You will Tude!

We each take our own route and we each take it in turns to find new pathways......26 years was mine! You just get to see me (virtually at least!),in the here and now. It has been a long old road, and as my therapist rightly pointed out to me; the 'here and now' is Okay, and it is safe. It is the past and living away from myself where I feal all of the danger, and where all the fear is chanelled from!

Thank you for your well wishes friend!

Spirit x

Me again!

I guess because I have learnt this latest lesson I just want to shout it out! I want to make others' think? I know making myself think beyond what I have felt has always been a good way forwards for me.....

Our clever old; my mind told me that the 'here and now' was a scary place, because it was the 'here and now' where and when I experienced my trauma - ever since that point in time and subsequent times that I experienced more trauma my clever old mind would be like, 'Okay last time you were here in the 'here and now' you felt overwhelmed, scared, frightened for your life etc etc., so we will take a short vacation away from you for a bit, that way you can still stay alive, you can still 'be' and not become extinct.'

It's the good old learned behaviour theory. We used this technique originally to keep us from further harm - only it no longer serves a purpose! Now we have 'learned' to believe that the 'here and now' is something to fear, something to avoid, so we continue existing in our alternate universes'. The only problem is that this is not conducive to allowing us making all the valuable emotional and intellectual connections concerning how our trauma is affecting us and controlling us.

Q; the here and now is about experiencing this exact moment? Right then, if we are only experiencing this exact moment what have we got to be afraid of? It is what we bring into the 'here and now' that stops us from living in it? Wouldn't you agree?

Crossed wires
That is all this is! The 'here and now' is safe! The 'here and now' will give you all the nourishment you need in order to make those valuable connections and come away from where your trauma holds you a prisoner.

Just think about it Tude..................

Spirit x

Bloody hell this is it...........

You are living in your head? you are reliving the experiences that have caused your trauma? This is not the 'here and now' the 'here and now' can give you a break from that place. The 'here and now' is not what you are thinking about! you are feeling all of those heightened sensations of fear and disconnection etc., because you are not in the NOW!

I have finished now!

Spirit x

There was some self talk going on there!

Spirit x

Wow, I hope you get that book soon. It sounds like your ready to really feel it. That books goes more in depth on the present moment and on how to heal the compulsive thinking that keeps us stuck in the past or the future.

People tend to think we are our past (all the bad things that happened), and live to think the future will save us. But this is a lie. If we live today that is what will save us.

The past has no part in our life now, and the future is an illusion. The only time is "NOW"

If a bird could talk and you asked him what time it was. He would say the time is "now" So we should let go of the internal clock, except for practical purposes.

Such good stuff in that book.

Take care
Tammy

Thanks Spirit, I appreciate your postings, food for thought for sure.

Warm Regards,
Awakening.

Abso-bloody-lutely!!!

I agree and I hear what you are saying and it is so true, so very true! It is a gift to know this!

Thanks Tammy

Spirit x

Once you have that moment or day in the "now" it is so hard to hang on to it.

We are some comfortable in the cycle we have created in our lives. We are so afraid of change and the unknown. In a sense it is losing control of what's next and letting go of the familiar. But to continue to live and grow into the people we were pre-trauma we have to let go of the familiar.

I don't think we come out the other side of all this work the same person at all. I think the trauma's have changed us for life and how we view the world is a lot different once we have repaired the emotional and physical damage.
Sometimes I feel like I'm living in an empty shell.

I do believe for us to respond to the now, we have to be willing to see it for what it is and limit our past coloring on the now. The past experiences can influence how we live in the now but we are in control of how they influence it.

I recognize it takes a lot of work to limit the pasts influence on living now but the first step is recognizing how our choices today reflect our experiences of the past and we do not have to respond in old safe patterns but can create new safe responses.

I absolutely agree with everything you stated

I get the living in a shell feeling - I once explained this feeling as if I was a walnut shell only the walnut inside was withered and had lost all of it's miosture. I felt like I was rattling around in that shell, helpless and withered.

Not anymore, I can feel the moisture coming back.......

That was a good insight Cindy and I connected with your words.

I do ask myself this though; what if your trauma happened at an essential part of your growth and develpoment (at an early age)? How does this change you? I feel like my traumas have always coloured my perception of the world and I guess they have defined who I have been for along time. I guess who I am inside, who I crave to share with the world and express is who I really am. And, yes I reckon I will come through my healing a different person, but for me it will be the person that I have always wanted to be, not someone that was lost! I was never really given the chance to find me in the first plalce. So is who I becoem who I would could of been? Am I finally defining myself? Does it really matter? Does that make sense?

Spirit x

Spirit - thanks for identifying with me. My shell is empty.

As far as defining ourselves. That is where I am at. Sometimes I feel I don't really know who I am. Other times I have a sense of who I am but not a whole picture.

Most the time I feel like a cue ball playing bumper cars just reacting to life as it hits me. But no over all plan or path. I get so wrapped up in daily living (survival) in a positive way that I loose sight of the big picture often.

Part of the reason I think I don't develop a plan is because all I am is my work. I have tried to pick up hobbies over the last two years to distract me from my work and to give me something else to focus on. I have been a little successful.

I find it frustrating regularly to try and get it all together so all the pieces have a flow and are not disjointed occurences. Still working on it. I always wonder if this is so hard for just us or does everyone go through these struggles?

I guess it doesn't matter either way because it is what it is for me.