Quote:
Originally Posted by uberinquisitive  Angela's post is pretty shocking to me. Thanks for quoting, AtC.
It's shocking because all I see in my life is pain, and I'm choosing between being neglected by my current guy, or dealing with my fiance's suicide. I've never considered not being in pain.
So tragic, man.
What's keeping me from choosing joy? - It's all I know. It's "normal."
- I can't imagine myself without pain (who would I be?).
- I'm not sure I deserve the happiness that I observe in other people's lives. Maybe I don't believe it's real, because I've never personally touched joy.
Whatever the case, I'm scrambling to find the exit point, and I just can't see it. I'm probably overlooking it, but not seeing it has triggered a deep panic. The past couple days, I've been like those "hunted" chicks in horror movies, who is trying to get out of the haunted house, but keeps running into 
Everyone is, in their own way, advising me to "chill out" "accept" "surrender." Tolle, Katie, people on this board, my friends and family.
What does that really mean?
When we skin our knee or break our bones, we don't sit there and chill. We go to a hospital. When we need money, we get a job. The concept of just "taking it" sounds sooooo counter-intuitive.
I have done nothing about my current guy situation, but I can't help but rehearse how I'm going to (hypothetically) confront him. In my imagination, I take the upper hand. If I didn't have this outlet, I think I'd go bananas. But I know this is not real surrender.
How does one get out of the grips of her own, crazy mind? |
I really get where you're coming from, given that I spent the beginning of this week in a severe depressive haze, and my friends and life coach bore the brunt of it.
This will sound crazy but in the middle of this post I stopped to make a cup of tea, and something came to me about what we do. We're actually trying to protect ourselves. When something really awful happens, like a lover committing suicide, a miscarriage, the death of somebody who really matters, boyfriends cheating on us, we assign huge importance to that event and say "This says X about me." Sometimes we'll add "This also says X about life."
So we try to run away. We shut ourselves into our pain because we can't stand that these things happened, and because no matter what we do, how much we hurt or beat ourselves up, they still happened, we go on torturing ourselves. And we start to identify with our pain. It becomes Really Significant that this event happened. It tells us some Divine Truth about who we are and what the world is like. And we cling to our pain because that becomes our truth, we think our suffering will somehow make things better. At the same time, coincidentally, we're trying to protect ourselves from more pain by creating this drama out of our old pain. We brand ourselves with these events, they colour our every interaction because we think that they make us who we are, that they changed us, that time stopped and we have to make a huge deal out of them.
I've spent a lifetime walking around being angry and filled with self-loathing because I was bullied and abused. God it was important. I can still feel, inside, that I want it to be Incredibly Significant And Life-Changing. I am broken by this, I want to say, and in that, as Angela says, I can get love from the Pain Hospital from friends who will let me be broken and never argue with the power of My Terrible Pain.
Now I'm starting to ask myself, whenever I get into these places: "So what?" How important is it really, how much does it affect who I am now. Well, it only affects me as far as I allow it to, only as much as I identify with it and make it mine.
I think, reading what you've written, you're very powerfully attached to needing his love, and needing his approval, so it really does hurt when he doesn't do what he said he'd do - because if he doesn't in your mind that says something about you. Like I said last time I posted in this thread, break off contact because that will give you the chance to find the love and approval for yourself within yourself. I think that's what you need right now. When you can do that it doesn't matter what people do to you that you consider inappropriate - if it hurts, you feel the pain and then move on, and if necessary, you talk to that person about appropriateness and boundaries or if it's really serious, cut them out of your life. If not, you recognise that people will do what they do and sometimes it'll hurt you. Doesn't say diddlysquat about you.
Go within, and find you. Start developing a relationship, a deep loving relationship with the person you are. And you'll find out how great you are, and how well you deserve to be treated. Because people will only treat you as well as you treat yourself. You are brave and courageous and you'll start to see it all for yourself when you take the time to get to really know you, rather than looking at other people and trying to find the love you want there.