Today's Hurdles

[Gaining Strength]

PR - thank you.  I am in a darker place today after several days of pushing forward.  As I read your post I sensed that this darkness in that dream is the place that I have been, something of a description of my life and where I am.  In that dream There was no connection for me, noone was interested in speaking to me or including me.  That is definitely where my being in 3D life seems to be. 

I have consciously begun to focus on being in a positive place.  Switching my focus from what I don't have (connections, friendship, belonging) to what I want or believe is mine by divine right (belonging, value, inclusion) perhaps meets with resistance such as this dream and the yuck I am experiencing today.  I must summon the strength to push through.  Having overcome the paralysis of shame I am in a better place to overcome this at this time.  I chose to put the full force of my whole being into this focus.

Perhaps the dream is telling me that I have been trying to go back and get on track in my life where I could have gotten on as a child if I had understood the mechanisms that pushed me off.  But I cannot go back, I can only go forward and I am afraid I have an attachment to getting included by all those who pushed me out.  That is clearly a wrong headed approach.

It is as tough that if I can make a friendship here I can take it back and use it as capital to get included in that place where I grew up - a sort of barter.  I honestly can no longer understand why I am so systematically left out of this world.  It is so extremely painful and to watch it spill over onto my child is unbearable torment.  I see it in the sports where the fathers are the coaches.  My son is left out in right field and next to last in the batting order even though he is now batting better than all but 2.  He is on the sidelines 3 times in football when no others are and 2 of the 7 boys are only on the sidelines once each game.  It is happening over and over and over in his life and my pain is so huge because of it.

The only thing I know to do is to continue to work on this healing, continue to trade this pain and hurt in for hope and love.  It sems all so crazy.

I have something to offer and feel so rejected where ever I go.  I must resist the desparation that can come from that.

By reaching out to me you have helped me focus.  I am setting up an intention to draw true friendship where I am valued and encouraged.  It is time to leave the old behind.  A lifetime of going back trying to clean up the past, make up the errors, get it right, get included.  I am somehow holding onto the old pain - just the way I have held onto my HOPE for relationship with my mother.  The message is to go NC (at least emotionally) with my past.  It will not be there for me.  I have no vision for the future but was reading something Tues about stepping forward and I will hear the voice whispering in my ear from behind confirming my steps.  This engenders enormous fear.  I am filled with fear today.  I chose to receive healing love to replace that fear.  I feel the full force of the abandonment and rejection that I believed my mother and father would pave the way to repair.

I must let go of what I thought they had promised me.  I had no idea about any of this until I began writing this post.  The pain and sorrow andloss is now pouring out of my mind and body.  It is much bigger than I could imagine.  I feel so lost and abandoned and hated.  - less than human.  All of that doesn't connect with the human that I know that I am.  I have so much to give and so enjoy friendships and relationships and give and take and socializing.  There is such a HUGE disconnect and I so long for that fissure to close.

I am thankful to be in touch with that inordinate sorrow and pain.  Thank you again for reaching out. 

[Hopalong]

GS...

I find myself over and over thinking about people's dreams in the context of one way of interpreting them that a professor of writing told us in grad school. Consider YOURSELF every single element, physical, natural, animal, and human, in the dream. Consider what part of you is:

the inner circle that feels empty
the 2nd circle that includes greetings to childhood
the dark cloak
the mourning
the financial rescue, the $$$

I find it empowering always to consider even "bad dreams" in this light, because they instantly turn into awareness tools.

(Same professor also said, there's no such thing as a nightmare -- dreams are a safety valve for your subconscious, among other things...)

xo
Hops

[sKePTiKal]

Something occurs to me...
you said:

It is time to leave the old behind.  A lifetime of going back trying to clean up the past, make up the errors, get it right, get included.  I am somehow holding onto the old pain - just the way I have held onto my HOPE for relationship with my mother.  

Well - the past can't be undone, dear. Remember, there's no right/wrong way to be. You just ARE, what you are. Don't beat yourself up for not being where you want to be yet. That's like me kicking myself for still smoking - only makes it harder.

There's not a thing in the world wrong with you, so if you're feeling rejected by people in the Now; maybe you've approached the wrong people. There are lots & lots of people out there who take themselves so seriously - so self-important - that even simple friendliness offered by a "stranger" or acquaintance is an affront to them. Myself - I don't want to hang out with those kinds of people. My friends have been from all over the socio-economic scale; from all different "worlds"; what mattered was whether they were fun, interesting, and tolerant of "weirdos" - meaning myself and others. It's made for a motley crew of people in my life - sure! But, I don't need to impress anyone with "who I know". I just like them, for who they are.

Groups remind me of herd instinct; lemmings. And I still resist all attempts to identify with one - even my tai chi family. So, I guess I simply connect with people - it's not even my own group because they don't know each other - people who've enriched my life with who they are: like you have. This strategy does avoid the whole problem of being included, I guess. And I probably developed it for precisely the same feelings you're having, as a young teen. I saw groups as limiting; restricting; having too many "rules" about behavior and clothing and activities. So I knew people from many, many different groups. Maybe that's why you were walking away from the circle building?

[Gaining Strength]

Hops - thanks.  I have known that in the past but forgotten to apply it.  I am learning some things by applying to that dream.

PR - I absolutely know that I can't go back but I didn't realize that I was still trying to do that until I wrote that.  I am finding that this extreme "bouts" of pain are coming like spikes of fever and feel certain it is the way this dark repressed pain is working itself out of my depths. 

I don't so much want to be included by people but I want to be treated fairly/equally and that is always a shock to me that people are so upfront partial to and treat people in such manner. 

Anyway - all this stuff is for me part of the process.  The pain comes out in fits and is absolutely excruciating.  I am not completely debilitated but I am purging.

And I am needing to connect and am so thankful for this place where I truly feel I have friends.

For the first time in my life I am able to both identify that my reaction to exclusion is hurt and anger and taking offense and THEN use a process to let that pain and hurt and offense go, not take it in, not repress it.  THAT is a START.  But I must also release all of that old pain, hurt and offense.  AND in the meanwhile transform my expectations to look for and receive acceptance in a different way from what I have experienced in the past.

[gjazz]

GS: again, I relate totally to your feelings of isolation and being left out or left behind.  I've had that all my life, and even my dreams, as you bring up here, revolve around that theme.  I'm on the outside, looking in.  Everyone else knows what's going on, I don't.  I try and try to get somewhere but there's a new obstacle at every turn.  Many dreams take place on boats, in storms, on the verge of sinking, washing ashore, tipping over.  Just wanted to weigh in and say: I'm with you on going NC with my past during daylight hours, because that gives me the freedom to focus solely on what's ahead.  Sure, it's impossible to leave the past entirely in the dust.  I don't really want to do that anyway; there were good times as well as bad, and holding these up against each other is what gives me a barometer for the here and now.  But you don't have to live in past pain forever.  You have the right to leave it behind, however you can.  Hang in there.  I do understand where you are coming from.

[Gaining Strength]

This stuff is so cyclical.  I am definitely on an upswing but there are days when I do feel that past pain like today.  When I feel it it is severe.  But it lasts only a few hours as opposed to several weeks.  Even still, in the depths of it I have absolutely no perspective that this is going to be short.

It is a though I have a huge store house of stuff to be processed and some of it comes up at random times, like today.  For the rest of the day I am able to keep processing it and connect the pain to the original source even though the triggers are from current stuff.  I find that absolutely fascinating that today stuff triggers the original wound and I can now make those connnections. 

But the worst part is that on the way from current to past there is the stop in self-sabotage.  That is the stage that I am looking forward to bypassing.  That is the healing that is my goal.  That strangely enough is where I have seen significant healing and yet have so far to go.  It all seems so paradoxical and twisted but I am on a path and making progress and must keep my eyes on that.

Gjazz - thank you for sharing about your dream themes.  The magic and power of this place is to find fellow travelers who share the commonalities.  It is encouraging and helps me feel not so terribly alone.  Thank you.

[gjazz]

I've had--or I should say I'm HAVING--a very hard time getting over self-sabotage.  I have to make a conscious effort to repeat over and over that when I hurt myself I'm honoring my opponent.  But it's so unconscious, such a habit and a coping mechanism, so yes, I hear you.   When I take a downturn it's severe, like yours, and I isolate myself, which makes things worse in the long run.  I've been doing that for a few weeks now--berating myself, refusing to see people, staying in, barely hitting the grocery store.  Over the past week I've tried to make sure I either bike or swim every day--exercise does help, simplistic though that sounds.  But it's not enough, it all comes back, over and over.  With luck, a little less forcefully each time.

[Gaining Strength]

You've hit the nail on the head for my Gjazz - the self-sabotage is unconscious and I can only see it in hind-sight.  Though I have learned over my life that IF I can see it in hindsight and I work through it THEN the more I do this over and over again then suddenly one time I am able to catch myself right in the process of doing it.  THEN I can do THAT more and more and make real progress.

I had a kind of break through last night - unable to sleep well at all.  Angry about something that I had no power to do anything about.  Over and over through out the night I tried to let go of my anger - forgive the guy - over and over - endlessly - wanting to let go of that feeling of powerlessness.  Suddenly I got it - there are two types of anger - a powerless one - rage and an empowering one (for lack of a better term) righteous anger.  I have been living in the powerless one - rage.  When I finally broke through my rage towards that man I felt the empowerment and then what I felt was a sense of "drive".  I could hardly wait to get up - I had so much to do. 

For the first time in years - since my husband died - I have a sense of power, of drive.  I have never lost my sense of determination but it was completely rendered impotent because of the powerlessness that I experienced.  The sheer stress and trauma that I experienced due to one thing after another and absolutely noone to help or care rendered me helpless and enraged and the combo was completely paralyzing.

The next steps will be an interesting journey out.  I am sure it will be up and down but I know that the main trajectory will be up and out. 

My rage has kept me frozen.  I will continue to keep seeking out people and incidents that enrage me b/c they point back to original woundings that have held the key to my freedom.  I will not allow my rage to hold me hostage to those beasts any longer.

[Hopalong]

there are two types of anger - a powerless one - rage and an empowering one (for lack of a better term) righteous anger.  I have been living in the powerless one - rage.  When I finally broke through my rage towards that man I felt the empowerment and then what I felt was a sense of "drive".  I could hardly wait to get up - I had so much to do.

W
O
W


!!!

xxoo
Hops

[gjazz]

Excellent, GS!  Yes, I think you have it there--rage may even be justified, but if you hold it near to your heart it's not empowering in the long run, it takes over and subsumes progress in a positive direction.  Way to go.  I see my NF as someone who has embraced his own rage his entire life.  It's the one emotion he feels strongly.  And it destroyed any chance he might have had to be truly happy at some point.  I do feel compassion because I've been there--I had an abusive parent (him) as did he (his father).  But he never found the strength, as you have, to summit that peak and head down the other side.  Congratulations.

[Gaining Strength]

More dreams - one scenario after another in which I am rejected, abandoned and sabotaged.  Each scenario brings pain or rage followed by an attempt to resolve/heal the issue. 

I chose to believe that these buried splinters are coming to the surface in droves because the time is right for the healing.  I hope to write more about this later.

[dandylife]

"rejected, abandoned and sabotaged"

HI GS!
The way to heal this, in my opinion, is to be amongst those who accept you, who will communicate fully with you and will make sure you do not self-sabotage in your life. Do you have someone close to provide this refuge?

Dandylife

[Gaining Strength]

Yes Dandylife I agree and I do.  Many of them are here.  Boy have you all helped me tremedously.

[axa]

GS,

I have not read the whole thread but would like to add that what I have learned is that without compassion for myself I cannot progress.  I do not mean making excuses for things I have done which have hurt others but a fundmental loving and comapssion for my weakeness, mistakes, fraility.  When I go on one of my anger rants I try to bring myself into awareness that the anger is mine.  It has been swirling around in me for years and years and poisoned much of my life.  It stole my energy and sense of agency and sucked me into dark places which manifested in inertia and isolation.  I have found to soothe myself, as I would an angry child: acknowledging my anger and witnessing it as an observer rather than being part of it has released energy from that anger.  I do think it is the scared, lonely hurt child that is angry and needs to be cared for.

I am with Hops on the dreams.  I think each part of the dream represents a projection of ourselves.  I did a workshop once where the teacher asked us to speak from each element of the dream e.g. I am the darkness I want to say to GS etc - very enlightening.  One of the most useful tools I use to add to my life has been awareness.  I find especially when I find myself either doing something I am not particularily interested in or with people I find difficult I bring myself to the NOW and it creates change. 

Thinking of you,

axa

[gjazz]

I think dreams can lead to real insights.  But just wanted to say (not that I'm telling anyone here something they don't already know) that if you are taking anything, prescription drugs, nonprescription drugs, alcohol, etc., that can have a major effect on them.  Anyone ever taken Claritin before going to bed?  I have terrible allergies and sometimes don't take the pill just to avoid the dreams it causes.  Bizarre, often violent.  Last night I was forced to take one (it was that or not breathe) and had a dream in which I was in a hotel, at some party or something, and ended up nearly embarking on an affair with the guy who plays Borat.  I've never seen his movies, never read anything he's written, never paid the slightest attention to the guy who plays Borat, and yet, there we were, quite intimate.  And these dreams are VIVID.  Very real, physical.  Borat!  Oh boy.