Dear Amy:

I am positively impressed by you as I read these last two posts: my goodness, you are so very honest, direct, clear! You wrote of yourself that you are fragile (post before last)- you are, I suppose, but I also see strength! Great strength in your honesty, directness, clarity of thinking…!

The image or thought that comes to my mind as I just read these is of a person (you) waking up to your present life and you just can’t believe how messed up it is, as if it is a bad dream. I “hear” you saying something like: “This can not be MY life, no way! This is not what it is supposed to be! All wrong, all wrong… ” And you are banging your head against the wall, figuratively, “No, no, this cannot be it; this cannot be my life!”

Am I correct? If so, the word Acceptance comes to mind as a desirable goal because it is a prerequisite to change. You can change only what you accept first… resistance to what is real is futile. And this is what I see you doing, resisting what is indeed your life.

You are correct in that your life is not fair, how you bent over backward and he does nothing much, and even less since he has a live in girlfriend. And… life is not fair for many, many of us. It doesn’t take any of the unfairness that you are experiencing, but the bigger perspective, the bigger picture can be helpful.

I have many more thoughts but I don’t want to make my post too long because what I wrote so far is more likely to be lost. What do you think so far?

anita

Dear Amy:

First thing I thought, before I read your post above, and after I wrote you the last one was your strength. I mentioned your honesty and clarity of thinking but after the post on a walk I took, I thought about the strength, that energy of yours. I thought about the combination of the Honesty, the Clarity of thinking and that Energy, that strength and I thought to myself, what an amazing combination and what an incredible potential.

As I read your last post, i am thinking … no I don’t think you are delusional about the reality of the situation. Like I wrote, your clarity of thinking is amazing to me. It is the lack of emotional acceptance of the reality of the situation that is lacking, this is why you feel stuck, why you are more distressed than you would have been if you emotionally accepted the situation.

You wrote that you changed from a strong, independent, kind and loving person… but I do see you as strong. You wrote you changed to a “meek” person. Meek? No way are you meek. No way. Not possible, I can’t imagine me being wrong about this. I don’t think you were ever meek… even though yes, I only know you from these posts.

Terrified, I believe you are that, and I do hope this will change. This is why I suggest aiming at Emotional Acceptance of your situation. At my worst life situations, circumstances I lived in which would make yours fancy in comparison… I remember I had to accept those situations to survive mentally. I was not healing at the time, just surviving and to just survive I had to stop giving myself a hard time about living in those situations. There was calm in that. For you, I wish acceptance because it will be easier for you… and then I wish that you would do the healing process sooner than I did.

Resisting is futile. I may have had other thoughts earlier, now it is not so important. What is most urgent is emotionally accepting that this is your life. Look around, see everything that you are seeing, all of it and take it in, breathing it all in, relaxing into it, relaxing into what is your life.

Can you try to do that… and write me again..?

anita

Dear Amy:

This is the promising energy, strength I was referring to: aiming at reaching for the skies, as you put it. Even your stubbornness in I wont Accept this Reality! comes from this strength I am talking about. And I am not writing this so to make you feel better, so to strengthen you, not at all. I am sincerely, authentically feeling your strength and pointing to you what I feel, what I see in you.

I am with you, I fully understand that your life circumstances are not okay with you and I understand very much how intensely, how passionately you want to change these circumstances, take off the chain around your ankle and fly. This is a strong passion and i believe if there was a mountain in front of you and you knew that if you climbed it, your life circumstances would change, that you would do it, no matter how tall the mountain is, no matter the obstacles. If you saw the way, you would take it on!

My suggestion of Emotional Acceptance of your circumstances is a step on that figurative mountain. It … looks like if you accept your circumstances, you lose, but this is not true. For the purpose of changing your circumstances it is necessary (not an option) that you accept these circumstances for now (stress on: for now).

To get on that figurative mountain, to change your circumstances, to be who you want to be (which you are already inside” it is the part in you right now that wants to free itself and fly!) you can’t do it from the resisting, rebelling state of mind that you are now. Think about it: all these years that you did not accept, emotionally, your circumstances, how has it worked for you? Did it work? I don’t think it worked, so why keep doing that?

When you emotionally accept your circumstances, all your circumstances, every single one, past and present, then you will be in a different state of mind, calm, relaxed, understanding, mature. From there you can fix a good spot to fly from, so to speak.

What says you?

anita

Dear Amy:

You know the term “driving under the influence” or “operating heavy machinery under the influence of..” I came up with a parallel term: “operating under the influence of strong emotion, or “operating under the influence of distress”- we are not meant to be distressed on and on and on. It exhausts the body, the brain and keeps you weak. Too weak, to unclear, to foggy to see what needs to be done.

Physical anatomy, physiology is telling you: too much distress, cannot operate. Help!

There is no other way for you but to lower that distress. In your mind (operating under the influence of strong emotion) you figured: I can’t calm down until and unless this man is out of my life!

And as you stated, you can’t get him out of your life (unless you run away with your child, cut all contacts with the people currently in your life, and start a new life elsewhere… which is a possibility!)

But outside making a new life for yourself with a different name, that man is in your life. If you continue to connect him being out of your life with becoming calm, then you will not win (oh, yes, unless he is no longer alive, but let us not go there, please… prison comes to mind…)

You got to find a way to be able to see yourself calm while this man is in your life.

How to do that, is the question, that it has to be done, is not a question.

??? How to do that.

anita

Dear Amy:

Do you mean how you get to operate calmly, is that your question….?

To go about your life in a different way, you have to operate from a different state of mind. You can’t do anything differently for long if you function from a distressed brain.

It is like you are in a rain storm, very windy and you struggle to get from point A to point B. The wind is pulling you this way and that, and you are uncomfortably wet and cold… and you ask: well, how do I make it better? You can wear a thicker coat, I suppose, carry weights so that you are more securely attached to the ground…

But what if you can stop the rain and the wind?

Oh, if only we could change the weather…. But wait, we can change the weather so to speak, the weather in our own brain. Every time a person feels calm after distress, as a result of having a hot bath, or taking a long walk… every time, the person changes the weather in their own brain.

To answer your own questions, whatever they are at any one time, quiet down the weather… then there will be a bounce in your step, a clarity of vision: point B will be clear, and the way to point B will be so much easier.

Can you work on relaxation skills in the therapy you are attending? Do again what worked in the past for you (exercise, guided meditation, anything like that…)

What if you post again after such, when the weather is calm…?

anita

Dear Amy:

Yes, you do have a great sense of humor even in your dream!

You can’t run away now, because your child, your responsibility as a mother. You care so much for your five year old that even though you are dying to run away, needing to run away, to have nothing to do with that man, every inch of your body and soul wanting nothing to do with him.. you are not actually running away. This must be a very strong love you have for your child, a very strong sense of responsibility. There are mothers who run away, as you probably know.

Do you remember the first experiences of wanting to get away so badly from someone? And did you? I mean, did you feel this intensely about having nothing to do with someone else, before?

anita