Dayle,
I have tried several times to write this email. I don't know what's wrong with me. I think I'm discovering too many things at once, that I'm pushing myself too hard, as you would say. But it seems that as soon as I stop 'pushing' myself, I start to backtrack, fall back, relapse, and lose all gained ground. I don't know what's wrong with me.
I started reading Magical Child again. I had stopped right before the birthing process. I guess there I am -- completely unbonded and terrified of people. No wonder I have connection and boundary issues.
Plus, a couple weeks ago, I read a little of Creative Dreaming. Only a little. Just the first chapter to the point where it says read the chapter on how to remember your dreams and then only that one through the part where it suggests the technique of gently turning over upon waking. Really? There's nothing 'gentle' about me turning over in bed. Ugh.
Then that night, when I first lay down, I remembered the book saying that if I wanted to start remembering my dreams to just tell myself that as I went to sleep. I thought about it and decided that I didn't really want to add a new project to work on, so I just let it go. And I'm so damn suggestible that every time I woke up that night and the next, I had a leftover emotional remnant from a dream, three or four each night. Nothing specific and it lasted only a second (I wasn't even trying!), but usually I never have an inkling of my dreams at all.
The absolute weirdest part of those remnants was that the overall feeling from those dreams was positive! These seemed to be power dreams, from what I can remember. So what I'm wondering is...why was I waking up? Usually I wake up from a dream because it's become an anxiety dream or an all-out nightmare. And then I remembered Magical Child. People bring pain and abandonment. I have the instinct of wanting to connect, to belong, and also the equally strong learned knowledge that people can't be trusted, that if I make that connection, that attachment, I'll just be opening myself to pain, vulnerable to injury. Just how many scars from hot stoves do I need?
I do remember the last moment of one dream: a group of people (I think mostly people I knew) suddenly turned toward me as if in admiration or acknowledgement (I've been getting a little attention at work for my woodburning because I have a snapshot of your treasure box in my cubicle). That sounds like a nice-feeling dream, right? But I needed to wake up out of it. Their attention on me just made me want to run. I know that there's a lot of stuff mixed up in that, including a fear of failure. But when I was in that half-dreaming state right after, I remember thinking, "It's not me. It's the Universe." And that brought an image of Jesus to mind: Jesus was a reflection of the Universe because he had no ego.
These discoveries, and others, seem more and more convoluted and intertwined. It's very difficult to write about. I keep thinking I need visuals, which sounds weird. But even I am having difficulty keeping these latest things straight, and they're mine!
For example, and this one came up again just today, I've noticed over the past couple of years that I make my greatest advancements right after a painful rejection, rebuff, or rebuke. Pain is a great motivator, and you yourself mentioned how my painful childhood environment is what goaded me to learn so much and work so hard to get out of it. The thing is, I'm starting to think that I create situations that result in pain just so I'll be motivated to keep learning and getting stronger. Do you understand how sick that feels???? Last Monday, after two weeks of serious difficult striving to change, when I woke up all perky out of the blue, I actually felt panicky. Intuitively, I knew what it meant. Not only did I start giving in to more and more of my urges and old patterns, but I couldn't even remember what the hell I had been working on just a few days before! And why! Why was I trying to be a warrior in the first place?
What I really don't want is to have to spend the rest of my life either living like a slug giving in to whatever short-term indulgent pleasure I feel like or purposely (albeit subconsciously) putting myself through choking racking emotional pain so that I'll get angry, learn my 'lesson', have a brief period of proud respite and hope, just to feel myself gradually lose momentum, feel the mire start to stick to my shoes, fall flat and exhausted, know myself for a slug again, and stick another splinter under my fingernail so that I'll know that I'm alive and have a reason to live. Where's the room in that scenario for friendship, let alone anything else?
You also kept mentioning Freud and Jung. I couldn't figure out why. The only thing I can think of is that you think it's time I got professional counseling and that you're suggesting staying away from the Freudian. What I know is that I need someone to rant and rave to. I just hope I don't end up committed.
You also mentioned me forgiving my Mom.
I think I need to forgive myself.
Nancy
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