It makes me wonder though about really old or deep hurts that are so built into our identity that to heal them is to loose a part of ourselves.
I am thinking of my mum, who has a huge fortress around ideas of abandonment...but this fortress is so ingrained she would not recognize herself without it. We have talked at length about it, and it seems the abandoned child is integral to how she imagines herself.
I know most people want to heal their hurts, but some seem to feed off them itms?
Absolutely people feed off their hurts. I know I have in the past. I also think it becomes the identity of some people. The 12 step programme thing brings that to mind. "hello I am Fred & I am an alcoholic". He is defined as one. Do you know what I mean?
I have been a child of divorce, abandoned by my mother, a motherless mother, a victim of family pedophilia, a divorcee, a single mum, a recurrent miscarriager, etc etc. But I can choose if I am defined by these things.
I have identified that I have defined myself as a woman who attracts damaged men. I actually have said it, I have thought it, I believed it. So for me I am working on letting that story drop away!
I actually think that hurt can be a comfort to some. We live in quite a desolate place emotionally many of us without real connections to people. So pain that identifies a group helps to make us feel like we belong. I think that's the danger with definition by pain iykwim?
I've been trying really hard over the last year to not feed off my hurt, to take a step away from those things I identified with in the past. To heal my heart and my soul.
One of my biggest things was approval from my father figure, now I've gotten to the point that I know he loves me, he just doesn't have to approve of everything I do. Last night was a big turning point with that, I showed him the latest artwork on my body and he wasn't impressed, but I said to him that it is my way of expressing things in my life, of how I show how I've gotten through things, or things I'm proud of. I think he was surprised by that, because I've spent most of my life trying to please him and I didn't apologise for the artwork. I realised that the energy I spent trying to please the family should have been spent on pleasing myself, know who I was as a person and becoming that person, not being defined by what the family thinks I should be. I don't fit in with a lot of my blood family, never have and probably never will.
I had a reconnection treatment a few weeks ago and things have started to sort themselves out, it is like the hurts of the past are like onion skins and they're peeling away.
Naw, thanks for thinking of me inanna! I so know what you mean by defining ourselves through pain, and in many ways, defining it helps us to rationalize and normalize it, so we can come to a space of healing. I think the journey to healing is so different for everyone and pain or grief from the pain becomes a habit...my family seem to do it a bit!
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