that goes directly to this shame issue. It is  The Power of Mindful Empathy to Heal Toxic Shame.

All of this is coming my way as the door is now opened. As I was processing more shame this morning I discovered one reason EFT has not worked for me. I was using the repeat line "I completely love and  accept myself." And I discovered that that line is enormously shame provoking. It didn't work to use shaming words to heal.

As I call on love and compassion I think of an infant who is held by a loving parent and comforted until that child feels restored. I think of toddlers who need reassurance and children who turn to parents to get the understanding and redirection and support needed to overcome the slings and arrows. That is what I am getting from my council of loving beings.  For years I could not sustain these images because the message that I needed too much was  more powerful than my ability to hold the loving image. I got the message loud and clear from a therapist whom I had great respect for.  But  now I am moving past that barrier. Thank goodness.

[Gaining Strength]

I think I am going to have to come to acceptance with shame  over failure and that includes the results of this paralysis due to shame. One of the most toxic aspects of shame is that it is shaming. That the presence of shame generates more shame create so kind of prison. So that spiralling effect  must be healed as well.

[Hopalong]

I understand everything you're writing here, GS.

And I am so moved and happy to read this:

I am finding it very easy to focus on the compassion for the first time in years of trying.

This is massive.

I DO believe the paralysis will shift.
Small pleasure in small steps is safe.

Thank you for inspiring me to befriend my own paralysis, and give it enough compassion to yield. Just enough for one small step, in one present day. That's all it ever is. And I keep forgetting that.

love
Hops