people are strange, when you're stranger...
I got a phone call the other day from Michael's parents, trying to talk me out of my relationship with him. It's always strange to me when people see him in a radically different way to how I experience him, although it doesn't surprise me from these people. They still see him as a 6 year old in most ways and see his evolution over the past four years not at all. I've been cast as the Evil Woman in this scenario- been there before, it doesn't bother me now.
Isn't it bizarre, this paradigm's addiction to the idea that there is such a thing as control? All the insanity currently in the world founded in the desperate need to prove an empty theory real: countries can control each other, men can control women, adults can control children, partners can control each other, one social group can control another. I tilt my head and shrug my shoulders, witness to a mental paradigm that I've known for decades can hold no water whatsoever. It's been the impetus for my pursuit of undoing the erroneous programmming in my head, because living life with silently running 'should be *this* way' messages is the best way I know of royally munting oneself on life in a big way.
With Michael, I walk the mindfields in delight. We're almost incomprehensible to the majority- what's new there? now we're just doing it together instead of individually- together we make so much sense, speak our native languages without having to go through the painful (for me, at least, he's better at it than I am) translation process for others. Our talents work in a mutual way: I had basically given up on communicating my essence self to others because I had become utterly disinterested in the translation process required, but because translation is something he does naturally and actually enjoys (which is how I used to be as a kid but lost), he's been intrigued by exploring my language for things and morphing it around, testing the parameters, asking me 'is it like this or like that?' which inspires me to really look at how both my language and I work. I've discovered a lot about myself and him during this, we find our blind spots and stories, have fun dissolving them while sometimes watching each other get slidey and laughing at it while we're triggered.
It makes an enormous difference, having someone else who doesn't take triggers personally, who will stay in the process and look at their trigger from a distance instead of splattering it everywhere. I've learned that this has been one of the reasons my dissociation was still running so high: the constantly shifting ground with Renee worked the same way as childhood experience of wondering from what way the next attack was coming. I have been running low level PTSD and dissociation for the past four years as a result but couldn't see it, having the internal markers of 'it's not so bad, I *know* how bad it could get' setting the acceptability levels. Now I've got different markers. We all do. :) It will take awhile, the kids have been living in the mess for a decade now, but at last there are cracks in the toxicity that are allowing new possibilities through. It's worth it.
At the same time, Renee has seen enough of his own behaviour lately to realise that we really *do* need time apart to break the old patterns, for any hope of anything better to emerge. None of it is easy for anyone yet it's the best thing to do- we both need to experience ourselves not being the old patterns, the old responses. I am loving being in spaces and internal places that are in harmony with my unfolding essence way of relating and responding to the world. I'm interested in new paradigms and explorations, I've done the old ones to death.
What is it like for me now? It's fluid, realms I'm far more comfortable living in. I'm aware that I'm between worlds atm, because while my essence is emerging again there's the process of letting the past go, I'm not clear of the old enough to fully submerge into the new but I can see the path now. I am having the beginning urge to start writing again, which will make me even less frequent around here than currently, I have creativity bubbling up inside me, we have projects that we want to work on together, I have individual projects emerging in me, I have dance in my body.
I really love being with someone who understands me: we laugh now at the individual issues that needed to be pulled apart in order for us to be together because it's been this way between us for four years, we just wouldn't allow it at the time because of the stories. Now we're agreed that anything that gets in the way of our being together is just another stupid story- and we're both *really* good at getting rid of those. We laugh a lot, there's so much skin contact and touching, I love how at various times during the day we'll look at each other in recognition and say 'hello' out loud, energetic joy in really seeing each other and being seen.
I love that there are no exits in me. This has to do with something that I've had constantly running since I was able to think outside myself: essentially I made a decision based on my mother trying to destroy my essence, which was 'You Can't Have Me'- and I've run a gap between myself and the entire world ever since. It was running in every relationship I had, this gap between me and them was my 'safety net', my hidden exit so that I could never be seriously destroyed. It kicked in differently with each different situation but the mechanism was the same, I was never *really* there with anyone at all, not even my children, because I carried the unconscious idea that life essentially sucked and was dangerous emotionally.
I caught that one at the Landmark forum and deliberately let everyone in my life know that it existed in order to dissolve it. I wanted to see what would happen without it, and what happens without it is scary and wonderful. I told Michael that I didn't want the gap to run in our relationship and it isn't- sure, it feels utterly naked at times to actually be standing there being seen but I've done the alternatives and they suck majorly. I've never had a relationship without the safety net and now I'm learning what it's like to be totally present with someone without the background idea 'I always have somewhere to run to if this gets too real'.
Now I choose to stay and see what happens- and what happens is worlds of awesome. Saying 'yes' to someone as intelligent, aware and fast as I am has been one of the most mindblowing experiences of my life. One day I might get around to writing it down in more depth, but right now I really don't have the space for that because I'm too busy living it. :)
I love waking up with someone who loves to sleep tangled up with me, who smiles hugely at me and says 'hello' as soon as his brain registers that he's actually awake, who reaches out as I walk past so that we can hug, who loves physical contact as much as I do, who wants to be around me. I'm steadily reclaiming my natural way of being around someone who has the same way of being. Worlds of good, it be...
Isn't it bizarre, this paradigm's addiction to the idea that there is such a thing as control? All the insanity currently in the world founded in the desperate need to prove an empty theory real: countries can control each other, men can control women, adults can control children, partners can control each other, one social group can control another. I tilt my head and shrug my shoulders, witness to a mental paradigm that I've known for decades can hold no water whatsoever. It's been the impetus for my pursuit of undoing the erroneous programmming in my head, because living life with silently running 'should be *this* way' messages is the best way I know of royally munting oneself on life in a big way.
With Michael, I walk the mindfields in delight. We're almost incomprehensible to the majority- what's new there? now we're just doing it together instead of individually- together we make so much sense, speak our native languages without having to go through the painful (for me, at least, he's better at it than I am) translation process for others. Our talents work in a mutual way: I had basically given up on communicating my essence self to others because I had become utterly disinterested in the translation process required, but because translation is something he does naturally and actually enjoys (which is how I used to be as a kid but lost), he's been intrigued by exploring my language for things and morphing it around, testing the parameters, asking me 'is it like this or like that?' which inspires me to really look at how both my language and I work. I've discovered a lot about myself and him during this, we find our blind spots and stories, have fun dissolving them while sometimes watching each other get slidey and laughing at it while we're triggered.
It makes an enormous difference, having someone else who doesn't take triggers personally, who will stay in the process and look at their trigger from a distance instead of splattering it everywhere. I've learned that this has been one of the reasons my dissociation was still running so high: the constantly shifting ground with Renee worked the same way as childhood experience of wondering from what way the next attack was coming. I have been running low level PTSD and dissociation for the past four years as a result but couldn't see it, having the internal markers of 'it's not so bad, I *know* how bad it could get' setting the acceptability levels. Now I've got different markers. We all do. :) It will take awhile, the kids have been living in the mess for a decade now, but at last there are cracks in the toxicity that are allowing new possibilities through. It's worth it.
At the same time, Renee has seen enough of his own behaviour lately to realise that we really *do* need time apart to break the old patterns, for any hope of anything better to emerge. None of it is easy for anyone yet it's the best thing to do- we both need to experience ourselves not being the old patterns, the old responses. I am loving being in spaces and internal places that are in harmony with my unfolding essence way of relating and responding to the world. I'm interested in new paradigms and explorations, I've done the old ones to death.
What is it like for me now? It's fluid, realms I'm far more comfortable living in. I'm aware that I'm between worlds atm, because while my essence is emerging again there's the process of letting the past go, I'm not clear of the old enough to fully submerge into the new but I can see the path now. I am having the beginning urge to start writing again, which will make me even less frequent around here than currently, I have creativity bubbling up inside me, we have projects that we want to work on together, I have individual projects emerging in me, I have dance in my body.
I really love being with someone who understands me: we laugh now at the individual issues that needed to be pulled apart in order for us to be together because it's been this way between us for four years, we just wouldn't allow it at the time because of the stories. Now we're agreed that anything that gets in the way of our being together is just another stupid story- and we're both *really* good at getting rid of those. We laugh a lot, there's so much skin contact and touching, I love how at various times during the day we'll look at each other in recognition and say 'hello' out loud, energetic joy in really seeing each other and being seen.
I love that there are no exits in me. This has to do with something that I've had constantly running since I was able to think outside myself: essentially I made a decision based on my mother trying to destroy my essence, which was 'You Can't Have Me'- and I've run a gap between myself and the entire world ever since. It was running in every relationship I had, this gap between me and them was my 'safety net', my hidden exit so that I could never be seriously destroyed. It kicked in differently with each different situation but the mechanism was the same, I was never *really* there with anyone at all, not even my children, because I carried the unconscious idea that life essentially sucked and was dangerous emotionally.
I caught that one at the Landmark forum and deliberately let everyone in my life know that it existed in order to dissolve it. I wanted to see what would happen without it, and what happens without it is scary and wonderful. I told Michael that I didn't want the gap to run in our relationship and it isn't- sure, it feels utterly naked at times to actually be standing there being seen but I've done the alternatives and they suck majorly. I've never had a relationship without the safety net and now I'm learning what it's like to be totally present with someone without the background idea 'I always have somewhere to run to if this gets too real'.
Now I choose to stay and see what happens- and what happens is worlds of awesome. Saying 'yes' to someone as intelligent, aware and fast as I am has been one of the most mindblowing experiences of my life. One day I might get around to writing it down in more depth, but right now I really don't have the space for that because I'm too busy living it. :)
I love waking up with someone who loves to sleep tangled up with me, who smiles hugely at me and says 'hello' as soon as his brain registers that he's actually awake, who reaches out as I walk past so that we can hug, who loves physical contact as much as I do, who wants to be around me. I'm steadily reclaiming my natural way of being around someone who has the same way of being. Worlds of good, it be...