Not feeling ok at the moment

[Eagle Ray]

I just need to write down how I’m feeling.

I’m exhausted and in pain. I have overwhelming grief recurring that I thought I’d begun to heal from. I’m very dissociated. I know that’s my body trying to protect me from overwhelm.

Was seeing someone this week about starting voluntary work (possibly a stepping stone back into workforce). But feel like my body is screaming at me that it’s not ok and can only rest. It’s like I was oversaturated with stress for too many years and I have nothing left. It take’s phenomenal energy to use the small part of me that’s still functioning to interact with others. I manage to convey outwardly that I’m fine and come across as positive and competent even though internally I’m breaking at the moment.

 I cannot tolerate abusive or exploitative relationships anymore. Putting boundaries up to protect myself, but somehow that triggers more grief linked to past issues even though it’s necessary to establish those boundaries.

 I had side effects from a med badly flaring one of the autoimmune conditions I have, so came off it. This has triggered other undesirable effects that are potentially serious so have gone back on it. I’ve spent decades now, since childhood, managing chronic pain and health conditions. I’ve always been relentlessly positive, but that is starting to fail.

Angry too about denial of abuse in my extended family - the way perpetrators were protected and the reality and impact of abuse denied. This continues. I can’t stand it anymore.

Although thoughts of death are there for me almost daily at the moment, I think a will to live in me is stronger. The thoughts are just my mind-body not wanting to struggle anymore.

[Eagle Ray]

Oh Rising that is so loving and kind of you 💕

I have really struggled with a feeling of total isolation my whole life. I know my parents struggled with total isolation also, so they were isolated from one another even though married. Both had early life trauma and both had out of control rage. This rage could be directed at me out of the blue at any time from my earliest memories. My Mum’s trauma was more deeply interpersonal than my Dad’s, so her injuries made her attack me in extremely personal and destructive ways. Dad was also extremely volatile but by my early to mid 20s he mellowed, owned some of his stuff and the explosive rages stopped. My Mum might have improved more like Dad but her Mum’s suicide seemed to push her over the edge.

Thank you for putting things into perspective with your leading questions. I feel like I’m trying to turn around a tidal wave of intergenerational trauma. I wrote an additional reply to you yesterday but found it was over word limit so couldn’t post. But one thing I said in it was that I feel like I’m dealing with two forces in me - a life force and death force. The death force is only there because of the feeling of life being untenable. The body wants to die to end suffering. But the life force also wants to end suffering. So I realised these two parts of myself need to make friends as they have the same goal and are both trying to help me.

 I briefly looked at Gregg Braden’s site and will have more of a look. He looks to be going into that quantum field realm as well. It’s the same thing as space-time according to Einstein and the cosmic realms that Indigenous cultures are attuned to, but it’s been sadly lost in a lot of Western thinking. It’s where actual healing happens. Joe Tafur who I mentioned above has just published a paper with others, including Rachel Yehuda, a world leader in epigenetics research. It’s in relation to psychedelic-assisted therapy for PTSD. The science is catching up to how different states of consciousness relate to healing. Psychadelics are not the only path to consciousness shifting and healing change, but for people with intractable PTSD it offers access to modes of healing that are otherwise hard to reach. But obviously this has to be done in an extremely safe way in a supportive environment.

Thanks again for your deep thoughtfulness and illuminating guidance.

[Junior1962]

Hi Eagle Ray

Ive been doing really well so haven’t been on the forums lately. Thought I’d pop in tonight and was really saddened to read that you have become overwhelmed again. You had been doing so well. 

I was particularly taken by a comment you made a few days ago about how it wasn’t safe to not be ok. I have been working on the last chapter of my boom and that theme looms large in my story too. In my case it pertains to the severe DV from which I died in my last life. You may recall me describing that in my thread. Not being safe - for me - has affected me in so many ways. One of those was when I told no-one of the pain of my acute appendicitis - because it wasn’t safe to be vulnerable. I believe I would have allowed myself to die rather thank risk being vulnerable, though I was only 10 at the time and had no knowledge of my past life. There are other manifestations too. I think I have mentioned them in my thread. 
My point is that this issue is HUGE and takes time to address.

I hope you are feeling a bit better than when you started this thread. You’ve been very good to me and I would like to return the favour. 

*massive cyber hugs* 

Junior

[therising]

Hi Eagle Ray

The life and death force you speak of is something I can relate to although in a different way. Can recall a few years back when I found myself in such a deep state of despair, the kind of state that leads one to question whether the struggle to be here is really worth it. As I sat there feeling such an overwhelming combination of emotion, 2 words suddenly began to come to mind, 'Let go, let go'. I thought 'I can't let go. If I let go of who I am I'll having nothing (no reference for myself). Who will I be if I have nothing? I'll be empty. I prefer to be depressed than have nothing at all'. The fear of an empty sense of nothingness was so strong. Still, what continued to come to mind was 'You have got to let go'. I would compare this moment to standing on the edge of a cliff, the verge, and being asked to take a flying leap. All I could think of was falling and never being able to recover from that. What came to mind next was 'Trust. You have got to let go'. So I did. I trusted. I then began to sob uncontrollably with both overwhelming grief and joy at the same time. I sobbed intensely for at least 5 minutes straight. The grief was based on me feeling like I'd just died and the joy was the feeling of shedding who I was up to that point, what felt like every depressing and depressed part of me. I'd left all my experiences at the verge, left all the beliefs I'd had about myself there as well. In taking that trusting leap, I realised it was the kind of leap that had shed all that had weighed me down. The verge is where I left my self. Beyond it was a weightless feeling which I'd only ever experienced once before after coming out of 15 or so years in depression, earlier in my life. It is an indescribable feeling, such an unbelievably soulful feeling.

I've found, through my experience with the absolute depths of depression on occasion, there is a message that can often be misinterpreted. It's a message of self sacrifice, one that dictates the only way to stop struggling is to end the struggle. It is not a physical sacrifice but one of an entirely different nature. It's something that asks for us to sacrifice who we are, so that we can become who we are meant to be.

[Junior1962]

book* - not boom. lol

[Eagle Ray]

Thank you so much Junior 🙏

You are so right. That pretending to be ok when you’re not is a huge issue. I think many people do it. I’m slowly learning to let people know that I’m not always ok, something I never did before. I think something releases inside yourself when you communicate how you really feel.

 I relate to the appendicitis example. In my case it’s all to do with the circumstances I grew up in in which it wasn’t safe to share vulnerability and would lead to me being attacked, similar to your past life experience. A child needs to believe their parent is safe and secure (despite behaviour that demonstrates otherwise) and will blame themselves if parents direct rage at them as it’s safer than admitting something is wrong with the parent, which can be felt as life threatening to the child.

It sounds like your book is progressing really well. Thanks so much for your kind thoughts and wishes. I’m up and down at the moment. It’s encouraging to hear from you and receive your encouragement.

[Eagle Ray]

Dear Rising

I’m only just reading your post now but it’s interesting as on Sunday when you posted it I went through a ‘letting go’ experience. While hanging out the washing there were little wrens hopping about me, not the least bit afraid and finding lots to eat in the grass. They were so content, open and trusting, even with me the giant human being there. Afterwards I felt unwell and lay down. I then felt my body just let go of heaps of stuff - the need to be strong for others, the need to respond to others wanting something from me, the need to feel responsible for others’ well being etc. It’s like lifelong hypervigilance in my nervous system just let go.

 I’m too tired now to explain further. But just wanted to say I really get the shedding who we were in order to become who we really are or meant to be. Somehow seeing the content little wrens living in the moment enabled me to do the same. I’ve always had constant fear, but they were completely lacking fear which released something in me. But I was also exhausted as I let go and had to lie down for the rest of the day. Did you have that exhaustion accompanying the letting go process?

Today my body re-attached to some stuff, especially after a bit of a stressful meeting I had to attend which sent me back into a stressed, hypervigilant place. But I believe I can gradually work my way to the letting go again. It’s a lifelong pattern that’s just starting to shift.

Thanks again 🙏

[therising]

Hi Eagle Ray

I'm so glad you had this experience. Nature is a gift in many ways. When something says 'Look' and we suddenly feel compelled to study what we see, there is the lesson. Such a synchronised moment, where you as a student are there and the wrens are there, feels like a gift.

I wonder whether such a moment could be described as 'a sudden state of intense deep relaxation', where so much tension instantly leaves. A first time feeling/emotion can be such a strange experience.

The inner dialogue that came to mind, following my experience, went a little like 'You've been through this before, you know the drill. You'll feel this way for a while and then, if you're not careful, you'll begin reverting back to old ways, old behaviours and beliefs, and then everything will feel depressing again'. That inner dialogue basically dictates 'Your challenge is to be more conscious. One of your greatest challenges from hereon in is to become you, not what everyone wants you to be'. Definitely far from peaceful work at times.

I suppose you could describe this experience as a sudden shift in consciousness. Suddenly you become conscious of how life feels, looks, sounds etc in one way before consciousness shifts again, to be experienced in another way. To go from being highly conscious of peace to being conscious of having to pay the next bill is a challenge. Wishing to stay in peace doesn't get the bill paid. I gradually came to realise it's about going in and out of different states. It's about the development of such an ability. The following's so much easier said than done but, for example, if paying the bill is the challenge, being able to shift into a state of peace may be the goal. In a state of peace the solution to paying the bill comes naturally. It comes to you without you 'thinking'. If you've ever had a moment where you've experienced a great challenge and you find yourself going off into some day dreamy kind of state and suddenly the answer comes to you from out of the blue (without you thinking), it's like that.

Knowing what triggers shifts in consciousness can make life so much easier. From depressing triggers through to states of relaxation, I've found every shift has a trigger or set of triggers. Identifying what they are can be hard work.

[Junior1962]

This letting go thing is really interesting. In my therapy session just yesterday, I was talking about control and he immediately pointed out that the need to control is a way of avoiding how we really feel. He had me listen to a serious of statements and just repeat them in my mind. It was all about letting go and allowing myself to be vulnerable - something I have always struggled to do. 
It felt like I was hanging on the edge of a cliff - similar to you Rising - and that by letting go, I was in freefall. It wasn’t unpleasant though. In fact it led to a feeling of peace. It was a strange feeling. 
We talked a lot about my difficulty in being vulnerable and how I need to allow myself to feel - to allow repressed feelings to come to the surface (which is what intensive short term dynamic psychotherapy is all about), experience and process them, then allow them to disperse. 
It was a powerful session 

it 

[Eagle Ray]

Hello Rising and Junior

Rising, this statement really resonates:

”A first time feeling/emotion can be such a strange experience”.

I think I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve felt fear completely let go in my body. I think I am becoming more conscious of slipping back into fear instead of just being in it and barely aware. It was normal for my nervous system pre-cognitively and pre-verbally to be intensely hypervigilant starting from birth trauma and probably even before that. It’s like learning to walk for the first time.

I’ve started doing volunteer work and even though the people are really nice I’m waiting to experience some kind of hostility. However, today I caught myself out within a few seconds where I was predicting some kind of attack from a person interacting with me. I was able to say to myself, “They are being genuinely kind and supportive and I can feel confident I am safe here”. The last part, feeling safe, is still challenging to feel, but I could at least tell myself I was safe.

It’s very true what you say about knowing what shifts consciousness. If I think of the happy, in-the-moment little wrens I can start to embody their lack of fear and feelings of safety and contentment. Thinking “Everything is ok” is how I can remind myself.

Junior, I fully agree that control is about avoidance. It’s a way of trying to ensure safety in a way. Feelings do need to be felt to be let go, but there can be strong internal resistance to that. In response to me talking about something I’m working on dealing with, my psychologist often asks me “how does that feel in your body?” I will be able to feel if parts of my body are tensing and what physical impulses to move there might be. I might feel the need to hide, or anger as tension in my arms, or a survival struggle to breathe in my throat etc. Through these realisations I connect emotions and physiology. I find that a release then starts to happen. It’s like feeling into something in order to let go.

 I’m really glad you had such a helpful, powerful therapy session. It’s great to have that support isn’t it.

[therising]

HI Junior and Eagle Ray

Emotions/feelings are amazing things. I think a lot of people are conditioned to basically suppress and rarely question them because that's what's typically convenient for the people around us. So, we do what's 'right' in order to please but what appears right can turn out to be so wrong, so damaging and painful at times.

You've both led me to a sudden revelation, while addressing the power and insight emotion holds. When I think about the cycling I go through in my marriage, if I start in feeling joy, it then cycles 'round to disappointment, then resentment, then anger, then sadness, then emotional detachment while I go into some painful reclusive and reflective period in order to gain greater understanding. With the revelation I reach, I am led to joy again while working harder on myself and my marriage. It's cycled around this way for years. In disappointment there's obviously some pain, as there is with the sadness, but I never considered before the amount of pain expressed through resentment and anger. It's strange to think about it. Maybe this is because resentment and anger are not delicate obvious forms of pain. The more delicate forms are obviously painful/pain filled. I've just realised, besides occasional joy and the feelings that come with inspiring revelations, the marriage itself has largely been about pain. 20 something years of bending and flexing so my husband didn't have to manage the challenging emotions that come with the productive growth of a marriage. 20 something years of suppressing, so as to 'not rock the boat' or be 'difficult'. In the past year or so, I've been less tolerant and more honest while expressing my feelings but still never fully saw the pain behind a lot of them. Btw, my husband's not a bad person, just deluded in a number of ways.

You're both so deeply thought provoking, so deeply expressive and honest with your feelings. You're both great emotional leaders for which I am deeply grateful. As I say to my kids 'When you meet 'fast trackers' you'll know it. They will lead you straight to where you need to be and you'll feel that'. You're both undeniable fast trackers.

While I am so glad you're making progress in the way of greater understanding and release, I wish you both a fast track to exactly where you wish to be. The slow track to revelation can be so time consuming.