I’m beginning to realise just how desperate I often felt as a child. It feels strange to look back and recognise that I was feeling things so scary to relate with that I couldn’t even admit to myself that I was feeling them at the time. To acknowledge that I was feeling as desperate, despairing, alone, angry, scared and confused as I felt. And hateful. The deep fear that at my core that I wasn’t worthy of love and that if people knew how pathetic and awful I was they would despise me, and I would be friendless, isolated and alone for ever.
It wasn’t that I felt this way every moment of every day. There were carefree times of simple playing, pleasure or happiness. I’ve seen childhood pictures where I am genuinely smiling and I don’t have a care in the world. I believe that in those moments I was simply happy.
But many times, especially in social situations these intense and difficult feelings were sitting in the background, like scary movie music that set the mood but I couldn’t quite consciously hear anymore, meaning I was often trying to have a conversation with these voices whispering in the background.
And they often came with me into the spaces when I was alone – a gnawing sense of desperate isolation and confusion. My mantra when alone would often be “I don’t know” (said over and over again in a voice of bewildered lost-ness). I’ve recently seen some photos of me at school at age 12 or 13. I don’t know what others could see at the time, but looking at them now, I can see a little boy who appears bewildered and lost.
And I’m realising that these feelings haven’t gone away as I’ve grown up. This background of desperation and despair has accompanied me throughout my life. Many of the things I’ve done, good and bad, have been done acting out of this sense that I have to do something to “save myself”, even though I don’t really know what it is, and even though I don’t know what I’m trying to save myself from. My sense of driven-ness to achieve, which has fuelled much of my worldly success, has come out of from a desperation to escape from these voices or to prove them wrong. Like many outwardly "successful" people the fuel for achievement comes from a deep sense of unworthiness, and there's a cost. I often feel like I’m “trying too hard”, even though I am very competent to do what I’m doing, and it’s pretty exhausting.
And these feelings are intense! On a scale of 0-10 most of the feelings are at the 9 to 10 mark, when I get close to them and actually feel them. They are only being felt by a small part of me, but that part is feeling them very very intensely. It’s hard to say in the experience of them if they are present time or memory, and if the memories are from all from my lifetime or partly my ancestors’ experience. The part that is feeling the feelings doesn’t seem able to distinguish what time they relate to, so it’s “as if” they are all happening now. And to that extent they are.
The feelings are all interconnected like a ball of twine. At times it seems that one is primary but in truth they all feel inter-linked. The desperation is a sense that “everything is awful” and it’s a response to pain that feels overwhelming, and a fear or belief that the pain will continue forever. The pain is a pain of loneliness, of feeling isolated and alone and is deeply linked to a belief that I’m not loveable. A belief that I am fundamentally broken, “pathetic” and disgusting in some way. A belief that I am fundamentally “bad”, without really knowing what that means. There is a rage that all this is happening, coming out of this sense of powerlessness. There is a desperate wishing for love and support, whilst at the same time believing that it won’t and can’t be forthcoming, followed by a sense of despair. There is a frozen terror of being all alone for eternity with this pain. It sounds dramatic and to my mind "over dramatic", but this part of me really does believe these things and really fears them.
I have a sense that many of these feelings and attitudes were passed on to me by my parents and probably to them by their parents. That I grew up in a background atmosphere of this (as presumably they did). I certainly recognise many of these flavours being present in my mum and dad as I recall my childhood. And from their stories of their childhoods, I can sense that they were probably there as they grew up too. And so there is a sense that this is not just about my immediate history, but also an ancestral story too, of collected inter-generational pain and suffering.
And this has all been so difficult for me to see up until now because it has been wrapped in a layer of shame. I did not dare to admit to myself that this was happening for fear that it would confirm just how “broken” and “awful” I was, and therefore how unworthy of love, care or respect.
Additionally, these feelings were also wrapped in layers of control and resistance. Parts of me that were terrified that to feel these strong feelings, because they were scared that they would wipe me out and destroy me. So the clamped down hard on those feelings so I shouldn't feel them. Or there was a sudden urge to distract myself from something unpleasant...but I couldn't quite feel what. Sometimes it just manifested as an urgent desire to check the newspaper, my email or facebook!
I now recognise that much of the time I am not (and have not been) feeling the pain of feelings themselves, but the pain of the fighting them. The pain and suffering of the contraction around them - the aspect that is desperate that I should not feel them. I often forget this, but when I remember there is the possibility of meeting the aspects that are resisting and fighting. The possibility of including them and thanking them for trying to keep me safe. And the possibility of some of that fight relaxing enough for me to feel and include what was hidden underneath.
In the revelation of this pain and suffering, there is a sense of relief. As if something that has been hidden from me “out of the corner of my eye” has suddenly become visible. “Ah…so that’s what it was!”. It makes sense of much of my experience growing up and subsequently, and also of the behaviours I developed to deal with this experience that formed the background hum of my existence.
There now arises the possibility to be with these aspects of my embodied existence more directly. To listen to them with kindness and compassion and to support them with love.
And although what has been revealed is intense and painful there is a sense of gratitude that I have been ready and willing to see it and feel it, or at least to start to see it and to feel it. And the possibility of coming home and resting in myself and with myself. To let go of the trying and to relax into a simple joyful being in connection with myself and the world.
And at the same time, it also often feels sobering, to see how intense things have been in the background, and how intense it continues to be there. To see that the resistance and the fear to feel still continues, and how habitual that resistance and suffering has been and continues to be. And to do my best to meet that too with kindness.
So here I sit in the midst of it all, seeing and not seeing, resisting and surrendering, tight and specious, including and acting out, daunted and grateful. And right now, in this moment, mostly grateful.
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