Are safety nets safe?

The next series of postings will be loose transcribed excerpts from my journal on things I have already or am still working through as I continue on my journey of healing. Thoughts and feelings that seem to cycle around and hopefully taking me deeper into myself.

I know I have to let go of this break up story. I know it is useless and tormenting but for some reason I am still holding on.  Holding on to what though? He is gone, the past happened waaaay in the past and it can’t be changed anyway. And furthermore, I really didn’t want to be with him…well the him he was or rather in that type of relationship where I felt like a third party.

So then why do I hold on to the story? I guess this is a safety net for me. By “reminding” me of what his character flaws are, of why I believe he did the things he did (insecurity, codependency issues with ex, fear of abandonment, emotional immaturity) I don’t have to believe my demons. Those painful beliefs that I am not good enough, loveable enough,special enough... I keep needing to retell the story to myself and go over his “issues” over and over again so I don’t fall down into the devil’s lair. 

I need to keep analyzing  his personality and his behaviours as a way to convince (maybe that’s the wrong word) myself that my initial perceptions of his “bizarre” behaviours and this ex relationship were correct. I need to keep convincing myself, perhaps like a good parent or friend would, that my thoughts and feelings were “right” – not that I am trying to go for right and wrong, I am just trying to get to a place where I can BELIEVE and TRUST my own thoughts and feelings about things. 

And therein lies the real problem. My inability to believe in my own thoughts and feelings, thus this story stays with me. I need to use his “stuff” to convince myself that I am ok, that I am not wrong about this, that I did not perceive this incorrectly because if I did that means that I CAN’T trust my own thoughts and feelings.  It really is an internal war and he is being used as the … I dunno… scapegoat (again maybe the wrong word).  

An internal war between my self-defeating beliefs: self-doubt, self-pity, inferiority, and my inability to know my self-worth to trust myself and my wiser self that does believe in my own thoughts and feelings.

I know a lot of spiritual texts say just LET GO, but perhaps this holding on has served a purpose: a way to keep myself afloat and not drown in these old and painful beliefs. A way to keep disputing these beliefs, until they dissolve. Yet, I do know, this is still a form of codependency or being outwardly focused by needing others to validate me, validate my own thoughts and feelings. 

I do at least know this experience is pushing me to look within and to learn to believe in myself, to look to me for answers and to trust what’s inside. But I keep looking outside of me -  to others … anyone and checking out his website to see how his life is going, especially to see if he is still with his girlfriend that he found soon after me(which to my defeating self means that I wasn’t good enough, special enough , so it actually defeats the purpose and creates the opposite effect) -  to validate my thoughts and feelings.

Perhaps this story won’t go away until I become strong enough in myself to just fully TRUST and BELIEVE in my own perceptions, thoughts, and feelings.  Then I can leave this false safety net behind. Actually, these are the same words I said to him. He holds on to his ex-wife, keeps a close, platonic marriage type of relationship with her because it saves him from having to face his painful feelings (just as alcohol and drugs once did for him) and feelings of abandonment (his childhood wound) after she told him she wanted a separation 6 years ago. She left him, but she didn’t really leave him. Works well for a recovering alcoholic and a codependent, I guess. But it didn’t work for me. 

I don’t want to have this false safety net, which I can soooo clearly see with him (yes, more proof that, that is what is going on with me too because our relationships hold a mirror up to ourselves), because I know that ultimately it is not safe at all; it just becomes a way to get tied up, stuck in the past and caught up in the net...so to speak.

But again … if I don’t have the story of him and his stuff, I will believe my own demons…more so than I already do. I can’t let them win. I suppose I know I won’t really drown if I let go of the story/safety net. I really believe it’s all about our own sense of self, our own security within…I have always known that, as I said it about him a looooong time ago. 

BUT how does one become strong and secure within themselves, learn to trust in themselves – whether in their own abilites or in their own thoughts and feelings – without using other people, relationships and experiences to help validate that for us?