I read Hops SHAME thread and think....
however did I get anything done when I spent SO much time judging myself, sneering at imperfection and setting expectations, one after another.... bargaining with every bit of downtime I allowed myself to recover enough to get back up and slog unhappily through years of danger, threat and DOING things to survive, rather than feel joy.
BLECK. Just a completely different mindset I don't miss at all, IME.
To view oneself as a cog.... a wheel.... a thing in motion or NOT in motion, and judge that so harshly.
It's painful to look back at the last 15 or so years.
Nose on the pebble living is very painful.
There's an investment of time and cranky resistence to breathing spaciousness into our consciousness... to seeing the entire field, and getting one's nose off a pebble. There will always be pebbles. I'm amazed that spaciousness seems to be a lasting feature, once achieved. I don't understand it, entirely, but it makes it easy to be dismissive of the time spent trifling and judging myself to my detriment. I SEE that so very clearly now. I've internalized it, and it took time, and persistence and consistent redirection BACK to that very helpful truth.
Looking back... I wonder how I got what I DID get done... done while tying up so much time judging and suffering.
I had help, as Amber said on another thread. Sometimes the people we depend on don't help or they make things worse. Discerning who is helping, and who's making things harder, without getting sucked down another rabbit hole, isn't easy, IME. I guess the codependence stuff is woven throughout these moments.
Gently ignoring people, who do more harm than good, is a skill, IME. We learn to make peace with it. We don't automatically do and understand it.
At this point... There's suffering and responding and responsiveness, rather than reacting and shame and judgment, though it does pop up. I manage it. Banish it, mostly. Marvel at the times it remains silent, and how nice the space is without it.
10 years ago... there was suffering and tearing off a raw piece of survival with my teeth.... shutting out someone doing harm, and allowing some unexpected person to step up and help in ways a stranger or person NOT obligated to help.... when receiving was so very difficult... created so much shame.... it was a super hard time to admit I needed help and worse..... to receive it. There was also humiliation at HAVING to depend on others..... ask for help..... be told they didn't want to get involved, etc. I had expectations for them, and they were wrong expectations. Expectations I held for my very helpful self.... just so unhelpful to set expectations and SEE outcomes that would be morphing and changing all along, as plots unraveled.
I had an idea how things worked.... an understanding things would BE Ok, even if they weren't OK, but I was hard ,pressed to lean on it when threatened in ways I couldn't escape, mostly involving my children. Having to SIT and BE inside my head, in peril physically, attacked from every direction and in ways I couldn't discern ahead, but knew to be imminent.... that's a place where internalized trust of SELF and releasing outcome is vital, yet at the time, impossible with the tools and coping strategies I had available to me.
But there's a thread of knowing.... intuition, I suppose. I regret not living INSIDE that space, and I think....
I'm there, in that space, now. I've always said that, but now I understand better. Have internalized it more fully and received such relief and succor from inhabiting it, which isn't like flipping a switch.
Letting old habits and strategies go isn't easy. It's a process. It opens up space for new things and ways of being... coping.... experiencing joy instead of suffering. That's a winning trade, every time, IME. Understanding that, I'd have jumped at it years ago, but I didn't have the ability... I didn't have the right teacher.
It's helpful to have a hand to hold.... someone who's been there, done that. It moves one through more easily, more quickly, with less suffering and time, IME.
I must tell you... there were days when just looking into T's eyes brought me to hot tears..... without a word passing between us. To be seen with such compassion... really seen and appreciated and known and..... was very powerful and healing, and I have to think, in my case, necessary.
To have my fingers pryed off old coping strategies, from different directions, in different ways, with different tools... to have it explained to me as I resisted and reacted and experienced anger and resentments..... it all came up band it came out, like vomiting..... or like wind ruffling blinds, up and out of my lungs or like waking without suffering and noticing it. Just..... being amazed and so relieved..... without thinking about it..... inhabiting new, very neutral head space...... leading to more joy, without always thinking it through, for sure.
And accepting the new.....
being able to get comfortable and trust it was real....
trust it will lead to more discoveries, more comfort, and more joy. Somtimes one finds a smile they can't wipe from their face, and it's just.... very... unexpected, but real and powerful and as simple as living fully in the moment. What did those words EVER mean all the times we've heard and said them?
That huge smile.... that huge joy, that's what it meant, and I resist feeling resentful, even now, about my inability to understand it, and people's inability to EXPLAIN it so I could understand it. I very clearly see it's not simple, it can't be grasped (from my POV) simply..... there are different approaches and pieces of information pointing one to inhabiting different space.... rather than just understanding..... but inhabiting new spaces, and knowing HOW nad WHY one may get there adds to the experience and internalizing it, IME.
Fingers being pried off... fingers being placed onto new tools and beliefs and habits..... it's complicated, and yet... pieces of it are much simpler than I can believe. The processing... the brain's ability to make lasting change, in milliseconds, that's perhaps the most powerful truth in all this, IME. To trust it's easy, and lean into it... stop questioning it and doubting.
At some point one stops resisting and looks forward to what comes next, bc of new and informative experiences... bc experiences of proof, I guess.
TRUST it's OK to not judge. Trust being super curious instead.. .without questions.... is just the rigth thing to do, and so it becomes familiar and questioning it, at some point, drops away and before you know it, it's BECOMING a new default... a new brain setting.... what your brain chooses over all the old default settings, and then it's just how one lives, IME.
It takes energy to judge, and question and internalize shame and let the voices of people who installed critical programs rule, IME.
And it feels like eating bees, IME. We eat a handful of bees, then suffer, bc we eat handfuls of bees, without thinking, and get frustrated and feel shame we aren't more productive, energetic and happy. That seems very odd to me now. I didn't use to understand how my internal world was sabotaged and my inability to SEE what was really happening was..... needed... required my attention and tending to.
Tending to my internal world lead to SEEING the sabotage, and putting a finger on the voices someone else installed. Being critical of myself was automatic, even when I took a break and stuffed my mind with distraction.... it was still THERE, I'd just made a bargain with myself. It always lead back to the same place, bc eating handfuls of bees was the only food I knew to eat.
How in the world did I have the expectation I could turn that handful of bees into calm, peace and ability to SEE choices and respond. Eating bees is the stuff reactivity is made of, IME. That expectation, for myself, was of course going to lead to more reactivity and disappointment and suffering.
Shifting ones emotional diet to something healthier..... it's a new texture.... it's not as exciting or emotionally engulfing..... sometimes it's boring, compared to bee eating, IME.
One just gets through it... while noticing what's there. We let space empty out, and don't rush to fill it... we just notice it. Remembering there are new tools is very difficult in these moments, but eventually, if one resists condemning oneself for failing to just DO it perfectly, one sees how it works. One gains access and can choose tools without so much confusion and pain and judgment, which is sort of the key to having access, space and ability freed up.... bc we STOP doing the things that normally take up our time and energy and consequently are the things blocking access to calming our brains to allow processing and refining in historic files those things dogging us..... rolling around in our brains, bc trauma froze them there and keep them RIGHT THERE...in one's face, all the time.
It feels circular, and it is...
until it's not.
The thing that ends the circular suffering is the....
new skillset....
resting in awareness....
deep self compassion that doesn't judge when one falters.....
releasing expectation......
getting very curious about what's there, and what comes next.
Zero judgment is necessary.
And none of this is easy or simple, bc there are so many moving pieces, and that's OK.
If I can work towards it, anyone can.
Every Amazon on this board is talented and used to surviving. Has survived terrible things. CAN get herself through and out of whatever comes up.
Trusting that, so the mind can calm itself.....
tending to the mind when survival comes up....
tending to it like it's a small child.... like it's our own small frightened child self....
and reassuring her she's OK... we're going to take care of her. We can do that now... our adult, grown up self has that ability and it's safe to rest now.
That's all mixed up in the process, and our child selves are ready to be reassured and to rest. To trust.
I look back over the threads on this forum and wonder at what we've accomplished with the tools we've had access to. How strong we were. How strong we are to have gotten ourselves through.
Where is the place where the new skills aren't more clutter, bringing up shame, bc using them seamlessly isn't possible..... they sometimes become more clutter, and that's devastating, IME.
BUT, moving through, even when there's no payoff or there's more suffering and confusion...... when adding the addition of feeling overwhelmed on top of what lead to seeking "feeling better." It's amazing one gets beyond, bc habit and brain pathways and default settings are things to be noticed, understood, examined again with the addition of CHOICE, identified and introduced as something possible to choose, necessary to choose, as a way to suffer less... to experience joy... then more joy.
And then it happens. Unexpectedly, bc IME, no one can understand something they've never really experienced, outside the sense of "flow" one sometimes finds, seemingly out of the blue, and unexpected.... the light switch that goes on without flipping it cotnsciously.... one finds that, and it's supposed to happen, but one didn't expect it to happen. One is SURPRISED by the experience. Waiting for it to dissipate, perhaps be conjured up and not real at all, but it persists, and there's joy and surprise and......
knowing.
Experiencing the fruits and flowers of the work, the doubt, the dismissing of self judgment and managing to trust and work with the new tools, as one can, while remaining neutral.... refusing to judge.... embracing the new, and releasing outcome. It's like juggling, only juggling really difficult to hold in one's mind concepts, and unfamiliar habits.... habits taking up energy and space in our brains.
Having space in our brains is necessary. It means we find ways to STOP reacting and filling our brains up with old default settings, but first....
one must nOTICE those things. Become aware. Resist judging them, and that gets easier, IME, bc just SEEING what's IN there...... is super interesting.
I want to know what's behind what I've seen. I want to continue unwrapping boxes of information and turn them over in my hands and mind and decide what to do with them.
I'm relieved I have tools to SEE and deal with these things.
I feel empowered.
I don't feel overwhelmed as often.....and I trust I will feel overwhelmed by certain situations. Having strategies to deal with them, even if I react and fail in the face of them, I know I'll slow down, remember to breathe or push on walls and manage brain integration, again, to bring about better outcomes than were possible this time last year.
Once the ball is rolling.... it rolls quickly, IME. I feel it rolled more quickly for Tupp than it did for me, but I accept our brains and readiness are different. Not better or slower or whatever judgment I could place on it.
I'm simply relieved and leaning into trust... not hope, but trust.
Where I was hopeful, but didn't trust.... I now understand, have exerperienced enough relief to KNOW... without doubting. New territory is always intimidating, maybe triggering or threatening. Positive experiences make choices apparent and known and possible to own. Choosing, having choice more often, becomes habit, and then it's the default setting.... without realizing it...... it's THE default setting without thinking about it.
I'm writing this out as much for myself, as for the board. It's like SEEING something, many somethings, important somethings.... again, from different angles, putting pieces together that weren't together before, and driving more deeply into understanding of how they work, and why they work.
Understanding how they weren't present, how they weren't available, how I missed them, and understanding how things could have shifted and been changed. I don't regret. I merely want to understand, and internalize the depth of having choice and access to logic, creativity and problem solving skills where there was ONLY reactivity before.
It seems so obvious, yet there was so much time where I could ONLY see ONE PEBBLE at a time. I had no distance to SEE the entire field, and now I see. Now I have access to creating more space, which is amazing, bc all the space I've created has remained in tact. Not coming and going, though I'm sometimes reactive, I have access to choice and it's all tied into what I no longer do....
judge myself, natter myself with shoulds and should haves.... compare myself to others..... think about how my choices or inability to DO things like keep clutter cleared impact my life negatively..... I think, instead.....
I'll deal with that when it's time.
What does it matter, today, or in 100years, if that remains undealt with?
I always shrug, bc it doesn't really matter. It's not really a problem, and when I feel it is I'll pick it up and deal with it, in my way, when it's time. I might have to ask for help, and that's cool too. I'm great at some things, I have super powers, ansd the flip side of those super powers is always going to be the things I'm not so strong in.
No darkness without light.
No good without evil.
No strength without weakness.
It's not something to struggle against and wish was different. It's something to accept and get curious about.
Wishing and hoping things are different is very much like running a program in the computer that is our brain, IME.
Sometimes these programs run in the background, but they suck up so much energy... we're always wondering why we have so little energy.
When we notice and become aware of these programs.... we SEE what's there, and gain more choice. Choice about that particular program, and any other programs we've yet to identify.
We get to choose between running that program OR not running it. We become aware of the absence of running those programs.
Choosing self compassion... .choosing to rest in awareness..... these aren't new programs...... but they make choice available, IME.
Rest and self compassion are tools/habits we cultivate.
The fruits and flowers are doors appearing, and sometimes clanging open leading to more doors and choice and creative options we couldn't see before.
By this time, one trusts the tools.
The energy, previously spent questioning and doubting, is available for other things.
That's HUGE! To SEE what's going on, mine spaciousness.... create emotional distance (window of resilience) so we can see the entire field.... and the field is vast, and larger than we can know.... it continues to expand, which is amazing.
The royal we continues to be amazed and to trust and to lean into wonder and curiosity... and doors continue to open. Choice continues to present itself. Creative options appear, and the royal we is astonished at all the years it was absent.
I was so proud of myself for getting through what I got through IN THAT while in surival mode. What could I have done if I'd been able to integrate my brain, free up energy spent fearing, and ACT in creative ways I had no access to?
I'll never know, but I do know this.
The next years of my life will be spent mining joy and seeking out things I want more of.
I don't have to waste any energy regretting or worrying about repeating it, bc I've been there. I know what that is. I've moved through and out the other side. The relief is real and permanent.
My girls are repeating things I've said, and I don't think they understand that. I notice they're employing tools I didn't teach, bc they weren't willing to listen if I tried to share. But they're learning from watching, and they're doing what's been modeled for them.
I think having ME back is a relief for them. Maybe they don't consciously remember who I was, when they were 4 and 6, but a part of them is experiencing relief and ease and awareness.
And it can be as easy as that. A switch going on, even though there's electrical engineers sweating and working and striving and making choices in the background... and sometimes just slipping into a rhythm, effortlessly.... there are no switches flipping themselves. It's us, and it's always been us. We do it when we aren't paying attention.
Imagine what we can do WHEN we pay attention!
::nodding::
Yup yup yup.
That: )
Lighter
