Struggling - seesaw up and down - yet again.

[Gaining Strength]

I'm so close, so ridiculously close but yet so dad blamed far.

I've got all the pieces of the puzzle.  I've got everything figured out.  It seems that all I need to do now it turn the key - and yet ...

Either the key don't fit or it won't turn.

Tired of living in a rat trap.  No one should live in a rat trap.  This emotional feeling was set at an early age.  I am working it free with EFT.  That should have worked days, weeks ago.  Still struggling.

Memory  -  Driving in car with mother at age 13. She said teacher had called about my school work.  (I went to a small private school that my Grandfather, mother and later father were board members of.)  I was expected to do better than I was.  Gotccha!!!  I felt shamed.  And - I felt trapped.  No one was going to help me.  (Didn't know until 25 years later that I had ADHD.)

Not performing (failure). Teacher called (caught). Confronted by mother (outed - shamed). No help (no resources). Watched (pan-opticon). Observed for further assured failures - (cycle repeats and repeats and continues to repeat.)  This is where I am and where I have been. 

http://www.meaningoflife.i12.com/Christconsciousness.htm
Yet for many fear has become instinctive. The body reacts, the emotions react, and the mind takes off in a thousand different directions, literally scattering and fragmenting one's consciousness. In situations like this, one needs to turn to love, for "Perfect love casteth out fear." One must, however, make this turn with gentleness and ease, which boils down to essentially meaning, without judgment of any sort. This is one of the trickier aspects of maintaining Christ consciousness.

The force of judgment is very powerful. For some, the judgment turns outward and gets thrown in another's direction. For many upon the spiritual path the judgment is turned inward. When this occurs, one is shaken out of their peace through self-judgment of one's own fear; instead of turning to love, self-judgment calls in guilt or shame. These are obviously not attributes of Christ consciousness nor can love blossom within a field of judgment of any sort. What I am in essence saying, is that in order to turn fear into love, one must first be willing to cast aside the judgment of the fear itself! Fear prompting one to judgments operates on very subtle levels, such as fear of dishonor in the eyes of humanity, fear of not being seen as you see yourself, fear of intimacy and so forth. It is a fact that people do not like to be judged. Looking at us as a race as a whole I would not hesitate to say that we live in constant fear of judgment.

Transcendence of Negative Ego Quotient

The sister quotient to the Christ Consciousness Quotient, so to speak, is the Transcendence of Negative Ego Quotient. Whereas the Christ Consciousness Quotient exemplifies GOD or spiritual consciousness in its highest capacity, the negative ego exemplifies lower consciousness, with all its attendant difficulties. For this reason, the transcendence of the negative ego is one of the eight major quotients. When dealing with the Transcendence of Negative Ego Quotient, what we are rating is our success in not operating out of the negative ego. In order to do this, however, one must first be aware of the negative ego itself.

This is that part of ourselves which operates solely out of selfishness, isolation, fear, and fragmentation, as well as embracing the entire gamut of lower impulses, tendencies and expressions. It is often the place from which the inner child is operating, without proper parenting. It basically functions from the level of the subconscious. This is not always the case, as many times, where people are third-dimensionally focused, it will openly operate and consciously choose negativity.

This can be seen in the conscious choices made that clearly lead to pain, destruction, hurt, harmfulness and so forth. In fact, in the third-dimensional world the ability to function selfishly is often deemed as an asset, even if that takes the form of consciously harming another being. The entertainment industry is notorious for using people as stepping stones, and the political arenas generally function shamelessly in the mode of the negative ego. These are but two very generalized examples. The truth is that the planet viewed from a higher perspective, functions almost exclusively from this negative vantage point.

[Gabben]

Tired of living in a rat trap.  No one should live in a rat trap.  This emotional feeling was set at an early age.  I am working it free with EFT.  That should have worked days, weeks ago.  Still struggling.

Memory  -  Driving in car with mother at age 13. She said teacher had called about my school work.  (I went to a small private school that my Grandfather, mother and later father were board members of.)  I was expected to do better than I was.  Gotccha!!!  I felt shamed.  And - I felt trapped.  No one was going to help me.  (Didn't know until 25 years later that I had ADHD.)

Not performing (failure). Teacher called (caught). Confronted by mother (outed - shamed). No help (no resources). Watched (pan-opticon). Observed for further assured failures - (cycle repeats and repeats and continues to repeat.)  This is where I am and where I have been. 

GS --

I've read a lot of your story from the member page but I have had a hard time relating. However, I can relate to "still struggling." I'm sorry that you are still hurting and still struggling -- I know, I thought that I would be over it 15 years ago. Some days are better than others.

This is what I offer people who are hurting and healing memories - compassion --- compassion --- compassion -- compassion ((((((((((GS))))))))))

GS - What is EFT?

Today people ARE going to help -- Ami will show up on this thread any moment now - just wait.

Love,
Lise

[Gaining Strength]

What is EFT?


It's a crazy acupuncture points Tapping used to relieve physical and emotional pain by getting to the emotional source of all of our pains.  You can read more about it at www.emofree.com.  I have found that it has helped me get to some of the deep, buried shaming memories.

[Ami]

Dear GS,
  I can hear your pain and how you feel "stuck" in a cycle. I feel the same way. You sound kind of discouraged ,today, GS, I am the same way, about old patterns ,today.
 S/times they feel so entrenched and so resistant to change. You feel,"Why bother, I will never break away from them?"
 I am hearing that in you, GS> Maybe, I am wrong and it is just "me " who feels it.
  I so ,understand.
   The answer is "Perfect Love casts out Fear.". It is a promise, so we know it will work. However, really appropropriating the promise is the hard part.
  For me, it is a shock to see how far down  I have gotten--far(lol). It is scary to see how close I was to the edge.
  GS, I got several points from your excerpts. One was that perfect love does cast out fear. The other is that fear manifests in many ways .
    I will write more later, GS.      Love You, Ami
 

[Gabben]

It's a crazy acupuncture points Tapping used to relieve physical and emotional pain by getting to the emotional source of all of our pains.  You can read more about it at www.emofree.com.  I have found that it has helped me get to some of the deep, buried shaming memories.

Dear GS:
wow -- I am  going to look into this more. My T suggested something like this for me about 2 years ago.

Thank you,
Lise

[Gaining Strength]

Ami - I thought of you when I read that website.  Of course it is true that perfect love casts out fear.  It lets me know that I am still stuck in the fear cycle.  I don't feel discouraged exactly, I am sure that I will get beyond but I would like to be in a different place.  I am so close. 

I definitely need to work on forgiveness.  And I definitely need to find more of the humiliation memories - the place where I was belittled and shamed for not measuring up and not given the necessary tools to fix the problem or improve and then set up to see if I would fail again. 

I'm pretty sure this is the cycle that has repeated itself over and over.  I do know the way out.  It is the same thing I have known for some time and it is repeated from a different perspective in the excerpt above.  So if I know what to do and I know why I am stuck and I am doing what needs to be done then it seems I ought to be free.  There must be more work to be done.  Change my thoughts - get out of the negative - move out of fear and related emotions and into love and confidence and faith.

[Overcomer]

I have found that my recovery and freedom from all this stuff is like losing weight.  I know everything I need to do to get the weight off-but there is a breakdown between the knowing and the doing.  Several people seemed impatient with me because I have been going through the same things and never seem to DO anything.  This is like the cycle you speak of.  You go along doing quite well and then something happens and BAM you are right back in the middle of the thing.  Something drags you back in

[Hopalong]

Hi GS,
I'm sorry you're at a plateau.
Don't despair, it means nothing.
Steady on...the plateau may look broad but it's defined by its edges, you'll reach the end and be in new territory.

I'm skeptical of EFT but I'd think any soothing repetitive action might be a good way to work on oneself...maybe exercise would be more effective?

Imagine if you felt very strong, physically. How would that change your life?
(I'm preaching to myself, here...)

love,
Hops

[Gaining Strength]

This is the third time I have posted a reply to OC and Hops.  I can't figure out what happened to the first two.

OC - your words convey exactly what I was feeling.

Hops - I am skeptical about EFT as well but I have found that the process of making things specific has really helped me get closer and closer to some of the source struggles and that is worth an awful lot.

I am getting some clarity and I am finding some break through.  The key for me has always been sustaining the break-through that I get and that is particularly difficult, but I won't be giving up. 

To call my living situation clutter is a HUGE euphemism but it also falls short of infestation.  This is the place that I am struggling the most.

In other parts of my life I am seeing outward changes begin to match up with the inner changes.  I am definitely beginning to make friends, beginning to be included socially, beginning to have my thoughts and concerns listened to.  I cannot discount that - those are very, very important.  The thing I care most about is the state of yuck of my house and car but when I trust that it wll come and give up the fear and self-loathing then it will usher in more quickly.  - a strange paradox and seeming double bind to me. 

[Overcomer]

GS:  Are you saying that your house is a mess?  When I went through my breakdown in 2002 I laid in bed depressed...........crying for months.  My autistic child wreaked havoc upon the house.  I didn't clean for months.  My house was so bad.  My h only added to the mess.  He didn't help at all.  I wouldn't let my kids bring friends over.  It was embarrassing.  Then we had a flood in the basement and we heaved all the stuff into the storage area so they could recarpet.  My daughter went in there and started dumping boxes to find toys...................anyway, you get the picture.  My house kinda reflected my state of mind...................a mess.

So when we bought this new house I took six weeks and went through all my junk.  Donated.  Had a garage sale.  Donated more.  Threw away.  Now my garage is still full of boxes but I refuse to bring them in until I go through them and make sure that everything has a place and everything is in it's place.  The shelves in a lot of my house are bare.  I refuse to bring the junk in.  I will go through every single box in my garage - one at a time - and unload them.  All the pet stuff together.  All of each girl's stuff together.  All the tax stuff together......etc.

Is that what you mean by your house??  And also.  Do you feel like I do???  You are going along strong as an ox and then one little demeaning thing is said by your N dad or my N mom and like quick sand.......................................help!!  Fall into a pool of yuck....

[Gaining Strength]

Yeah that's my house.  5 years ago my entire basement was infested with rats.  no kidding rats - they ate the spines off of my leather bound books, that got into the ceiling that ate and defecated.  then before the exterminator came the flood did and the mold.  Walls of mold and then I got sick and then I had 12 months of deconstruction where everything and every wall and ceiling was torn out and only the bare essentials have been restored. So my house is literally torn up.  Add to that the destruction of my son opening up boxes of toys and dumping them out.  Add to that a cat who aged and began leliminating in anywhere.  Now I need all of my carpeting replaced and the cat is confined to a very large tile room (too late to save any carpeting) and each time I clean up one area another is destroyed until I can't even do the basic of housecleaning.

I am breaking free from reacting to my Nmother and Nfather.  That is a big help.  I am getting coaching and encouragement from my brother, my T and my mother's aid to get the financial helpl from her that she has offered but resents and resists.  But the house is topsy turvy and it is hard to find a place to start.  Plus it touches all my shame buttons.   So I have been working on bolstering myself with God's love in order that I might have that fear based shame cast out and move forward.  Sitting like a bump does not stir up the shame dust - doing something about the mess does.

Thanks for your post.  Each and every connection I make here and word of encouragement really does strengthen me.  I am glad you have your mess contained.  What you wrote mirrors precisely the process I went through to get here.  At times I would send my son into my room because the den was so trashed with toys and then my room would be and back and forth.  Oh that times would be better.  Thank heavens I didn't have a grown person to add to the lot but my animals did and that is just the pits.

[Overcomer]

I had one sat once-but two houses ago we were over run with mice.  I think it is harder on us single parents and so when I met my H I was happy I would get some help-but the only thing he does without me asking is mowing.  Sometimes snow blowing.  The rest is me.  He does not even pick up after himself so he adds to the stress.  One thing I have done at the new house is hire a cleaning service.  It helps me keep it picked up and they do the cleaning!  Best $220 Per moth I have ever spent!

[Gaining Strength]

For the past couple of days I have felt that something is shifting, like the iceburg is cracking.

I keep experiencing pockets of peace.  Working hard to change thinking.  Like to be connected here - it feels positive - real world feels negative.  Want to break patterns.  Trying to visualize the change.

[Leah]

quote author=Gaining Strength link=topic=7062.msg114795#msg114795 date=1202918305]

For the past couple of days I have felt that something is shifting, like the iceburg is cracking.

I keep experiencing pockets of peace.  Working hard to change thinking.  Like to be connected here - it feels positive - real world feels negative.  Want to break patterns.  Trying to visualize the change.

((((( GS ))))))

How exciting ~ the iceberg is cracking and an inner sense of peace is emerging.   I have a picture of a Butterfly emerging ........ won't be too long till the beautiful Butterfly is ready to fly!

Love, Leah

[Hopalong]

GS,
Thank you especially for sharing this, I relate to this very strongly:

Sitting like a bump does not stir up the shame dust - doing something about the mess does.

There's something about the paralysis in the face of clutter and scary finances that is comforting. I don't know how to explain it. I too am forcing myself out of that comfort, and it disturbs so much "shame dust" I literally can't breathe sometimes.

I too am trying to understand it, to better break through it. I know there's something about perfectionism going on, and something about feeling so alone in my life, without help.

I am learning to ask for help until I find it. Last week, I emailed all my friends at church and said I REALLY needed two hours' help Sunday afternoon, and insisted that it be a barter...so I can offer someone else two hours of my time with something they'd like to not do on their own. A lovely woman from my Covenant Group came and walked me through Mom's accounts, we got it balanced, and it eased my mind so much.

But the filing is up to me. And that's where I go numb/escape/sit still to not stir up the dust.

I like that Chore Swap concept so much. Nobody to hire or pay, just a simple woman-to-woman networking of help with the tough places. I will spread the notion around in some way. I think it's a way of creating family. It's unusual in human history for so many people to live alone, and sometimes it goes swimmingly, and sometimes you're defeated by the storm doors, or 10 boxes of unsorted photos, or a wall of cabinets, etc. But to help someone else with theirs feels joyful.

If I were in your town, GS...I'd be emailing you!

love,
Hops