Hi Seasons
I think you get to the heart of why we stay in dissatisfactory or abusive relationships here, and yes it is scary to be alone.
I wrote about this a few days ago- I came home and thought wow, it's just me now!
It is a bit scary. But not impossible.
go belong to something. I feel out of touch with myself.
that's two things, to address separately.
Belonging to things, well I find if I am out of balance I don't do so well with 'joining in' and if you're here in US 'joining in' is what people do instead of friendship and a lot of people don't take too well to anything but exhuberant positivity! It's like a cultural thing- Ella Wheeler Wilcox recognised it and wrote a poem about it in 1883:
LAUGH, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
For the sad old earth must borrow it's mirth,
But has trouble enough of it's own.
I try to go along to a few things anyway, like different churches or concerts, and soak up some of the sense of community without having to be 'switched on', I look at it that way then it feels positive.
Being with yourself, that's a lifelong undoing of a combination of faulty parenting and abuse.
When we've spent any length of time with someone who hurt us we've internalised their messages of criticism and undermining, we do come to believe there's something wrong with us. We disconnect as a way to cope with daily life. That sense of spontaneity and trust and joy has faded....how do we get it back?
Reconnecting to ourself is a work in progress I think.
One of the little delights I am finding is in solitude, no one yelling at me and I can choose where to go, when to eat, how to do things without someone constantly yelling at me.
The downside is- it's just me. There's no impetus within my household to do anything much.
I've kept busy Seasons, but only doing things I want to do, trying different things and seeing what feels most meaningful and adapting them an letting them evolve, like my work and volunteering.
Work is a big thing in most people's lives yet we spend so little time 'choosing' the way we spend a huge chunk of our time. So that has been the focus for me: create a meaningful career. And for me that changes over time. I used to love high pressure busy environments, now I prefer more calm.
And balance is important: I work a lot with terminal illness and I realised it was starting to weigh heavily on me, it is very intense sometimes, so I have balanced it out with two jobs with very young children, which lightens my spirits and makes me see the wholeness of life, not just focus on its end.
The people who have passed are special to you Seasons, more poetry ( Tennyson, Ulysses )
I am part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’
Gleams that untravell’d world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!
Maybe you could do something to commemorate those people, make their love part of your holidays in a positive way not just grieving? It's not 'dwelling on it' but how you dwell on it....
If I ever find myself alone on the holidays I will do something special for just myself, or go cook or serve for a communal meal at a church or charity. High days and holidays are important, our way of honouring ourselves and our beliefs and customs.
Any suggestions on how to work through this heavyness?
Is it organic: tired, poor diet, depression? That's to get out of the way first. Eat well, sleep well, gentle exercise as part of the routine, supplements.
Then work- how satisfactory is that and making little changes maybe or big ones when they seem appropriate.
I keep my thankfulness journal Seasons and every day note 5 things of importance or meaning from the day- it's amazing how we focus in on the negative and exclude the positive, I want to pay attention more and more to the little things which make all the difference.
Relationships will come, but we have to work on us so that the new kind feel good, and not slip back into the 'familiar' abusive patterns.
That is hard sometimes- to walk away from a potential friend or partner because it's not quite right and unsettling me- rather than look at it as any level of friendship is connection.
If we've done poor substitutes all our lives then it's going to take time and patience to wait and look for the real connections, and also they are going to feel different, more vibrant and maybe even threatening.
I thought I was going to have a heart attack the first few times I asserted myself in relationships & risked rejection or scorn, but now it's becoming second nature, and like this week with a job, it's not working, give notice, explain myself, deal with it. I could not have done that a few months ago even, it would have been agonising. Tell the guy I like how I feel and to stop playing games with me? And accept the empty response instead of hanging around catching the crumbs of attention or affection which withered me anyway?
I couldn't let go- but what was that post someone did, 'we have to let go of the life we're living to move to the life we're meant to have'? Something like that, I think it's Joseph Campbell.
Trust, Seasons. The universe has everything you need, and you are feeling your way to a new life.
You do belong!
I love your posts- they're always connected to something I've been thinking about too!
