Opening my secret heart
"I've been feeling really spiritually blocked for a couple months, and last night's ritual really helped."
I saw Ferrett glance sidelong at me after I said this. We were enjoying one of our twilight walks. But I knew what that look meant.
"I suppose I could have mentioned this feeling of spiritual blockage before now...."
Yeah, I definitely could have. Except I don't.
I have a longstanding habit of keeping things closed away in my heart. Not the concrete things that can be dealt with. Those I can generally state now. But even that took a long while for me to believe was okay. I was trained early on that letting anyone know I needed something was a surefire way to get that need used against me. The best bet was just to keep my mouth shut and my head down, take what I could get and try to be as independent as possible.
But that turned into resentment. Seething, hateful resentment, accompanied by flouncing silence. So that when I finally had to express the need for something as simple as "please don't leave your dirty dishes on the couch" it came out as a furious attack. And for the person on whom I launched that attack, the sudden fury of it generally put them on the defensive. So my reasonable request was blown all out of proportion into a huge fight over something for which I should have just asked reasonably and consistently.
I'm good at that now. I've learned that asking for things won't lead to passive/aggressive (or in some cases, just plain aggressive) behavior from my family. I've learned that we can discuss a situation and reach a compromise without me being bullied into thinking I'm some kind of monster for having a need. I've learned that needing something isn't automatically handing a weapon to a foe.
That's been a hard lesson. I get it right about 80% of the time now.
But letting anyone in on my emotional state when I'm struggling with something? That's still way fucking scary.
My journal name? It's based on my philosophy of life: choosing to be happy no matter what. Mostly I'm good at it. But when things come along that get me down, I am loathe to mention them to anyone. By the time I do, I'm generally on my way back out the other side.
I think it's mostly because when one tells people that one is feeling spiritually blocked, or frustrated about things, the first reaction of the person being told is to try and solve the problem. I am totally guilty of doing this myself, maybe more guilty than most. I hate to see the people I love hurting, so I'm quick to try and bandage things up.
But if I had said earlier that I was spiritually blocked and Ferrett had suggested that I spend more time in spiritual pursuits, I would have felt like smacking him. Like I wouldn't have thought of such a thing? It's not that simple to fix.
Now, I'm not saying that Ferrett would have said such a thing, but I was too worried about hearing it to allow myself to just speak up. I didn't want to talk about it, either, didn't want to be asked questions about my feelings or be probed.
Expressing my feelings still feels dangerous to me. Not that Ferrett or anyone around me would intentionally use them as weapons against me, but because when I start feeling different, or better, then I know that someone has seen that I had those other, distorted feelings in the past.
And that still feels like giving someone power over me. Like if they can map the winding track of my feelings, then they will recognize my patterns and disregard me at times when I need to be taken seriously. Or at least feel that I need to be taken seriously.
Also, I hate whiners, and hate myself the most when I hear myself whining. And isn't every time I'm sad or grumpy a kind of whining?
So I slog forward. And am mute much of the time as regards what I am feeling. When it comes out, it tends to be in short, sharp storms of emotion that leaves the other person feeling a bit windblown and gobsmacked.
I don't know that I will ever get past doing this. I don't generally notice that I am, except in retrospect. As in our walk.
I'm not even sure I want to try. Except that the people I love sometimes feel like they can't get to know me. And sometimes I have nothing to say because I am processing.
It's like the question to Spock: How do you feel?
"I feel fine" was a great answer for him. Maybe not always the best one for me.
I saw Ferrett glance sidelong at me after I said this. We were enjoying one of our twilight walks. But I knew what that look meant.
"I suppose I could have mentioned this feeling of spiritual blockage before now...."
Yeah, I definitely could have. Except I don't.
I have a longstanding habit of keeping things closed away in my heart. Not the concrete things that can be dealt with. Those I can generally state now. But even that took a long while for me to believe was okay. I was trained early on that letting anyone know I needed something was a surefire way to get that need used against me. The best bet was just to keep my mouth shut and my head down, take what I could get and try to be as independent as possible.
But that turned into resentment. Seething, hateful resentment, accompanied by flouncing silence. So that when I finally had to express the need for something as simple as "please don't leave your dirty dishes on the couch" it came out as a furious attack. And for the person on whom I launched that attack, the sudden fury of it generally put them on the defensive. So my reasonable request was blown all out of proportion into a huge fight over something for which I should have just asked reasonably and consistently.
I'm good at that now. I've learned that asking for things won't lead to passive/aggressive (or in some cases, just plain aggressive) behavior from my family. I've learned that we can discuss a situation and reach a compromise without me being bullied into thinking I'm some kind of monster for having a need. I've learned that needing something isn't automatically handing a weapon to a foe.
That's been a hard lesson. I get it right about 80% of the time now.
But letting anyone in on my emotional state when I'm struggling with something? That's still way fucking scary.
My journal name? It's based on my philosophy of life: choosing to be happy no matter what. Mostly I'm good at it. But when things come along that get me down, I am loathe to mention them to anyone. By the time I do, I'm generally on my way back out the other side.
I think it's mostly because when one tells people that one is feeling spiritually blocked, or frustrated about things, the first reaction of the person being told is to try and solve the problem. I am totally guilty of doing this myself, maybe more guilty than most. I hate to see the people I love hurting, so I'm quick to try and bandage things up.
But if I had said earlier that I was spiritually blocked and Ferrett had suggested that I spend more time in spiritual pursuits, I would have felt like smacking him. Like I wouldn't have thought of such a thing? It's not that simple to fix.
Now, I'm not saying that Ferrett would have said such a thing, but I was too worried about hearing it to allow myself to just speak up. I didn't want to talk about it, either, didn't want to be asked questions about my feelings or be probed.
Expressing my feelings still feels dangerous to me. Not that Ferrett or anyone around me would intentionally use them as weapons against me, but because when I start feeling different, or better, then I know that someone has seen that I had those other, distorted feelings in the past.
And that still feels like giving someone power over me. Like if they can map the winding track of my feelings, then they will recognize my patterns and disregard me at times when I need to be taken seriously. Or at least feel that I need to be taken seriously.
Also, I hate whiners, and hate myself the most when I hear myself whining. And isn't every time I'm sad or grumpy a kind of whining?
So I slog forward. And am mute much of the time as regards what I am feeling. When it comes out, it tends to be in short, sharp storms of emotion that leaves the other person feeling a bit windblown and gobsmacked.
I don't know that I will ever get past doing this. I don't generally notice that I am, except in retrospect. As in our walk.
I'm not even sure I want to try. Except that the people I love sometimes feel like they can't get to know me. And sometimes I have nothing to say because I am processing.
It's like the question to Spock: How do you feel?
"I feel fine" was a great answer for him. Maybe not always the best one for me.