Resentment, love, fear.
Home...When I walk in the door, I know I am home. The cares of the outside world fall away, and I know that I am returned to my sanctuary.
I had a 9 am therapy session. It began as a venting session. I told her the work situation and how I am so angry and resentful that I can't seem to let it go even when trying to meditate. I told her I've been trying not to care, that I've been trying to just do what I feel like doing, because I feel like my effort and concern are a waste of energy. She said it sounded to her like I had a problem with Change. I told her I didn't think so, that I don't mind change or new things, that I think it is about Control. I told her that I choose to see myself as the creator of my own circumstance, and I resent that I was not consulted. She asked if I would have consented. I told her if I had not been in therapy I probably would have, but as it is, I have emotional and physical reasons why the additional stress is unwanted. And since no one asked me if I was willing to do the assignment, I did not have the opportunity to express that the timing was not good for me until it was too late.
She said Control is for people who don't like Change. She said you can welcome change in your life and flow with it, or you can resent its effects and try to control it. The urge to Control as a response to issues with Change is a causal perspective I have not considered before. I told her I would have to give it some thought.
I told her that I have been cursing at work and that I have been picking arguments with some of the people I care for. She said it sounds like my inner 'brat' is having tantrums. She suggested that I try to give the brat a 'voice' by writing down my thoughts and opinions, with the intention later on of re-wording them as contructive input and passing them along to the appropriate person. I told her that I am already expected to give my input when I complete this assignment. She said that it is good that I am allowing myself to feel angry and resentful, but that it is pretty obvious that I am baffled by those feelings and unaware of how to let them go. I told her that feeling anger and resentment were luxuries I could not afford as a child, and I have rarely allowed myself to feel them as an adult. She advised next time I meditate to have an inner dialogue with the inner brat and validate her, accept her, tell her she is not alone, that we will get through this together. It seems a bit silly, but she's the therapist, and I'm paying her for her guidance, so I suppose I should listen. I have acknowledged that I feel this way, now I need to accept that how I feel is not who I am, that I can choose not to let it affect who I am, but instead, let it pass through me. I am trying. I am trying.
I told her that I have had to face the fact that I am Afraid. Not that I feel afraid, but that I Am Afraid, that I am a fearful person. I told her that it makes me angry to admit it, that while I am confident and unafraid professionally and intellectually, emotionally I am a coward. She asked what I am afraid of. I told her I don't know. I think I've always been afraid, because I had no security as a child. She asked again what am I afraid of. I told her I am afraid of loving people...not that I don't love people, but I'm afraid of just letting go of control and loving others. I told her that my past relationships were chosen...they didn't just happen. Brief lovers have happened, but relationships...those people were always chosen for the challenges they presented me, either by needing somehow to be fixed, or offering me something I needed to learn.
She asked why I am afraid of loving people. I told her because loving people hurts. She asked, What is wrong with hurting? I told her that intellectually I understand that there is nothing wrong with hurting, that pain is a part of living and growing, and that it is a natural and understandable consequence of interaction. But emotionally, it is unacceptable to me. People I loved in my youth damaged me and something in me refuses to risk it any more.
"Hence your complicated friendships, particularly with men," she said. I smiled. I had told her back in November that the men with whom I am most compatable--those men to whom I am most deeply attracted--have inevitably become my closest friends, because I would never take them as lovers. They are too close, I love them too much, and bringing sex into the equation creates the potential to blow me wide open. She said that in time it is a step I will need to take, combining that level of mental and emotional intimacy with sex. I told her I know it. I know it and I want it, but I'm not ready for it.
"Why aren't you ready?" she asked.
I answered, "There is too much unresolved from the past, I want to focus on that, I don't want to be distracted." She continued to look at me, as if she was waiting for more, so I admitted it, reluctantly. "I'm still afraid, so I resist."
As I said this, I remembered reading that, from the Buddhist psychological perspective, fear and resistance are the only things to be analysed. Fear and resistance create suffering, and suffering creates an ego that is aware of Self, and the ego suffers due to that awareness because the very awarness of Self means that it is 'other' and thus separate. Bascially, when it comes down to brass tacks, only by revealing, accepting, and releasing fear and resistance can I gain any measure of freedom from myself, from the personal demons that have me oscillating between the Hell Realm and the God Realm of the Wheel of Life.
How do I stop being afraid? Not by attacking my fear, not by denying it, but by owning it, by coming to terms with--and developing a respect for--my own involvement in creating it. If I stop ridiculing myself and instead allow myself to feel afraid, to acknowledge and accept the fear, then the fear becomes just another emotion that will pass, rather than continuing to be something bound up with my ego and my identity... I know that I am unconsciously reproducing behaviour that was once adaptive but is now merely repetitive, and with effort and awareness, I can free myself from the unconscious habits by which I am inhibiting myself.
I have a feeling this is much easier said than done.
I also expressed to her my concern about the narcissistic nature of therapy. I have become so 'me focussed' that I find it disturbing. She said that it is a natural consequence of the inward-focuss, and it is fortunate that my response to therapy is not nihilistic, or I'd probably need treatment for depression. My ego is healthy, she said, and meditation is usually a good antidote for the narcissism. My awareness of it, apparently, is evidence that I have not gone too far.
On a positive note, as I was leaving, my therapist said that she was pleased by my committment to therapy, and that she thought that I was making good progress. She said there is a light at the end of the tunnel with work-related stress, and until then, I should think about taking a gentler, less driven approach to therapy and self-examination. "Let things percolate up through your subconscious and contemplate what filters through, rather than attacking it with a shovel."
I had a mental image of me mucking-out stall after endless stall in the horsebarn of my subconscious and laughed. I wondered what she'd think if I told her I would prefer to use a fire-hose, but decided not to say anything further.
I had a 9 am therapy session. It began as a venting session. I told her the work situation and how I am so angry and resentful that I can't seem to let it go even when trying to meditate. I told her I've been trying not to care, that I've been trying to just do what I feel like doing, because I feel like my effort and concern are a waste of energy. She said it sounded to her like I had a problem with Change. I told her I didn't think so, that I don't mind change or new things, that I think it is about Control. I told her that I choose to see myself as the creator of my own circumstance, and I resent that I was not consulted. She asked if I would have consented. I told her if I had not been in therapy I probably would have, but as it is, I have emotional and physical reasons why the additional stress is unwanted. And since no one asked me if I was willing to do the assignment, I did not have the opportunity to express that the timing was not good for me until it was too late.
She said Control is for people who don't like Change. She said you can welcome change in your life and flow with it, or you can resent its effects and try to control it. The urge to Control as a response to issues with Change is a causal perspective I have not considered before. I told her I would have to give it some thought.
I told her that I have been cursing at work and that I have been picking arguments with some of the people I care for. She said it sounds like my inner 'brat' is having tantrums. She suggested that I try to give the brat a 'voice' by writing down my thoughts and opinions, with the intention later on of re-wording them as contructive input and passing them along to the appropriate person. I told her that I am already expected to give my input when I complete this assignment. She said that it is good that I am allowing myself to feel angry and resentful, but that it is pretty obvious that I am baffled by those feelings and unaware of how to let them go. I told her that feeling anger and resentment were luxuries I could not afford as a child, and I have rarely allowed myself to feel them as an adult. She advised next time I meditate to have an inner dialogue with the inner brat and validate her, accept her, tell her she is not alone, that we will get through this together. It seems a bit silly, but she's the therapist, and I'm paying her for her guidance, so I suppose I should listen. I have acknowledged that I feel this way, now I need to accept that how I feel is not who I am, that I can choose not to let it affect who I am, but instead, let it pass through me. I am trying. I am trying.
I told her that I have had to face the fact that I am Afraid. Not that I feel afraid, but that I Am Afraid, that I am a fearful person. I told her that it makes me angry to admit it, that while I am confident and unafraid professionally and intellectually, emotionally I am a coward. She asked what I am afraid of. I told her I don't know. I think I've always been afraid, because I had no security as a child. She asked again what am I afraid of. I told her I am afraid of loving people...not that I don't love people, but I'm afraid of just letting go of control and loving others. I told her that my past relationships were chosen...they didn't just happen. Brief lovers have happened, but relationships...those people were always chosen for the challenges they presented me, either by needing somehow to be fixed, or offering me something I needed to learn.
She asked why I am afraid of loving people. I told her because loving people hurts. She asked, What is wrong with hurting? I told her that intellectually I understand that there is nothing wrong with hurting, that pain is a part of living and growing, and that it is a natural and understandable consequence of interaction. But emotionally, it is unacceptable to me. People I loved in my youth damaged me and something in me refuses to risk it any more.
"Hence your complicated friendships, particularly with men," she said. I smiled. I had told her back in November that the men with whom I am most compatable--those men to whom I am most deeply attracted--have inevitably become my closest friends, because I would never take them as lovers. They are too close, I love them too much, and bringing sex into the equation creates the potential to blow me wide open. She said that in time it is a step I will need to take, combining that level of mental and emotional intimacy with sex. I told her I know it. I know it and I want it, but I'm not ready for it.
"Why aren't you ready?" she asked.
I answered, "There is too much unresolved from the past, I want to focus on that, I don't want to be distracted." She continued to look at me, as if she was waiting for more, so I admitted it, reluctantly. "I'm still afraid, so I resist."
As I said this, I remembered reading that, from the Buddhist psychological perspective, fear and resistance are the only things to be analysed. Fear and resistance create suffering, and suffering creates an ego that is aware of Self, and the ego suffers due to that awareness because the very awarness of Self means that it is 'other' and thus separate. Bascially, when it comes down to brass tacks, only by revealing, accepting, and releasing fear and resistance can I gain any measure of freedom from myself, from the personal demons that have me oscillating between the Hell Realm and the God Realm of the Wheel of Life.
How do I stop being afraid? Not by attacking my fear, not by denying it, but by owning it, by coming to terms with--and developing a respect for--my own involvement in creating it. If I stop ridiculing myself and instead allow myself to feel afraid, to acknowledge and accept the fear, then the fear becomes just another emotion that will pass, rather than continuing to be something bound up with my ego and my identity... I know that I am unconsciously reproducing behaviour that was once adaptive but is now merely repetitive, and with effort and awareness, I can free myself from the unconscious habits by which I am inhibiting myself.
I have a feeling this is much easier said than done.
I also expressed to her my concern about the narcissistic nature of therapy. I have become so 'me focussed' that I find it disturbing. She said that it is a natural consequence of the inward-focuss, and it is fortunate that my response to therapy is not nihilistic, or I'd probably need treatment for depression. My ego is healthy, she said, and meditation is usually a good antidote for the narcissism. My awareness of it, apparently, is evidence that I have not gone too far.
On a positive note, as I was leaving, my therapist said that she was pleased by my committment to therapy, and that she thought that I was making good progress. She said there is a light at the end of the tunnel with work-related stress, and until then, I should think about taking a gentler, less driven approach to therapy and self-examination. "Let things percolate up through your subconscious and contemplate what filters through, rather than attacking it with a shovel."
I had a mental image of me mucking-out stall after endless stall in the horsebarn of my subconscious and laughed. I wondered what she'd think if I told her I would prefer to use a fire-hose, but decided not to say anything further.
posted by KR | 3/18/2005 07:04:00 PM
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