Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board

Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: Gabben on July 29, 2009, 10:49:06 PM

Title: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Gabben on July 29, 2009, 10:49:06 PM: We all know here what the N's in our life were hungry for, right? Attention, praise, glory; love in any form they can find and in any way that they can get it even if it means stepping on our toes and hurting us.

So then, if the N's in our life were hungry for love then what are we hungry for?

At deep levels I still hunger for love and approval just like when I was a child, but the difference between my hunger and a full blown N is that I can acknowledge it, own it and work to seek out the real stuff in life, by being real, that fills our hunger void. Today, I can let the little child in me that was so hungry for something, anything, cry and bleed out her pain of what never happened and what did happen that she never wanted to happen. Whenever I actually allow myself that pain, even if for just a minute, the void that seemed so deep, like black hole in me that just wants to suck in all and everything around it starts to close up a bit and the hope of genuine healing starts to takeover.

The difficulty for me has been to just find that hole and then acknowledge it as it just hurts until it does not hurt anymore. We live in a world that seems to not want to talk about the "Elephant standing in the living room," the fact that we ARE needy. There was a time in my life that I felt ashamed for having needs and for me to actually say "I am needy" produced deep feelings of shame. But, today, I can actually express my needs, if only to myself, which are growing far fewer than in the past, and get them met and taken care of. So much of that freedom came from taking ownership of my black holes of emptiness, holes that if had gone left unchecked would lead to my own N demise.
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Hopalong on July 29, 2009, 11:09:46 PM: I'm hungry for peace, and an overriding sense of welcome.

I am welcome in this world.

The world is welcome in me.

Welcome from me to me,
from the beloved earth to me and me to it,
from me to those I love,
from me to future generations because I heal enough to do something to help the planet heal.

And the peace of kindness...from humans to each other, and humans to animals.

Hops
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Gabben on July 30, 2009, 12:25:04 AM: "I'm hungry for peace, and an overriding sense of welcome."

Ditto!
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: teartracks on July 30, 2009, 02:00:47 AM: Gabben!!!!!

Just wanted to say hi...

tt
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: sKePTiKal on July 30, 2009, 07:31:18 AM: Hey Lise, glad you're back and on this topic, too!

For me... I need to know I'm "OK" - just as I am - that I'm safe - including safe being me, worth caring for, and that when my emotions are in turmoil - I've been to your black hole - that someone, somewhere will help me find my way back to emotional balance, or equilibrium. That this turmoil matters enough for someone to try to help me get back to balance. That it doesn't make them uncomfortable, rejecting, or drive them away.

You mentioned smoking the last time... I've finally realized that my habit is based on the needs I just described. That I used it for a substitute for really getting those needs met. It's just ironic, isn't it? That I'd choose something like this - the "comfort that kills" - which so accurately symbolizes and represents the kind of attachment style I had with my mother.

Her "care" of me, was "comfort that kills". And it was my "need" for comfort & "OK-ness" that kept me going back ; kept me "hooked"- even knowing it came at a very high price. It was my own unsatisfied/unsatisfiable need for an impossibility - that I could make my mother normal and have a normal relationship with her - that needed an outlet; a vent. And since it "could've been worse" (according to mom) that was interpreted as a unspoken "it's OK... it's OK that you're smoking".

And it was something that wasn't her - a boundary of sorts - it was the only one I was permitted to have. So it also served to separate me from her projections and distortions - it served as a "safe zone". I could say more... but it's only more of the same type of connection/association that I've picked apart and tried to understand.

I'm starting to understand that this kind of self-sabotage is a learned habit... a substitute for the "good enough" attachment equilibrium that I happened on by accident while 100% desperate for that equilibrium - that helped me "cope" with my emotions (which weren't safe to have or express) and that unconsciously, I chose something that mirrored the attachment that existed in reality. It was what I was familiar with; I didn't know any better or different. THEN.

I'm at the stage now, with this... where I'm figuring out how to let this go. The problem for me is, how does one "let something go"? What does that consist of? What does "letting it go" MEAN in practical terms? I've only recently decided that for me, it doesn't mean that I simply forget it and put it out of my mind... that's like denying my own existence for all these years. I do have to accept it and my real need behind the substitute--gratification system.

Right now, this is how I'm defining what "let it go" means:

I don't HAVE TO stop thinking about it "forever"...
I only have to stop letting "it" (and "it" can be anything) control my feelings, thoughts and actions... control "me"...
to have let something go

I'd love to know what you think about this, whether any of it makes sense to you and if you have anything to add, or clarify on this "theory".
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: DOBA on July 30, 2009, 07:42:07 AM: I also hunger for inner peace. I hunger for the freedom to embrace the heart of pure joy and gratitude for the simple but abundant blessings poured out on my life. My NF was a very heavy smoker and as children, we all suffered from asthma, ear and sinus infections, frequent upper respiratory infections. Right after he died in the hospice house, my sister and I were walking to the car and she said "We can finally breathe!" The pure air, the healthy air, the essence of life!
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Ami on July 30, 2009, 07:47:03 AM: This is a wonderful question, Lise.
My need is for self expression of my true self NOT the perfect (false) self.
It seems possible
I want to manage my own shame not put it out there for other people to vote on.
Other people will hurt you with your own shame using it as a weapon . Not everyone, of course, but unhealed people .
Ami
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Gabben on July 30, 2009, 12:56:20 PM: Quote from: teartracks on July 30, 2009, 02:00:47 AM

Gabben!!!!!

Just wanted to say hi...

tt

Hi TT!!!!!
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Gabben on July 30, 2009, 01:27:40 PM: Quote from: PhoenixRising on July 30, 2009, 07:31:18 AM

For me... I need to know I'm "OK" - just as I am - that I'm safe - including safe being me, worth caring for, and that when my emotions are in turmoil

This I can relate to, it is that desire to be acceptable in all of who I am, the good and the bad. If I do not feel safe then I do not embrace truth about myself and look to see who I am and what I am doing in my life (which is how we free ourselves), I tend to want to run to somewhere safe where I am not feeling rejected and judged. Ami, on another thread was talking about introjections, my NM's introjections can be a powerful weapon in my psyche, still, even after all of the healing I have done, it blows me away. It helps me to see just how much abuse I really suffered, which is leading me to be more compassionate with myself. Just reading your post was very helpful in quieting those introjections that continually tell me that I am a flawed failure at life and that I need to hide from this world.

Quote from: PhoenixRising on July 30, 2009, 07:31:18 AM
You mentioned smoking the last time... I've finally realized that my habit is based on the needs I just described. That I used it for a substitute for really getting those needs met. It's just ironic, isn't it? That I'd choose something like this - the "comfort that kills" - which so accurately symbolizes and represents the kind of attachment style I had with my mother.

This I can also so relate with. My smoking is still an issue for me. I find it interesting that I am so addicted when there were times in my life were I was so free from addiction, I think that at those addiction free times denial was my addiction.

I love that saying "the comfort that kills" is that not just like our moms when we were little, they were the comfort that killed us because they were no comfort at all. However, we were so familiar with that toxic mom love air that we now out of our fears seek out a substitute in smoking to keeping filling the empty places in us that were created by the the non-comfort of our parents as well as the wounds that we received from just the trauma of being so neglected in love.

I once heard that every symptom tells a story and you have told the story about the symptom of addiction to smoking well. The story for me is the same but there is still more to it that lies under the surface begging for my attention, is that not interesting, "begging for my attention" that is it, it is the primal roots and my broken humanity that begs for my attention. I can feel a huge turning point coming up for me around my smoking, I have been in those primal places of wounding, bleeding and just feeling that raw emptiness that is so deep down in me. The problem that I am having is my mom's intorjections that keep forcing me back into fear and hiding away from my own begging for attention, it is like two steps forward and then I fall back again. At least I am past the point of ever giving up.

Quote from: PhoenixRising on July 30, 2009, 07:31:18 AM
And it was something that wasn't her - a boundary of sorts - it was the only one I was permitted to have. So it also served to separate me from her projections and distortions - it served as a "safe zone". I could say more... but it's only more of the same type of connection/association that I've picked apart and tried to understand.

Smoking is too a safe zone or insulation for me against the worlds projections and distortions that I take on as my own self defined since as a child I was so sponge like I easily allowed myself to be defined by my mom's projections. Being projected onto is a very painful wound to heal, it has gotten much easier for me over time, especially since the N therapist that triggered those memories of what it was like to be defined by my mother. But that pain is still there, what it is like to be defined by others who are Nish and have all of their unwanted crap dumped on you. I feel as though I am constantly wiping the mud off my face only see my own mud underneath, I am trying to see how smoking relates to this. I don't know, for a while I was safe from other projections and had even grown strong enough to withstand them in gentleness, but, now, I am right back to the pain that those projections cause. Since I was so rejected as a child I think that those projections and distorted reality of others about who I am is just touching that wounded place again and cleansing out some more pain, it is all good, just healing.

Quote from: PhoenixRising on July 30, 2009, 07:31:18 AM
that unconsciously, I chose something that mirrored the attachment that existed in reality. It was what I was familiar with; I didn't know any better or different. THEN.

ditto

It all makes sense to me. I am at the stage where letting go is coming into my being whether I like it or not. It took so many years to unfold my defenses and learn them to unlearn them that I can actually see that now my defenses are wearing down and giving up the battle before I have to do the hard work of letting them go. It brings me hope, to finally see that there is a child in me that feels safe enough with myself at least to have her pain without so much battle. I awoke this AM in intense pain but I was able to listen to the voice of my inner child and her ache tell me the story and allow myself to just be with that stabbing pain. I now feel better and more hopeful that letting go will just happen.
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Gabben on July 30, 2009, 01:31:15 PM: Quote from: DOBA on July 30, 2009, 07:42:07 AM
I also hunger for inner peace.

ditto
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Gabben on July 30, 2009, 02:00:52 PM: Amber,

Another thought about the story of addiction is that smoking is a way for us to be empathetic with ourselves, fullfilling that deep need for empathy that we are instinctually born with but, since we were born into the arms of mothers who were not capable of empathy we seek out the substitute in our addictions.

In smoking we are empathizing with ourselves. I think for me I need to grieve the loss of mothering empathy that I did not receive as a child, very primal.
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Gabben on July 30, 2009, 02:10:11 PM: Amber,

Another thought, that before you can grieve the loss of empathy in childhood you first have to comprehend on a deep level what empathy is.

Lise
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: sKePTiKal on July 30, 2009, 02:21:40 PM: Thank you very much !! It does help that you've got areas in common on this topic and can talk about them. I don't second-guess myself quite so much... doubt my own theory.

For me, at that time, I still believed in magic. Smoking "magically" helped me think coherently (after long months of dissociation)... it was a talisman that kept me safe from (different from) my mother. She was crazy, I knew; I was NOT, I believed; even despite the doubt and distrust of myself created by the experience of dissociation. She didn't/doesn't smoke. It was a sign of weakness to her... of "those kinds" of people... a serious character flaw. Yet, it was one she tolerated me having... and didn't "touch" with demeaning criticism - talisman, again.

"Those kinds" of people were also social, happy, had boundaries and enjoyed themselves and life. I wanted desperately to be one of them instead of like my mom. She provided many, many reasons why "those kinds" of people couldn't be trusted, were bad and evil... and so I gravitated right TO them, don't ya know? (denying all the while what I knew rationally then - smoking is dangerous!!)

Even more important - maybe - is the "addiction" part of the whole mess. Like I think you said... "begging for my attention" can also be an addiction... and I think, perhaps also, is a replacement of what is really needed... with a really poor substitute... one that doesn't satisfy... only increases the craving. The "hitting head on brick wall & expecting a different result" approach. I've looked at whether or not giving up - might be the way out. Not giving up only gets me back to the d--- wall.

I do know, now... that when I quit it will be a different way than all the recommended suggestions/techniques. And it will require - absolutely - figuring out exactly what I need to do to meet that need to be "OK/Safe" - without seeking it outside myself... and doing both at the same time. I feel very much, that I'm running out time yet trying to take enough time to be thorough... so I'm pretty obsessed with this these days, though working mostly alone. Maybe that's the best way - I truly can't say yet.

Like you, I feel I'm very close to another huge step... away from and toward. I hope we can give each other clues along the way.
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Hopalong on July 30, 2009, 08:51:44 PM: PR, love,

Urgent thing to say regarding:

Quote
when I quit it will be a different way than all the recommended suggestions/techniques

Hmmm.

xo,

Hops
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: mudpuppy on July 30, 2009, 11:36:12 PM: Quote
So then, if the N's in our life were hungry for love then what are we hungry for?

At this particular moment, lemon sherbet.

mud
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Gabben on July 31, 2009, 01:19:26 AM: Quote from: mudpuppy on July 30, 2009, 11:36:12 PM
Quote
So then, if the N's in our life were hungry for love then what are we hungry for?

At this particular moment, lemon sherbet.

mud

LOL, thanks!!
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Ami on July 31, 2009, 08:04:33 AM: I don't smoke but when I hear about your attachments to smoking, it touches me at a visceral level. I know that I have traits and quirks that are about keeping me attached to my NM to try FINALLY to get her to love me, if even in symbol.
Ami
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: sKePTiKal on July 31, 2009, 08:11:58 AM: Quote from: Gabben on July 30, 2009, 02:10:11 PM
Amber,

Another thought, that before you can grieve the loss of empathy in childhood you first have to comprehend on a deep level what empathy is.

Lise

Yep; I agree with you wholeheartedly! Thankfully, I did this process with my precious therapist... who taught me some very needed basics, before I attempted that. Otherwise, my own attempts would've gotten me stuck in the bottomless pit of the black hole... and having been there once; I didn't relish the thought of going back.

In "Emotional Intelligence", Daniel Goleman describes the reactions of toddlers in a group, to one toddlers' distress. Some will go hug the crying child; some will go get their mothers and take her to the child; some will start crying, too. He proposed that the variations all derive from their own attachment style. I found this book to be really helpful; demystifying emotions and some of the neurological processes that generate emotion. Together with Allan Schore's works on attachment and his concept of "Repair of the Self"... I've been trying to retrain, repair myself.

I am completely persuaded that this is possible.
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: sKePTiKal on July 31, 2009, 08:25:16 AM: OH! Almost forgot... one thing that helped me gain some insight into how interwoven smoking is with my emotional journey, was exploring the habit among people with PTSD symptoms. And that, sometimes one's attachment issues manifest like PTSD, because in fact, some types of attachment disturbances ARE traumatic... or to use your word, primal... because it takes place at such a young age, while the brain is beginning to grow and form neural connections.

Just like stroke victims can re-connect those brain functions... neuroplasticity means you can retrain, reroute those pathways. (though it'll be a lifelong work in progress, I think)

Just wanted to pass that along... in case it's of interest & helpful to you.
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Gabben on July 31, 2009, 11:48:41 AM: Amber,

It is starting to become clear to me that PTSD is just one piece of he smoking puzzle. Stress, overwhelming fears and anxiety that were repressed were at play in my earliest moments of life, there still seems to be more that I am just not seeing about my attachment to this particular addiction. I still cope in times of stress with addiction so healing the wounds of PTSD is part of it. But, in addition to the lack of empathy from a parent there is also the wounds of contempt that smoking tells a story of....

As much as smoking is a way for me to empathize with myself it is also something that I hold in contempt, and since it is not safe, generally, to own, identify and express our feelings of contempt that we felt towards our parents as small child, especially the safe factor, smoking is a
unsafe safe way for me to displace my aggressive contempt that never had a channel of expression towards those who I should have really been holding in contempt -- my parents --but to survive there would have been no way that I could have or even dreamed for a second of holding my parents in contempt...lol! I'm sure that you get this, it is very basic but just another layer of contempt that is surfacing. Contempt is the hidden emotion of my heart that needs healing before I can continue in this letting go process.

Contempt deserves an new subject thread so I am going to start one, I hope you will join me in looking at any unhealed area's of contempt that may still linger in your heart.

It is so good to connect with you again, you have been a huge help here for me.
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Gabben on July 31, 2009, 11:50:31 AM: Quote from: Ami on July 31, 2009, 08:04:33 AM
I don't smoke but when I hear about your attachments to smoking, it touches me at a visceral level. I know that I have traits and quirks that are about keeping me attached to my NM to try FINALLY to get her to love me, if even in symbol.
Ami

Thanks Ami for your interest. Even though you are not able to relate to our addiction of smoking, the prison of addiction is similar to the prison of being trapped in our own fears which I know that you can relate.
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Gabben on July 31, 2009, 11:57:54 AM: Quote from: Gabben on July 31, 2009, 11:48:41 AM
smoking is a unsafe safe way for me to displace my aggressive contempt that never had a channel of expression towards those who I should have really been holding in contempt -- my parents --but to survive there would have been no way that I could have or even dreamed for a second of holding my parents in contempt...lol! I'm sure that you get this, it is very basic but just another layer of contempt that is surfacing. Contempt is the hidden emotion of my heart that needs healing before I can continue in this letting go process.

So I read this back to myself seeing the story here using words like "holding, safe, channel, expression" does that not sound just like exactly what smoking is...a safe holding channel of expression? Yet under the surface of the safe idea of smoking is consistently the hidden expression of aggression (some we fear) "begging" for attention just like our need to quit smoking (something we fear) is consistently begging for our attention.

A good question for me to ask myself is what do I want, really want. The needs and wants that are surfacing are so primal. But writing about this here is helping to dredge up the pain and get it out. Thanks.

Ugh.
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: HeartofPilgrimage on July 31, 2009, 12:30:12 PM: About the "letting go" question --- I have had trouble all my life knowing when something is worth "going to the mat" for and when it is not. I'll go to the mat for something that is stupid and not worth it, and then too quickly give up on something that definitely IS worth a fight. And I can't see the difference in the moment, it's only afterwards that I realize it was or was not really worth it. I have this problem with my daughter --- not being able to "just overlook" the stupid teenage stuff that she most likely will outgrow anyway. I think it stems from having to hang on ferociously to myself if I wanted any sense of selfhood at all.

I've decided that "letting go" for me is contained in this phrase ... "it is what it is." So I keep repeating it over and over to myself whenever I have this intense desire to beat my head against a brick wall. It is what it is. In psychotherapeutic (and Buddhist) terms, it's mindfulness and radical acceptance. Mindfulness of what is going on inside me, of what damage the situation REALLY can do to me, and radical acceptance (not hopelessness or despair). The difference between acceptance and despair is that in acceptance you don't give up hope that some day things might be different, but you give up the urgency of "making" things be different right now.
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Gabben on July 31, 2009, 01:05:38 PM: Quote from: HeartofPilgrimage on July 31, 2009, 12:30:12 PM
radical acceptance.

this is good for me to hear, I am going to attach myself this phrase when I feel that I cannot detach from my frustration around a particular situation.
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Hopalong on July 31, 2009, 01:16:57 PM: Me too, re. radical acceptance.

Thanks, Pilgrim!

Hops
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: seasons on July 31, 2009, 01:31:44 PM: Quote
So I read this back to myself seeing the story here using words like "holding, safe, channel, expression" does that not sound just like exactly what smoking is...a safe holding channel of expression? Yet under the surface of the safe idea of smoking is consistently the hidden expression of aggression (some we fear) "begging" for attention just like our need to quit smoking (something we fear) is consistently begging for our attention.

Hi Lise!

I understand the fears....... in many ways.

Right now I need sleep to become peaceful. Pushed down FOO seems to be coming out in my dreams, dreadful. I am powerless over this at the moment.

seasons
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Gabben on July 31, 2009, 01:53:20 PM: Yep, Seasons, do I ever know the pushed down FOO dream stuff. The other night I yelled out in my sleep so loud that I awoke myself. I called out in despair "Mom!"

My dream was that I was sitting on a couch next to a window, a huge black and very real aggressive bull started to put its head into the window...very slowing before I even was mindful of it, I was being pushed off the couch by the bull and pushed in terror by the bulls seeming desire to kill me. I screamed for help..."mom!" and then I awoke by my the sound of my own voice.

So what does this dream mean to me? I'm sure that there is much there that I a missing and not able to articulate still, but what insight I came up with was the bull represents a dark and hidden force in my life and that the couch is about comfort and relaxation if not even the relief and healing sense of protection that comes from therapy and sitting on a couch. The bull is the dark and primal nature of myself, aggressive, mean and wanting to takeover. As a child I repressed this very big, dark and aggressive animalistic nature in me, it was terrifying, yet it was there and now my unconscious is telling me that it is still there. As far as calling out to my mom, that was my repressed desire for my mom to save me from myself...as a child I had to spend long periods of time in a crib with no human contact, that aggressive, dark and mean bull in me was the black hole that was taking over my psyche or at least what I was afraid of taking over and in retrospect that black dark force of a bull has taken over my life many times...in smoking, drinking, spending too much and debt, depression, anxiety...all of which represent the big black mean aggressive bull in me that my desire for my mom's protection and not getting that desire fulfilled created. Fear. It is still about fear.
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Ami on July 31, 2009, 02:42:16 PM: I melted down in to utter worthlessness, today. Last night, I said Goodbye(in my own mind) to my parents, to being their D. I cried to God to lift me up as the Scripture says"When my M and F forsake me, the Lord will lift me up."
He promises and I take that promise on faith.
As far as the primal nature, I think about that all the time. I think what happened in abused people vs not abused people is that our N's USED our primal nature as a WEAPON against us to show us were bad. Then, we accepted this self concept, surrounded it with shame and tried to be perfect so no one would see our flawed self and hurt us again.
I know from talking to my Aunt that she is not blown away by her primal nature. My guitar teacher is not either. They accept primal feelings as human NOT bad. That,in a nutshell, is where I think *I* got off track. Ami
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: farfaraway on July 31, 2009, 03:19:00 PM: Quote from: PhoenixRising on July 30, 2009, 07:31:18 AM

Right now, this is how I'm defining what "let it go" means:

I don't HAVE TO stop thinking about it "forever"...
I only have to stop letting "it" (and "it" can be anything) control my feelings, thoughts and actions... control "me"...
to have let something go

I'd love to know what you think about this, whether any of it makes sense to you and if you have anything to add, or clarify on this "theory".

I am struggling with one, what do I need, and for sure I keep having these thoughts wake me up, daily activities remind me of the shock, letting go is so hard, I guess when I go to bed, I am sometimes in a relaxed zone, where I can just release the trauma stuff and really sleep. This is what I want at time, is true peace, cause when it happens things or elements that are there, it is like being content even if the chaos is all around, at that moment it is not around me. I is also glowing in peace, like I am gonna be okay, I am a worthy human being, when it happens I believe it. I can Love others and not have to justify it, I can forgive and place those that hurt me in a place where I can gain some space. I am rambling again, bottom line I want to fit in my humanness and belong comfortably in that place where I am not just surviving I am living art.

Farfaraway
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Gabben on July 31, 2009, 03:28:13 PM: Quote from: farfaraway on July 31, 2009, 03:19:00 PM
I am living art.

Farfaraway, indeed.
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Gabben on July 31, 2009, 03:43:44 PM: Quote from: Ami on July 31, 2009, 02:42:16 PM
I melted down in to utter worthlessness, today. Last night, I said Goodbye(in my own mind) to my parents, to being their D. I cried to God to lift me up as the Scripture says"When my M and F forsake me, the Lord will lift me up."
He promises and I take that promise on faith.
As far as the primal nature, I think about that all the time. I think what happened in abused people vs not abused people is that our N's USED our primal nature as a WEAPON against us to show us were bad. Then, we accepted this self concept, surrounded it with shame and tried to be perfect so no one would see our flawed self and hurt us again.
I know from talking to my Aunt that she is not blown away by her primal nature. My guitar teacher is not either. They accept primal feelings as human NOT bad. That,in a nutshell, is where I think *I* got off track. Ami

Don't you just love those melt downs? I cannot even count how many times I have melted down in the last few months, more than any other time in my life. As a matter of fact my melt downs are what led me back to this board. For me it is about shame, the agony of shame and the deep desires that never got fulfilled as a baby, the inner hunger for love and sweet affection, empathy, that went absent from my heart, mind and entire being as I was so abandoned in so many ways as a child.

Ami - my mom did not use my primal nature as a weapon against me, at times, when I was older, she used my defenses that were developed to withstand her assaults as weapons against me but as a small and helpless child my mom just ignored my needs because she was out of touch her her needs and too busy fulfilling her needs, if that makes sense?

My mom just could not empathize and was also so engaged in her own FOO stuff that she completely abandoned me when I needed someone the most. As a baby I was boring to my mom unless she could dress me up and take me somewhere to get attention. I was used. I was mistreated simply out of my mothers selfishness.

Ami - I have been trying to heal the wounds that a child takes in and takes on when they are left alone at the most sweet and tender of innocent ages, a baby. I try to imagine a little child in my soul that was pure, sweet, and innocent, so hungry and in need of love being denied that. It is sort of like hungry dogs, the more you starve them the more aggressive and distressed they become.

What is also so painful about this repressed wound of baby neglect is that you grow up with it as it morphs into self destructive behavior that leads to more shame and lonely isolation, what a vicious cycle of self contempt and contempt for a world that the baby in me perceived as being a black, dark ugly bully oppressing world.

So much aggression to heal, I'm so tired of healing aggression that never got expressed and instead was pushed into a cave of my unconscious because the world, my mom, denied my primal needs.

It just hurts...it is the cross again, Ami, the pain of the desert, the agony of feeling utterly defeated in this world and not by the world but by my very own self.

The good news is that I can go in and wrap my arms around myself and re-parent that child that just needed to be held and nurtured...God is my nurturer and holder, I just keep reaching for Him with all my heart and He just keeps showing up, more and more. It is the fulfilment of my childhood wish.
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: sKePTiKal on July 31, 2009, 04:22:36 PM: Ah yes... there is more hidden in the cloud of "smoke"...

there is a shame cycle... we don't feel safe = smoke... smoke = shame (not safe)... smoke. At least, for me, I've seen this. And the "not safe" can even be something as simply as taking a break in work... my own feelings... sigh. You know, don't you?

So I work on releasing... letting go... and reminding myself I AM safe now... no shame in being a smoker - for anyone who started smoking, got hooked, for any reason... just the opportunity to do something different NOW.... it's a juggling act, and will require full attention and lots of practice to get it "just so"... but it's got to start with safe/no shame for me...

... then it's safe to just forget "I need a smoke"... it'll lose a lot of it's power.
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Ami on July 31, 2009, 04:25:36 PM: Yeah, Lise. I had a wonderful melt down today.
At the bottom of everything, I have Jesus. I have come a long way to get Him but perhaps I would not have found Him if I was not so broken. When I get REALLY down, I say what my old pastor would say,"God looks at us as saved or lost.
I am not uncomfortable discussing my faith b/c it is who I am and that has to be OK. If not,people are free to avoid me. Ami
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Gabben on July 31, 2009, 05:17:20 PM: Quote from: Ami on July 31, 2009, 04:25:36 PM
I am not uncomfortable discussing my faith b/c it is who I am and that has to be OK. If not,people are free to avoid me. Ami

Thank God.

I just was not sure if the faith talk here would offend anyone like it used to and I do want to be dis-respectful because this is a board for discussion on Narcissism not faith. For me the healing of the wounds of narcissism are about faith, there would be no way that I could have taken on the pains that I have had to face over the years if it had not been for Jesus.

Right now though I feel denied of Christ, I have felt denied of Him in the loving and intense way that I used to know and experience Him. It hurts. Just when I start to feel the love of Jesus well up in me I am faced with the old wounds. Seeking God out is what I am supposed to do but it gets mixed up with the old pain.

Jesus is there in the pain He just wants me to see the wounds so that He can dress them with hope and viture. One of the wounds that was triggered recently for me was the idea that God is my constant protector, helper and comforter. But having God's comfort denied me is exactly how I felt as a small child...the "one and only" my mom was supposed to comfort me and I was denied, it has been just a hard journey to know God's comfort, I fought the battle with so much faith and courage in the past. I know that I am just being healed of deep hunger pains and old fleshy wounds, by Christ, in His way, not mine.

Shame, though, still plagues me, the feelings of unworthiness simply because I am wounded but even that relates to the under my soul deep wounds that are begging, screaming for me to address. Sometimes it is so hard, especially when you have to do it alone.

Hugs.
Lise
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Hopalong on July 31, 2009, 07:52:59 PM: I believe there is nothing shameful, nothing whatsoever, about being addicted to nicotine.

I don't know if I've said, but OVER 20 YEARS AFTER I QUIT (through being hypnotized, several times--and it took two processes of this several years apart to "stick" ) I am still, intentionally, chewing nicotine gum, all day long.

The addiction (brain + nicotine) is so powerful for me that I made a deliberate decision to transfer the addiction from cigarette vehicle to gum vehicle. That happened after I decided it was okay to acknowledge that I was powerless over it and decided I didn't have to be a perfect (i.e., nicotine-free) ex-smoker.

I have never regretted it for a moment (except financially, the stuff's very expensive--and I could've gone around the world 5 times...).

I had tried and failed^x100...oh, the humiliating wasteful stories I could tell. Would plucking a nice lengthy butt from a public ashtray do? More than once? (Just as a "peak", iow "trough" one...there are many.)

I finally told myself I was not going to be a hero. I just wanted to stop my desperate cigarette use.

I asked my doctor once how bad it is that I use nicotine gum. He said: Well, if what a cigarette does to you is a, say, 10--what a piece of nicotine gum does to you is a quarter of a one.

Oh. Well, I thought. Hmmm.

I decided I could live with that...I felt so AWFUL, from 20 years of heavy smoking, that I believed I was slowly dying.

And it has turned out to be true. I CAN live with a nicotine addiction.

I just couldn't have survived if I kept smoking.

Back to where I started--that's all just to illustrate that I am deeply addicted, in my brain.

And I am peaceful with that addiction. Maybe later in my life, I'll get off the gum too.

But I have a heartfelt thing I'll say to myself quite often, meaning every word:

Thank you god for helping me quit smoking.

Privileges like the leisure to think theological thoughts are entirely dependent on me not being dead.

xo
Hops
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Ami on July 31, 2009, 08:02:05 PM: Shame, though, still plagues me, the feelings of unworthiness simply because I am wounded but even that relates to the under my soul deep wounds that are begging, screaming for me to address. Sometimes it is so hard, especially when you have to do it alone.

Hugs.
Lise
[/quote]

Dear Lise
I think when you have an NM you live a totally different life as far as insecurity and shame. It cuts so deeply and it seems like you must swim upward ALL the time to even have a shred of self esteem. Nothing outside makes it better----not your appearance, education, success etc.
It is a depth of a hole that has the abyss under it threatening to pull you under.
People who have a loving M do not understand how you question your very right to live, to breathe, to be on this earth.
If I needed to get that low to find Jesus,it is OK.
He is everything. When this life fades, we will be taken to a life with no pain and no shame.It will be forever.
Ami
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Gabben on July 31, 2009, 08:04:41 PM: Thank you Hops for sharing your story with addiction, knowing we are not alone can be half the battle.

"And I am peaceful with that addiction. Maybe later in my life, I'll get off the gum too."

Your battle with addiction is a testament to you faith and integrity. At least you took on the battle and are still open to further healing if needed, some people seem to not even want to fight the fight.
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Hopalong on July 31, 2009, 09:54:25 PM: Thanks...to me, the battle was won 20 years ago when I realized that for me,
a maintenance dose of nicotine would save me from an early death.

No more battle.

What a relief.

It doesn't plague me any more--plenty of other things to work on!

Hops
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Gabben on August 01, 2009, 10:15:55 AM: Quote from: Ami on July 31, 2009, 08:02:05 PM
People who have a loving M do not understand how you question your very right to live, to breathe, to be on this earth.

Ami - this line above spoke so much to me, it was a reminder that there was a time in my life where that feeling that I did not even have a right to be here or a right to breathe permeated all of my being and dictated all every thought and action, it was anxiety times 100. It amazes me that I have come so far. There was a time where being alive was a torture, every waking moment.

Unless I had not been loved back into truth and surrounded by others in recovery who accepted me, although they may have judged me in the process, they still accepted me and there were even some who loved me in a special way, I would have never been able to find Christ or that fulfilling relationship with God that has confirmed me as being OK to be here on planet earth and OK to breathe.
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Hopalong on August 01, 2009, 11:43:48 AM: To ANYONE who wants thoughts on smoking (do please ignore if you don't, I understand!):

I don't want to be "poking" smokers at ALL -- god knows I loathed being "reminded" of the obvious. But I'm pulling for y'all in this particular area if you don't mind hearing thoughts on it sometimes. I'm also perfectly glad to be told you'd rather not discuss it with an "ex" because that can be irritating. Won't take the slightest offense if that's so!)

Long preamble just because Lise's comment really struck me:

Quote
I did not even have a right to be here or a right to breathe

Since it's all a cousin of voicelessness, I was wondering if spending time with that thought in a LITERAL rather than metaphorical way might lead in a healing direction, e.g., what would it be like to love your lungs and sit with how you DO have a right to breathe something other than smoke...iow, would it change anything deep inside that would make it easier to take on the habit-stopping when/if you want to.

Hops
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Gabben on August 01, 2009, 11:59:54 AM: Amber, Ami, Hops,

The insights that I gained here on the board, recently, have helped me greatly with my surging hunger pains which until this AM were feeling like they were taking over my being, much like my dream about the forcefull bull, I was able to see the deep seeded cause on an intellectual level as well as on an emotional level, taking in the truth in order to loosen up the binding of defence; it hurt but the pains of hunger have passed, on some level my hunger has shrunk, a little.

Healing can be so much easier than I make it or than it seems; it really is about truth and mindfulness. There was a child in me that was hungry for me to just empathize with her pain of emptiness as well as validate her reality of neglect, the denial of her needs. In that I found some intense grief that once expressed seemed to fulfill my inner desire to have my voice, the little infant voice heard, acknowledged and understood. That infant voice was a screaming raging voice.

As a child I was so intuitive about my mom's disapproval of my strong expressions of crying or baby rage that I instinctively shut down my emotions out of fear of her rejection. My mom, even to this day, can not handle MY emotions on any level. It is amazing to me that I still carry within my being these emotional memories of infanthood after already doing so much work on infant wounds. Some of us are just more wounded than others. These layers have been cycled through so many times, especially when I see myself acting out in dysfunctional hunger but I had no idea that I was so neglected, I mean really, would my NM ever reveal that to me? Would my father ever tell me what those earliest years were like for me? I had to reach down into my being, listening and watching myself, to learn what life was like for me in those primal years; life was disturbing as an infant with little comfort, no wonder I have been so disturbed much of my life.
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Gabben on August 01, 2009, 12:10:22 PM: Quote from: Hopalong on August 01, 2009, 11:43:48 AM
Since it's all a cousin of voicelessness, I was wondering if spending time with that thought in a LITERAL rather than metaphorical way might lead in a healing direction, e.g., what would it be like to love your lungs and sit with how you DO have a right to breathe something other than smoke...iow, would it change anything deep inside that would make it easier to take on the habit-stopping when/if you want to.

Hops

Hops this is beautiful. What a wonderful suggestion to be mindful of breathing, even if for one day, what insights we, smokers, could possibly gain by just mindfully taking in air and noticing our breathing patterns. For me this would simply highlight what I already know about myself on an intellectual level about my stored anxiety thus helping to further tell me the story of what it was like as a baby, trying to fight for survival, trying to breathe when I did not feel worthy.

My body tenses, constantly...repressed memories for sure.

The word "breathe" is another clue in the puzzle of smoking that you have helped bring to my awareness like the words, expression, contempt, holding, and channel.

How about when I smoke I am expressing, the contempt that I hold in my body for not feeling a right to breathe but desperately (we need air to live), needs to be channeled?

There is that saying that whatever we repress will manifest, find a channel, in inappropriate behavior.
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Hopalong on August 01, 2009, 12:11:51 PM: Oh whew.

I'm glad!

Hops
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Gabben on August 01, 2009, 12:32:03 PM: My body feels like it is rapidly giving up secret after secret story about my childhood pains and disturbances. I can feel the story telling itself in just the emotions that I am experiencing in my tension.

Being able to let go a habit that has plagued me for so long feels just around the corner. My mother, yearning for her protection, validation and love has plagued me for so long. Another disillusionment to let go of.
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Gabben on August 01, 2009, 12:36:38 PM: Hops,

a good mantra for smokers might be "I have a right to breath." As I say this to myself I can feel the little child me, so frightened, feeling comforted and taking in more air as my body relaxes, a good habit rather than the "bad" habit of smoking.

Thanks for being here.

Lise
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Hopalong on August 01, 2009, 03:33:56 PM: Sure.

I think the inner child becomes an abstraction, so sometimes when we address her, we don't take the visualization far enough to actually embrace her physically. Feel the weight of her small arms around our neck after we've said we'll protect her, remember being little and what it actually felt like to breathe...only air...

The one time I "dialogued" with my little self, I was shocked. She was completely, entirely real. I saw my own little face. The hazel eyes filled with sadness. The sweetness of my expression. The gentleness and innocence of my nature.

(I liked her, have to admit. I loved her.)

So anyway, I went through this whole thing where I bent over and tenderly spoke to her, saying, "I am so sorry that I wasn't able to protect you and comfort you when you needed it. I am so sorry you were alone with those very sad feelings. But I'm here now, and I love you." (BTW, I said "I'm sorry" without guilt. It wasn't a tragic conversation. It was just honest...)

Anyway, she reached up her arms and I held her and (in fully conscious mode) I was shocked. It was a REAL experience.

One of the most healing I've ever had. I felt such greater peace afterward.

And...along the lines of how I literally sensed the weight of her child-arms come around my neck, I wondered if one who smokes could start imagining that young self breathing...the clean air a child breathes...

And if that would help. In such a visualization.

dunnohopeso,

Hops
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Hopalong on August 01, 2009, 03:42:44 PM: Sorry...no idea why I'm gabbling on about this today...seem to be having a spasm of wanting to help...

But it's, I guess, the whole experienced compassion for the child-self I think I'm trying to get at.

Maybe there's some grieving, rather than self-blame, to go along with getting ready to quit.

As in a loving this child and telling her with great love and sympathy:

"Of COURSE you don't "deserve" to have this horrible addiction, or to breathe smoke. You poor sweetheart, NO, you didn't do something bad."

...and rock her and soothe her great deep pain over the fact that she does (for now) have it.

Just like an illness, not a character defect.

There's so much shame (wrongly, imo) associated with being addicted that I think it makes it harder to do the self-loving (actual rather than cerebral) that it takes to keep re-experiencing and practicing a kind of fighting for our lives love.

But when you feel love, it doesn't feel desperate, shattering, excruciating...if we're taking THAT to our inner child, we're not quite loving yet, we're still reliving our grief, rather than soothing hers. (Which may be exactly where we need to be, at that time. No demerits!)

When we're ready to love her, as whole-hearted mothers do (and we're creating those, whether we had good models for it from the get-go or not, we can) then it shifts. Becomes warm, fulfilling.

A GOOD, radiant feeling of self-love, rather than desperate and defiant.

I'm droning.

Hops
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Gabben on August 02, 2009, 12:57:51 PM: Hi Hops,

Thanks for "gabbling on about this" it was a huge help especially this line:

we don't take the visualization far enough to actually embrace her physically.

It was a powerful visualization for me to carry a deeper connection of reaching, listening and really bonding with that split off part of self, or better my inner baby. I had no idea how far I could go in trying to connect with her until I read what you had graciouly share about your own work and yesterday I held close your touching images in order to connect with my inner child.

The amazing news is that the compulsion to smoke vanished yesterday, and, today, it is as if I am recoiling from even the thought although my body started to go through withdrawls, almost immediately, but I was able to withstand the withdrawls without wanting a smoke; I did have to apply a patch just to relax my legs.

This quick withdrawl and release seems as if my body wants to release the "permeation" of smoking as soon as possible from my life as I was breathing in the new fresh air of self bonding.

Break through!

Lise
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Hopalong on August 03, 2009, 12:19:40 AM: That is really, really wonderful.

I am happy to hear it and wow.

Hops
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: sKePTiKal on August 03, 2009, 04:43:24 PM: Ah, wise Hops...

yes, you're correct about the grieving.... and the solution to it. Sometimes I feel that by putting all my attention on the habit itself, I'm completely missing the issue... trying to solve the wrong problem.

more to say; little time.
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Hopalong on August 03, 2009, 10:04:55 PM: Really glad it helped.

xo
Hops
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Gabben on August 06, 2009, 10:01:36 PM: Keeping this thread up and alive because my hunger wounds are still up and alive. I found it interesting that I put this thread away, stopped writing on it, exploring the deep wounds that writing this thread allowed to surface.

My putting away this thread of the question what is my hunger was symbolic of myself putting away the hungry child in me that was starved for affection and attention, ignoring her needs or just scratching the surface the way that my N mom just scratched the surface of my needs, she did just the bare minimun, enough to keep me alive. Somedays, that is exactly how I feel, that I am just doing the bare minimum of staying afloat in this world, denying my own needs. My N wounds are super tiny compared to a full blown N, I may act them out on a small scale of wanting to be accepted somewhere or received by someone, but in reality there is a double reality, the now and the past.

Sorting out which is which is hard especially when you are being denied in the now, my being denied in the now is triggering these deep wounds, again, of what it was like as a baby to be so violently ignored, my needs, all of me. The pain cuts like a knife. I've learned this pain over the years, I call it God's scalpel, if I stay with it long enough, cry the pain out, or better described, squeeze the tears of agony out of my heart then there will be relief. It is the death of my ego which I thought was almost gone but as I am finding it is still alive and kicking very well.

For the last two years I have been in these wounds, from time to time. For awhile I found the cross of affliction to be a relief rather than running from the pain. I would turn my whole being into my wounds, let them stab and bleed, cry and simply just hurt. I found rest at times and in those times of rest I could see changes in myself, grace pouring through giving me knew vision as well as helping me grow emotionally and spiritually.

These days I am battleling trauma supreme, current trauma and past traumas. At times the pain feel endless, the losses are huge. I'm hungry but I do not even know what for anymore. All I know is that it just hurts. At times there is a blackness that envelopes me, it is the blackness of my childhood neglect.

The pain and memories are what it was like to be a baby and left alone for hours and hours, days and weeks, denied love, real love, for if you have an N mother than you can never full take in real love, not as long as she is in your life, you breathe in her toxic air.

My heart is being circumcised, this pain is by far the worst of all pains that I have had to endure during the trials I have experienced over the last two years. I pray that if I stay with the pain, pray through the pain and fully embrace my inner child who is hungry for me to acknowledge her hunger then something will shift in me, again. My hope is that my ego will shift in down size.

When I first started this journey into my heart I was strong, but overtime I have weakend and wanted to stop. God gives me strength and periods of rest but then it starts all over again. The good news is that even though I feel regressed, at times, I can see progress. There is hope in me and some days that small spark of hope is the only thing that keeps me going deeper into the darkness.

Lise
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: seasons on August 06, 2009, 10:15:17 PM: ((Dear Lise))

You express yourself so well. I truly hurt for you, ache for you.

I don't know why this is popping in my head. Would it be possible to have a symbol of a child ( you, as a child), doll, stuffed animal, real pet etc. that you could
give the love, safe haven you didn't receive.
Go back and give to yourself what you needed, each and every day.
Could this be a possible tool?
I just want to hold you.

Sent with a sincere heart full of hope and a glimpse of understanding of your true pain. Love and prayers said for you, seasons
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Gabben on August 06, 2009, 10:30:25 PM: Quote from: seasons on August 06, 2009, 10:15:17 PM

((Dear Lise))

You express yourself so well. I truly hurt for you, ache for you.

I don't know why this is popping in my head. Would it be possible to have a symbol of a child ( you, as a child), doll, stuffed animal, real pet etc. that you could
give the love, safe haven you didn't receive.
Go back and give to yourself what you needed, each and every day.
Could this be a possible tool?
I just want to hold you.

Sent with a sincere heart full of hope and a glimpse of understanding of your true pain. Love and prayers said for you, seasons

Thank you (((Seasons))), I have always loved you here.

There is a little doll in a pink dress with black hair that my old T, the good T, gave me. I have not wanted to use it because the good T, in her own humaneness threw me away as hopeless in therapy, my wounds were just too much for her as well as my financial debt to her lol, but anyway when I see the doll I see her and it brings back a painful association that I have not had a chance to heal or reconcile, so I keep the doll in my trunk of my car, despite I can hear the doll calling me and begging me to take her out again, doing exactly what you described so well, take her in my arms and give her attention.

Thank you so much for your words of validation and comfort.

Lise
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Gabben on August 06, 2009, 11:39:20 PM: I had the cry of my life today. My sobs were primal, like a babies, the sobs that were repressed that a baby should be allowed to cry when they need something and are denied. A baby does not know what she needs, they cannot identify their needs yet, right? So they just wail in the darkness of hunger. That was my child, wailing in her agony of neglect. My mom would forget to feed me as a baby, today I sometimes forget to eat, especially when I am in the darkness of the memories. It is as if I just smoke, acting out the long hours of darkness of what it was like to be smothered in toxic isolation and fear.

My sobs feels so cleaning, I can feel a huge release, again. However I can feel another dark night coming on as well. I know the pain of stabbing pain, it comes and goes.

But for the time being I am going to allow myself the exhaustion I feel from having gone so deep, into such primal territory. My sobs were so deep, they came from what felt like the deepest part of my stomach or even lower.

I feel so much better now that I got out that pain. It feels stronger in me, my child, she is wanting to trust me again.

Now if I can just eat!
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Hopalong on August 07, 2009, 08:44:52 AM: Ahh, Lise. You have released so much.

Smoking, it is so much like nursing.
---------------------------------------------------

Now, maybe because you have connected so powerfully with the little girl's pain and hunger, and have released so much of that anguish for you both...maybe now is the time for another visit?

And you'll find her, maybe a little older, quietly standing in a room.

You can go in, and just be her mother.
(No resemblance to your own.)

No anguish. No frightening her. You're at peace, drained but peaceful when you find her.
So you talk to her as gently and confidently as you've ever spoken.

She will trust you and listen.

Just use the confidence of love that knows how to say I'm sorry I wasn't able to take care of you then, but I will take care of you now. The confidence of love that can say that without feeling guilt or shame.

An apology without guilt or shame. You leave those out because you love her and don't want to pass those back into her.

See what happens.

Be gentle.

(I think you're getting somewhere. This didn't sound like recyling.)

hoping for you,
Hops
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Gabben on August 07, 2009, 11:14:05 AM: Hops you are so helpful, thanks again for reminding me to bond with my inner child. Once is not enough. I think my mom tried to bond with me...ONCE. :D

Anyways, I'm going to read your posts again, slowly, because you give some really good images that I can visualize which is a huge part of the bonding process.

The sun is out today and I am going to stay focused on just today as I go out for a walk, make cookies and perhaps even take a drive this evening to see some old friends. Also, make sure that I get some job searching in.

Thanks for your help. Yes, I feel SO much better now after getting those miracle tears out.

Lise
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Ami on August 07, 2009, 02:56:57 PM: I am glad you feel better, Lise.
I was telling my guitar teacher how I had to go topsy turvey before I could find Jesus. I had to lose all bearings and everything that made sense in life before I could be His follower.
When I get to Heaven, I guess I will know WHY I had to have my M and F.
Why did I have to go through ALL this pain?
I don't know. I guess I can never know from this earth plane.The Bible says,"We see through a glass darkly." I guess I have to accept that God knows better than I do and one day either I will understand or it won't matter. Ami
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Gabben on August 07, 2009, 04:44:08 PM: Quote from: Ami on August 07, 2009, 02:56:57 PM
" I guess I have to accept that God knows better than I do and one day either I will understand or it won't matter. Ami

Thanks for this...I have been processing out raw sewage from the depths of my soul. At times it IS RAW, I become raw and bitter, I become full of malice and spite, I become a fury of old repressed baby rage...all directed at the Saintly N...hmm...I do believe my NM too deserves some of this displaced hostility.

The thing is that I am in the privacy of my own home, I am essentially powerless over the past and present and I accept that I just need to get my fury UP and OUT so that I can find the tears and pain to stay with it. It is has I said earlier, God is circumcising my heart, it is one big ouch, removing all this fury for once and for all... I can feel it. I'm working towards freedom....it is so painful though.

I was reading an old thread here that goes back to April 08 were I quoted Mother Teresa "if we are truly humble then we will be unmoved by neither praise or discouragement" Something like that. Anyway...that used to be my goal, my all the way goal for all of everything.

Lately, I can feel the glass walls of envy going up against me...I'm being shut out and the excuses are this story but that is just a smoke screen for accusation substitutes for self-examination and those bothered by my story telling are just too bothered by their own egos to have to face themselves. Being envied is a painful thing....really painful. It is a cross and usually you are hung on it for something that in essence is a virtue, the N's love to take our virtue and twist it into vice. Recall how Jesus was hung on a cross for the very thing that He was not guilty of... blasphemy.

However, I'm not without fault, malice, envy, hatred and my own fury....(it is time to get rid of that stuff, I'm trying my hardest), and wounds, but the N's, in their massive envy want you to feel like you are ALL fault and ALL bad. It is excruciating....God hears me in my pain though, he knows how much I have been shut out as a child, He saw my tears, He knows all of my ache. He accepts me..warts, moles and wrinkles, repeated stories and all, even my fury...

I'm feeling more peaceful...my heart is mending.
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Ami on August 07, 2009, 08:28:40 PM: Dear Lise
I am glad my post spoke to you. I almost erased it b/c I did not want to say "platitudes" but Jesus IS all and Everything.I see people with good families and I envy them. I see people out with their M's and I envy them. I look with yearning and I want that.
I envy my Aunt's children. They are a clan. *I* was supposed to have that as so many of the Jewish people I know do .
Maybe,I am idealizing it. I don't know. It was what I wanted and do see others have. Maybe, it is not as it appears. I don't know. I know that I don't have it.
That is for sure. I don't have it.
I do have Jesus and He is all if I let Him. Ami
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Ami on August 07, 2009, 08:30:38 PM: I wanted to add something else. I feel a sense to give you a message,Lise. You have to accept all the bad ie human failings and flaws before you can embrace the good ie Jesus living in us. Ami
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Gabben on August 07, 2009, 10:07:35 PM: Quote from: Ami on August 07, 2009, 08:30:38 PM
I wanted to add something else. I feel a sense to give you a message,Lise. You have to accept all the bad ie human failings and flaws before you can embrace the good ie Jesus living in us. Ami

Well said, thanks.
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Hopalong on August 07, 2009, 10:24:45 PM: Peaceful...like the sound of that.

I'm glad, Lise.

You deserve peaceful.

Hops
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Gabben on August 07, 2009, 10:59:29 PM: Thanks ((((hops)))) :D
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Gabben on August 08, 2009, 02:52:22 PM: Still here in working out my hunger and loss of empathy in childhood.

Many insights and much pain coming up and out of me. It is all good, I can feel that this is an ending, not a recycle.

It occurred to me that for the last two years I have been frustrated because of a lack of empathy from someone who I thought should have the most empathy. Sounds like my NM, correct? It is. Deep down I'm still looking, seeking and trying to rewrite what it was like to not have empathy from my mom. This is a stubborn wound, just like my pride and ego defenses that have been protecting the wound. It is all crumbling now...I'm tired of running and I am tired of be frustrated into a state of malice trying to get what will never be.

Grieving the loss of empathy is a deep detachment to what I am attached; smoking, drinking, seeking, self....like the little baby in me that was a dark hole, wanting to suck in all around her to replace and make up for what was not all around her, her mom...Love.

This grief is painful. I recall when I had to experience the abandonment of my childhood, the pain was so long, the tears went on for weeks, months and then one day, I realized that I had been in a state of pain, grief and trauma for over a year....

This will not last that long...if I had not had that pain, the pain of abandonment, then I would not be strong enough to withstand this pain, the pain of loss of love, the pain of being loved by a cold wall that hated me and the agony of trying to appease that wall and not getting anywhere.

Thanks for listening as I am going through surgery, having the fleshy part of self cut out of me, or pressed out of me.
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Ami on August 08, 2009, 03:03:53 PM: Dear Lise
I understand the pain. It is the pain of not being able to attach to our M's. It is a real, visceral body stance. It can be undone b/c I think mine is.
I really have hope for the first time. I think we can do it, Lise. Ami
Title: Re: Question: What are we hungry for?
Post by: Gabben on August 08, 2009, 04:26:21 PM: Quote from: Ami on August 08, 2009, 03:03:53 PM

I really have hope for the first time. I think we can do it, Lise. Ami

Thanks...there is hope in me. Ami - I know what it is like to be abandoned completely as a child. As a child your world is your parents, when they leave your world caves in on you, the pain that I healed , way back when, was excruciating, it was day in and day out...I would drag myself through life and cling to the simple things around me to get through. At that time I never smoked or drank, I just ran and ran, swam and swam and meditated. I was so healthy despite the pain that was consistant; I loved my pain, I loved my suffering, I knew that the way out was through. I finally got through.

But I have been tired of processing, being rejected and thrown away...it is so painful to have to look, stare and see the ugly in me that makes people throw me away and reject me. It is like having to face a monster in me that no one wants...it was the monster baby...I felt that I was a monster as a baby, unwanted and undeserving, that is how I feel now.

The pain in my chest feels like a knife, just stabbing. I cannot get comfortable in my own body as I feel like I am in agony...I am.

I just keep saying "this too shall pass", I just keep praying. God has so much compassion, I reach for Him, He is always there to show me more tears.