Month: October 2017

by Monicalynn

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Understanding, accepting and trusting your feelings

by emergingfromthedarknight

The following excerpt from Jonice Webb’s book Running on Empty : Overcoming Your Childhood Emotional Neglect may help you if you struggle with emotions.  I know in my own life a lot of problems were caused by not understanding nor fully accepting or trusting my own feelings.   An education in a Catholic school taught me certain emotions were really bad, such as anger.  Ideally in childhood we should be helped to understand and identify our emotions so we can use the information they give us and respond wisely, but if we were emotionally neglected we never got to build these skills.    I hope this excerpt may be of help to others who struggle with understanding and accepting their emotions.

If you were emotionally neglected, chances are you have difficulty with accepting and trusting your feelings.  Some emotionally neglected people are completely unaware of the existence of emotions.  Others push their emotions down because they have a deep seated notion that feelings are bad, will burden other people, or can make them a bad person.  Remember the following three rules:

1.  There is no bad emotion

Emotions themselves are not good or bad, right or wrong, moral or amoral.  Every human being has felt rage, jealousy, hate, destructivenss, and superiority, for example, at one time or another.  Most people have even had homicidal feelings  These feelings are not bad, and do not make us a bad person.  It’s what we do with them that matters.  Do not judge yourself for your feelings.  Judge yourself for your actions.

2.  Feelings do not always make rational sense, but they always exist for a good reason.

Emotions do not follow the principles of logic. They can seem inexplicable and unpredictable.  But every emoiton can be explained if you try hard enough. With every emotion our body is trying to send us a meassage, no matter how bizarre that might seem.  As an example, lets go back to David, the forty something businessman who had zero supervision as a child.  David once shared with me that he occasionally felt an unbearable disgust and repulsion when he saw a random person eating at a restaurant.  He was mystified by this feeling, and worried that it might mean he was crazy.  Eventually, through a lot of exploration of his Emotional Neglect, we figured out the reason : David’s limbic system, unbeknownst to him was equating eating, the taking in of food with nurturance.  David himself took no enjoyment from food.  He had great difficulty letting himself enjoy nutritional nurturance as well as emotional nurturance.  Unconsciously, he felt disgusted when he saw someone letting down their guard, and allowing themselves to enjoy taking in nurturance.  This is an example of a feeling that seems on the surface irrrational and meaningles, but was actualy quite meaningful, and existed for a very good reason.

3.  Emotions can be powerful but they can be managed

Emotions that are hidden tend to have a lot of power over us.  When we are aware of an emotion, we can then take charge of it.  David felt at the mercy of his intense feelings of disgust, and sometimes avoided going to restaurants in order to avoid that feeling.  Once he realised the source of the feeling and didn’t judge himself for having it, he was at a point of full awareness and acceptance.  He started to fight it off, and the feelings of disgust lost its potency.  Eventually it disappeared altogether.

The IAAA Steps

IAAA may sound like a retirement fund but it is not.  IAAA stand for Identify, Accept, Atrribute, Act.  These steps are a culmination of the three rules above.  They are the four steps to maximising the value of our emotions, and gaining energy and guidance from them.  First, Identify the feeling, then Accept it.  Do not judge it as bad or good.  Third, try to discern the reason you are having the feeling, or Attribute it to a cause; fourth, identifty whether there is an Action that the emotion calls for and, if so, take it appropriately.

Whar are you feeling right now?  Close your eyes and ask yourself that question.  If the answer is ‘overwhelmed” don’t despair.  The process of making friends with your emotions may seem complicated, or even insurmountable, but you can do it.  Yes, it will take time.  But if you keep working at it, you will start to notice small changes in yourself.  The changes may be subtle and may at first seem unimportant.  But each time you have an emotional realisation that’s new to you  its a sign that you are growing and learning.  If you find yorsel struggling too much, or on the verge of giving up, look for a therapist to help you.  A skilled therapist will be able to help you to build these skills, so that you can become fully connecte, present and alive.

emergingfromthedarknight | October 21, 2017 at 3:43 am | Categories: Accepting Emotions, Emotional Neglect, Emotional Recovery, Nurturing, Overwhelm, Self Acceptance, Self Awareness, Self Reflection, Therapy, Validation | URL: http://wp.me/p4cc3L-bdI
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by Monicalynn

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Experiencing flow with our parents
by emergingfromthedarknight
How well our own life and energy flows depends on the flow of connection we expereinced with both our parents and if we examine the issue more deeply our own parents ability to connect both with themselves and us has a great deal to do with how strongly they were connected with or disconnected from their own parents. As children we have very strong radars, we can feel a parent’s disconnection or suffering. There are often no words for this at first as according to Mark Wolynn

“early interuptions in general can be difficult to discern, because the brain is not equipped to retrieve our expriences in those first few years of life. The hippocampus, the part of the brain asssociated with forming, organizing, and storing memories, has not fully developed its connection to the prefrontal cortex (the part of that brain that helps us interpret our experiences) until some time after the age of two. As a result, the trauma of an early separation would be stored as fragments of physical sensations, images, and emotions, rather than as clear memories that can be pieced into a story. Without the story, the emotions and sensations can be difficult to understand.

If a parent was difficult to connect with it may also have been a result of some earlier trauma in their own life which affects them in unconscious ways. As we try to bond we may either feel we long to merge with their pain and heal it, we may feel the need to reject them due to feeling we were rejected, our bond may be interrupted with them or we may attempt to bond with someone else in the family system. According to Wolynn these are the four attempts we can make unconsciously to deal with the innate need we all have to connect, bond and attach to others and what happens to us as our attempts are frustrated does leave powerful imprints.

According to Mark Wolynn we can work with the broken connection and come to a deeper understanding of the four unconscious solutions we reached for to deal with disconnection. We can do this by using a visualisation to help us feel if we welcome a parent’s energy or shut it out. If we sense them as welcoming us. Sensing how we experience the energy of both mother and father differently. How relaxed or tight our body feels when visualising the flow of energy from them and to us, also by sensing how much of the flow of energy is getting through from them to us and vice versa in a percentage.

In the next post I will share a powerful visualisation that appears on page 70 of Mark’s book to work with your mother’s energy and her history. When I did it just a while ago I had such a powerful emotional reaction and release which filled me with the deepest compassion for and understanding of my mothers own pain. I truly felt it to be transformative.

On some level I always knew I had unconsciously merged with much of my mother’s past and present suffering, most especially after my father died. Taking on a parent’s pain in this way is not healthy as it reverses the order of life which is that the parent gives life to the child so they can grow and move forward in life and yet life is never perfect and so often full of all kinds of trauma disconnection, unconscious reactions and interruptions. I hope to be able soon to be able to live with this understanding without it affecting my life as deeply and constantly keeping me full of fear that when I spend time around my Mum I will be overpowered by her grief or suffering. I so long to feel free enough to move forward from past pain and trauma over what I didnt get so I can embrace a life that is full of true connection with others, no longer shadowed and dogged by past interruptions to the flow of both opening and and giving.

emergingfromthedarknight | October 11, 2017 at 12:00 am | Categories: Uncategorized | URL: http://wp.me/p4cc3L-b0J
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Help Yourself

by Monicalynn

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Taking care of myself

by emergingfromthedarknight

Self care

Taking care of myself doesn’t always come naturally to me.  I have been thinking a lot lately of the times I gave in to other’s requests or demands and in the process I ended up abandoning myself and my own needs, not being fully aware at the time.   I am not sure if it was totally motivated by people pleasing or a desire to be liked or more so that as a soft person I am often overpowered by those with a strong will, or have been in the past.  Anyway what ever happened in the past are mistakes that I need to learn from and leave firmly in the past.

I am aware that one of the consequences of emotional neglect or abandonment in childhood is that we don’t learn to know our needs and wants and value those or even feel we have the right to have them.  We didn’t have caretakers there who validated how we felt and what we needed.  To be hurting in a family and to be told you are not hurting or making it up or being too sensitive is not excusable.  It is emotional abuse.  To be hurting and to be left alone with the hurt or confusion means that we don’t always learn positive ways to self soothe.

In the absence of care and empathy painful feelings grow as we are left alone with them they can then assume monstrous proportions.  This is especially true, if as babies before we developed the capacity of language and to know what our sensations meant we were left alone with powerful sensations say of hunger and longing and did not have these mediated or soothed.   It has been shown by psychotherapists such as Donald Kalsched that in such a situation painful sensations often become demonic inner figures and we develop all kinds of fears as life begins to feel unsafe.   A strong protective influence steps into our psyche to protect us from danger and may make feeling safe in any new relationship very difficult.  It may then begin to function to split us off from connection with those who may actually be safe.   Such fear then begins to limit our lives.

If we have been emotionally neglected and are highly sensitive it is very important that we know this.  Too often if we were emotionally neglected or sensitive we struggle feeling there is something wrong with us, the something wrong with us is that we were not helped to know who we are and what we feel is natural and right, painful feelings only grow when they are invalidated by caretakers, most especially if we are told that how we feel and how we relate is wrong.

If you are highly sensitive it is so important to find others who are like you and who understand.  I am passionate about promoting an awareness of emotional neglect and high sensitivity in my blog.  We need a loving mother and father if we are to stay healthy on all levels in this world.  If our actual mothers and fathers were not loving and affirming then that creates a wound and a vortex into which we can fall, an empty well or pit of longing and need that we then transfer onto other relationships.    The new relationship may be with someone who has a mother or father wound themselves and rejects us in similar ways.  My own wound of mothering and fathering has really only been helped by my current therapist.  I found other therapists often failed me emotionally.  At the time it felt wrong and I was upset but did not fully understand why.

Now I know that if there is a discordant note in a relationship it often means I am being invalidated in some way.  The key work then is to validate myself in the way I need to be validated and to set my appropriate boundary.  I now need to be the loving parent I never had in the past to myself   I need those around me who are understanding and emotionally sensitive themselves.   Looking for these kind of relationships is about self care for me now.

I know now that for so many years I had to cope alone with horrible burdens that were really too much for me.  At this time of year the trauma memories and pain is there below the surface which is why at this time of year I need to take good care of myself.   At times it can feel lonely to cope alone but I know that it is important to be my own best friend.  I need to listen to my heart and tune into what is good for me.  In the absence of care and love at times I can push myself and be a hard taskmaster.  There is a difference between positive self discipline and riding myself too hard because I may be feeling uncomfortable or angry inside about something.  I am aware that my inner child and inner self lives deeply inside my gut, digestive upsets are a sign something ‘off’ may be going on.  I may be being forced to digest something that is not good for me on a metaphorical level.   I need to tune into my tummy when I am distressed to find out what is going on, just as I need to tune into my heart on any day to see if certain things sit right with me.  My gut and my heart need to be in alignment with my throat and my head too.  When I can speak up from my gut or heart to say this doesn’t feel good, or please could you help me, I need, things are better for me.  I learned so many years ago to silence the request for love and help and so I strangled on those words, having to cope too much alone and stay silent.  That is not good for me.  I need to speak my emotional truth in a kind way when I can do this, when I can honestly own my emotional truth I feel a lot better and go a long way forward with self care, self protection, self love.

emergingfromthedarknight | October 7, 2017 at 12:05 am | Categories: Uncategorized | URL: http://wp.me/p4cc3L-aY6
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