Another layer of the onion

[HeartofPilgrimage]

Wow, those are powerful (and powerfully clear) dreams. It sounds like in your heart you know what you need to know to get through this barrier.

[Gaining Strength]

whew - a lifetime of internalized criticism and condemnation and it's fear response have taken a big toll.

Yesterday I was thinking about my struggles against anxiety and how it has been like bei ng attached to a prison cell with a bungy cord. Every time I found the prison door open I have run like hell only to find myself snapped back with tremendous force.

Yesterday, again I found the prison door open but I do not know how to cope outside of the prison. My fear of condemnation and anticipatory fear and expectation of being humiliated and shot out have run such deep ridges in my neural pathways that having an open prison door is merely a portal to freedom and not freedom itself.

My work up until now has been about shutting off the flight/fight reaction. But I did not even know that was my work until relatively recently.  Now that I have experienced that a little, I must develop that muscle with regular exercise.  But that is only one of several steps.  It is such a slow and painstaking process.  I am definitely disappointed.  I had always had dreams of the prison door flinging open and experiencing a long lasting euphoria and waltzing into life.  The steps into freedom willl be as laborious as the work to get here.But I cannot rest. I have come so far but have so much farther yet to go.

[sKePTiKal]

small babysteps - 1 sq inch at a time - build up momentum, positive energy and confidence to take on the risk of flinging open the door of euphoria....

[Gaining Strength]

I have been living with the shackles of this debilitating, paralyzing anxiety for as long as I can remember.  But I thought I was merely imprisoned by my own character flaws of laziness and sloth.  Until relatively recently I did not know that this prison was built of anxiety.  I had come to know for many years now that my failings were not a product of my will.  I willed, longed to do things that my body simply would not/could not respond to.  But not of that made any sense to me.

Over the recent years, I have worked so hard to find an answer and that work has surely payed off.  For some time now, I have bit by bit come to understand what was at play in the paralysis and bit by bit I have developed a plan for getting out, finding techniques that have been used b others for various, related issues.  This has been a slow and painful journey.  Lonely much of the time.

I thought that when I had all the pieces of the puzzle that the gates would open and ease would rush in.  That is not the case.  I will continue, not to struggle, but to build on what I have found.  

I have lived in prison for so long that I do not know how to live outside of it.  And I will have to work very hard to not slip back into fear of the prison and fear of condemnation and most critical of all - fear of rejection and isolation.

For so long I have lived in a double shackle of fear of rejection/isolation and the reality of rejection/isolation while the fear and the reality palyed off of each other, deepening the pain and reality of each.  Moving out of and away from prison will be slow even as I fear the return - it is all that I know.  I will be working to gain my foot holds with each step.

It is a very, very lonely journey.  Noone in my 3D life has a clue about how difficult this is or even what this prison has been.  In truth, noone cares.  This struggle is such a different sort that it is by its very nature a lonely one.  Even here I think few understand but here I find compassion and caring.  It is a lifeline.  

My struggle is not over but it has taken a turn and is changing.  It is frightening but in a different way from life before.  There is so much work to be done.  It is overwhelming.  But I am thankful that at long last I can begin to move forward without the bungee cord of anxiety that kept snapping me back into prison of paralysis whenever i broke out.

Thanks to all of you who have lent support and acknowledgement to me along this journey.  It has been nourishment to my soul.  

I have actually just begun my journey out.  I do have to say again that it is frightening.  The prospect of failure looms large.  It is what I have always known.  I am learning to shift my attention, to look for and expect success but that is not my comfort zone - fear and retreat are my comfort zone.

When I opened my computer to write this entry, I was planning on writing about my comfort zone - zoning out has bee my only release from the raging fear that I have lived in for years on end, every waking and sleeping moment.  I never was free of the pain but I found that retreat from it by numbing out was necessary for survival.  I have numbed out by retreating into my head and my thoughts.  Sometimes I have turned to food or coffee or reading or TV or even the computer.  When possible Ihave numbed out by "doing" but that had its own sets of anxieties and so there would be a need to retreat afterward.

How to be without numbing.  how to work my way out of paralysis and clutter and darkness without being crushed by that wretched anxiety and fear.  I am not sure but this is what will be my journey for some time to come.

[Gaining Strength]

Thank you PR.  That is right - small baby steps.  Just reading your words helps me feel the burden break up and fall off.

That is such a big help.  As I read these words and say them i realize that for a few days, maybe longer, I will be "practising" feeling the onset of anxiety and letting it go.  This is the first lesson.  This is what I do after having just had the cast remove.  I cannot run the marathon now.  I am not at peak performance.  My mind has been expecting peak performance.  The real therapy has just begun.  Baby steps.  Experience the rise of anxiety, the anticipation - and let it go - release.

It will happen. 

[Gaining Strength]

more stuff - another layer
actually available through your simple reminder PR

for years, each and every action has brought on huge amounts of anxiety - really indescribable anxiety even over the simplest things - like opening mail, answering the phone much less things that are normal day to day activities for most - washing dishes, doing laundry, mopping the floor, going to a meeting, being somewhere on time, being in public, going to the grocery store - and on and on and on.

Each of these simple tasks opens the flood gates of anxiety for me and the physical sensation is horrendous.  It is much like sticking my finger in the socket.  So now I see that for so very long each and every activity has been an anxiety issue.  Just sitting on the couch and contemplating the things that need to be done - the anticipation of the anxiety that will flood when i do any chore, any activity.  The pain of the release of anxiety from "doing" has been soooo much greater than the pain of the anxiety of anticipating it - which was bad enough in itself. 

So much work - to do things and come to break the association of everyday tasks and anxiety. 

[sKePTiKal]

HMmm.

I hear what you're saying. I remember that process of coming out of my cocoon-prison. I can't tell how it happened, can't describe a how-to process... but at some point, I began to realize that there was more to the experience of leaving one's comfort zone than fear, anxiety about risk-success-failure, and how others would see me (and how I would see myself).

At one point, I realized that I'd been conditioned to color the feeling of anticipation - looking forward to something - with that fear and anxiety. WHAT IF - I asked myself - what if, instead of that self-defeating dread (and internalized messages about consequences)... what if that was wrong? What if I was creating a self-perpetuating negative cycle?

And somewhere along the way, I learned that I could include "excitement", "looking forward to", positive feelings about trying something new, discovery, exploration to the old messages - they co-existed for a while. I could be anxious AND excited, for instance. At another point, I realized that I was feeling more of the positive feelings about "new stuff" and inner transformation than I was the old. But the old "tendencies" to repeat the old patterns remain - I can easily slip back into them. Like old stinky worn out slippers... I think it's OK; it might even serve to heighten the contrast with the "new me" that is slowly forming. But the important bit of that is now, I feel I have a choice.

I know that expectation that a magic someday will arrive - when I'm "all done" with this. That I'll be finally free or whatever. But this isn't all it's cracked up to be, I think. In reality, I think I'll simply be sliding along a scale of the old & new issues (thought more of as opportunities or challenges, now) and that some days, I'll be more conscious and more free than others. I think I can accept that as a reasonable "outcome". At the same time though, this kind of work is one of the ways I "love myself every day" - like Helen was talking about. And given where I was - I don't know that I'll ever see a need to completely "let it go". Self-reflection and inner work are continuous, lifelong education - in a spiritual sense - for me.

It helps me connect to the universe beyond me - and I ain't about to let that go! Too much to see, do, play with, and learn about. Too many fun people to get to know. And way too many things that I haven't thought about in depth or understood yet. The thirst for that kind of knowledge bolsters my inner cost-benefit chart... I WANT to know more than I'm afraid that other people will react to me like Nmom did... and so I decide to take incrementally larger or different risks.

Not that you'll have the same experience - but I hope you'll find it reassuring that this part of your path doesn't have to be exhausting, tedious, a struggle. It can be fun, delightfully enlightening, low-stakes risks too... scary as that might sound at the moment.


((((((GS))))))

[Gaining Strength]

I am soaking in what you have written.

I do pray that the isolation and rejection and loss of connection disappear immediately rather than incrementally.  It is so waring to raise a chikld in such isolation and loneliness.  It is hard for us both.

[sKePTiKal]

I see a circle - you and your son. Not lonely - but a small circle.

Then, I see friends - yours & his... and the circle expands. You do things for and with your friends and vice versa. They are "playmates" in life... but also willing to help out and lend a hand once in a while. And they introduce you to their friends...

... and the circle expands

... and then, one day you realize there isn't any circle anymore... you, just by being and living, ARE connected to everyone else.

Not totally awake yet... still in that in-between state this morning.

[Gaining Strength]

I like that image.

A circle larger than two would so lift the burdens.

[Overcomer]

GS...I don't consider you lazy or a sloth.  Sometimes while you are going through psychological healing you become overwhelmed.  I know I went through it.  My house was a mess and I couldn't get out of it.  The best money I spend is the money on a cleaning lady.  It forces me to keep my house up, thereby keeping me sane.

I don't know what to say to you to make you do what I did.  I felt exactly like you and then one day I snapped and no longer care what my mom thinks.  She is so....I don't know, I cannot read her.  I was telling her about something and she gets this look on her face......her eyes are slits.......if she thinks for a moment that I am going to say something bad about her golden family.....(not my bro or me........her other family.....)

Don't care.  Don't care.  Don't care.

[Gaining Strength]

working on reprogramming.  slowly but surely facing anxiety producing activities and finding a way to get grounded through the triggers.  hard work. lonely. square inch cleaning requires focus on only one square inch at a time.  Hard to keep focus and not look at the rest of what must be accomplished. Keeping the focus is key to not getting overwhelmed.  One square inch.

This all brings up another of the doouble binds - nothing I did was good enough.  The not good enough message is a hurdle for the squarre inch program.  this process brings up each of these hurdles one at a time.  Very painful.  very slow.

[Hopalong]

((((GS))))

You also have the right to just stand on the threshold.
Just a few minutes a day. Or not every day.

Just to stand on the threshold. Door safely open behind you to the comfort zone, back to couch.
Outside? Just sniff. May be a little spring breeze. Maybe a crocus you decide to go look at.

Or not.

The threshold's a good place. You can stand there. As long as you like.

One toe in, one toe out. That's a perfectly permissible place and dignified way for a human to stand.

For as long as you like.

You are allowed to spend time on the threshold.

When outside, or a square foot of it, feels friendly, you can go out. And then go back in.

The threshold belongs to you.

love,
Hops

[Gaining Strength]

Thank you Hops.

I can keep these things in my mind:
1 foot in and 1 foot out,
focus on the 1 sqaure inch
and there is one more - I have to look it up.

[Hopalong]

((((((((((GS)))))))))))

It's not a test.
And if it were it's Pass/Fail and you Passed a long time ago...

being you.

xo
Hops