Slowing down, taking time for yourself and establishing new habits that will last a lifetime.
Theme – Supporting Release
The focus this week to apply some self-nourishing tools to support new habits in letting go.
In what ways do you feel freer now to tell the truth about yourself?
I am in some respects a very private person unless I am in the company of people I trust however, no matter how much I am willing to share, there will always be the things that stay within me, the locked things that happened in the past that have no right to be aired in the present or no place in the future. This, I am sure if true of everyone.
Then there are the things that for whatever reason are too painful to talk about. The things that make you feel as if you are re-living that time and the experiences are still so raw that they cause you too much emotionally to discuss. These things are often the stuff of counselling, psychologist or therapy. These are the things that very often can never be rationalised enough to make them alright to discuss openly.
In what ways do you support yourself?
Mostly I am a loner. Don’t get me wrong I love to be around people, to party, to go socialising and all the trappings of modern life but I like them on my terms and to do them with people I want to be with. That said, I am probably happier with my own company.
I was an only child and so grew-up mostly surrounded by adults, spending a lot of time with my grandparents and various aunts and uncles that all lived in the same small village. There was nothing more the women liked than a good old gossip which was part of the shopping ritual. Every morning after breakfast was devoted to doing the shopping which in really equated to catching-up with the latest news from everyone that was also out doing the shopping. Dependent on who was encountered depended on the information received but there was only one main road through the village, so the return trip would yield vital details from others that they had acquired on their forage into the daily rumour mongering. By the time everyone was home again they all had gathered pretty much the same information. Monday to Friday this was the way of things and there seemed to be no secrets as you could guarantee that even if something was private it would be shared, ‘in confidence’ knowing full well that it would be around the village before lunchtime.
I have to admit that I hated it once I got to an age where I fully understood the implications of all this. I hated the way that everything anyone did, good or bad was help up for display and scrutiny. Nothing went un-noticed and everyone knew the most intimate details of everyone else. There just was no privacy.
I found school life much the same and often escaped into a book to block out the mayhem around me or I would sit for hours drawing down by the pond or, if things got too much for me I would break all the rules and escape to the island in the middle and hide in the trees until the bell went. I was lucky enough never to get caught, although many were but they made the mistake of being equally as rowdy once there whilst I just hid myself away silently.
I was raised in an era where it was good manners to do things for others and frowned upon if you declined. The word no was often considered as blasphemy if wielded to deny doing something. So, even to this day to please other people gives me pleasure but that never-say-no culture has often found myself doing things that were not my choice, but I do them because I still feel I cannot just say no.
However, as I have got older that has changed. It has become increasingly obvious to me that my time left on this planet is getting shorter and that ‘time’ is becoming increasingly precious to me. I still do not like disappointing people and if I say I will do something I will never intentionally let them down but, and this is where the crux lies I look after my time better by no longer putting myself out for people that will not appreciate it. I’m not after gushing thanks, or recompense in any way for the things I do agree to do, but just the inner knowledge that the person I do it for respects the time I have given over to them. To be honest, I much prefer that they don’t say anything because then it makes it a mutual secret, silently shared between us.
How do you feel when you are completely supported by others in your life?
I do not like having to rely on anyone for anything. Most of the time it is me that is doing the supporting, not just in the big things that life throws at us but also in the little ways that make people feel better about themselves.
Personally, this week has sparked up thoughts of more about how I feel when I am not supported. Although these seem to have been rare incidents in my life I still feel totally deflated, angry, and frustrated when others do not show me the same support I would show them in the same situation. When I was seeing a psychologist for counselling after a previous partner was murdered and I had spouted-off all the things that had been happening since I last saw her she asked, who was looking out for me?’ I was the one running about making sure paperwork was in order, that friends and family were kept up-to-date on the latest police proceedings (as I was the only one they would give information to) and generally being there to console those that were devastated by what had happened. When I thought about it I was there for everyone else, which is what they expected but there were very few there for me, but those people were amazing. They are the reason I got through it all.
Going back to the first question …
In what ways do you feel freer now to tell the truth about yourself?
Well for the major things in my life it took a lot of time and there are some things I would still not openly discuss. However, once qualified as a tutor I trained to be able to run classes and groups in using creative writing as therapy. I enable people to feel confident enough to commit their worries, fears, horrific experiences to paper even if they do nothing more with them but keep them safe or burn them. This is one of the reasons I am okay now with talking about the murder, what was one of the most horrendous times of my life. The whole thing is now compartmentalised, and it is as if it happened to another ‘me’ in a time that was more than just years ago. I kept a diary throughout the whole even and I have subsequently written it down as a story, but I am still not sure what to do with it. There is, as you can imagine a lot of very personal information and insights into how I was feeling within it and I am not sure that I want to be open enough to put all that on display. I am leaning towards simply setting fire to it.
As to the little stuff well that’s different. As I have said just how open I am and simply depends on the company I am in and how safe and secure I feel. Also, it is a judgement call as to how they will react as sometimes it is still better to be accepted without imparting information on which you could be judged. After all I am a child of the 60s … enough said.