NEEDS: 3-D and present

[sKePTiKal]

SIGH....

the bottomless pit of NEEDS is staring me in the face...
things I didn't have... parents I didn't have...

things I've learned to give to myself... but still expect from others, too
things I've substituted for what I really wanted...
things that now matter more than those missed opportunities, because they get in the way

and words that get cut off at the pass before they're even conscious thoughts:

I want
I need

Hardest words in the english language to say. For me.
But I NEED to start practicing saying them... before more opportunities are missed to love & be loved...

[Overcomer]

I am reading YOU CAN HEAL YOUR LIFE.  The premise is to real positively about life.  Your needs.  Your wants.  No whining-just positively state your needs.  I am going to try this myself.

[sKePTiKal]

ah...
writing is easy for me...


it's the speaking, being present enough to be able to say the words for what I feel - at that moment...
not being lost; trapped in some repetition of the "old dysfunctional ways"... or some new disconnected discommunication patterns...

[Lupita]

Hi PR, I hear you. I have missed precious opportunities for being so needy. People who were willing to help, they got scared when they saw that I was expecting too much. They got scared when they saw I was looking for a mother in every human being who showed some compassion.

Overcomer, I finished with healing your life but Louise Hay. I have memorized it.

Catch your negative thoughts and substitute them with more positive. She said absolutly no whining. She said when she decided not to whine and not to gossip that she did not have any thing to say for six weeks. LOL

Thank you PR for posting in my Thread.

God bless you.

[sKePTiKal]

Core beliefs and deadly habits are just below the level of "want/need" and not able to ASK for it....

Belief that asking will ALWAYS result in a NO and more abuse... resulting in an attitude/habit of why bother?

Belief that what I want/need isn't important resulting in an attitude of why try?

Habit of not asking (believing in pretermined negative results) results in anger, resentment & misplaced blame & self-punishment/abuse for being angry unfairly...    I am the ONLY PERSON who can ask for what I want/need; the only one who MUST believe I'm important enough, deserving enough to ask for basic human interactions...

Oh yeah - and don't forget FEAR...

FEAR that believing in myself and making my wants/needs known will result in something HORRIBLE, over powering, happening to me. 

This last one, is a fear-belief that Twiggy developed... because she didn't have those core beliefs or habits I listed first. She took matters into her own hands - intervening in her parent's fight - and stood up for what she wanted: stop it - no more - I won't allow this anymore!! That took belief in herself, her power, the righteous of her "want"/"need"... and guts.

But, within a few hours of that experience Twiggy was overpowered by the rapist; her body betrayed her by becoming pregnant; her mother denied the whole reality of her injuries and how it happened...her mind betrayed her with dissociation... and then her mother insisted that Twiggy think & feel the approved "party line" and be like HER: permanently broken.

So just as quickly as Twiggy discovered the depth & strength of her own power - she learned almost immediately that it wasn't enough. That's how this belief and fear - deep down - got created.

VERY IMPORTANT: the state of being broken should've been; could've been temporary - with the right help at the time. It was rather late in arriving - but this help DID arrive - and the crooked healing has been rebroken, reset straight... and healing IS occurring, finally.

NOW, the challenge is convincing Twiggy that it was only her parents, the rapist who were like this... persuading her that she CAN trust other people to not do this to her... that she CAN ask for and really get what she wants, by simply asking and being willing to PLAY...

Play is how we create new habits. We experiment, try out different roles, where we can see the possibilities of different results. It's what artists do... and Twiggy - of all people - knows how to do this... it's my nature, really. Make up new "rules" as I go along... try something and see how it works... and change it if it doesn't.

[Gaining Strength]

I am responding to the first half of your post.  It is so powerful to me.  I am using this word "powerful" quite a bit but it fits my feelings.

Habit of not asking (believing in pretermined negative results) results in anger, resentment & misplaced blame & self-punishment/abuse for being angry unfairly... This is a description of my life up to this point. I feel anger when I read it.

I am the ONLY PERSON who can ask for what I want/need; the only one who MUST believe I'm important enough, deserving enough to ask for basic human interactions... This calls me to action but makes me feel incredibly afraid and ... set up for failure and humiliation.  This fear of failure and humiliation is what i MUST overcome.


FEAR that believing in myself and making my wants/needs known will result in something HORRIBLE, over powering, happening to me. This one makes me sick, turns my stomach, makes me angry.  this calls me into the place that I am stuck and I know what it is and am too ashamed to put it out here.

I am so thankful for your writing.  There are times that it feels as if it were written by my subconscious.

I am thinking about your concept of "play".  I sort of get it but have much more to do to get it.  I get the "role" playing.  It is precisely this that has helped me in other areas.  It is the "role" or self-image that needs changing.  I have an image that I have been trying on.  It worked at the beach.  I know enough to know that each positive experience can be amplified and become larger than the negative ones.  In the past i have amplified the negative ones and now I am focusing on the positive ones.  Keeping the positive roles in the forefront of my thoughts.

thankful for your postings PR.  Thankful for reading about your needs - 3-D and present.

[sKePTiKal]

Thanks SS...

I'm not too sure I know what I mean by play yet either... sort of like standing at a blank canvas and sketching something unconsciously... to see what comes out. As an artist, I've tended to depict my inner world - but also the world as I WISHED it was...

Fear of failure is a self-fulfilling prophecy, when it keeps us from trying... this type of fear, is one where I can form an intention, make all the plans and carry it out - all the while, being afraid. I accept the fear of failure - and try anyway - is what I'm saying. Because the value of failure is in what I can learn from it... Edison made 100s of lightbulbs before he got it "right" - he just had to keep learning through failures, until he got it right. My concept of "practice" is related.

But the other fear; of horrible consequences for daring to speak my wants/needs to another 3-D person - even someone I'm as close to as my hubby???? This one makes me pee myself, it's that intense... I'd rather humiliate myself than face this one. This is the one I really, really need to work with for a while. I'm thinking it has to do with how vulnerable I was - and how violated - that even my own body & mind betrayed me...

I sure hope no one else can relate to that.

[Hopalong]

Hi SS,
Have you ever read about "flow"?

I think it's very wonderful against shame.

love,
Hops

[sKePTiKal]

Play is how we create new habits. We experiment, try out different roles, where we can see the possibilities of different results. It's what artists do... and Twiggy - of all people - knows how to do this... it's my nature, really. Make up new "rules" as I go along... try something and see how it works... and change it if it doesn't.

So, I'm quoting myself... 'coz I'm continuing this thought process. As very little children, the results of play didn't matter... it was just FUN... or it should've been. As I look back on my own experience, there was a lot of being told to "play by the rules"... no cheating... even FUN was serious & competitive & regulated by the warped rules of my FOO. A lot of games between my brother & I ended up with one person or the other upsetting the whole board... losing wasn't an acceptable option.

There was a "right" and "wrong" way to have fun.... sheesh! Fortunately, it wasn't always like this. Sometimes we played out of sight and interference...

The way play connects to needs for me are those pesky rules, I think. Rules about how to get needs met - under what conditions they could be met - and expectations and competition. Under all that...

I'm dragging around an empty bushel basket labelled "Needs". It's pretty battered; cracked boards & splintery spots... the basket even has holes in it...

... and I'm expecting fulfillment - the basket to be filled - by things falling out of the sky into the basket. Problem is: that basket has a hole in it... the hole is those core beliefs; warped thinking from my FOO; the hole is a fixation with getting those needs met BY SOMEONE ELSE. The hole is rules about how the basket can be filled, too.

Silly me. The old needs can be met by myself... reparenting myself. The new needs: well, maybe I need to play to get those met. Let the rules be flexible; not focus on the outcome - only on the FUN to be had, trying to "fill" an empty, broken basket... and invent a new game out of it.

'Coz if there's shared fun... then there's emotional connection... a doorway to meeting needs....
hmmmmmmmmm.........

[Hopalong]

SOME of our needs can only be met externally.
Like the need to be held now and then.

What happened with me and the gardener sort of blew my independent little mind.
I asked him. I released the outcome. I didn't expect/compel/demand. I just asked, accepting that the answer would be a mystery.

It was disconnecting the ask from the answer that helped.

I was taking care of myself by asking. It was a little nervewracking but ultimately felt good, because right after asking I also told him I'd figured out that I would be okay either way, because I'd learned to release the outcome.

The answer would be a separate situation, and I could deal with it either way.

I bet you could set up a few trial "asks", Amber. Where not much is on the line. Just for practice.

love to you,
Hops

[sKePTiKal]

I get it Hops! Like with play... it doesn't matter the outcome - win or lose -

but the real, pretty pearl is the idea of caring for yourself by asking.....

.... it neutralizes the idea that the outcome DOES matter; that the outcome somehow is a judgement on ME.
-------------------------------------

Ya know, I think I'm finding myself trying to dismantle the processes/procedures that I simply habitually re-enact in how I interact with people; it's very 3-D stuff and that makes it "riskier" than simply changing my thought patterns...

... and I'm finding that I'm coming up against these huge, solid, obsidian-like blocks of what must be more shame/fear...they absorb all light and reflect only the old, distorted images of myself back to me....

... I'm finding so many ways I try to be invisible; intentionally silent in 3-D (like not asking); hiding - to avoid what this obsidian block is telling me is guaranteed to result in more abuse. I need to find my sledgehammer, I think. I'm tired and impatient with simply chipping away a corner here, cracking it a bit there...

I need to see who I am, naked - no defenses, no shields, no "smokescreens" - vulnerability, warts & tummy hanging out for God & everyone to see. I'm betting on my tai chi teacher's saying coming true again:

"Nothing bad will happen".

[Hopalong]

Nothing bad, (((((((((Amber))))))))))).

love to you,
Hops