Seething

Weekly phone conversation with Sandy.  

Preface:  I balanced my checkbook and paid bills today which I do about every two weeks.  What a mess.  It seems the closer I look at the hard things in my life, the worse they become.  The festering wound arising?  I bounced two checks - twice.  Total cost?  $100.  Ask me if that was planned for in my extremely tight budget.  I cleaned up the mess as best I could today, including driving cash over to a friend - a victim of my addiction process.  I was going to take the chicken-shit way out and leave it in her mail box.  But my intention is to sit squarely and openly in this process.  To feel fully and deeply all my emotions regarding whatever is happening.  I mean, that’s the antithesis of addiction right?  My soothing behaviours of scarcity and fear work in tandem to cover my uncomfortable emotions.  If I’m going to do it differently - which is the only way out - I have to feel.  So yes, it was a day bathed in fear and loathing.  It was palpable and I wanted to stop it any way I could at just about every moment of the day.  Gratefully, I had my weekly sponsor phone call scheduled tonight.  On the flip side of that gratitude - the last thing I wanted to do was talk about it.  Thank God, Sandy is a kind and gentle soul who is also intuitive and sees it as it is so she can give me clear and accurate insight.   

I have already established that I stay at zero in all aspects of my life (not wanting to be seen or heard) because of my upbringing of sexual abuse (see past posts for that saga).  Also, the girls in our family were raised to take care of everyone else but ourselves.  That’s the other nice thing about having Sandy as my sponsor.  She gets it.  And she has been doing her own conscious healing regarding being The Caretaker Of All.  

As we talked about this, I said I wanted to see what was beneath the layer I now understood and had explored for years in therapy.  I get that I have a fear of being noticed, but is there anything more than that?  I took a moment during our conversation to get quiet and energetically look at this.  It feels a bit like a layered cake and as I peeked beneath the first large known layer I was surprised and a bit startled.  A thin, toxic layer of seething anger sprang out from it’s hiding place like a coiled snake then pulled back in, wanting to hide again.  What was that?  I told Sandy what I saw and she suggested that I explore it further.  With some effort I was able to uncover the meaning of the intense anger.  The next layer beneath the anger was the knowledge of what my life would have been like had I not developed these survival patterns of stealthful hiding, of being small and unknown.  I didn’t get specific details, but intuitively I was able to see the life I would have had without these patterns.  It was a grand life of ease and complete abundance in all aspects of my life: love, family, career, finances etc.  I can not explain how I felt as I had a glimpse of this possible life.  What felt to me, to be my lost life.  No wonder I’m seething about it.

We both agreed. I need to explore this anger.  Easier said than done.  We grew up in a family that was always happy.  Or at least that was what was demanded of us by family and religion.  And since that isn’t actually possible, we did a lot of pretending.  Anger wasn’t allowed in my world. Consequently, I don’t know how to do anger.  I’ve known for some time that this is a glitch in my life, and now it seems time to figure it out.  I don’t have a clue how to do that so I will meditate on this and ask my guides what to do.  They will know.

Excerpts from our weekly phone conversation:

Sandy - Everything that you had before, that got curtailed, is still in you.  You also have a lifetime of amazing experiences to add to it.  That was just the raw materials.  You’ve already done the hard work.  This is just the last curtain to push aside to get where you want to go.  You have the skills, the passion, the ability, and the drive.  You don’t have to learn that.  You just have to believe that you have it.  (Sandy then gave me examples of when I had used my financial skills to help other people that I know)  All you have to do is use those same skills on yourself.

__________

Sandy - Why do you think you chose this path of abuse?  (We both feel we had choice in where we came and what we wanted to learn in this lifetime)

Susan - I came in part, so I can help others.  

Sandy - If you can’t know how someone else feels, it’s hard to reach them.

Susan - Yes, I am better able to help others because of what I have been through.

__________

Sandy - How do you honor anger?  How do you show it?  

Susan - I don’t know.  To feel it and acknowledge it I guess.  I don’t have a clue.  I’ll have to ask my guides.  

Sandy - Anger is justified.  Anger is real.  What does it want from you?  

Susan - I have talked about anger in therapy.  I’ve cried my anger a lot.  I think people like us send our anger in and not out.  Some people send their anger out, as in fights or hurting others.  I think both ways are just as destructive.  I know I have hurt myself a great deal over the years with sending my anger inside myself.  I have taken the brunt of that anger.  I’ve got to find a different way.

Sandy - Write down everything you would have had in your life.  "What in these things do you want in your life?"  Then later, the next step will be, “What would you have created without the abuse?”

Susan - I know I’ve thought of this from time to time, but haven’t been able to look at this closely.  It feels really hard to look.

Sandy - It sounds like it’s a good time to do so.  

__________

Susan - I feel discouraged and frustrated because I’ve tried it all.  I’ve done every kind of healing you can think of to deal with all of this!

Sandy - All those tries are not wasted.  Believe in the concept that you had all the makings of that abundant life.  

Susan - I hadn’t thought of that before.  That really is a new idea.  

Sandy - When you overspend your money, it’s because something was taken from you at some point.  The energy is, “I will take it back even though it’s detrimental to what I really want in life.”

Susan - That really does describes the energy of how I was feeling when I was spending.  But I’ve never realized that before!

Sandy -  By not overspending, you are “taking it back” on a higher, more healthy and productive level.  Instead of undermining what you really want, by spending because of a reactionary emotion, you're mindful of the bigger goal and are creating that better life, one step at a time.  I choose not to do this because I don’t want to be at zero.  You have a bigger take back.  I equate it with food.  I’m going to fit into my pants better because I chose the bigger prize.  More than I want to feel justified.  I didn’t get what I want so I’m going to have this instead.  That ‘s what food issues are.