...it's difficult to "live in the moment" (which is what I should be doing) and "enjoy this good thing I have at this moment" when I'm looking for negative motivations and clues of imminent abandonment. how long does this crap go on in our heads?!
It's a daily struggle and challenge which will go away if we work at it. I know some dismiss the whole inner child thing, but I also know that you - like me - don't. I have found that The Second Akeru Exercise in The Journey From Abandonment To Healing (henceforth to be known when I'm writing you as "JFATH" - too much typing otherwise!), on pages 102-115 in the paperback, has done me much good. It has helped me to identify, admit, and feel - deep emotions. "...forming a significant relationship with your emotional core," as Anderson puts it. It reveals to me what is really going on inside of me.
The "crap" as you put it is Hoosiergirlie crying out. She wants to, will be, must be heard...listened to (maybe for the first time ever). And talked to. Comforted. Reassured. And she has insights to offer.
As I've said before, Relationship Author Terry Real puts it best: the adaptive child must be heard, acknowledged, and then you've got to "pry her/his sticky fingers off the steering wheel." Adult you's got it now. Convince Hoosiergirlie of that - through "dialog" - and the "crap" begins to make profound survival sense. And dissipates a little bit - for me, anyway - each time I practice it.
Originally Posted By: hoosiermama
...there just seemed to be some urgency in trying to convince me I need to be dating, and I still wonder why it was so important, so urgent. just the possibility I'll "learn things about myself that I'd never learn otherwise" seems rather vague to generate as much urgency as there seemed to be about it. I believe that if he persists in this "challenge" I'll have to challenge him about why this is so important to HIM.
Reading you re-word it and expound on it makes me think you might be seeing a red flag on his neediness. I could be wrong. But keep it in mind, is all. And, yes, be ready to challenge - or gently question - it. You're right on the money, there.
Susan Anderson is having "New York Open Center in Manhattan, Sunday June 13 2010 10:00 A.M. - 5:30 P.M. All day workshop: Abandonment to Healing: Overcoming Your Patterns of Self-sabotage. Register at 212 219 2527
