May 28, 2002

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  You guys give good comments.  I know I have soul connections here. DoctorEvil wrote:  “I find the truth comforting…I have NEVER understood why people find it threatening?” Portia said:  “I couldn’t believe someone would be so revealing.” Like the evil doctor, I don’t see what I could possibly lose by being myself.   Lying and hiding the truth, on the other hand, would destroy my self-respect. BTW, Portia, it’s all that dialog and stage direction that has kept me from doing scripts.  Narrative just flows.  Perhaps I can someday turn one of my stories into a script, or maybe SpecificOcean would do the screenplay for me.  We’re going to have to discuss that. oOMisfitOo, darlin’, you were precocious, and big for your age.  Now you are just scrumptious and not the least bit presumptious. Rowan has asked for more about my psychic development and experiences and I’ll be getting into that before long. What I have to post today has more to do with the insightful question asked by SealKitty:  “…what were you really running from?” I blamed myself for my father’s death.  Not until group therapy at about age thirty did I ever tell anyone.  The night before his sudden fatal heart attack, he had spanked me, hard, with a razor strop.  I was furious with him the next morning as the ambulance pulled away from the curb.  I said to myself, “I hope he dies,” and he did. I spent the next twenty-three years holding that guilty secret and alternating between believing and denying that wishes do come true.  To live with myself, I buried my “evil” side very deep, fled from the ugly truth of my hurtful, vindictive nature.  What was I running from? My Shadow Reading over my recent post about the Work I’ve been doing on my Shadow, what jumps out at me is how easily I got diverted from my topic. I started out aimed toward some insightful revelations about the dark side of me, and ended up in a general rant about the way I often disappoint people’s expectations. This could well be the work of that Shadow, trying to stay in the dark. So pardon me, peeps, and hang on Shadow, ’cause I’m getting ready to haul you out of your closet and give you a big hug. ((Shadow)) Embracing the Shadow is a bit of pop psych jargon that I never totally understood before. Why, this well-indoctrinated Virgo would ask, would anyone WANT TO embrace and celebrate the “bad” side of her personality? I could find all sorts of good reasons for binding and gagging that nasty, vindictive, hurtful side that flares up angrily when some injustice or injury takes me by surprise. I’m dangerous when angered. It took many lessons, rough on both me and those who had angered me, for me to begin to appreciate my own power to hurt and destroy. I learned a lot of self-control along the way. I went from a hair-trigger temper (red-haired, sensitive trigger) that went off at every little offense, to iron-willed control that has only slipped and let me do physical violence twice in over ten years… and both times, it was more like the threat of violence than real hurt: a little nip, not a big bloody chunk of him bitten out, as was my first impulse … and grabbing someone else, backing him up against the door to get in his face and tell him how I hated what he’d done, not grabbing the nearest blunt object and battering him to the floor. I often congratulated myself on my control. When people would comment on something I’d said, making some reference to my being terrible in anger, I’d reply that they hadn’t yet seen me angry. That much was true. Most of the time, with mature judgment and healthy self-esteem, the little slights and insults just blow through me without affecting my mood. If my feelings get hurt, I don’t lash out. I look deeper and try to find a lesson in the incident. It’s as if my mad switch has only two positions: off and fury. I prefer keeping it off, but once a decade or so, something really gets to me. On the other hand, I’m capable of dealing out harsh words cooly, saying things in love that I feel must be said, things that most people would have to be angry to say, for fear of offending or hurting someone’s feelings. I often know I’m going to get a ration of flak for what I have to say, but I value the truth and I’ll risk others’ displeasure and rejection… I force myself to say it as I see it. I was working a psychic fair once in Sedona, when business was slow. We started practicing on each other. Michael Big Bear did a reading for me and said if control was an Olympic event, I might not win the gold medal, but I’d be in contention. But I digress. I had always associated the Shadow only with violence and injury to others, with the angry, willful and/or malicious destructiveness I expressed in my youth. I owned up to my temper tantrums and almost completely transcended them. I thought I’d gotten to know my Shadow and reached a decent level of resolution. Then came the latest and most severe exacerbation of my illness. I knew if I quit eating the crap I’m addicted to, I’d have more energy, breathe better, move better, maybe even think better–and certainly sleep better. And yet I keep eating the crap. I used to be addicted to some hard substances, and now staying off them is not all that hard. Why food addictions of all things? Is pizza really more addictive than meth or barbiturates? I gnawed on this issue from all directions. I tried to see if there were any psychological or emotional payoffs for me in being sick. If I had some mother-figure around to look after me, that might have some validity. What I have is two men without a nurturing cell in their brains. The young one won’t even nurture himself, and the old one latches onto any sign of weakness as a point to attack. There are simply too many payoffs for being well, and too many penalties for illness, to support that idea. After long consideration, I can say that I definitely desire wellness and strength. Weakness does not relieve me of responsibility or get me any extra goodies. It’s just letting a lot of things deteriorate around here, because I’m the only one who will maintain them and I’m not able. This is not desirable. I analyzed my feelings. I acknowledged that I’m in a bind with the food issue. Being weak and sick tends to result in my eating more quick prepared foods, most if not all of which just make me sicker and weaker. I’m missing so much: a social life, garden, dancing, Tae Bo and Tae Kwon Do… and all the unrealized fruits of my potential labor. And I kept coming back to the same searching question: In this case, why don’t I just cut the crap and leave those tempting things alone that the guys load the shelves with? Why not reach past them and find something more healthy to prepare? I’ve got all that garbanzo flour…. “Well, Shithead,” I answered myself, “that’s what a bind is all about.” The Shadow speaks!!?!! And it called me a shithead. I reminded myself that it is equally unevolved to take offense as it is to give it… and that getting offended when I talk to myself is just plain silly. And I continued the dialogue with my dark side. I admitted that I’m spacey and a glutton for immediate gratification. Why bother to think far enough ahead to thaw a piece of fish, and cook it before I get so hungry I’ll grab the nearest day-old donut? I confessed to pleasure at the silence that falls as the guys tuck in to some braised beef and noodles, or some smokin’ enchiladas. Then come the mmms and the smiles, the “love” and appreciation, applause, strokes to the old ego. And as long as that “perfectly good” meal is already prepared, and I’m already tired from doing it, why cook another, less attractive, meal for myself? Yumm yum, here I come. The Shadow is out of the closet now, sharing headspace with the more socially acceptable side of me. I know why I’m ambivalent. What self-respecting addict could fail to experience some ambivalence in this fix? I’ve taken a good look at my bind… I have this Gordian knot right here in my hands, and I pick at it, hesitating to grab the sword and hack away… hack off either the addictions or the pleasure of indulging them. Neither way would be easy, either way would have its costs and rewards. I did mention, didn’t I, that I’m in a bind here? Well, I’m not alone in it. Hey, Shadow, come over here! ((hug)) Ow! It bit me.

  • 6:28 pm
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