Friday, September 30, 2011

a journey with illness

so for the last few days i have been navigating a gallbladder attack...i didnt take care of myself in ways i knew to do but ignored...and so the lesson came...clear my energy field, bring in protective light from another's negative energy, eat what my body can accept and stay centered under moments that begin feeling stressful....duh...didnt do it...instead i just kept operating on a survival level rather than a thriving level and got a gallbladder attack from my wrong choices...

but at the same time i needed this illness...it stopped me and made me connect some dots in my life...why i react to being around my mom and how she manipulates even when i can see it at play...how i step in to her pain and not keep healthy boundaries...

to be a compassionate witness...this...in life...is sometimes all you can do for someone twisted and living in their suffering...clinging to their fears...but i didnt do this with my mom...i went into the pit to pull her out and she latched on...again...staying there and wanting me to stay with her...

even when you know exactly what to do you still may chose the wrong way, the self-created detour or the most harmful...you know on some level you are meant to face the big messy action so you can get to a lesson you wouldnt get to any other way...this is what i did...

i understand myself more as i recover from this attack...i understand how my mom not only is passive aggressive and uses manipulative emotional tactics to get what she wants but i also remember how she use to do it when i was a child...

the times she threatened suicide when i was little...i would hold on tight to her and tell her not to...she would sit by the water and threaten to jump in...so one of my arms would cling tight to her and the other would hold on to a tree root or something...and then i would beg her not to...and she would laugh and say she was only kidding...getting her emotional fix from me...

other times she would fake cry and get me to cry so i would comfort her and then once again she would laugh and say she was only kidding...and so the head games were played and when i was around her she kept finding new ones...ways to separate me from my dad...ways to make each person around her have only loyalty to her...sick games she fed on over and over again...

and this time mom started the game again...her fear of death pulled me in...her health issues...her tears...and it stressed me out...besides what i have going on in my own life i began to take on her suffering...only with mom her suffering has the added weight of using her own suffering as a way to gather energy from another person...it is a form of soul sucking...she pulls you off center to drain you...she uses a person's goodness to pull them in...they start feeling a low hum of anger that grows and grows until they are drained...she turns kindness into anger and then feeds...even when the person hides the anger...it is still food for her ego to feed on...

our own ego's need to feed as we turn our power over to it in self-worship...self-absorbing focus is what my mother did to herself early on...she learned this from her mother and she attempted to teach it to me...but unlike her and her mom i was brought up in an environment that was community focused...i was part of a larger circle than them...i was drawn to bigger and bigger circles...and as i grew and expanded that horizon of my world i understood that to reach out and do for others was a beautiful thing...to do it out of love and not servitude or guilt...to do it without a need to feed ego was freeing...to understand we are all one and to do for others lifts myself and the world up into a better place...

my mother stayed small and ego pulled her into a twisted and unhappy place...a place full of fears and traps that kept her enslaved to her fears...

my greatest fear in life is that i would become my mother...but through this illness and how i saw into so much of the dance she dances i get it...i get the wall i have always put up with her at a certain point when i became an adult...to keep from getting sucked in...i learned not to trust her kindness or caring or concern...it was all about pulling me in to get my loyalty...it was this way when she was concerned about me as i got sick here...it had nothing to do with a real concern...it had to do with what she feared...that i would get too sick to take care of her...

as an adult i started shutting down with others...as others treated me with kindness i would pull back and put up my wall...people could only get so close to me...i would never trust they wouldnt pull the rug out from under me....

recently as i started letting others in i started feeling too vulnerable...i had to start seriously looking at this....i wasnt understanding why i would panic at letting others close...i just would...the feeling of drowning would come to me...


this week i experienced the moment i started pulling back and putting up the wall...i have often chose people in my life who were emotionally distant so i didnt have to struggle with closeness...yet all at the same time wanting closeness...an odd dance i joined in on...but this week i wanted to see...wanted to understand...wanted to change and be free...

the big ahhhh-now-i-get-it moment...i am asked to trust kind actions from others and i dont because many times my own mom's kind actions or sad needy moments turned out to be hurtful...she wanted to drown me in her own fears so she could get a fix and feel safe until the next time she started becoming too afraid...this week she wanted her fix...and i finally saw that moment when i would grab her and try to save her as i did so long ago...but she never needed saving...she just wanted her fix...

today i am so incredibly aware of my vulnerable child within...her small hands holding on to her mother...terrified for her mommy...afraid...so afraid...

today i understand that it can be comforting for others to be kind to me...it can be safe...it can nurture me and not drain me...that accepting love and gentleness and kindness is not going to hurt me...i can be open...no walls...no fear...palms up...accepting...

i am grateful for this big lesson...alot of smaller lessons led me to this moment as well...and what you may take with you from my experience is this...when you begin looking at what doesnt work in your life and look for the core cause you will find it...though it may feel like you have had to unravel a huge ball of twine to get there...you will get there...and when you see it...the big fear...the thing that keeps you from loving yourself and others with a compassionate and grace-filled intent...well it will humble and inspire you...as it does me...you will accept what it is and where it started...you will release it gladly and without the need to hold onto it any more...you will learn to do things differently...healthier...and you will grow...expand...become more fully your happier self...

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