fbpx
Menu

Graham

Forum Replies Created

Viewing 10 posts - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • in reply to: Repressing Emotion #49034
    Graham
    Participant

    1. I do accept that I feel shitty. Kinda hard to miss.
    2. I’ve been practicing too…. feeling shitty feels shitty.
    3. I do not trust that I want to feel. I want to stop feeling.
    4. At ease with being vulnerable:

    NEVER!

    I might “have to be” vulnerable, though that is still up for debate; there’s always the final solution. I will never be at ease with it.

    in reply to: Repressing Emotion #48874
    Graham
    Participant
    in reply to: Pain Identity: Am I alone? #38037
    Graham
    Participant

    Peoples opinions?

    in reply to: Pain Identity: Am I alone? #38035
    Graham
    Participant

    Nope. And now I (am making myself) feel stupid.

    in reply to: Pain Identity: Am I alone? #38033
    Graham
    Participant

    um…… thanks?

    with confusion,
    Graham

    in reply to: Pain Identity: Am I alone? #38023
    Graham
    Participant

    @Matt. Thanks for your reply. Could you please clarify this?

    You said: “Sometimes the arrow just has to yanked out directly, but it can be painful.” What arrow? I understand you’re aiming at a metaphor of some kind but I can’t for the life of me puzzle it out. If you could help me to see the arrow, I’d more than happily pull it out – pain be damned. I can’t figure out what to grab hold of to yank, nor how to – metaphorically – yank it out.


    @Peter
    Thanks to you, as well.

    in reply to: My Definition of Resentment #36085
    Graham
    Participant

    I know I’ve got myself stuck firmly in the victim role; now only because I can’t find a different perspective that makes any sense.

    On reading your idea that resentment is anger at oneself if one looks for the actual cause my first thought (for a change) wasn’t “here’s where your argument falls apart.” Rather it was, with a pathetic whine I am loathe to admit to, “but I can’t find it!”

    I can’t resent my parents: it wasn’t their fault. Taking logic backwards – if not them, who? – one arrives at…. Insert your vision of the beginning.

    Any suggestions on what the underlying anger at myself – as yours, in the example, was failure to set limits – might be?

    Throw out lots of ideas please, one and all: I’m looking for an “A-Ha!!!” moment.

    Graham
    Participant

    I can only answer #2:

    For me – since my rude “awakening” (My inner-voice repeated “awakening” with a distinct sneer) – the very laws of physics seem in flux. I doubt the (my interpretation) of nearly every moment.

    At least before I KNEW the world sucked, and I knew why. I was a master of sizing a person up and, like you, presenting what they needed so I’d be liked.

    And when I say Master, I mean MASTER.

    Introductions; quick small-talk to scout the terrain; lay into a few high-charged topics using statistics as your guide to find the sore spot; add a few sympathy words in a quite aside and – never lie – confide a similar story if you have one.

    I never used it for financial gain. Didn’t until this moment see the process. It was my way into your head and heart to manipulate for something far more fraudulent: your opinion of who I am.

    Who I am, I’ve always believed, was murdered shortly after birth. And while I HATE them it is nothing compared to what I feel toward whatever started all “this.”

    I’ve HAD to present a slapped-together persona because there has never been anything else there. There was never any time to develop or grow or look…. I was too busy hating.

    That’s what I can’t seem to let go of.

    In my case, I resist looking. When I read somewhere the suggestion to make a list I either have a panic attack or, if I’m strong enough that day, quash that down and release it as cynicism all over that list. The same with meditation, e-courses, etc. Anger always gets in the way.

    Too scared to jump out of the frying pan, and slowly dying where I am.

    No solutions, but at least you know you’re not alone.

    in reply to: Repressing Emotion #35297
    Graham
    Participant

    I can’t believe feeling the joys are worth feeling the pains because there are far more of the latter than the former.

    There is far more pain because I can’t let go of the past.

    I can’t let go of the past because I KNOW who and what I am (sure, I’m neglecting the “at this moment” part) is not my “fault.”

    I – apparently – did my best with what I had. We’ll skip the absolute contempt I hold for myself given what my “best” has produced.

    Which means, by extension, I can’t look to either myself or “them” as blame-worthy. Apparently.

    If there isn’t someone or something to blame, then there has to be a “why”. A penultimate reason to exist.

    Life happens for you, not to you?

    Why? There’s nothing to gain (or lose) if what we come from is already perfect and divine. What could we possibly learn that would alter perfection?

    Sensation for sensations sake? If something, or my “soul” chose my childhood for me…… willingly……

    I could be good with that, if I could understand why. To help others because I’ve already been through…… yada, yada, yada? Neither they nor I needed to go through what we did.

    For my own good? That brings us right back to the two oft’ heard claims: We come from pure love, and, we are perfect and complete already.

    There is – apparently – nothing to change.

    I’ve been to hell and back several times – the first few entirely against my will – and let me assure you the entire trip, regardless of route taken, is paved with good intentions.

    My brain always stalls out on “why.” And so I sit, stuck spinning my wheels.

    In hell, comfortable and all as my decadent, poverty-line economic level, western privileges “accident of birth” circumstances might look to a Saharan nomad.

    It is with a certain arrogant spite I’ve REFUSE to surrender this need to understand. I’m precious? I’m loved? I’m important and fulfill a necessary purpose?

    If there is something God/Universe/Whatever wants or needs me to be doing I’m not going to even look at what it might be. Not much in the way of leverage to get what I want, but it’s all I got.

    And I can’t figure out how to let go of that pathological need to know, even though I can see how stuck it keeps me.

    I’ll cry – i insist even though I’ve long given up the desire to persist – when i know why.

    “Why should i cry?”
    “Because your feelings were hurt.”
    “Why were they hurt?”
    “Well, Dad hurt me because people hurt him, because they were hurt….”
    “So what is the original cause of suffering?”
    “God. Fate. A big bang. Whatever. The start of it all was the originating cause of it all – good and bad, painful or joyful.”
    “So why start it in the first place?”
    ?
    ?
    ?

    It’s not living I’m tired of, it’s life. There’s no reason for it.

    in reply to: Repressing Emotion #35277
    Graham
    Participant

    My question was more about releasing what I (finally am beginning to) recognize is in there. I can “feel” it under the surface, 42.5 years (I’m 44) of repression. Couldn’t list them ALL by name, and don’t need to; they’re ALL there.

    But to paraphrase the (better) explanation I saw given by another person on another forum: I can’t get the cry out.

    Or the laughter, joy, gratitude, anger, fear, etc. I can recognize it (the act of repressing) as the cause of the constricted feeling in my chest, the desire to make as few waves as possible in life. like a new-born fawn smelling the cougar and knowing – to the depth of its DNA – that ANY ripple in the grass is too much movement.Too much space given to past trauma. And the solution (I can hear the collective scrambling to regurgitate) is to forgive.

    Let’s take a walk through the (entirely confused) mind of a Very Bad Buddhist, shall we?

Viewing 10 posts - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)