Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Reciprocal Relationships with Others and Ourselves
Hopalong:
Tupp, hon, I know you're not into religion.
So maybe there's some secular program that might be comparable.
But I thought I'd describe anyway something I find important about the church community I'm in. I'm possibly going to be what they call a "pastoral visitor" -- a small team that goes through a little training in empathic listening, and volunteers for regular visits to various members who are isolated or having a hard time. Not out of pity. Not out of superiority. Not out of anything except the certain knowledge that isolation and loneliness are killers of hope and possibility and that everyone deserves to know they're not alone. Some people are just made for it, and take serious satisfaction in hearing others. It goes both ways, the benefit.
Sometimes, miraculously, people will actually reach out for it without others having to guess. And if there's any way you can do that with some sort of similar program, while trusting that a visit from a person drawn to kindness and who has a spiritual value of compassion and sees the need for caring listening as common emotional sense, nothing unusual whatsoever....would improve your life enormously.
I can't imagine how meaningful and healing it could be for you to pour your heart out in DETAIL, while being listened to WITH CONCENTRATION (which most of our friends can't provide). And regularly. So that kind of person would be incorporated into your life as, I dunno, an auntie. A village elder. Somebody who doesn't try to fix it (you're doing a damn good job of navigating all that), but genuinely cares about HEARING it.
Doing this in 3-D as well as here, I believe, could make the essential difference between what's difficult and what causes despair.
I think of religious organizations (including Buddhist) as one place to find this. And just describing your isolation and yearning to be "checked on" by someone who cares, as honestly as you have here, is all it would take. A little courage to be vulnerable with a pastor or Buddhist teacher, but allowing for the possibility of that good thing happening.
love to you,
Hops
PS When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron...huge huge help when I felt I was nearly dying from stress in isolation. She's probably one reason Buddhist community crossed my mind. That plus your bald head! :)
lighter:
Happy Birthday this week, Tupp. I hope you have a lovely celebration with your friend. Something you really enjoy doing.
I wanted to share book recommendations from my T for overcoming codependency.
The first is Conquering Shame and Codependency by Darlene Lancer.
The second is Facing Codependence by Pia Mellody, and the third is called Breaking Free, a Recovery Workbook by Pia Mellody that goes along with Facing Codependence.
I'm ordering them tonight.... I've been procrastinating.
Lighter
Meh:
HAPPY NOT GETTING OLDER DAY
lighter:
Currently reading HAPPINESS by Thich Nhat Hanh. My T lent it to me, and I just knew she'd put a book in my hands today. So useful.
I ordered the 3 I listed PLUS the book PEACE IS EVERY STEP by Thich Nhat Hanh.
It's time to practice consistently, and have tools to get me back on track when I struggle.
So many moving pieces, and learning how to put them down, so I can focus on being here, now, is the trick to having control over flipping the ON OFF switch for being present.... being in the zone... etc.
Call it what I have, it's learning to get myself back in the moment, and re set old pathways so THIS is my default.
20 - 60 days of practice.
::BIG BREATH::.
I might journal about this.
I might write about it on the board.
Will see.
Lighter
Hopalong:
Tupp, I want to apologize for mumbling on about church settings again...it's not appropriate. It's not RELIGION I imagine for you (in any way), it's community and comfort. That's it.
And you're already taking all kinds of steps, from forest groups to a dream of a future gathering place...that are your OWN ideas about community and comfort.
I'm just busting myself about my own urges to fix. I honestly am so grateful for your openness and sharing...you are an inspirational person for me. You speak more truth more often than I ever could. You have a shattering honesty about everything.
Because of my own "Mama Tiger" fantasies, every now and then when I look full-face at your lonely struggle, I feel frantic to fix it. That's not my place, and frantic ain't healthy.
How much? Thinking about your situation, I actually Googled support groups in UK, kinds of things, a couple times. (Can't do it of course without a postal code.) The other day I emailed the contact for a UK humanist organization that offers humanist pastoral care...but only in institutional settings. I asked him if it ever is available in the community, as well. I just wanted to PM you some help, to show you that you could find caring visitors who would listen with acceptance and compassion and break a little light channel through your painful isolation.
But I don't really think it's healthy for me to feel frantic to support anyone. I need to be loving, present, and ready to offer what I can, in this 2-D context.
I promise I'll continue to do that. Just wanted to 'fess up to why I nattered on (again) about church! It's just because it gave me an extended family (trustworthy despite ups and downs) and I ....err... urgently, now that I've renounced franticlly .... wanted you to have that too.
I found just as much, and just as supportive, comfort through a totally secular women's support group here years ago. Alas, feminism in that old-school circle-meeting sense has faded or transmogrified lately into just #MeToo and identity politics. And online. Sigh. When will people rediscover how much it matters to sit in reality with other humans? What I'd found so helpful was just that women could provide amazing strength to each other, regardless of background. It wasn't political at all, and it worked.
Hugs
Hops
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