That's a really good point Hops - about being open to "receiving". Very perceptive, too.
If there was any concise way to sum up all the ways I used to be neurotic, it would be that I dedicated myself 100% to fighting off, shielding against, preventing any and all attempts to connect with me in a positive nurturing way. [I'm probably still neurotic - just learning new, less self-destructive ways to do this! LOL!!]
I was primarily responsible for "denying" myself these experiences - after a certain point in my "story". I was just thinking about this during my "hello, it's a new day" scan of what was in my brain/emotions this morning. I was trying to see who I was trying to punish the most - myself; or perhaps the bits & pieces of the introjected bioNic mom that I couldn't seem to E-ject from my mind. As if in an eye for an eye revenge mode, I was trying to starve out the introject of all human nurturing... just like I felt she'd done to me. OK, maybe I went a few steps further... all that rage, that GS & I talk about.
The "problem" with that simplistic approach, is that it's really hard to separate introject from stuff that was my environment; and therefore becomes a part of my history... my story... me. I've been kinda re-evaluating some of my assumptions and conclusions about that. And comparing it, too... to the simple graceful easy way MIL had of putting people at ease; how she would accept my obscuringly vague descriptions of my difficulties with my FOO w/o digging for details or examples... and how she shared her own encounters with "people like that". She was always puzzled as to why some people chose to behave in a controlling, mean, mind-game fashion. To her, there was always an alternative... and she tried to "set the ambiance" by offering up the alternative first; disarming the people who were harried, abrupt, self-involved... and connected to their need for soothing, human interest, caring & connection. She very much surprised a lot of the med professionals she came in contact with and was one of their favorites.
Interestingly enough, I've gone through the last few months (and they were far from easy months) tracking how much I smoke (but without setting any goals). And I've cut the number consistently in half. It's as though I am finally able to simply feel what I feel... without some intermediate, conditional, or interpretative activity (a dismissal? discounting?) like smoking, to make that possible. I don't need a rationalization or explanation for what I feel... it doesn't have to "make sense". And I'm more and more aware of how I use smoking as a substitute for my real needs... and as that "buffer" between my feelings and how I appear to other people. It's something to hide behind, in other words. Because of my expectation that I'll be humiliated for feeling... or punished for feeling... or that I'll shock people or otherwise be considered inappropriate.... being me and feeling my feelings.
That's one piece of introjected bioNic mom, I know I can do without!
