Week 8 of 52 Changing From Suppression to Communication

August 27, 2012 //
4

REFLECTIONS

2 months have passed since I began this blog in search of The Other Woman energy within me. I knew this would be a lengthy process fraught with swings and roundabouts, but I hoped that after a year I would feel my femininity to be less contained. Being 1/6 of the way through I thought it time to assess my progress towards this goal.

The dominant energy on the left side of the collage typified my experience as a woman. I had accepted my role as was prescribed in a patriarchal society where women live to visually please and behaviourally serve men. So these past weeks have forced me back into my childhood where these expectations have their roots.

After the past 2 months of work, I know that I am now able to observe, with incredulity, how confining a role this is. When I made the collage I sensed I may be limiting the depth of my feminine experience, but I could not get enough distance from this habituated state of being, to really observe it. I’ve had to peel back this familiar skin, to see inside. I find it much easier to observe in other women what eludes me in myself. But now I have watched myself defer, yield and succumb in the presence of a man. Or, if I feel agitated in this state of acquiescence, I assume the tone of the nagging, disenfranchised woman.

Observing myself  vacillate between being confined and whining about being confined brings me one step closer to experiencing a change…one step closer to being The Other Woman!

ASPIRATIONS FOR WEEK 8 OF 52

CHANGING FROM SUPPRESSION TO COMMUNICATION

“The greatest discovery of any generation

is that human beings can alter their lives

by altering the attitudes of their minds.”

Albert Schweitzer

My left shoulder has been twitching for a couple of months. I notice it held high with tension,  creating a slope in my shoulders.

Like a dog needing bladder relief  or a child needing a hug, my shoulder needs something and has been communicating with me through the only means at its disposal…discomfort.  I’ve been ignoring these subtle communiques, hoping they would just disappear or sort themselves out. This attitude of ‘head in sand’ from a person who has been at death’s door twice because of this tendency to suppress, ignore, inhibit and squelch, surprises me.

Of course now,  my shoulder is doing what any ignored dog would do. ..it’s peeing on my carpet. My left shoulder aches, it’s stiff and it refuses to move.  So today, I surrendered and  am attempting to communicate with it. I will use a technique recommended by the Jungian Analyst, Robert A. Johnson, called Active Imagination.

Sitting in silence, I asked my shoulder what it was upset about. Was there an emotion I didn’t want to feel, a past experience I didn’t want to acknowledge…three images came to my mind; a collection of heart shaped rocks, my father and the cross from my Eastern European Church… this was followed by a stab of pain in my heart.

The Patriarchal Cross of Eastern European Churches

That is me, the bottom sloped board, under the overwhelmingly authoritative patriarchal presence above. One interpretation of the lower, sloped board is that it symbolizes a balance scale. Symbolically, if a person abides the authoritarian Father, they ascend to heaven on Judgement Day, but if they mock His rules, hell awaits. As I allowed feelings and images to emerge, I related to this scenario. My own father expected to be obeyed and he created a living hell when his rules were mocked. I admired my brother who refused to offer our father the smallest gesture of obeisance, but was mortified at the price he paid for this defiance. I wanted to be in my father’s good graces and I did not want to be beaten, but my acquiescence  has had a price. In following his plan, I repressed my own. I contorted my self to be loved.

Learned Helplessness

Above all else I yearned to be loved for the unconventional, whacky child I knew I truly was. But instead I was accepted by my parents because I presented them with a bevy of parent sanctioned personas. According to Jungian terminology, a persona is a coping mechanism used to conceal a person’s true thoughts and feelings; a necessary adaptation to ensure survival.

As a child I played with cut-out-dolls, and liken my persona collection to this.

I cut out and attached to myself one of several parent pleasers:

1.Polly Perfect, a real crowd pleaser. This persona won me awards. Her winning smiles and sensitivity to others’ moods was combined with an ability to listen to endless adult prattle, while looking enthralled.

2.Compliant Constance, a parent favourite. This persona saved me from spankings. Her defining attribute was her willingness to put aside normal childhood defiance( skipping the personality forming Terrible Twos, Defiant Fives and the Turbulent Teens) and instead perform feats of compliance.

3.Timid Temperance, a mealy-mouthed child. This persona was the most burdensome for me to carry. This persona willingly  gave a stamp of approval to all and sundry parental behaviour. When observing deception and meanness, real reactions were stuffed, while a neutral face was presented.

So for Week 8 of 52, I will listen to the communiques from my body.

I will remember that a persona is a coping mechanism that is necessary for a child to survive in their world, but in my efforts to discover The Other Woman inside of me, I will put Polly Perfect, Compliant Constance and Timid Temperance to rest.

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Categories childhood, Jungian Analysis, love, transformation

Week 7 of 52 Changing From Willful To Blooming

August 20, 2012 //
0

REFLECTIONS

It occurred to me, the other day, why I have children. Some reasons are obviously self-serving and easily identifiable…for example, having someone to love me unconditionally and having someone to grow old with and now that I am in The Blogoshere, having someone to keep me up-to-date with technology.

But a positive, less apparent reason, centres around the role they play in pushing me towards the ‘better’ me, the less self-righteous and omniscient me.

Mother doesn’t always know best.

For example…last week’s Blog Post was not going to include the real and graphic image of me fully engaged in escapist behaviour. I intended to merely create a tidy, unrevealing list of my behaviours. 4 items: British Mystery Shows, FreeCell, Food and Alcohol. I did not feel anxious or exposed by this list because it didn’t reveal the depth nor the intensity of my efforts to escape. In the readers’ mind I may have watched just one show, while I played one game, while I ate one slice, while I drank one G and T.  While ambiguity prevailed, my ego remained intact.

But when my Editor (tech-savvy brilliant daughter) read my post before I published it, she asked the one question I didn’t want asked. “What happened that prompted this Post? You have to show not tell when you write!”

Hyperventilating, I answered, “No way! That would be embarrassing and anyway, I’m already at my Blog limit of 1000 words.”

And here is the blessing in having children. My daughter not only knows me better than most, but does what all children do instinctively…she called me on my ego and my lie! She was right on both counts! Blog Posts have no defined length, but my ego goes on forever!

The greatest gain I felt from last week’s challenge, Changing the Power of My Escape Artist, came from revealing my behaviour, not in list form, but in story form. If I had attended an Escape Artists Anonymous meeting, such a revelation would have been simple for me, because I would have felt safe(ego intact) in a group of like-behavioured individuals. But to reveal escapist behaviours to the world at large, initially bruised my ego, but I soon felt surprisingly liberated. I became aware that my need to ‘look good’ imprisoned me behind bars built by my fear of other people’s perceptions. In accepting that I may now be perceived as a loser…my worst fear…I was no longer held captive by that fear! Doing the work of the soul, definitely damages the ego, but it is becoming apparent that living a less egocentric life frees me to experience the mystery, the awe-inspiring synchronicity of my world.

Repression and denial of that which embarrasses me, not only zaps life force, but is a major factor in the cyclic nature of addiction.The vagaries of life will always present me with unwelcome events. If my reaction is to escape this reality, and then feel horrid about methods used to escape, what choice is there but to try to escape again in hopes of dousing the feelings of shame. A Merry-Go-Round called Denial. But the cycle is brought to an abrupt end when I stop feeling badly about escaping. So thank you to my daughter/editor and to all of you who bear witness to my truth.

ASPIRATIONS FOR WEEK 7  OF 52

CHANGING FROM WILLFULNESS TO BLOSSOMING

“The living self has one purpose only: to come into its own fullness of being, as a tree comes into full blossom, or a bird into spring beauty, or a tiger into lustre” DH Lawrence

I was reminded of some wisdom I learnt from my dear Herbalist, Annette. She suggested I plant a bulb in a jar in the dark of winter and watch it transform into a blossom by spring.

The purpose of this exercise was to show me how slowly transformation occurs. No matter how many times I bribed the bulb with treats, threatened it with punishment, or read it excerpts from The Power Of Positive Thinking, it progressed excruciatingly slowly. The salient point being, it did progress.

Of course this lesson was challenging for me because it put into question everything I believed about personal growth. I believed thoroughly in the principle of Mind Over Matter, which is the power of the mind to control and influence the body and the physical world. For example, if I had the desire to become more compassionate in my interactions with my friends, I would just act more compassionately…easy as that. So any thoughts, feelings or behaviours that were contrary to compassion, were just ignored, stuffed away, and repressed. Mind over matter! But transformation needs the death of the old, the planting of the new and the long, slow period of gestation, before new growth manifests.

Today, when I was enjoying a vase of blossoms from my garden, another profound truth flooded into my being. The potential for the blooms exists in the seed. The seed was not in the ground with a list of attributes it wanted for its flower. 

“Let me see…I think I’ll be black with white polka dots this year…and I’m tired of the tear drop look, so I think I will look like that tulip I saw in last month’s Home and Garden.” I’m laughing at how preposterous this sounds. I accept unequivocally that the bloom on a fuchsia will look as expected, with negligible variation.

 And yet I have trouble accepting that the same principles hold true for me. So this week, the 7th of 52 will centre around me accepting the attributes I was given, instead of trying to be a tulip, when I was born to be a fuchsia!

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Categories the other woman, transformation

WEEK 6 OF 52 Changing The Power of My Escape Artist!

August 13, 2012 //
3

REFLECTIONS

Was it worth it, I ask myself? 5000 kilometres, 2 weeks, 10 beds. Why did I have to actually experience the town, the house, the street, the school, the people,  where I spent my first 12 years? Wouldn’t it have been enough to look up the town’s news on Google? Check out my old house on ‘Street View’ of Google Maps? If I wanted to change my perception of my childhood in the hopes of feeling more positive about it, why not just try some of the suggestions from my .28 second search that produced 137,000,000 sites about positive thinking!! For example:

  1. Always use only positive words while thinking and while talking. Use words such as, ‘I can’, ‘I am able’, ‘it is possible’, ‘it can be done’, etc.
  2. Allow into my awareness only feelings of happiness, strength and success.
  3. In my conversation use words that evoke feelings and mental images of strength, happiness and success.
  4. Before starting with any plan or action, visualize clearly in your mind its successful outcome.
  5. Associate yourself with people who think positively.
  6. Always sit and walk with my back straight. This will strengthen my confidence and inner strength.

 I would have spent the 2 weeks reciting positive aphorisms, instead of having the real experience if I believed it would have resulted in any real, long lasting change. But I know, because I learned it the hard way,  that there is a real difference in thinking about a potential experience and having that experience. 

My drive towards The Pas occurred with the brakes on…virtual brakes…internal brakes…ones that screamed “I don’t want to go there. Bad things happened there. Dogs died, kids cried, goblins lived under the beds.”

And then I was there, my daughter behind the wheel, driving into The Pas. We passed the town Cemetery where I celebrated Birthday parties. The grounds were lovely with massive oak trees, rolling hills and beautiful grave markers. Nearby hills of sand provided a setting fit for a party! No longer did I question my Mother’s choice for the location of my party. This was the first shift in my perception of my childhood.

Then we drove down Constant Avenue, my family home mid way down the block. In my ‘Story’ about my childhood I have always used the street name ‘constant’ to reflect the constant despair I felt as a child, the constant practising I had to do, and the constant work as child labourer I endured.

But now the street looked so pretty with flowers in neatly kept yards,and shade tress welcoming a traveller to come and sit awhile to enjoy the peace. Unexpectedly, I began recalling happy childhood events;  riding up and down the streets playing Chicken on my bike…you know where you drive as fast as you can towards another biker to see who turns away first!

Then I remembered the countless games of marbles I played and the skipping and hoola hoop games I created with my friends Marilyn and Jocelyn.

I could almost picture the walls of snow in winter where I built huge snow forts, with a kitchen and living room, the hills for sledding and our rink in the back yard, that Dad built for us each winter.

Where were all these positive memories before? Why now? What has allowed me to feel the joy and happiness of my childhood now? Why had I clung only to the pain of my childhood? Where was the balanced view? The mix of the yin and yang, the good with the bad, the dark with the light?I am not entirely sure why I can see both sides now, but I hope I come to understand this during my exploration of The Other Woman. No doubt my past adherence to my ‘Story’ contributed to my ‘stance’ on life, the one that has had me repeating patterns of behaviour that were destructive to me and those I love.

My most unexpected experience in The Pas though, was the attitude others had towards my Mother…they loved her, unequivocally. I heard this from my childhood friends and from kids who had lived on our street and from her friends, and from people she sang with in the choir. Why had I held such a jaundiced view of her? Had I not experienced her love as they obviously had, or did I just get stuck, like a burr on a bear, to the negative?

ASPIRATIONS FOR WEEK 6 of 52
 
CHANGING THE POWER OF MY ESCAPE ARTIST!

We cannot change anything until we accept it.

Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.

– Carl Jung

via Every form of addiction is bad, by Carl Jung.

The first step of any 12 Step Program centres around admitting one’s powerlessness over something. But this step presented a conundrum for me. Being the First Step it was apparent to me that the next 11 could not be attempted without acquiescence to the first.

But feeling powerless made me feel weak and weakness is obviously not an admirable trait, so I skipped over the step and have asserted my will over most everything and everyone in my life…for years.

I pictured myself as The Little Engine that Could…do anything if I tried hard enough. And as I am a Romaniuk, I have a very strong will.  I willed my way through life, bulldozing what needed to bulldozed, building what needed to be built…with me as architect/creator! Well I did this until my body cried “Uncle” and quit cooperating with willful Contrary Mary. 

Surrender to your fear so you may triumph over it.Choose me,open your soul to me, and embrace the Devouring.”

― Simon Holt, The Devouring

So now I have come to believe that admitting powerlessness is more akin to surrendering my wilfulness than being weak willed, I can admit when I am powerless in a situation.This brings me to MY ESCAPE ARTIST.There is a transition point between believing I am in control of a particular aspect of my life or a person in my life and the acceptance of the fact that  I am not…that I, in fact, was NOT put in charge, and that no amount of cajoling, browbeating or flattery is going to make things go my way.This transition point can last a nano-second  or days or years if I am honest. I call it a TRANSITION because eventually my will is broken, and I succumb to the truth, that there is a power greater than myself in charge.The purpose of my ESCAPE ARTIST is to submerse me into unconsciousness. When I don’t want to accept life as it presents itself, I choose to escape this reality by:

  1. Watching British Mystery Series. American series don’t work.
  2. Playing FreeCell on my phone
  3. Eating 
  4. Drinking
  5. Under Dire Circumstances…Do All 4 Simultaneously

For example, when I arrived back home from my emotional roller coaster ride to The Pas, I felt some disquiet, some dissonance. My Childhood ‘Story’ has been safely tucked in my hip pocket for ready access whenever I needed some sympathy, some ‘ahhh, poor you’ directed my way . But now a new picture was emerging and I wasn’t comfortable with its prettiness.So first I hit the couch and watched the waves, hoping Nature would calm me down…when that didn’t work I found a British Mystery Series to watch…and when that didn’t distract me enough my Escape Artist reminded me that I have FreeCell on my phone …and when that didn’t work I added a loaf of bread…and when that didn’t work I mixed a very large Vodka/Tonic and promptly passed out. I’m a little shocked at the lengths I would go to avoid feeling only to wake up and have the feelings there…still waiting to be acknowledged.So, for Week 6 of 52 and for the rest of the year, I will live in the moment as it is given to me, in an attempt to side-step and outwit the Escape Artist.

“Always say “yes” to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to what already is?  Surrender to what is. “― Eckhart Tolle

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Categories 12 Step Program, childhood, love, the other woman, transformation

Week 5 of 52 Changing My Childhood “Story”

August 7, 2012 //
6

REFLECTIONS

FUN! This past week’s challenge! I had a modicum of  fun trying to have fun, but I can’t say I actually experienced pure and simple fun. I enjoyed myself, I laughed often, I even played with children who were having fun, but I couldn’t let go of my self observation long enough to experience the joy in play. After watching children play, I realized the difference between us quickly. They do not seem to have the same internal monitor I do…”don’t do that, you’ll look silly, inappropriate, improper”… This self monitoring inhibits the necessary free fall into a state that is not self-conscious, a state that is integral to play. The younger and happier the child, the freer their play seemed.

I realize that awareness of oneself is necessary to transform from children to adults, but do you have to loose the ability to play in the maturation process? I am sure I have seen adults play. If any readers can help on this subject I would appreciate your input.

Can an adult experience simple fun? Can adults play?

At this point I know I can’t play because  I feel at the mercy of an internalized governor. By definition, a governor is a control that maintains a steady speed on a MACHINE. I’m not quite as mechanical as a machine, but my internal governor keeps a steady control on my fun factor. For example when I crossed a suspension bridge with my daughter in Drumheller, in an attempt to have fun while doing an activity, I struck a silly pose. My thinking being that the fun pose made it look like I was really having fun. On reflection, I realized I knew how to look like I was having fun better than I knew how to have fun…subtle but significant difference. When observing the photo, my internal experience is unobservable. But now it is no longer enough for me to make others think I am having fun. I would like to have the real experience.

I know there is no governor on my work factor. But it is time to end the ‘FUN SUCKER’  phase.

Nor do I want to be reliant on mood altering substances to turn me into a ‘fun’ person. More than once I have been told I should drink more often because I am so much fun then! Of course alcohol helps shift me into unconsciousness, where my controlling governor has less influence.

Having just visited The Pas, Manitoba where I spent my first 12 years, I came face to face with my feelings of childhood restriction. I looked into the window I once looked out of. The window’s venetian blinds were my childhood prison bars, because I could only watch the neighbourhood children play while I practised accordion, singing and ‘spoken’ poetry. My Mother had high hopes for me, but no amount of talent compensated for my broken spirit.

As I become more aware of the mechanism that aborts my mission to have fun, I live in hope of finding a more spontaneous me!

ASPIRATIONS FOR WEEK 5 of 52

CHANGING MY CHILDHOOD STORY

When it comes to my childhood ‘story’, I have been a ‘glass half empty’ raconteur. I have recounted tale after tale of the Draconian measures my Mother used, to produce a prize winning performing puppet, who was dressed in reconstructed clothes and fed by the great outdoors!

There’s the story about the hours I spent singing scales until even I had forgotten I had inherited my Father’s tin ear and not my Mother’s perfect pitch. Then there’s the one about how I learned to recite poetry by mimicking my Mother’s every nuance…over and over until I had it perfected. And there’s also the story about playing the accordian even though I had no real feel for the instrument. I would have to practise for hours, to be note perfect while my brother who had real talent, played the song a couple of times and perpetually beat me in the festival.

Then there are the many stories describing my wardrobe. My main whine was that my clothes were hand-made by my Mother. She would deconstruct old suits from my aunts or uncles, and reconstruct them to fit me…to last for the next 3 years. She made huge seams that she let out as I grew. Another hard luck tale I love to tell centres around my fake fur coat with matching Russian styled hat, bought expressly for my first year in Junior High.We had just moved from ‘the sticks’ in northern Manitoba (sorry, The Pas), to the big city of Winnipeg. We moved to a district that was well above the socioeconomic strata to which I had become comfortable in the north. I can’t visualize what the other girls were wearing at the time, being so mortified by my outfit, but I do know that I was singularly odd.

And then there are the countless tales of food, starting with Friday night dinner when Mom would open a can of Campbell’s Soup and add all the leftovers from the week’s meals…voila! Refrigerator Soup! Not a recipe that can be found on Google or anywhere else. Our source of protein came from the bush or the rivers…moose and deer (that hung in our garage, curing,  for weeks) and geese and ducks (whose feathers I had to pluck) and fish (that I watched being caught and then whacked on the head).

And on and on…bleating about my Dickensian up-bringing.

I realized that as part of my exploration of The Other Woman, I needed to re-visit my childhood town, to see if the negativity I harboured about my upbringing still felt accurate. So I drove over 2000 km to get out of my head where the same old stories reside, and experience the town through present day eyes.

So my task for Week 5 is to look at the glass of my childhood, half full.

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Categories child labour, childhood, love, the other woman, transformation
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