Where to point to?

Why do we view something that didn’t work out as we wanted as bad? A relationship fails. We get unfairly fired from a job. A friendship ends.

Why do we have to find someone to blame? Why do we feel we need to hate, be mad at or blame someone or something? Or if we are more ‘spiritually evolved’ and realize that we are part of the equation, that our beliefs and patterns helped co-create a situation, we still may hate, get mad at and blame, but this time ourselves.

Someone must be responsible! Someone must be punished, we think. We need to know. We need an answer. We need to point a finger at something, someone.

I would say many do not even realize they are blaming or resenting, but even being angry with ourselves is a form of blame, resentment and harsh judgment.

Why can’t we view these ‘failures’ as a learning experience or just an experience? An opportunity to grow? An opportunity to see deeper parts of ourselves? Why do they have to be ugly, wrong, stupid or bad?

One theory. That is what we were taught when we were children and/or perceived with the mind of a child. When we did something ‘wrong’, or something they didn’t like, or we failed at something, we were made to feel (or felt through our own perception of their reactions), that we are bad, stupid, ugly, not worthy, etc. And who wants to feel that?

So we need someone/something to blame for this experience or these feelings. And if no one else can tell you as a child that it is okay to make a mistake and that it doesn’t mean you are bad, dumb, unworthy, inferior, or if they can’t admit they were actually wrong,  you carry the burden of blame and shame yourself. A huge and complex burden for little shoulders to carry.

This is then instilled in your belief system and becomes the patterns by which you behave by and the way of seeing things and experiencing things in life.

So, how do we learn to really just experience things, especially things that don’t seem to work out in our favour, or as we wanted, or the experiences that hurt us? And how do we also not make them mean something about ourselves? 

How do we accept those experiences without needing to cast blame or make someone wrong or bad and deserving of punishment for their actions?

 Theories? Ponderings?

Deluded by delusion

I deluded myself into believing that, that relationship was okay with me. Deluded myself by thinking his behaviours would change because of his love for me, because of my support and understanding. Deluded myself by convincing myself that my thoughts and feelings could be wrong, rather than his, even though he had a lifetime of dysfunctional thinking and behaviours (just 5 years before and for more than half his life he was an active alcoholic, drug abuser and an associate of bikers (his Dad’s gang)).

But still I questioned MY thoughts and feelings. Maybe I am the one that doesn’t understand, doesn’t get it. Maybe his relationship with his ex and even his son isn’t dysfunctional and emotionally unhealthy like I think it is. He’s so convinced that it isn’t. So I keep deluding myself with self doubt, beliefs that it will change (and I did see some progressive healthy change…so maybe I wasn’t being delusional).

Then I deluded myself again after I let go of him. Deluded myself by thinking he must have changed because he has a new gf soon afterward. Deluded myself by thinking I must have been wrong about seeing his behaviours with the ex as codependent and unhealthy because this girl is STILL with him. I MUST BE WRONG.  Deluded myself into thinking that I just wasn’t good enough. I didn’t wait around long enough. I didn’t know what I was talking about. I can’t believe in my own wisdom and instincts.

Throughout the whole relationship I deluded myself. I was questioning my own thoughts and feelings. My own intuition. I tried to override them with excuses, ‘I am not the type to have a conventional relationship,” “he’s like this because he’s had a bad childhood so I will accept it,” “he will realize he needs to change once he sees that he can trust me,” “we are meant to be”…

But that was the fearful codependent girl speaking who believes she’s unworthy, who is very self-doubtful and who clings when she is afraid. Delusion to feed my own unhealthy emotions and wounds. Delusion to keep me from stepping into my power.

Delusion is just another defense mechanism – a very sly one because it is almost undetectable – that keeps us from facing our unwanted wounds, ‘flaws’ and the things that we believe are unacceptable about ourselves. It shields us from hidden aspects of ourselves that we don’t want to feel, such as unloveability or self-loathing. Things we believe we cannot face because we are afraid it will kill our SELF. We cannot live with it. Delusion can even be fear of facing your own strengths!

Although delusion isn’t inherently bad, it was put in place by us to keep us safe at some point because we believed we could not cope with certain feelings or stand up for ourselves, so we shoved the feelings (and maybe even the once upon a time confidence) down more and more as we replaced it with a self we thought was better. A self that kept us safer. A self that fit the role we were put into.

Delusion then became the iron shield that protected us from our greatest fears about ourselves – the ultimate protector. We shoved it all down into a dark cavernous place and labeled it bad, unacceptable, unsafe, unloveable and unlivable.

It’s the big bad monster under our bed that we need protection from. And as we learn, the monster is only a hurt and lonely creature that just needs a friend, and some love and understanding.

But as we held on to these fears,  false beliefs, and roles that seemed to keep us safe, delusion only came to serve as a very high and dense wall – hiding us from ourselves.  In the end we are only fooling ourselves. We are losing ourselves...our authentic selves and our true power.

Lies, Lies, Lies

It seems we lie to ourselves a lot, but it is the believing of those lies that get us into trouble. I am talking about our self beliefs. The ones we picked up in childhood and they just became a part of our identity, that we don’t even know they are not us. Many of the things we believe were taught to us as children or rooted in experiences we had as children. But those decisions to believe what we were told about ourselves or the perceptions that we concluded from difficult experiences were made by a child, yet we continue to believe them and play them out in our adult life.

We keep drawing to us people and/or experiences that prove these lies to be true. But all they are really proving is that we still believe our own lies about ourselves or the beliefs we have. For instance, if someone believes men cannot be trusted (likely they seen this in a primary adult relationship as they were growing up), they will continue to draw men to them who are not trustworthy, confirming their belief, which is actually the lie they have decided to believe.

Now this is not my case, but for me I have come to realize through some painful digging that I have a slew of lies that I still believe, without realizing that they were even there. And this is why we keep living out the lies, because many of us aren’t even aware of them, they are ingrained in us and we just automatically believe this is our personality. But they are LIES!

For me, and probably for most others, I became aware of mine….well acutely aware of mine, when I went through a painful experience and taking note of my reaction to it, which was just way over the top (internally so) and still lingers. It doesn’t fit the actual situation. That’s where I came to meet my lies in the light of day. They are mean and painful lies, but underneath it all I do know they were created from hurt and confusion. I had to ask: "What am I believing about myself that is causing me to feel this way, to react this way, to torment myself in this way?" And the answers were: “I am not good enough. I am not special enough. I am not worth fighting for. I am inferior. Others are better than me. My thoughts and feelings are wrong."

Wow! And I knew I already believed some of these things. I knew I have low self confidence and self doubt, that I have problems with asserting myself, but I NEVER knew I was believing all of these things about myself deep down. I thought I really liked myself, after all, I don’t get into abusive or degrading relationships (but I do get into relationships with weak and dysfunctional men), I don’t allow people to talk down to me, I have a pretty good self-image, I think I am fairly intelligent and funny and I am socialable, so it took a lot of digging to realize I had these beliefs about myself because on the surface it didn’t seem that way…and still doesn’t to the outside world. But I know, from looking at my life – past & present conditions – that I have believed these lies for almost my whole life!

If you take a really close and honest look at your life, especially the things that are not working, no matter what the story and reasons you build up around it, you will begin to see the lies you are believing. Your life will always mirror back to you what you feel about yourself. We draw in circumstances and people who will keep proving to us what we believe, whether it’s true or not. We can only see and experience what we believe to be true.

For me (as for most others), it is taking some time to stop believing the lies because, as mentioned, I have been believing them as truth my whole life, without even knowing I am believing anything at all as they are just ingrained in my psyche and became my personality and my behaviours.

I am still, however, looking externally and trying to collect outside proof to validate for me what I want to believe “that I am good enough, special, worthy…” but I keep finding “proof” of the lies, which just indicates that I am still believing the lies deep down and very much likely why I keep holding on to my “break up” story and needing to remind myself of who he is (dysfunctional and his choices have nothing to do with me) and checking to see if he is still with his new girlfriend because I want to use that as proof that my perceptions of him were correct and I am not worthless and unspecial and so on, but it continues to "confirm" my self defeating beliefs if I see that they are still together. Even though I know logically this proves absolutely nothing at all!!

And this is how I know that I am still believing MY LIES because if I realized they were just lies then I wouldn't need any external proof or validation of my worth....

The lies we tell ourselves hurt us the most.

LOSE Control

Not the brusque type of control where you tell people what to do or use of physical force over something or someone…I am talking about a more subtle type of control, one that is more deceiving and not as easy to detect or even acknowledge.

I realized I try to manage my feelings – the painful feelings of rejection, thinking I am not good enough, not special enough, not worth fighting for by clinging.

By Clinging. By Resisting. By Convincing another. By Doubting myself.

All ways to not have to deal with my own wounds, my own painful feelings. A way of avoiding them. For instance, we make a choice, one that seems good for us, one that is powerful then we start doubting our choices because it means that things will change and that means that we must change too. And change is scary, it takes us into new and unknown territory…out of our comfort zones and we want to just jump back in, to have things back the same way they were (but different), even if it wasn’t ideal.

For me, after I made my choice to finally leave a relationship that wasn’t feeling good for me in some ways, I got too scared with the choice I made because that meant life would change and I would no longer be with that person (which I am sure triggered many emotions and insecurities) so I started DOUBTING myself, started CLINGING. I reneged on my decision, groveled to have him stay (even though I was quite clear that I couldn’t stay in the relationship and I let him know how unhealthy I think his behavior is).

Then I start needing to convince him that what he is doing is indeed unhealthy and that it is not good for him or his son. I use examples, I use psychological definitions, I think I even try guilt. And even if this is all true and I am right on the money about his issues, I have come to realize that, that is still CONTROL. A way for me to control the situation, so I don’t have to make a healthy choice for me and go through the subsequent painful feelings of letting go. And so many of us do this, I know that.

Then when none of this works - my feelings aren’t soothed, he won’t change , we aren’t together anymore- I resist. I resist the process of letting go and begin to obsess and analyze him. And I believe that this may just be a tactic to manage my feelings and not fall prey to my insecurities and those old self defeating beliefs.

Trying to control.

It’s hard to think of me as controlling because it is not in the way we think of control: aggressive, malicious, loud, abusive or whatnot.

It’s more subtle, and yes I know control is a huge thing for codependents but I am not even talking about it in that way as a form of manipulation, enabling and empty threats, but, yes I suppose codependent in way of relying on someone else’s behavior to dictate how I feel and needing the other person to change to make me feel better.

All ways to control our emotions. And herein lies where I realize I have issues of control.

Doubting.Clinging. Convincing. Resisting. Trying to control the situation so that I wouldn’t have to feel these painful feelings…the painful feelings of what really are wounds from self defeating beliefs. And I realize I have done this since I was a child. To avoid feelings of humiliation, or rejection, or feelings of inadequacy - the things that seem to trigger my insecurities and cause painful emotions - I would either avoid the situation or person completely or try to “manipulate” the situation into being a certain way or the person into behaving a certain way. And it was not to be malicious or to have authority over others, more so to have authority over my own emotions because I didn’t/don’t have the healthy and mature coping skills to deal with such feelings. Again, just conditioned ways of coping created from a child’s mind.

But the irony of control, just as with addictions (another way to control or completely avoid our painful feelings) is that it ends up causing us more pain and drives us even further away from resolving these things in our life and further away from ourselves.

It’s funny how we do certain things as a way to protect and save ourselves from things we think will hurt us, but instead these tactics are the very things that end up hurting us and leaving us feeling abandoned.

Score 1 for the Devil

Why do we sabotage ourselves? We do things that we know that will hurt us or are not good for us, yet we do it anyway. Expecting a different outcome, but it is never a different outcome.
I put these ridiculous absolutes in my head that feed into my self-defeating story that if this person is doing this or if I see that, then it must mean I am (insert any self-defeating adjective here).

I use someone else’s behaviours to gauge how I feel about myself, rather than seeing it as something completely detached from me, nothing to do with me. And I rationally know this, but if it will feed my false self-beliefs, the self-defeating story of I am not good enough, special enough, loveable enough, I will believe it over rationale. And then I am on a role as I further feed my story with skewed perceptions of what I see or hear and make it mean something negative about me. “Oh my ex is still with that girl that he met just 2 months after we broke up, then I mustn’t be very special, I mustn’t have meant very much to him, he mustn’t have cared about me, she must be better than me” and on it goes….feeding the story, feeding the demons.
My wisdom and all the things I claim to believe and know about the human psyche goes out the window.

I claim to believe that we draw to us how we feel about ourselves, yet if I really believed that then that would negate my self-defeating story. I would see that he only drew to him exactly what he is, exactly what he always has. Someone that is codependent and insecure, someone that will tolerate being treated poorly.

I would believe that he just defaulted back to who he always was and how he has always been because he never did the hard work of facing his own demons, his shadows, rather he ran away like a coward and stayed in denial. If I believed what I claim to and believe what I know strongly enough then my self-defeating story would be squashed and I wouldn’t be tormented by my thoughts. I wouldn’t perceive his behaviours as proof of a negative self-belief. Yet I do. Thus, the demons have won this round.

The old stories and self-defeating beliefs are still winning. My inner demons are still stronger than my wiser, more evolved, esteemed self.

These demons need to be slain once and for all so I can LIVE.