HelenzArt-life-musings

Tag: courage

  • To sit in the cool of late winter….

    To sit in the cool of late Winter, seeing miniscule signs of the Spring to come.  A leaf bud, a nodding Snowdrop is to feel a hopefulness.

    I want signs of hopefulness as I  feel that this work with Chris is going to plunge me deep within.  To take me beneath my surface of understanding and perhaps unmade what I think I am.

    Why would I feel that?  Because I have felt a depth of my world where there is no bottom, that walk to the deepening slope of a swimming pool where you begin to float. Where only you can save yourself by starting to swim.  Yet all I actually have to do is surrender to the water, allow myself to enter the flow and trust that by relaxing into that I will float or atleast not sink. 

    That’s a scary moment.  Can I trust myself with this?  I feel  that I can, and that is a hope. 

    I’m still edging round emotions  about my mother and brother.  Perhaps a way of becoming accustomed to seeing them in other ways. 

    I’m brought to memories of the split with my husband.  The lonely, desperate race through the streets to reach a shelter that may give me a room to stay in.  Trying to get to the office so I can get social help to feed myself.  Adamant that my husband has done the right thing to protect our children and himself.  Such overwhelming feelings of total loss of all I knew.

    The body can only sustain such feelings for so long.  Become exhausted and shut off or down. Yet the thinking in the head can be so continuous that there feels little respite.

    Once I had a room and a little money.  I started to sort through things, and I was drawn to journal for awhile.  In that, I returned to what I surfacely remembered of my brother.  That was as far as that went yet it was like an invitation to feel deeper which I denied as I was so consumed with setting things right for my family.  I’ll admit that suicide was considered, and strangely it came quite easily to make those considerations of How’s and where’s.  That too was denied. I needed to take the consequences of my actions of fraud. Stand up and be the right person.  In that fraud I did have sensation s that this was being done by a different me.  Of being in a sealed room whilst another signed the papers. Lied and made false bank statements to show my husband.  A more remoteness of action. 

    In my next session with Chris,  I took me to this time of my life, or rather my subconsciousness did. This time, Chris asked whether my subconscious has a name.  He said it didn’t matter if it did or not, but she does. Eileen, it’s good to know that.  It allows a familiarity.  She shows me how things then might well have surfaced, yet I hadn’t been ready then, but seeds had been planted that are pertinent to what arises next. 

    So in that session I revisited those feelings of having lost it all. The overwhelming substance of having nothing.  Tears and sobs. The shame and guilt for having done that to my world of family. To hear the disappointment in my father’s voice. The pain in my mother in laws words.  The husband that can’t bear to look at you. 

    So much pain. Yet survived. Perhaps that was the purpose of the session to see what one survives.  Preparing me to revisit so much and yet understand that it was survived then, and will be again in any revisiting. 

    Again, the utter relief of spent emotions when returning from inner world to Chris and his safe and comfortable room.  It’s a lot to take in and needs time to sift and sort.  The skipping in time frames was surprising, though necessary to my inner world and I will go with that. I trust that.

  • Finding Courage.

    The Latin root of courage is ‘cor’, the heart, the core or centre of what we are. That centre of feeling. Where we may feel fear and love and hope . To take courage to face our fears with love and hope that things will be OK. They will be OK yet not necessarily in the way we anticipate.

    So if it’s ‘cor’ for the heart, is it ‘rage’ too? Perhaps not in an anger sense but yes, to heightened emotion, a vehemence of passion or desire. An intensity to bring about change.

    Intent…. A focussing in on, paying attention.

    I have waited for this intensity of gaze, a focus of courage to write of my experiences with myself in therapy.

    My post of the 20th of June, covers my reasoning of finding a hypnotherapist. Of how I found myself in floods of tears. Of my intent to continue a journey, step by step. A journey that began decades ago, even life times ago though I didn’t know that at the time. A journey that began with death. That of my son, Gavin. Mine too, in more ways than one.

    So from one visit I went from feeling positive about changes to feeling utterly bemused, confused, bereft and all at sea.

    I arranged to have second visit to see the hypnotherapist, Chris, who was to become my way marker.

    The appointment was for a week later, yet what was I ‘to do’ in those intervening days. Chris advised simply sitting with what ever came up! I had always been able to sit for hours and read, watch TV, but might this be hard to do?

    When Gavin died, I learned how to sit and feel, actions for when I felt that welling up would be to pause what I was doing, find a comfortable place to rest, and let the tears flow. Sometimes I would look through the condolence cards and letters received from people who knew him. A freeing and expressing of my grief of loss and the other emotions that surround that. Yet that had a knowable cause, a rooted source, a physicality of a reason. A logical response to a circumstance.

    This depth of emotion, which felt of overwhelming sadness seemingly had no source. No seeable, no logically on the surface of knowing, root cause. It’s scary to feel such extreme emotion and not have any, ‘in the head’ reasoning for it. It was deep within and intent on coming out. The force of releasing through tears made sitting with it easy. In part perhaps by making the choice to carry on a discovery voyage, was a surrendering of control. I didn’t know where I would go, yet I intuitively felt it was time to go. I would simply sit and weep. I didn’t or rather couldn’t read, the same paragraph would be returned to as sight blurred, eyes ached from welling tears. Just so sad…. as if I was crying for all the world. I could still pull myself together, put it aside, be with company, my husband and family. Smile and laugh as usual, yet beneath, when in solitude, I would simply sink into an ocean of sadness.

    Solitude was key for me. It all felt very, very personal and I didn’t require pity nor to feel judged. Yes, I did tell my hubby that I was going to see Chris again and that smoking wasn’t simply a habit to be easily cast aside like an old sock. That there were deeper roots to the need. Which I don’t think he was particularly surprised at though what else he thought isn’t for me to guess at. Like many people without an addiction it’s often hard to understand a compulsive need.

    Over a number of days the sitting continued though the weeping subsided. I would watch the world around me, something I have always done. Marvel at the trees as I have always done and drift. Mind of nothing in particular, just sorrow. Then something might sift up, a ghosting of a memory from childhood not specific. Only a hint of where this pain may arise from. My mother kept coming to mind.

    I will mention that my Mother left when I was in my teens with never a birthday card, nor a gift at Christmas. To be honest I have never knowingly mourned her departure. Not cried at her leaving. I was always closer to my Dad so never upper consciously considered or admitted to feeling abandoned. I don’t recall even asking why or where she had gone, and my dad never offered any reasoning voluntarily. That it shaped some behaviours in me is certain. That yearning to be loved, or at least wanted for something, turning to promiscuity in an effort to find an embrace. She did reappear from her self imposed anonymity when her sister traced her down as their mother was dying. I allowed a contact for the sake of my then only child, for her to have a grandmother, the caveat being that she was not a mother for me, as she gave up that right when she vanished. Occasional visits happened over the years til she died in her early 60’s. No sorrow then either, just the death of someone I knew. We mutually stayed at arms length, no warmth or affection kindled on my part.

    Was there more to my wariness of contact with her? Was there an underlying relief to her going that made me so sanguine to her departure back then. I didn’t rightly know but the seeds were being sown.

    Extreme emotional out pouring can only last for so long, whether we understand a reason for them or not. By the end of the week I was utterly spent. There was a suspicion that my life would once again be turned upside down yet I felt that this was absolutely necessary to bring about an inner sense of peace.

    I was ready to step into my next session with Chris. I had found my courage to face what was asking to be faced. Just as I have found my courage to write about my experiences.

    Looking beyond