Hi,
AZ! Lovely Weather, eh?
I
did a search in the last few days: not
in control of my beliefs. My jaw dropped
when I ran across a site called Thrive with bipolar disorder. And it dropped further when the site
administrator talked about “how my beliefs about not getting my needs met, got in
the way of asking for what I need in life: strategies for thriving with bipolar
disorder”.
She
talked about events/circumstances in life are not what cause us the
difficulties we associate with them, but rather the stories we tell ourselves
about those events/circumstances. I’ve
been hearing and picking up on that a number of years now. I’ve even matured in the concept enough to
grasp (sometimes) “gee, I need to change the story I’m telling myself about
this”. Processing that just now makes me
think the old adage “your folks (whomever you think
wronged you, spouse or siblings or . . .) did the best they could with what they had” came about as an
attempt to assuage the harm of some of those stories we end up tell ourselves
with regards to these people who bear such sway in our lives. Anyway, I’m to the point in my life where it
sounds like a good idea to me to post a sign “what’s the story I’m running
through my brain now” so I can change
it, various place in my home kind of like a par course.
She,
her name is Robin Mohilner, related a story about her mother going back to work
after she was born and how that has affected her all her life. The thing is: she realized she'd been wrong, but she hadn't known she was wrong. Imagine that? Imagine the breakthrough that is to realize, better to accept! Who'd a thunk it that in her case an infant is coming to the conclusion "I'm not worth it" and in my case another infant decides "I'm not interesting or fun enough to be around"? Never underestimate the infant cognitive skills, nor the ability beliefs (merely thoughts thought over and over and over) have to parade as truths. Seeds are meant to grow and generally do, given the basics. I had already begun writing my experience
following birth with my mom but I couldn’t think how to fit in anywhere. Now I can, so here goes:
If
neediness on my part arises out of insecurities, that’s one thing. How many of us would be unscathed by emerging
from the womb only to have that womb disappear for three months before
appearing again? So as to not leave you with mixed messages and lack of info
necessary to determine what I just said, let me just briefly explain that my
mother went back into the hospital for three months right after I was
born. I claim no memory of that time but
I am willing to guess at how I might have received that little push pull of
reality. Perhaps you notice I did not
name this particular experience as bliss.
As
I wrote the sentence before last, I nearly ended it with – rejection, rather
than” that little push pull of reality.”
It’s likely difficult for all of us to imagine a newborn infant
pondering being rejected by its mother; not so difficult to imagine it crying
inconsolably for reasons we can’t fathom or flailing its arms in absolute
disagreement with its world. I wouldn’t
really know if I experienced any of
that. According to aunts and an uncle,
my mother’s younger siblings, they all delighted in running home from high
school to see the new “awesome” baby and the worst event that occurred was my
being dumped on my head when my uncle over zealously did something to cause the
bassinet to revolt. I sincerely cannot
imagine three high school students giving up the greater enjoyment of all sorts
of other things that normally occupy their time to peer in at a grumpy,
squalling, red faced and ill tempered infant, no matter how reasoned might her
mood be.
Ahh,
though. As I wrote that last, I pictured
my mother. My view of her is one of a
woman who would willingly change inside out if she could so long as that
allowed her to present her pleasing side.
I wonder the chances that as her firstborn I knew how to present myself
from the get go as “baby 'pleaser' -- turn those smiles on”. Can an infant who is suffering insecurities
do that?
I
had a new (as far as I recall) thought, too, about that hospitalization and the
length of it. Subconsciously, did my
mother find herself wondering about attention needs and how to get hers met
with a new baby in the family? I was her
first. My father was fourteen years
older than she. This hospitalization was
quite the anomaly, too. (Anomaly is an
exceptionally busy word in multiple subject areas so I’ll just quote
Miriam-Webster online, their third definition 3: something anomalous : something different, abnormal,
peculiar, or not easily classified as
what I am meaning when I say that.) I’m
not sure I was aware before High School that my mother had spent that time (the
background noise in my brain is saying: “my mother abandoned me”) in the
hospital until, for some reason – unknown; my mother and my typing teacher
compared notes and became aware they were the only two people in their known
world who had had similar experiences with similar unknown and unexplained
problems. She related the wonder of that
to me and maybe I was just old enough to remember it as something significant;
that’s when I became aware of that piece of my history.
Truth
be told, the more I try to think of these things and see how they figure in (or
might figure in) to my life not being all the bliss I’m sure I’d absolutely
love, the more I realize I’d be better off without them. Well, that’s not totally true. More true, though, would be my “manning” (how
about “woman-ing”?) up, changing those stories and giving them a positive,
maybe even powerful ending. Now, there’s
a project I could get behind. I’m going
to invoke the life work I see on YouTube of Robert G Smith and Faster EFT. I’ve done enough to know that can work for me
and I already know I’m a hard nut to crack so I need to go with what works.
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