Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Mindfulness and codependence thread
Twoapenny:
I think the difficulty is when someone vulnerable is being harmed, Lighter, like your kids. People do harm children, in many different (and often subtle) ways, and I think when you've been through your own growth and dealt with your own childhood problems you are much more aware of it. Other people's influence - of a negative nature - in a child's life is not okay, in my book. I have kept my son away from many people because I don't share their approach to life. So I understand the who's wrong, who's right thing. People have different ideas. Not beating a child is as much as some people feel protects them from abuse, others understand more how what you say and do can have an deep impact. I'm glad you're working your way through it, watching, processing and just being in it. I'm glad the T is there to guide you and hand hold when necessary. And we are here for you too :) One T I used to have kept saying to me I shouldn't rely on validation from others as to what was okay - I needed to set my own limits. I think that's a difficult one to get to. But you are on the right path, I think, and I'm glad of that :) xx
lighter:
This morning I checked myself....
zero struggle with right or wrong, fist in the air... sure justice is fair, called for and necessary NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW.
It passed.... it's not coming up anymore and it was in my face all the time for weeks... after Bettyanne posted about her mother taking her father's pain meds... I was OFF to the races and now....
now.....
the stuff that brought up for me.... is gone. Done. I don't want to write a word about it. It's like my mind rejects the thought even as I remember what it was... and then it's gone again. Truly... gone.
So, I feel young Lighter processed and cleared a stuck in the past angry trauma cycle, along with the resistance around it. It felt very young.... very childlike.... a child having a tantrum. Refusing or unable to listen to reason, or listening but stuck in survival brain and unable to access higher brain to calm, refocus, relieve the stress so higher thinking came online then BAM! Processing happened, with that unexpected physical internal flapping.... and relief seemed to cover then move through me. And it stayed.
I check it every once in a while. I notice the absence of what was a very familiar circular thought trap. SO. Circular.
Acceptance.... really understanding and believing.... being the field.... nose off the pebble.
As I sit here I wonder if looking left then right then left then right then left then right, while stuck in that headspace hanging on to judgment and trying to find my way back to radical acceptance, which I felt I had before the island.... I wonder if the back and forth eye movement was helpful or THE thing that helped the shift take place. I distincltly remember it happened as I was about to, then making that the turn. I remember feeling confusion as I shifted petals and moved forward.
I'll use my own hand with the EMDR more often. For some reason, I associate it with the T and it's a happy feeling to remember... I can do this without the T. For myself. I'm very curious about how that works for me when I DO remember: )
Freedom and ease... that's how it feels.
And so this is a lesson in layers for me. Older layers and newer layers and how dealing with one BIG thing can heal an entire line of traumas and wounded rabbit hole travels, one to another to another. Just..... done.
This is how it felt when I tried to recall emotionally supercharged memories during memory reconsolidation sessions. They were difficult to recall.
This time, I really can't recall... and I'm trying.
::huge smile... looking around... waiting for it to change, really thinking about it::
NOTHING!
Yes!
Lighter
lighter:
The return of my peripheral vision seemed like a miracle, but not until I figured out it was gone, then restored. MIRACLE. At first it was scary and confusing to have it back without realizing it had gone away.
I want to go back and see what happened just before, so I can begin drawing connections between connections if that makes sense. I know T sessions included using peripheral vision while breathing and noticing what was around me, under me, beside me, above me.... and we spent a bit of time doing that before the EMDR began. The EMDR hadn't yet begun... I think.
I wondered if this loss happened bc of the eye surgery/vision correction. I muscle tested and the answer was NO.
I asked if it happened before the surgery and the answer was YES.
This question came up....
was it because of cataracts and the answer was YES.
I think driving across States, often at night, with worried little children on my way to court stuff, while lacking much of the vision in my left eye, so distracted I didn't KNOW I couldn't see out of that eye..... locked my vision down while survival brain was constantly on then off on then off. I don't have any feelings about that... just curiosity.
I'm not blaming the court stuff. I'm not resentful in any way about it. There's no desire to assign blame, which is.... new. To GET TO THE BOTTOM.. the truth of a matter. It's just poof... gone.
I find myself leaning into curiosity, again, without judgment or any expectation. Radical acceptance without any emotional reactivity other than happy to understand more about it. I don't have any desire to learn FROM IT... for future use. To discern the past. I simply don't care to draw any conclusions about it.
It's enough to be restored in this moment. To know restoration is available to us all, in this moment. see it as a way to keep it from happening again.... there is no happening again. It's just... in this moment.... I have relief and it's EVERYTHING: )
Restoration in THIS moment.....is everything.
Knowing we're all capable of restoration in this moment....
is all there is.
Lighter
Hopalong:
Lighter, I really like this:
--- Quote --- I find myself leaning into curiosity, again, without judgment or any expectation. Radical acceptance without any emotional reactivity other than happy to understand more about it. I don't have any desire to learn FROM IT... for future use. To discern the past. I simply don't care to draw any conclusions about it.
--- End quote ---
It sounds as though you suddenly freed yourself from the rumination on justice that tortured you endlessly.
Kudos!
Hugs
Hops
lighter:
Thanks, Hops.
I feel pretty good about noticing when I'm nose on the pebble (NOTP.)
The more I do it, and am aware about it, the more I understand how it happens... the less fear and anxiety reflexively pop up.
The more I practice nonjudgmental focus and radical acceptance... the more it becomes a part of me. Maybe making the shift gets easier... I assume it does. Just knowing how is a huge relief. It makes me smile to think of it.
That doesn't mean I'm OK with the upsetting things in life... the egregiously harmful things. It just means I'm not pulled to them, nose first, and stuck to them like a magnet anymore and that was always young Lighter's POV. IT IS young lighter's POV.... now. She didn't have any skills or wisdom or insights or ability to SEE. She was salty about things she had no control over. Divorce sucks and kids get chewed up in it... it's the American way, esp when PDs are involved. She needs to be heard and she needs some help. IT's all around us/her/people we love,hate,wish better for with hindsight. For every child... we wish that, but we don't need it to be true for us to be ok anymore.
It's a true letting go of something that felt so necessary and worthy for so so long
Likely, anger will happen again and again.... this isn't one and done... not with all the layers and that's OK.
It's OK bc I feel better....
I don't open the garage door braced to see the world on fire anymore.
I don't wake with dread in my chest and stomach.
I don't turn corners and find my fists out in front of me.
I SEE other people's POV.... have compassion for them without searching for it and that will come and go, I assume.
I used to mechanically manipulate myself.... I had to wonder what happened to that person to make them cut me off in traffic, be rude for no reason.. whatever it was... I had to work my way through it. NOW... it just IS. It's a POV. It's a lense that's alway in place, or is in place often... I'm getting used to having it in place. It feels right. I don't have to look for it or find it most of the time, and when I do.... I'll not panic or catastrophize or shift into past/future worry worry worry... or maybe I will, but I'll have the ability to SEE it and choose something else as my default setting.
It feels like it's my default setting now..... and maybe it is. One way or the other, I'm not going to be afraid or stay afraid rather.
Lighter
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