Telephone no 01243 942666 email: barbara.hann@hushmail.com
Boundaries- continued
In my last post, I referred to the way that others might respond to you setting boundaries. Although boundaries are fundamental as part of your healing and self care, they can expose wounds in others, and even in yourself, at least in the short term.
They can feel like rejection or abandonment to those who have attachment wounds.
Boundaries
One thing that keeps coming up when I work with women who have experienced some sort of childhood trauma, is the difficulty with setting, keeping and respecting boundaries. ( As I have said before, the term Childhood Trauma is now understood to refer to a whole range of experiences which have had a negative effect on the adult, not restricted to violence, severe neglect and so on.)
The Inner Child
Stepping out of the play
I was having a discussion with someone the other day, and we were both guffawing about the conversations we have in our heads with other people.
Why am I so angry?
I have written in the past about the way that intense emotions, disproportionate to the trigger, are worth examining more fully. I wouldn't want to generalise, because everyone is unique, and trauma take different forms, but an overwhelming, swift reaction will often have its roots in your past.
Emotions are a sign that our needs are either being met, as in the case of agreeable feelings such as joy, contentment and so on, or NOT being met, as in the case of unpleasant or destructive emotions such as rage, sadness, jealousy.
Mindfulness and the Inner Child
It is a beauty of mindfulness, practised over time, that you get to create a space sometimes between your thoughts, feelings and behaviours, and YOU, the observer. You can then start to notice patterns that are worth investigating.
Your Person Pack
Ajahn Succitto, a Buddhist monk and teacher, referred in one of his teachings to the “Person Pack”.
This is the baggage we all hump around with us, made up of our genes, experiences, beliefs, feelings, preferences and so on.
Relationship Patterns
‘The first relationships we witness as children set the foundation for how we view love throughout life.” The Holistic Psychologist
So many of us grew up believing that love and relationship meant scorn, punishment, manipulation, control, enabling. The examples we had in front of us were often a sort of push and pull, a dance between people who appeared to be adults, yet behaved in puzzling ways. Examples not only in our families, but in films and on TV.
Resentment
"Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies" Nelson Mandela
The above quote is, I think, pretty well known. Dr Gabor Mate describes resentment as poison to the soul. In my last blog I wrote about guilt, and how it can be useful.
If you accept the idea that all feelings have a purpose, you will know that its can sometimes be hard to see that purpose, especially if the feeling is so unpleasant.
Drama triangle- the Victim shifts.
My clients will probably become aware of the Drama Triangle (Stephen Karpman 1968) as a way of describing unhealthy interactions. There are some useful YouTube videos that illustrate this. https://youtu.be/y5fyKWaTXco
Once you learn about how it operates, and the different positions people adopt to keep the drama going, you will begin to see it in SO many situations. The roles can be obvious, or they can be quite subtle, so that you find yourself pulled into the game before you realise it.
Guilt
I have always believed that feelings are messengers we need to pay attention to, even if they are unpleasant. Sometimes, for reasons I will look at briefly in a minute, they become overwhelming and harmful, but very often we just try to shove them away if they make us uncomfortable.
After all, being happy is what it's all about, right? So, all we need to do is think positively, be nice, make gratitude lists, and believe that life is all sweetness and giggles. Said no-one.
