For six months or more I have felt as though I had all the pieces to the puzzle of the question I began asking as an adolescent, "What is wrong with me?"
But if I had found all the pieces of that puzzle then why am I not free? I may have found an answer.
Thanks to the people of this board, I learned about a feature of EFT called reversal. Here is a description from the emofree website: "This reversal occurs when the subconscious mind perceives that it is better or safer to keep an issue like negative emotions, chronic pain, extra weight, or a bad habit, than to eliminate it.
Since this is seldom a conscious choice, most people will initially disagree with you if you tell them that they actually want to keep their problem or issue. Of course they don’t consciously want to stay emotionally or physically in pain. But the subconscious is a powerful entity, usually exhibiting dominance over our conscious desires. "
I had been reading through this section and working on it when I went to my regular Tuesday meeting with fellow prayers. One of the women said she brought me information about how to overcome judgments, vows and curses that develop from emotional injury that is not forgiven. This really resonated with me. I have been reading over these two concepts and then I came across the Personal Peace Procedure on the Emofree website. Here is the essense of that and the first step.
MOST OF OUR EMOTIONAL AND PHYSICAL PROBLEMS ARE CAUSED (OR CONTRIBUTED TO) BY OUR UNRESOLVED SPECIFIC EVENTS.
1. Make a list of every bothersome specific event you can remember. If you don't find at least 50 you are either going at this half-heartedly or you have been living on some other planet. Many people will find hundreds.
Suddenly, I realize that I must go back to ALL of these difficult, painful memories and one by one extricate myself from them.
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Last night I had a dream in which my T had arranged for a retreat for me and my son. Someone he knew let him borrow their weekend home. It was a shotgun home and we were standing the the vey back room, the bedroom. It was a very cheaply built old, poor structure but it was filled with expensive antiques. In the bedroom were twin beds. These beds were beautiful and had gorgeous, carved wooden canopies. When I saw these I was filled with resentment and dark, unease and anger. The feeling was so distressing that it woke me.
As I lay there working on what was going on emotionally here, after some time, I came to an image of me as an adolescent, appealing to my father to send me to NOLS for outdoorsman training. I was sure he would agree to this and moreover that he would be proud of me for having the determination to do something difficult and demanding. NO. No he was not proud of me. No, I could not go. No I could not pursue my interests. BUT others I knew were allowed to do so and they received accolades for taking on such accomplishments.
I am struggling in telling this story b/c I cannot get on paper the intensity that I am pointing to. But the resentment comes in the contrast and the struggle and the no-win. I set a goal that I expect will be received with support and encouragement, a goal that fits within the values that I have been taught to hold. But I cannot accomplish that goal without my father's permission and financial support.
I am certain that the memory that I have exposes a great deal about where I am stuck now. I have not yet spelled out how this memory connects to the dream. I can almost lay it out and when I am able to describe it in words I will be a little closer to overcoming it.
Here is a stab - I'm in this house - silently I am very critical of the house and its furnishings. My resentment is legion. What is the resentment - I don't have a weekend house and I don't have the access to such fine furnishings. I grew up in similar surroundings but since I became an adult I have not had access to such things and the only way I have access is because someone who knows someone is letting me in. I resent it. But what happened. How did I get so far out of the loop. The Memory! My parents were the connecive tissue between my lavish experiences growing up and the experience as an adult. My parents were the connective tissue for me to pursue my goals. My parents were the connective tissue to continueing the life I had had as their offspring. My goals, my wellbeing, my comfort - were sabotaged as a child, as an adolescent, as a young adult, as a .... Sabotaged and countered and opposed. I am psychologically frozen in that bind - waiting for my parents to help me out - ain't going to happen.
I have to unlock those dark bonds that have kept me down for so very long. I hope these worksheets about judgment and PPP will help me work through these unresolved wounds.
I wrote before that I am starting a little business. Initially we will work MWF but in a week or two it will burgeon into 5 days per week. This week has gone extremely well. I am very excited about it. I am determined to work through these psychological blocks as I am on the verge of breaking through.