The Hypnotherapy and NLP are such a journey. We all reach a point in our lives that we realise that whatever it is we do in life to cope, may no longer work. Sadly, I suspect that many people learn it just before they take their last breath. I have no desire to be one of those.
NLP is proactive. You visulaise what you want to achieve and where you want to be. Then you work out what you need to do to achieve it. The hypnotherapy is trickier. Your sub conscious puts in various blocks to prevent you achieving those things and all for various reasons. Unpicking those is emotionally difficult.
Back to the can of worms. The lid is firmly open. When I was a young teenager, I was hoisted out of my life within 14 days. One day I had a horse, a dog, a cat, lived in the country and had friends at the local school. Within 14 days I was in a boarding school in another county with my parents preparing to go and live in Hong Kong. I cannot say I was overjoyed.
Saying what I think has never been a problem for me. Saying what I need has been an issue. I coped for a while and then I stopped eating. Eventually, having worked through the 'not being able to leave the dining hall until food had passed my lips', it was acknowledged it was going to be a problem. I was taken out of boarding school and got a flight to the Far East.
Then other stuff happened. With an entrenched habit of not being able to verbalise how I felt about things, combined with lots of 'things' - I had a period of minor self harm. I still remember the sensation of doing it. It sounds appalling to describe but the sense of cutting your arm was like a breath of fresh air.
I read a little about self harm this evening. Not uncommon in teenage girls and very common with young people who feel unable to express what is going on internally. Self harm is about being able to control something at a time when you can control nothing else. Physical pain releases emotional pain. People who self harm tend to be perfectionists, tend to need to control their own 'stuff'.
I had forgotten alll about it until last weeks hypnotherapy. It hit me like a train that in fact I still self harm, just in a different way. I no longer cause myself physical pain but am adept at causing myself emotional pain. The irony is that I do this to prevent anyone else hurting me. Whatever happens in my life, I never choose to consciously hurt anyone else. I firmly believe that we must all take responsibility for our own actions. What I fail to address is that my own subconscious belief that I need no one, though in a bid to protect myself from hurt - only serves to hurt me since in letting no one in, I am doomed to be hurt by the fact that no one can really get close. That is self harm.
It is beginning to make me wonder if I chose to marry someone that I knew could never give me emotional support, because in doing so I could continue to protect myself from anyone being able to hurt me. That was fairly stupid since no matter what we tell ourselves, we all want to be loved for who we truly are. The more you present as someone you are not, the more likely it is that we never feel truly loved. Duh
This week was equally tough. I dealt with stillbirth. The ultimate show of how I could cope emotionally, was when I gave birth to a lifeless baby. Today I sobbed. Not totally, I still feel uncomfortable with it, it sill feels alien and I could still feel myself fighting it. but I cried. After years of perfecting the art of describing the experience of stillbirth with no emotional connection to myself, it felt very raw. There are no adequate words. Giving birth to a dead baby is like having your soul ripped from you.
The aftermath of a still birth is awful. People handle things in very different ways. I never, ever got upset publicaly. I coped. My mind was another matter. The struggle of such huge pain and appearing to cope was challenging. At times it tipped me over the edge. One day I burnt all poured petrol over my clothes and set alight to them. I could not bear the fact that I had worn them when I was pregnant and the baby was now dead. I hated those clothes and was in control of nothing. I couldn't tell anyone, I couldn't begin to describe the pain. So I burnt the clothes.
The nearly ex husband never talked about it. I told myself and everyone else that he showed his support by never judging me when I lost it. I was deluding myself. He was not equipped to deal with emotions, particularly not anyone elses. Not his fault, just the way it is. My fault for not recognising that I had chosen a partner that was simply not capable in giving me the one thing I needed in life, emotional support and love. The one thing I have spent my life telling myself I do not need turns out to be the very thing I need and the thing that scares me most.
When you have a pathological aversion to being vulnerable, there is no better solution to marry someone that is not equipped to give it. More self harm. I am beginning to think that I am not in fact, as emotionally aware as I had thought.
On the upside, it's all starting to slot into place. All the patterns of self defeating behaviour, all of the issues with fear that keep me in my comfort zone, all being exposed. Fear is a great thing. It causes you to avoid and to face issues. Take your pick which one is the best option.
I also realised this weekend that those that try and hurt me, no longer can. The damage they cause is to themselves and to innocent parties. I have spend far too much of my life allowing myself to be damaged. By others and by myself. Those that I have allowed to damage me in the past are no longer capable. How they deal with that is now firmly their issue and not mine. I no longer need to anaylase it. I just accept it as it is. Other peoples unkindness is a reflection of them and not one that has anything to do with me.
Losing that little boy taught me other things. The intense love I feel for the little ones sometimes overwhelmes me. I have never been particularly 'Mummsy'. I would fight to the death for my children, equally I would be the first to hand them in if they did anything wrong. I do not pander to them, I like self sufficient children. I do not wear 'Mummsy' clothes, I do not spend my life entertaining them. I spend a proportion of my time lying in bed wondering what the point to it all is. Raising 4 children myself often leaves me wondering if I am failing all of them. Perhaps, but they all know that above all else, they are loved.
After the nearly ex husband left, he told me that he had never wanted the last two. He thought it would make things better. It was a comment that truly shocked me. I am not sure why anyone would think that having more children would make things better, it could only ever make things harder. Yet, I know that having given birth to a little boy that was never going to make it, to have been given to healthy, living breathing children is the kind of thing that makes you realise just how precious life is.
The other issue addressed today was what I would seek in a relationship. Having already worked through goals and desires for work, finances, health, fitness and spirituality, this was the one area that compromise was not on offer. Having spent most of my life in the wrong relationship, I am not compromising on anything I need in any future plans. I cannot think of anything more soul destroying than a serious of half right encounters and really would rather be on my own. I have met men that would tick a multitude of boxes, but they leave me feeling nothing. What is the point?
So back to an IQ of over 135, a well toned body, a dry sense of wit, kindness, posture, emotionally aware, and a lateral thinker. The thing about NLP is that it reframes your reference. Instead of telling myself that the serial dater was the only person that I had ever met that can think like me and that caused that 'oh so not common' physical reaction on sight, I have been reframed.
Now I have proved I can meet someone who causes me the 'oh not so common' physical reaction on sight, a man with an IQ over 135, a well toned body, wit, lateral thinker. Fill in the gaps.
It really was quite easy.
"If you met a man that made you feel like the serial dater did but before he started the mind games. A man that had all his plus sides but that was not as emotionally damaged as he, how would you feel?" He asked
"Alive" said I
Simple. I just need to start believing it.
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