June 25, 2004
Regression hopefully in service of the ego
For some reason, I can't get on the internet again from my office, and, of course, I don't know why. Perhaps this is part of my run of missing links, paragraphs, photos. I will write about my internal process and maybe publish it some other time.
I have been experiencing a major regression ever since I was triggered by Tai Chi/QiGong. I know that it's just the baby of my internal family system , carrying on, crying into the monitor, waiting to be heard. My body is a "seize bucket", (as noted by my polarity therapist), and I am on the verge of rage and tears quite alot. If you were planning to invite me to lunch, you might want to wait a week.
Lately, I am also surrounded by those who have internal conflicts, fighting the good fight within the self, valiantly trying to be curious rather than afraid or ashamed of lost aspects of themselves.
The part of me that compensates for the baby, the part that manages, keeps things under control, and knows what's best, doesn't like to feel instability or distress. That part hates the vulnerable , whining, suffering child who feels abandoned, cast out, assaulted, injured and inconsolable. It is often helpful to think of the manager part of me. all dressed up in high heels and gloves that are sizes too big, pointing a finger. In other words, it's the part of me that absorbed my mother, became my inside guidance, so that I wouldn't get in trouble with her. It is also a small child part, not a CEO adult part .
As a a matter of fact, the CEO can't stand the baby part either. I hate feeling such infantile feelings. This baby part of me will not tolerate pain of any kind. It cannot lift a five pound dumbell without seizing and needing comfort. (I have been fortunate to locate a personal trainer [we are trying to think of a better title] with empathy for all of that. Most personal trainers are jocks who just love being in their bodies , and cannot understand the torture some of us feel when we become somatically conscious.)
If the needs of that baby part of me are not gratified immediately , I have few resources with which to comfort it, no internalized objects . The rage that the baby part experiences when this happens is annihilating. It hasn't developed much since infancy. My heart slams shut, hence the inconsolable. I do not want to be comforted on someone else's schedule. If consolation comes too late, it is not accepted. I am out of the open heart business and into retaliation by abandonment. I stand grandiosely by myself, heartbroken , betrayed, too angry and proud to let anything touch me ever again.
You can see why I might want to ignore, or more likely eradicate , that part of myself. Eradication is impossible, what has happened has happened. If I do ignore it, however, the consequences are severe. The minute you don't pay attention to a dissociated part of yourself, that part sneaks into your driver's seat and tries to help you understand what it was like for you in the past, by steering you into emotional phone poles, duplicating past trauma in the present, providing many "discovery" experiences for you, most of which you would rather not have.
This week, in a meeting with the like-minded, my friend talked about the aspects of ourselves we try to avoid. "Too bad, "she said, "When we can't look at those parts, we miss the most interesting things about ourselves."
Photo note: Some parts of us are not as developed as others. Let us have some tolerance for their unique beauty and potential to bloom.
Posted by Dakota at June 25, 2004 08:42 AM