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trickykitty) wrote2011-08-13 09:14 am
trickykitty) wrote2011-08-13 09:14 am
Entry tags:
The Fountain
In replying to a friend, I decided to put my response into a full post and share with anyone else that this may help.
My friend said:
The problem I keep running into is finding the happy medium between "polluting everyone with my negativity" and "bottling everything up until I snap and start deliberately injuring myself".
Everyone I know has gone through this dilemma, and I for one was notorious for it.
That's because polluting everyone else, and bottling it up inside are both still polluting - they're the two sides of the same coin. You need to throw the coin into the fountain and make a wish instead.
Never, ever STFU or bottle up your emotions, but that in and of itself is not the solution. Here's your magical fountain solution:
Your negative emotions are alarm clocks that are providing you with important information. This is why there is absolutely nothing wrong with the emotions you are feeling. They are informative. USE this information, rather than allowing it to use you and cause that pollution.
Understand that the emotion is not the problem to be solved. When a smoke alarm goes off, the alarm screaming in your ear is not the problem. It's annoying as hell, yes, but not the problem - the smoke causing the alarm is the problem.
We get trapped into thinking that the emotion is what is supposed to be dealt with, and so we wallow in it, we talk about it, we share it, we allow it to upset us - we allow it to pollute ourselves and the world around us. Imagine the pissed off guy screaming at how annoying the smoke alarm is, running around displaying his anger, pissing everybody else off, getting in everyone else's way, never once stopping to turn off the alarm, try to put out the fire, and/or GTFO of the burning building. That's what happens to us when we think of the alarm as the problem - we continue to get burned by the same underlying issue that's causing the alarm to go off in the first place.
Hit the snooze button on the alarm and understand that you now have work to do to figure out the real problem, the real thought, the real issue that's causing that alarm to go off in your mind. This will take time and practice to get good at. It's hidden from you by your own internal perception filters. You will always discover these problems in the very last dark corner of your mind where you don't want to look. It takes quite a lot of courage to first start looking for the corners, let alone facing what you'll find inside.
The best part: No matter what scary monster of an issue you find in those dark corners, all you have to do is drag it out into the light by its tail, punch it a couple times, and tell it to go back home to momma. At first, you might not think you can do that. You might worry that it will hurt you, bite you, burn you. That's the power that it tries to hold over your head, but you are the one with the power. I cannot stress this enough. YOU are the one with the power to handle your issues. If you chose to drag it out into the open, it has to obey. If you chose to punch it, it has to take it. And if you chose to banish it, it has to leave. It may be stupid and try to come back, and the alarm will be set off again, but you'll know that you have the confidence to deal with it appropriately.
By the way, everything I've stated here is EXACTLY the kind of thing I've been doing over and over again for the past few months. This is how I did it. This is how I dealt with my daemons. I let the emotions be my guide into their caves.
The negative feelings and warning signs should stick out like sore thumbs. Maybe for you, right in this moment, it's as though there's nothing but pain and negative emotions swimming around in your head and that alarm clock is screaming as loud as it possibly can. Maybe your world is spinning, spinning, spinning. Slow it down, snooze the alarm clock, center yourself, and face the daemons one at a time.
Because you can.
"Turn off the pain, either by changing your perception or changing what you're doing."
My friend said:
The problem I keep running into is finding the happy medium between "polluting everyone with my negativity" and "bottling everything up until I snap and start deliberately injuring myself".
Everyone I know has gone through this dilemma, and I for one was notorious for it.
That's because polluting everyone else, and bottling it up inside are both still polluting - they're the two sides of the same coin. You need to throw the coin into the fountain and make a wish instead.
Never, ever STFU or bottle up your emotions, but that in and of itself is not the solution. Here's your magical fountain solution:
Your negative emotions are alarm clocks that are providing you with important information. This is why there is absolutely nothing wrong with the emotions you are feeling. They are informative. USE this information, rather than allowing it to use you and cause that pollution.
Understand that the emotion is not the problem to be solved. When a smoke alarm goes off, the alarm screaming in your ear is not the problem. It's annoying as hell, yes, but not the problem - the smoke causing the alarm is the problem.
We get trapped into thinking that the emotion is what is supposed to be dealt with, and so we wallow in it, we talk about it, we share it, we allow it to upset us - we allow it to pollute ourselves and the world around us. Imagine the pissed off guy screaming at how annoying the smoke alarm is, running around displaying his anger, pissing everybody else off, getting in everyone else's way, never once stopping to turn off the alarm, try to put out the fire, and/or GTFO of the burning building. That's what happens to us when we think of the alarm as the problem - we continue to get burned by the same underlying issue that's causing the alarm to go off in the first place.
Hit the snooze button on the alarm and understand that you now have work to do to figure out the real problem, the real thought, the real issue that's causing that alarm to go off in your mind. This will take time and practice to get good at. It's hidden from you by your own internal perception filters. You will always discover these problems in the very last dark corner of your mind where you don't want to look. It takes quite a lot of courage to first start looking for the corners, let alone facing what you'll find inside.
The best part: No matter what scary monster of an issue you find in those dark corners, all you have to do is drag it out into the light by its tail, punch it a couple times, and tell it to go back home to momma. At first, you might not think you can do that. You might worry that it will hurt you, bite you, burn you. That's the power that it tries to hold over your head, but you are the one with the power. I cannot stress this enough. YOU are the one with the power to handle your issues. If you chose to drag it out into the open, it has to obey. If you chose to punch it, it has to take it. And if you chose to banish it, it has to leave. It may be stupid and try to come back, and the alarm will be set off again, but you'll know that you have the confidence to deal with it appropriately.
By the way, everything I've stated here is EXACTLY the kind of thing I've been doing over and over again for the past few months. This is how I did it. This is how I dealt with my daemons. I let the emotions be my guide into their caves.
The negative feelings and warning signs should stick out like sore thumbs. Maybe for you, right in this moment, it's as though there's nothing but pain and negative emotions swimming around in your head and that alarm clock is screaming as loud as it possibly can. Maybe your world is spinning, spinning, spinning. Slow it down, snooze the alarm clock, center yourself, and face the daemons one at a time.
Because you can.
"Turn off the pain, either by changing your perception or changing what you're doing."
no subject
no subject
What I knew in my heart, though, was that I am not a bad person, and it was time to become the person I was meant to be instead of continuing to hide behind the facade. Facing the knowledge of what I had done in my past, and knowing that I was going to fix this and make it right - that has been the best reward I could have ever asked for.
no subject
Just been having extremely terrible nightmares the last few nights, of an entirely different caliber/theme than the usual nightly ones, and I keep waking up with an overwhelming feeling of loss and misery, but at the core is an entirely unfamiliar feeling of peace and relief, of "I can stop worrying about/hiding from that now."
Wondering if that means I'm on the right track or my brain has just found a new way to fuck with me under the circumstances.
Sounds like both
The difference is that you now know those old habits are not to be trusted. Don't let that door be hidden from you any longer. The more you look, and the more you drag out and deal with whatever's inside, the bigger that ball of peace will become.