Polyhymnia wrote: ↑Mon Aug 09, 2021 9:13 pm
May I ask if those feelings of radical acceptance have stayed with you since this experience? I don't like to be too alone with myself most of the time. Not to be confused with being alone-this is something I love-but thinking too much about myself or looking too much at myself or just focusing too much on myself makes me very uncomfortable. I'd like to reach a point where I'm able to just sit with myself and peel back the layers, bravely. I am so grateful for those in my life who help me feel brave, and who remind me often that I am loved and worth the internal work.
Yes, they have stayed, although due to my multi-layeredness it is possible that there is some dose of self resentment still left in the structures of my ego(es). I see that the way we perceive another beings is the way we are perceived by them. You have summoned these loving people in your life, because of the love that is inherent within you. I have noticed that some love is the kind that we cannot receive from ourselves but is has to be recycled among people in order it to reach us. My radical acceptance was enabled by certain relationships in which I loved and was loved in return, and in which we all were uncovered.
Polyhymnia wrote: ↑Mon Aug 09, 2021 9:13 pm
Isn't that so curious how some of us always blame ourselves first? "Was I too much?" I often ponder on where exactly we pick such a notion up. Does everyone have this doubt about themselves? My father taught me to always think for myself, and he was big on debating with me so I could find my voice ( though he really wanted my voice to be an extension of his voice), but he also taught me that I should be modest and that men were the head of the home and women were to be subservient. And my grandmothers were always teaching me to take up as little space as possible, to be small, and delicate, to sit with my legs closed. And then I wonder, is it a wonder at all that I struggle to know myself when most of my foundational blocks barely encouraged me to exist at all? And then I'm just grateful that I can recognize these things in myself and actively work towards overcoming them, or trying my very best to. Isn't it funny how we can feel like we're too much yet not enough at the same time?
Thank you for sharing, childhood stories are highly relevant to the subject at hand!
Some self-blame can originate from an infantile, grandious illusion of being in control, being the only center of reality (in psychology, this is the infantile, narcissistic state). The child blames herself, for his mentalization skills are still developing. Ie. he does not really realise that all people have their own minds and the (social) reality consists of myriad variables that a child cannot crasp neither control. If something bad then happens, the child concludes that she has to be the cause, for she is the only one that she has consistent evidence of. Therefore, whenever anything adverse happens, the child must be affirmed by adult: this x,y,z is not our fault, it's because of x,y, z. Otherwise the adversity is internalized and it gets to be sealed in the ego (until it is realized and released).
And like sor Polyhymnia referred, childhood adversity comes in many, subbtle forms. I listen to people telling how they had "ok", or "normal", or even "happy" childhoods while there were things like this at play:
- the child was not met for who he/she really was: some reactions, emotions and thoughs were deemed unpropriate and therefore cast into non-existence (ie. into the Shadow)
- the child lived among unresolved collective emotions, traumatic memories etc. and nobody ever spoke up about it all or explain it to the child
- the child witnessed complex adult behaviour and emotions, which never was explained to a child
- the child's personal borders were disrespected and violated in the name of upbringing etc.
Ofcourse one can regard a childhood "happy" regardless of adversity. But imo, the adversity has to be reconciled with, in order to reach truthfull evaluation, where happiness and adversity can
truly co-exist. I have evaluated my childhood in the course of the years in the following spectrum:
"I had a good childhood."
"I had crappy incest childhood with mentally ill parents and I hate them infinitely."
"I had a childhood full of experiences, some of them adverse and painful, some of them beautiful. I can now decide to live regardless of them." (To live regardess doesn't mean avoinding the pain, which may still linger on within.)