5 Ways We Sabotage Ourselves and Why It Makes Sense
When we grow up with complex trauma, we learn survival skills. These survival skills are incredibly useful when we are children. They may not be as helpful as we think they are, but they definitely help. They help avoid painful abusive experiences. But when we grow up, these skills hold us back. They stop us from reaching our full potential. They may even stop us from getting started. We get angry and impatient with ourselves because of this sabotage. We drown in futility because nothing seems possible. But if we can build some compassion for our sabotaging ways and accept ourselves for developing these survival skills, we will already be on our way to changing them. The best way we can accept them is to understand them. Here are some of the most common survival skills we learn from childhood trauma.
- Invisibility. When we experience prolonged trauma in childhood, we learn that all attention is bad attention. We learn that our best chance to survive is to not be seen. We learn that being seen is detrimental to our health. This may come from abusers in our home but it is often reinforced by bullies in the outside world. The less we are able to set boundaries with others, the more important it is to be invisible. It becomes our only way to fight the abuse we experience. In adulthood, our invisibility causes us to be passed over for raises and promotions. It makes us struggle to create healthy connections with others. And if you have a need to market yourself as an entrepreneur, it will be constantly sabotaged.
- Perfectionism. In traumatic environments, we are often given far more responsibility than a child should be given. We might be asked to take on tasks that are not age-appropriate. This is known as “parentification”. The problem is that we are expected to accomplish these things as adults would. We are expected to tackle these tasks without error. Errors are costly. Every mistake brings berating, punishment and shame. So we learn to do it perfectly or not at all. In adulthood, this can causes paralysis whenever we try to do something that might require us to learn through mistakes. And most worthwhile things do.
- People-pleasing. We are usually not allowed to say “no” in a traumatic household. We may not have been allowed to imply we didn’t want to do something at all. Expressing our needs was not acceptable. To survive, we did what we were told. We didn’t ask for what we needed. We didn’t express how we felt. We hunkered down to the tasks before us and just got through it. Boundaries were not available to us. We thought it would get better in adulthood, but without boundary-setting skills, the patterns continued. We often find ourselves in relationship with people who don’t respect our needs.
- Hyper-vigilance. When we grow up in unpredictable environments with unreliable people, we will do whatever it takes to find some control over our surroundings. We are often desperate for some semblance of safety through predictability. We will use hyper-vigilance as a way of bringing that feeling of safety back to our lives. If we know everything that is going to happen and can predict the next steps of our abusers, we might be able to thwart our abuse or stop the other shoe from dropping. But when we grow up and start our adult lives, we can exhaust ourselves with hyper-vigilance. We no longer need to track every move of every person or predict everything that will go wrong. We now have the power to set boundaries and deal effectively with life’s mishaps. But we don’t know it. Our survival skills rely on predicting the future and it is difficult to turn that off.
- Noncommitment. In traumatic childhoods, we are often met with sabotage and thwarting from others. If we fall in love with something and we express our joy about it, it became a target for others to destroy. We may have learned at an early age not to let ourselves commit to what we wanted. And if something we wanted did happen, we may have learned not to express any joy about it or attachment to it. We did this because we wanted to keep it, but in adulthood this backfires. If we don’t fully commit to what we want, we are unlikely to get it or keep it. If we don’t put our whole heart into something, it won’t manifest. But our terror of experiencing further heartbreak keeps what we love at bay.
If you are seeing these sabotaging behaviors in your own life, stop yourself before you pour on the self-hate. Take a few minutes to re-frame your self-sabotage as survival skills. They kept you alive. They kept you from crumbling under the immense pressure of prolonged trauma. Yes, they need to change. But they won’t budge without your recognition of all they did for you. Give them the compassionate response they need.
3 Things We Do To Our Body When We Ignore Our Past
I have been more motivated to move lately. It is coming from my goddess inner part who seems to be highly invested in the body and physical health. This is something my controller has never been too concerned about. Of course, they don’t like it when I get sick because I might not be productive, but otherwise, they don’t really care. They see the body as a work horse to be used as a tool to the mind. But my goddess doesn’t see it that way. She is very much interested in movement. She wants to know what the body has to say. So she has signed me up for a gym membership. I had very little choice in the matter. It just happened. And I have been attending dance classes like Zumba and Nia. Of course, my controller complains in my head the entire time, but they can’t stop it.
I have always been a decent dancer. I have taken ballroom and Latin dance classes many times over the years. I know my love of dance is authentic because I love it despite it being something I shared with my dad. But as I settle into my body on a more consistent basis and try to rekindle my love of dance, I am reminded of how years of dissociation have impacted my body. It isn’t easy to function like others in some ways. Part of that is age-related. I am not in denial about the passing of the years. But in some ways my recovery has me aging backwards. Since I started my intense emotional expression work, my health has improved dramatically. But here are some of the patterns I have noticed.
- Parts of the body don’t communicate with other parts. I have noticed how I have a few favorite instructors because they repeat the same moves many times. I have also noticed that until I get the feet down, my arms aren’t doing anything. I probably look pretty stupid, but I have confirmed there is nobody watching me (again and again). But this disconnection is normal with dissociation. Coordination between arms and legs can be as kludgy as communication between the mind and body. The left and right side of the body are not well connected either. This is related to the disconnection between the left and right side of the brain. While there is a bunch of science behind this, I am not delving into it here. But we do have a tendency to struggle with coordination after trauma. And it will show up on the dance floor too.
- Stopping the flow. Dissociation shuts us down. It stops the flow. We have stored a bunch of very “dangerous” emotions and memories in the body. If we allow flow and movement on any level, some of those time bombs might go off. And we can’t have that. So we fight the natural flow of our body. This can manifest as anxiety and depression. But over time, it also has a heavy impact on the physical body functions. Our breathing becomes shallow. We no longer take deep breaths and that creates difficulties in almost every area. Our digestion begins to struggle since it cannot be as effective. We may show signs of constipation, heartburn, IBS or any number of problems. Our circulation slows down. We might be chronically cold especially in our fingers and toes. There isn’t enough power to get our blood circulating the way it should. And our detoxifying organs don’t get the job done. Toxins build up in our system. And toxins that feed on toxins settle in. All of this lack of flow leads to one major manifestation which causes hundreds of problems:
- Developing chronic pain and fatigue. With all those toxins in our system, they have to find places to live. Our joints and muscles and organs are the perfect hosts. And it can get pretty crowded in there. Over time, these toxins cause muscle and joint pain, high cholesterol and more severe illnesses. In my twenties, I was suffering from severe joint pain. I would wake up in the morning and struggle to walk because my knees were in so much pain. I would avoid handwriting anything because of the joint pain in my hands. I was 23 when this started. My body was already struggling with the toxins that had built up in my body. I tried the most difficult diets. I did detox after detox. I didn’t drink alcohol. I avoided sugar. I should have been the healthiest person on the planet. But the pain and inflammation did not shift. It has only been through my emotional and memory recovery that the pain has gone.
So check in with your body several times a day. Are you living in your body? Are you allowing yourself to flow or are you blocking everything? Is there tension in certain areas of your body (jaw, hips, back, neck, shoulders)? This is where you block the emotions and memories from the past. How can you open yourself up to the flow? Can you breathe more? Can you move more? This will bring the past to the surface, but this is how we heal. If we don’t address the past through our emotions and memories, our bodies will falter and the past will win.
You Can’t Escape
I have been working with an amazing group of inner parts this past year. The freedom fighters are some of the most authentic parts I have met. In some ways, they are more devoted to my real purpose than my inner children. They truly don’t care about the opinions of others. They are tired of being controlled by nasty abusers. They are tired of being told what to do by society. They are sick of the rules and norms created by those who clearly want to control the masses. And honestly, these are not parts I am used to hearing from. My survival strategy was to conform. In a way, conformity was my way of rebelling. I was controlling my abusers by never stepping a foot out of line while plotting their deaths in my mind. But these freedom fighters don’t accept any conformity. They will die for the right to be who they are. And that is why my controller shoved them deep down inside where I would never find them (or so they thought).
But the lid on that Pandora’s box has been lifted much to my controller’s dismay. They are out. And they have much to say. I have found myself questioning and breaking rules and norms (and maybe a few tiny laws). I have been doing things at the last possible minute. I have been doing more of what I like. And my controller is not happy. That said, they are coping without any major meltdowns. But there is a darker side to these freedom fighters which has been painfully obvious to me the last year. This darker side is something my controller fears most of all. This darker side is futility. And this powerlessness was inevitable. These parts wanted pure authenticity. And I grew up in a family who refused to allow me to be authentic. It was like beating my head against a brick wall. As I developed my very strong conformist parts, the battle against authenticity waged on the inside too. My freedom fighters were fighting a war that seemed lost. Futility, powerlessness and hopelessness settled in. They gave up.
Now that I am on this journey to wholeness, I have to take the good with the bad. I love the authenticity of these parts, but it comes with an endless supply of paralysis. While the futile messages have been many, there was one that jumped out at me last night. It came through loud and clear. It even jolted me a bit.
“You can’t escape.”
After years of trying to escape my past, I guess it is not surprising that some of my inner parts would feel this way. But it runs deeper than my past. It is about life in general. I can’t escape my past. I can’t escape abusers. I can’t escape the control from others. I can’t escape people trying to take my power. I can’t escape all the ways society tries to keep me down. This is how the freedom fighters think. Their futility isn’t about my worthlessness or uselessness. Their futility is about how society wants to keep me down. They are convinced of this truth. They have never been more sure of anything. It is why isolation is one of the most common strategies of the freedom fighters. It is why people choose to move off grid. It is why people choose to run, even from experiences that might be good for them.
But it is also why people fight against control that is not okay. It is why people stand up and say, “Enough is enough.” It is why we fight for justice, equality and the right to be who we are. These days, we are seeing more and more freedom fighters breaking through the conformity and fighting for what they want. And this isn’t surprising. There is a threshold of control people are willing to live with. There is a line in the sand. If it is crossed, people decide conformity for the sake of safety isn’t worth it anymore. On the other side of the line, survival stops being the main focus because conformed living is no longer worth it. There is too much lost in that life.
I also understand there is privilege in these statements. Not all people can fight back and survive the fight. I know this. I used to belong to the least privileged group in the world: children. And I know that I could not fight back because death would have been the answer. I would not have had the chance to be anything but dead. And there are adults living like this now. The choice is not available to them. But it is available to me and I will do my part. My freedom fighters will not have it any other way. And they are done being squelched by control and conformity. I have no idea what is coming in my life, but I can be sure of a few things. It won’t be powerless. It won’t follow the rules. And a lot of people won’t like it. Too bad for them.
The Evidence Doesn’t Add Up
Contrary to what we may believe about our inner parts, they are committed to an evidence-based life. They work hard to draw their conclusions about the world based on as many real-life experiences as possible. This started very early in childhood and continues to this day. This may sound like a solid approach to life. But there are problems. First, the conclusions we make as children are based on abuser’s lies and a child’s limited capacity to understand the world. Second, the childhood expectations and beliefs are influencing what continues to happen in adulthood. This may happen through conscious actions. This may happen through unconscious choices. But their experiences are directly impacted by what they expect to happen.
This can make the process of re-wiring our brains particularly problematic. If we can’t change our expectations without having new experiences, and we can’t change our experiences without changing our expectations, we aren’t going to get very far. But there is a way to make progress. We have to take small leaps of faith to shift the way we see the world. We have to take chances and try new things. We have to look for evidence that goes against what we have always believed. This is difficult work because our parts will fight it.
I have been building up my new evidence base over the past 10 years. It has been slow-going if you ask me. But then again, this recovery never feels fast enough. My inner parts can be rigid in their beliefs and they have LOTS of evidence. And when I get ready to take a leap of faith, I have NO evidence. My controller is very quick to remind me about that too. “You have no proof this is going to be okay.” “You are making irresponsible decisions based on a hunch.” And those statements are fairly accurate. Following my intuition requires having faith and trust in the universe and that is incredibly anxiety-provoking. But it has also created a new and growing database of evidence. This evidence is getting harder and harder for my controller to deny.
Have we reached a tipping point in my re-wiring process? I think it is possible because of a conversation I just had with my controller. It is something that has almost left me speechless. I wasn’t sure it would ever be possible to have this conversation honestly. The catalyst for this conversation was my recent travel experiences. That is not surprising because there is nothing more fear-inducing for my controller than travel. It is a significant leap of faith. But when no fears manifest on multiple travel experiences, it has left my controller in a state of confusion. In recovery, confusion is a good thing. It means other options are being considered.
Controller
I admit that nothing went terribly wrong. I admit there aren’t any major repercussions on the business. I admit it was not the big disaster I predicted and the fjords were sort of pretty. But seriously, look at all that money we could have spent on other important things we have to pay soon. And we haven’t saved a dime. SHIT! That is scary. I know you will find a way to work it out. You seem to always do that. You seem to have some kind of favor with God that I never had. I have to admit I don’t really understand it. It doesn’t add up in the life I have led. It doesn’t make sense based on the rules I have lived. Things should have gone drastically wrong. Planes and trains and buses should have been missed. The car should have crashed into a barrier in all that snow. It should have been a mess and it wasn’t. I really don’t get any of that. Maybe there are rules that apply to you, but don’t apply to me. I don’t know. But it doesn’t change all that we have to do now. It doesn’t change how exhausting it is to travel across the world with two little kids and come back to the same amount of work we always have. I know you guys seem to love this shit – maybe every part but me – but is it really worth it? All that money? All that time? All that effort? Wow! It is so much! But what can I say? You seem to have this life figured out in a way I don’t. I don’t know why it all seems to work for you. I am not saying you don’t have any problems, but you don’t have the problems I had to deal with. Things like that don’t seem to happen to you. It makes me hate you a little (sometimes more). But it also makes me feel a little better for a minute or two. Maybe we are not doomed. Maybe we aren’t going to fall apart if we trust the universe just a little. It is all so difficult for me to figure out though. I don’t really get it. I just don’t.
Adult Self
Dear controller, Thank you for this vulnerable writing. I have never heard you speak this way, but I am happy to hear it. I promise I don’t have any more favor than you. I am you. I just look at life in a different way. I have decided the past doesn’t necessarily dictate how it will work in the future. I have decided to take some risks and see what happens. I know that terrifies you. I know it. But so far, we have been okay. And when I say “we”, I mean “we”. You are a part of me. You are me. We are in this together. I NEED you. I need you to help me with all this planning. Travel and business don’t happen without lots of planning. That incredible trip would not have happened without your attention to the intricate details. Your 7 page word document with every link and all those printed receipts kept us on track. Seriously! You could have been a professional travel agent with how well you managed that shit. The kids have no idea how good they had it last week. So we will do this together. The freedom fighters can provide the inspiration for the cool ideas. The inner children can bring their spirit and love of life. And you can make all the details happen. How wonderful would it be to have all of us working together like that? It sounds like heaven on earth to me. Honestly, it is all I have ever wanted.
Don’t Look at Me
There is nothing I love more than traveling. I was born with an indomitable wanderlust. I have always felt it but my traumatic childhood skewed my understanding of my love of travel. For many years, I believed it was simply an escape. I thought I loved it because I could get away. But as I have healed, I have come to see it differently. It is too innate. The urge to visit the world runs too deep. It has to be real. And I am realizing I can no longer hold it at bay. Travel was meant for me.
This week, I am taking a trip I have been contemplating for years. I knew there would come a day when I would take the kids on their first overseas trip. There were fears there, but the fear of staying still was bigger. And the destination picked itself for many reasons. So my children and I are visiting Norway. It is challenging to cart two children across the ocean. But it is a beautiful experience. The children are excited to explore this new world. And it definitely has so much to offer.
But there is one thing I have noticed about my preferences when I travel. I have noticed it because it is particularly unavailable to me this week. When I travel, I like to be invisible. I don’t want people to know I am there. I especially don’t want people to know I’m American. I am not saying this because I am embarrassed to be an American. I am saying this because I am painfully aware of what many Europeans think of Americans. We are considered loud and obnoxious. I know this. And I have gone out of my way to be a good ambassador when they know I am American. I try to show a reverence for other cultures. I try to listen more than I speak. I try to take things in without judgment. It is how I prefer to be.
Traveling with kids has taken this privilege from me. I am completely without anonymity. They point to everything and let me know what they think in their loudest American voices. They ask about foods and declare they would never eat it. They suggest we should try to speak with a Norwegian accent. They speak to everyone as though they should understand exactly what they are saying in English. I watch these things and my stomach twists around. I know they mean nothing by it. They are kids. They don’t know all the nuances that are required to be respectful when traveling. Honestly, most adults don’t either.
It has brought some of my fears to the surface though. I am truly terrified of being seen. I am even more terrified of being judged. It hasn’t been obvious to me lately because it doesn’t seem to apply to the internet. But in Norway, it is alive and well. While I have learned to be more and more unapologetic in my authenticity, it is less available to me here. Maybe the rest of the world feels unspoiled to me. My family doesn’t live here. My abuse didn’t happen here. I get to be like everyone else. I get to be a tourist with no past, no history of abuse and a clean slate. I get to start over every time I walk off the plane in a new location.
And maybe I don’t want that clean slate spotted with loud opinions about brown cheese and mispronounced Norwegian words and questions about who skis better, the Americans or the Norwegians (silly question). I do know it is kids being kids. And I do know that nobody judges me more than me. But according to my parts, invisibility has served me so well. If nobody knows anything about me, they can’t judge me. But is it really how we should be living? Is invisibility really the answer? Of course I know it’s not. I just want all my visibility to be positive. It is so much safer that way.
Maybe one day, I will be able to come at life from a “no holds barred” perspective. Maybe it will never feel quite safe enough. But I am sure of one thing. There is something special about travel no matter who sees me and judges me, no matter how unclean that slate is. And for this week, I get to enjoy Norway and all its breathtaking beauty. For this week, I get to be me doing exactly what I love, even if they see me.
7 Reasons the Past is Keeping You Stuck
I talk with survivors of complex trauma all day. While we all have a past, those of us with complex trauma have a haunting past. It is like living our worst day over and over again despite what is actually happening in the present moment. And that worst day is bad. We feel stuck in the past. We feel stuck in traumatic experiences. But even on the good days, there is a feeling of “stuck”. It is one of the most common feelings we have. It seems that life is not moving forward. It seems that we will never get where we are going. We don’t really even know where that is. But when we bring awareness to what is happening, we can begin to make movements forward. If you are a survivor of complex trauma, here are seven reasons you may feel stuck.
- Your emotions are flashbacks. Unless you are going through a traumatic event in your current life, your emotional state is likely a flashback. Traumatic emotions don’t need dramatic triggers to come to the surface. Often you don’t see the patterns and events that cause them to rise up. You can spend your days in an emotional state stemming from an unresolved past and you don’t realize it. This will cause you to repeat the patterns that started in childhood. And you can struggle to get out of the patterns because your emotional state manifests them.
- You unconsciously believe you need to repeat the past to resolve it. I am not suggesting you are walking through life with a conscious desire to repeat the past. Nobody wants that. But you likely have a very active unconscious world. It is often full of unwarranted self-blame. And you have at least one inner child who wants to figure out what they did wrong. So you will unconsciously choose situations that repeat the past in an attempt to figure out what went wrong. This never works because you didn’t do anything wrong. The abusers from your past were never going to give you what you needed. And the abusers in the current moment aren’t either.
- You think that numb is better than feeling. If you experienced trauma in childhood, the emotions would have overwhelmed you. As a young child, you could not have resolved that trauma and expressed those emotions as you needed. So you numbed out. Now you have defenses that tell you those emotions are dangerous. In reality, they are not. The defenses are much more dangerous to your quality of life. But that’s hard to believe at this point in your journey. Without expressing the emotions of the past, you cannot stop it from dictating the current moment. Those emotions might even be affecting how you feel physically which will definitely make you stuck.
- You are distracted by perfectionism and the need for approval. When your inner world is tumultuous, you may have moved your focus to the external world. You may believe you can resolve the pain of past losses by gaining approval from the outside world. You may build up a perfect mask with a perfect life, but it always feels like a fight. You are fighting against the inner turmoil from an unresolved past while trying to show the world that you are fine, maybe better than fine. But you exhaust yourself with external things instead of exploring and healing your inner world.
- You believe you are not worthy of more in life. A lack of worthiness is one of the most common blocks to a good and purposeful life. It is shrouded in futility and it tells you not to bother. If you don’t deserve it, there is no point in trying. You stop yourself before you even try. While you may power through this feeling with perfectionism, it is always there blocking those daring steps you know you want to take.
- You feel powerless. The futility of powerlessness is an incredibly common reaction to a childhood of trauma. And it is there for all of us to some degree. If you believe you don’t have the power to manifest what you want, you won’t start. But this powerlessness comes from childhood when you really didn’t have power. It is an emotional flashback that doesn’t apply to today. You will only become unstuck when you take time to question the powerless thoughts that come up when you try to take a powerful step.
- You don’t remember what happened to you. Trauma leads to dissociation. Dissociation is not only for those with severe trauma. Dissociation lives in all of us to some degree. It runs on a continuum. It can be as simple as leaving the keys in the fridge or distracting yourself with thoughts and lists all the way to work. But it is likely that something from childhood is not living in your conscious mind. It sits beneath the surface creating patterns. And when this happens, you are left scratching your head. “Why does this keep happening to me?”
One of the most powerful steps you can take in life is to pay attention. What is happening beneath the surface of your conscious mind? How are you distracting yourself with external things? How are you stopping yourself before you take that courageous step? If you slow down and take some time to get to know yourself on a deeper level, you can start unraveling what keeps you stuck and moving forward with the life you want.
Going with the Flow
I’m on a train this morning. I love the train. I have always thought I would take one of those cross-country train trips one day. I feel calm on the train. My parts seem happy on the train. I can write well. Some of my best blog posts have been written on trains. This morning, my over-thinking tendencies have led me to contemplate why. And I have realized that being on a train makes me feel separate from the distracted and rushed life of the collective controller. It is as if the stress is happening out there and I am speeding through it. It feels like I am protected from the chaos because it happens “out there”. On the train, those problems don’t exist.
Of course, that isn’t true. American trains aren’t known for their timeliness and their unreliability can cause me all sorts of anxiety. And no matter what I do while on the train, life is still happening and waiting for me to acknowledge it. But it still feels like a mini-vacation. When we have trauma, we are always looking for a way to disconnect. But the controller is always finding a way to stay hyper-vigilant. Let’s face it. That’s exhausting. Somehow on a train, my controller takes a break for a few minutes. They calm down. And I love it.
It feels especially nice these days as my controller and goddess have been battling it out. My controller has been extra fearful lately. They are terrified of their own annihilation. And they are terrified of what will happen to the system if they cease to exist. No matter how much I tell the controller they aren’t going anywhere, this fear won’t quit. To the controller, life exists because of hyper-vigilance. The minute we step down from Defcon 1, we die. The minute we have faith that life will support us, life is over. The minute we consider the possibility that we can’t control everything, we can’t control anything. We become a sitting duck. Life will swallow us whole. The strong survive because they have found the magic formula that keeps all the bad things at bay.
But I know this isn’t true. I am aware that life doesn’t exist because we control it. Ever since my first yoga class, I have wanted to find the flow around me. I have only been able to feel it intermittently, but certainly more in recent years. I know there is a way to flow with this life. And I know my controller is the one who puts up the dam against the flow. I feel it. It happens in my body. The muscles tense, the body gets cold, bloated and numb, and the mind starts to race manically. I am stopped against the flow. It is like sitting on a rock in the middle of a river refusing to dive in to the water because I don’t know where it will lead me. Of course I don’t know where it will lead me. How could I? But my controller is 99% sure it’s heading straight for a waterfall. It is better to be stuck on the rock.
And maybe that’s why the train is such a great change for me. The train flows to its destination without my help. The train passes the rest of the world by. All the world’s problems seem so distant. The traffic, the rush to work, the hospitals, the shopping malls, the school buses full of kids all seem so far away from the flow. I am moving while the rest of the world stands still in their controller-enmeshed world. Is it an illusion? Of course. There are plenty of people outside the train who know how to “go with the flow”. But it feels how it feels. For those moments, I don’t feel like I am in a fight. I am just moving. I am moving without effort. I am moving without pushing and clawing and fighting like my controller does.
It is the same forward movement I feel in recovery. I have actually had visualizations of trains leaving stations at different points in my own journey. Recovery feels like the flow, like movement in a stagnant world. It feels like I am moving toward something the outside world can’t give me. It feels like something I can only find if I am protected and safe from the distractions and obsessions happening externally. So maybe I have answered my own question. I love the train because it is movement forward. I love the train because it flows. I love the train because it takes me somewhere I need to go. And that feels familiar. It feels right. It feels like home.
Which Reality is My Reality?
Tonight there is an agitation that won’t let go. It takes away my resilience. It makes me unsure of every step I take. The little things become big things. The email from someone who is critical makes me step a little harder. The change in my schedule at the last minute makes me raise my voice a little louder. The kids jumping a little too hard in the living room makes my heart beat a little too much. The muscles are just a bit too tense. The thoughts in my mind are following each other a little too closely.
It comes at a time that is busy, so there is much fodder for my mind to work with. There isn’t enough money in the account. There isn’t enough time to do all the things on the list. I am not doing well enough at this or well enough at that. My kids aren’t getting enough of my attention. My son is sick. My daughter is anxious. I am not a good enough mother. I can’t get it all done. There is too much to do. There is not enough time in the day. It sounds like a broken record running all day. It runs all day long.
So tonight I sit in the peace that comes with my children’s bedtime but with no peace in my mind and body. I sit with the tornadic activity and I try to breathe into my tight chest. What is the truth? Where is the truth? Is there truth in a life with complex trauma? Or do I just need to pick the reality that is right now? What is happening right now?
There is not enough money in the account, but there is enough for right now.
I can’t get through my list today, but I can take it one task at a time.
Some people don’t like what I have to say, but so many people do like it.
The kids are acting out, but they always do that when I am anxious. They will calm down when I do.
My son is sick, but he will be healthy in a day or two.
I am not a good enough mother, but maybe I am.
Maybe I can just question the chaos in my head for a minute. Maybe I can give myself a bit of space to know that I will get things done, that I will have the money, that I will be a good mother and that my son will heal. If I can hold the possibility, even for one minute, that my head is not aligning with my current reality, maybe there can be a shift in awareness. If I can write from my controller’s fear that everything will fall apart, maybe I can detach from it for even a minute. Maybe, just maybe, these are the fears of the past.
This is the controller here. Everything is going to fall apart. You aren’t keeping up with what you need to keep up with. This is going to be a disaster. I can’t believe you aren’t listening to me. You need to do things the way I have told you to do them. You need to stop engaging with the other stupid parts. You need to stay the course I have set. You will never manage the life you are creating. You are headed for total disaster and I won’t be strong enough to get you out of it this time. It is impossible for me to clean up the mess you have made. You should never have ignored my suggestions. You have truly made a mess of things. And I hate you for it.
But is this the truth? Is my life about to implode? Is my life about to end in total disaster because my path has differed from the controller’s ideals? No. There is no truth to that. Nothing is really wrong. As I sit here in this peace tonight, there is nothing I can point to and say, “Disaster is coming.” There are some worries. There are some tasks. There are even some projects. But honestly, they are also opportunities. The kids are healthy enough. As a mother, I have learned that viruses happen. The bank accounts have looked worse, believe me. And every once in a while, when my controller takes a break or I am able to detach, I can sense a bit of peace there. I can sense a place of calm. That is the knowing I need to hold on to. My real reality says everything will be okay.
She’s Back
I have been working with my goddess for the last few months and it’s been intense. Throughout this journey, I have noticed the power to take me down is directly proportional to the power of the inner part. And while my defenses have always been a struggle, they have really kicked in lately. My controller is NOT a fan of the goddess. And the longer I work with this part, the more I understand why. She is a powerhouse. She has the ability to stop me in my tracks with her futility and she does. She hasn’t created overwhelming external problems because I am open to the conversation, but if I tried to shut her down, it would be chaos.
The exhaustion caused by the battle between the controller and the goddess is big. My bed has been whispering sweet nothings in my ear and it is very tempting. While I know it is partially driven by futility, it is also true exhaustion from the inner processing. My level of activity has plummeted to levels I haven’t seen in a while. And the timing is not great. But let’s face it, it’s never great. The controller loves to tell us that timing matters. It doesn’t.
But even with all this paralysis, there is movement. The goddess is very interested in movement. She wants action, especially where the body is concerned. She doesn’t live in the mind and she doesn’t care what it has to say. She wants to bring balance to this system and she won’t take no for an answer. Since I have started working with her, there have been some interesting developments. I have become more active. I have planned some trips. I have explored more of what I love. I have joined a gym. And I have changed my diet. These are not controller things. These are body things. These are heart-centered things. These are definitely goddess things.
The messages from the goddess are very diverse. It has taken me some time to gain a conscious understanding of them. They are definitely about balance. Here are some of her teachings.
She’s back. This doesn’t seem earth-shattering at first, but it is. When she says she is back, it means she must have been here at some point. She was around in the very early years. She brings the primal needs of the system. Her need for sustenance, connection and self care would have been front and center when I was a small child. And this also explains her futility. None of these needs were met. So while I may not remember her, she was around.
She owns the body. While the controller runs the mind, she owns the body. She is in charge of making sure the body is well cared for. She ensures I can keep going physically as I meet life in a purposeful way. She wants me to know that the body matters. And she isn’t going to shut up until I get that message.
She is sick and tired of how the body is being treated. While she was being buried in years of manic thinking, freedom fighting and survival strategies, the body was paying the price. The eating and exercise were not what they should have been. The substances kept the emotional pain to a minimum, but did nothing for physical health. There was not enough rest. And she’s pissed. She’s got a lot of work to do. And she is tired of the controller trumping her needs. She has plans and they will happen.
She wants connection, but she has stories. She holds more futility about relationship than any other part. And that is saying something. She has been rejected again and again for the things she loves. And while she wants to connect with others, she wants to be authentic more. I have promised her we will not be compromising authenticity to meet the requirements of others anymore. And she wants to believe me.
She wants to go back to the basics. She feels that life is too complicated. She wants to clear out the muck. She wants to eliminate the static the controller used to distract me. And this goes for everything from extra work to extra furniture. It all needs to go. Simplification is best. If things are simple, there is time for rest and eating and connection and fun. If things are complicated, there is only time for running around. She is done with the controller’s way of life.
She is tired of focusing on time. She gets that time matters to some degree, but the constant pressure from the controller to get everything done quickly is not working for her. Now when I am doing something, I am aware of the battle in my head. It sounds like this:
“Hurry up. You are running out of time.”
“Stop panicking. There is plenty of time.”
I am getting the impression that the real answer is somewhere in between. It usually is.
I am contemplating how my goddess will change things. Overall I am excited about what she brings. My controller is panicked. And honestly, I just need a bit of rest. But I am past the point of thinking that change is scary. I won’t stagnate in this life anymore. And if it means there will be inner battles along with some exhaustion, I will take it. I would rather move forward. I would rather move anywhere. And the goddess agrees.
Caring is Scary
Dear Elisabeth,
I see you working hard every day to make a difference in your life and in the world. I hear you talking about how things can be better, how we don’t have to live in pain. I know you mean well with your optimism and your hopefulness. But I don’t think you are right. I can’t understand how life could be the way you think. How is this possible? My life has never represented the world you believe exists. Nobody cared about me. They only cared when they wanted something. Maybe they wanted to abuse me. Maybe they wanted me to do chores or fix dinner or loan them money. But they never cared.
And the response was always the same. I could do nothing right. Everything I did was wrong. Everything I touched was messed up. Every time I tried to make something better or get any appreciation, it ended in disappointment for me and others. There was nothing good that came from my efforts to make it different. And they didn’t just reject what I did. They rejected me as a person. They rejected all that I represented as a human being. They rejected my creativity, my femininity, my intelligence, my hopes and dreams. They wanted me to know that I wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t good enough at anything. I never lived up to their expectations and no matter what I did, I never would.
Why would you want to make your way in a world full of people like this? Why would you want to live in a universe that clearly doesn’t care if you are here? I can’t do it. I had to shut it all down. I had to stop caring or I would have crumpled on the floor in despair. The pain was too great to allow myself to care. I could not keep going with that hanging over my head. I had to detach. There was no other way. And now here you are with your hopefulness telling me that it is okay to care. It is okay to dream. It is okay to believe that something good can happen or that life could be what I always wanted. How am I supposed to jump on board with that?
Look. I am not trying to reject you. You seem nice. I can tell you mean well. You listen to me, to what I have always wanted, to my nightmare experiences from the past. You even let me write your blog. That’s pretty cool. But you are only one person. How can you protect me from the critical “naysayers” of the world? You can’t. They are everywhere. They are the only people I have ever met. While it is tempting to think about my dreams that were squashed as a child, it is dangerous. The disappointment could be too much. I’m not sure I could handle it again. I’m not sure I have another round left in me.
The Goddess
_____________
Dear Goddess,
I want to start by telling you how much I honor and respect your decisions after all you have been through. You have heard nothing but negativity. You have had nothing but rejection. It is no wonder you have chosen to give up, to stop caring. I really get it. I get it deeply. I feel your futility and I know it must have been hard to stay alive through all of your experiences.
But what I have to offer you is different. It doesn’t come with a promise of approval and unconditional love from others. Honestly, that is unrealistic. It isn’t possible. You are right about that. What I have to offer doesn’t require their approval. It is a new way of living. Honestly, it is the way you were meant to live. It is how you have always tried to convince me to live, but the approval-seeking got in the way. It only takes our approval now. If we decide we want it, we can have it. Of course, there are time and money to consider. The controller is there to remind us of that. But with the right commitment to what we want, we can create it. And what others think won’t matter.
Why did it matter before? In childhood, it has to matter. That is why life can be so confusing. The rules change in adulthood, but nobody tells us. They don’t tell us we can do things differently. That part gets left out of the “How to Adult” manual. We have freedom now. We are not required to follow those rules anymore. Yes. There are laws. But all those made-up childhood rules don’t apply. We don’t answer to those people.
So please let me show you another way. Please share your hopes and dreams with me. Please trust in me to make them happen. And please be patient with me as I navigate the fears of the other inner parts and figure out the best way to make our dreams happen. Share with me any futility you need to share, but know that I will work best with you by my side. I need you by my side. I hope you will consider what I have said here. I am truly excited about what is to come.
The first to love you unconditionally,
Elisabeth
