There will be times when I speak of things completely outside of myself, and when my focus is on me.. it's not because I WANT to be in that inward place so much. Actually, where I want to be is healed enough on the inside, both physically and emotionally, that I can turn my attention further outward and away from that inner ground zero. I'm not comfortable in this place and want a way out. THAT is why I talk about what I do and from a place that is centralized and within. This is how I'm dealing.
And I make no apologies for how I choose to work through the matters that demand my attention.
Peace. Joy. Happiness. Comfort from within. Hope. Freedom. To have wings again... to live, to breathe freely, to seek more time in that outside world... I don't think my dreams or goals or wishes are that much different from others. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think most of us would like those things I listed to be the foundation for everything else.
The more I find my health failing, the more I reach for what was, could be, and has been. Why not return and see a better past and hope it can be again? Why not remember when life was, while not easy, at least more like LIVING? It only makes sense to me to make that a focus.
I've turned away from my own needs for so long that I was lost to everything completely outside of me. I disconnected from my own personal truth, my dreams, even my own body, and I paid a terrible price for that, a debt I'm still paying as of today. And all because my core belief hinged around making sure others had everything they needed first, that they were happy, and by God if I had to change who I was completely to make a loved-one happy, then by God I will do it! What the hell was I thinking? No! That's NOT the way it's supposed to be, and yet I wasn't ever taught to take care of me. Life was always centered around pleasing someone else.. all of the time... beginning with my mom. This is repeated in nearly every relationship I've had.
I was told in a past relationship that I was self-centered. Words like that hit me pretty hard and a reaction is always immediate. Self-doubt steps in and takes over, pushing reason and logic aside to wither. Having spent the better part of my life as a chronic people-pleaser, because God forbid I risk anyone's ire by disappointing them, I've attempted to 'reinvent' myself to a point where I've come dangerously close to losing who I am. I know it's the inner machine working and grinding to reconcile this new and "selfish" idea that I should, you know, maybe start taking care of myself with being that person who was always, always putting everyone and everything else first. And yet each and every time I try to do something for myself out of self-respect, logic and reason, I get a hard flash of guilt that makes me question why I would bother [doing anything for me].
Why I listened to anyone who didn't have my best interests in mind (to say the very least) is beyond me still. If I ever finished the therapy I began at the end of the last relationship I probably wouldn't be wrestling with this right now. I will say I learned much in the few short months I did see a therapist, one I was seeing because I DID recognize the damage that was done to me in the last relationship. Beverly taught me a lot, and not just about myself but about the other person involved. And I cried the day she told me, point blank, that I'd spent far too much time in my life focusing on the happiness and needs of others, and that it was time to accept that I needed TLC as well, especially from myself. I had this sense of surrealism, and it was very strange to hear someone say those words to me in the way she did.
And yet I thought.... 'What's the catch'?
That's the real issue. I don't trust easily now. And I used to be a subscriber to complete and total blind trust.
No more. I can have a healthy amount of trust without all the blindness, but it will take time.
And the guilt, the constant guilt whenever I speak about my problems here, whenever I do something positive or uplifting to my spirit, my soul, whenever I open up and speak from the heart about what's going on with me, my life.. that guilt cripples me, and the ugly voice of the past speaks up and tells me I'm selfish for doing anything at all to make my own life better.
...... more later.....
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