I think many people are unaware of the more subtle, long-term effects of abuse, whether it be sexual, physical, financial, psychological, emotional or spiritual...
I grew up in an abusive family, was abused by my father and an uncle and both of my husbands were abusive, in different ways...
Why would anyone choose abusive mates, you ask, once they are adults and free of their family?
Well, it turns out our brains are hardwired by our early life experiences to look for and connect with similar energies - people, situations.
We are drawn to what we know and recognise as reality, and when I was a child I thought that how we lived, was how everyone lives...
It never occurred to me that what was going on in my house was not "normal"... and it was going on to varying degrees in my relatives houses, reinforcing that idea that this is how the world is...
As a child, I did not know that was was happening every day in my home was not "love", but some twisted, toxic, desperate dance looking for love...
And from a shamanic perspective, I think that we choose to be born into those situations to begin the process of "waking up" or discovering and reclaiming our true selves, of consciously choosing how we shall express ourselves in the world - Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey... and sometimes to be the catalyst for others' awakening, to be of service, to be the mirror...
Anyway... what I wanted to write about this morning, is how sad and mad I am that those years of abuse still have an effect (actually, many effects, all of which interfere with how I want to live my life - and I'm dealing with that)...
The one effect I am confronting head-on now, is my belief that how I see, think, perceive, understand other people, the world, life even, is not valid, is irrational, is stupid, is wrong, that my wants and needs are not OK, realistic, normal...
I have heard and believed that message all my life, with my father telling me that I deserved what I got because I was a "difficult child", that what I knew really did happen, was only my imagination, and that the reason he did not confront my uncle over his abuse of me was because "he was my brother"... It took many years for the penny to drop that the real reason he didn't confront his brother was because then he would have to acknowledge his own abuse of me...
My first husband told me repeatedly over 20 years that: "You're really intelligent, but you've got no common sense"...
My second husband (for a very brief time!) had similar tactics of keeping me in my place ie subservient to him!
It was funny really, with him.... He was into wolves and huskies and malamutes, and the idea of clan, with an alpha male pairing with an alpha female...
He had this ideal he used to talk about - "co-dominance" - but when it came to living that ideal with me, he could not live the talk, could not allow me to be co-dominant...
I understand why that was/is - I embody the energy of his mother, and he still has not recovered/healed from years of being subjected to her rage, so the reality of co-dominance was terrifying - it felt to him like submission and weakness and vulnerability and had the potential to annihilate him...
Anyway - I have developed a strong tendency to discount my own sense of things and people, my own needs, my own perspectives, my own "knowing"...
People who have experienced abuse usually develop a really strong Bull Shit meter.
Our survival depends on our ability to recognise what is really going on under the surface, though we may still be so trapped in the victim cycle that we discount our own knowing and don't take protective action despite what we know.
That, combined with what I know on the shamanic level, my empathic skill, my intelligence, my ability to research, and the fact that I've had a broad life experience in different countries and cultures, gives me an edge in knowing what is hiding under the surface in people, in systems, in our world.
The BS shines at me in bright neon...I really do see very clearly what is going on, and my instincts and vision are 100% reliable.
And I use that to be of service to others who come looking for clarity and support in their healing journeys... and it's a great gift for navigating life in the corporate world and it is useful in political and societal activism -
But when it comes to my own life, I hear but ignore that inner voice, that twisting in the gut, that feeling of unease when things don't fit well, and I spend tons of time arguing with myself, my head telling my heart and belly that "no, you are wrong"...
And I need (for now) to check with others not involved (or go research on the internet what is the accepted average comfortable temperature indoors in Seattle winter!!!) that what I'm thinking/feeling is OK... which at the age of 52, my inner critic says, is really quite sad and ridiculous!
And in this experience, I've had the chance of recognising that I was doing my pattern again...
Abused people want love, just like everyone else, and it's very hard to kill the hope that love will make itself known in the actions and attitudes of those nearest to us.
Because of that need, and because of my shamanic skills, I usually first only see the positive potential in something/someone, see their beautiful souls, get all excited, commit to that person or situation and then find that there's no room for what I want/need to live authentically...
And in entering this shared living arrangement, I made the mistake, which I often do, of assuming a higher ability to walk the talk in my housemate (this woman is well known and well thought of in this town)... so my expectations were unrealistic...
And I believe/feel that she (a very skilled energy worker) could sense me seeing through her facade/mask and by her behaviour was attempting to forestall my calling her on it...
My tarot card for the day:
"The Strength card affirms that my alter ego today is the seductive beast of my Animagus, whose superpower is to master self-control to tame fears or impulses to prove of what stuff I'm made. I boldly go... but a willful heart is part of my secret identity. My infinite fortitude is seen by what I do, sacrifice or defy to stand up for what I feel is right, including admitting when I'm wrong, keeping out of it or not dignifying responses provoked by moral cowards and brutes. When resolve is tested I draw on the courage of my true character from the more savage or humble virtues of my natural instincts to maintain objective by composure. This enables me to hold my tongue against bravado, repress claws at empty threats, and not turn tail in pride against passion when it's hard or inconvenient, but to persuade through self-restraint until assimilation is complete or resistance is futile."
which is really what I am working on growing within myself...
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