I find myself driving out of my way to go down familiar roads lately. Something in me needs to reconnect to my past, to feel myself in the world that was part of me outside my current work/home/VA circle. Lately I've been aware that while I've done a lot of head work over the last few years, it's only half of my experience getting attention. When I was constantly stressed from living in survival mode, I felt like i was living more in my body than I do now. Granted, most of that was in the form of discomfort or pain, but my inside and outside experiences at least matched.
Part of this disconnect was a deliberate choice, for a while at least. when i started school i knew that there were going to be classes and thought processes I'd need to engage that would be inconsistent with the experiences i had and things i knew in my bones to be true but couldn't scientifically prove. So, I made a choice to set aside the parts of me that weren't logical and rational and set to the books. Thing is, I've been kind of stuck trying to get back to it. I've always been a kinisthetic person, and my body was the one way I could relate to others in a non-rational fashion. Even in doing body work, I've been told facilitate energy work well, but I never really did it with intention. i would sort of just move my brain out of the way and do what seemed like it needed to be done and that worked. At the same time, I remember a time when I could direct energy with intention and be more deliberate in how I relate to the world and others.
As i try to get back to my roots, I'm finding that while a lot of the clearing has been done on an intellectual and emotional level with my past, and the effects thereof, it's not in my bones. It's exactly like any other emotional experience when you *know* better, but still feel your feelings. The Monkey brain doesn't care that you *know*. The Monkey must be felt, willingly or not. it works out well to have done it this way, I've managed to clear out a lot of deadwood, to see patterns and consequences that weren't obvious before, to make changes and form new patterns based on the way I want things to be.
Like the Monkey, the Lizard also has a place. While I have also done work and reclaimed much of the emotional experience I shut out either in defence or deliberately, the visceral, body state experiences I've largely ignored. I honestly didn't give them much thought, and as I wasn't ready to before now it's just as well. I can see where trying to do PTSD clearing all at once would get messy and overwhelming really quickly. These are big files, it's best to manage them in small bites. I'm working with someone these days who is helping me get in touch with the Lizard brain. By creating intense experiences that recreate some of the states of fear, panic and pain I've felt before, but in a controlled and consensual context, I'm slowly reclaiming my pieces. I'm realizing how much power I'd given up to fear and anxiety, how much potential had become tainted by misuse, how much of what's mine I've left in the hands of the one who was supposed to protect me and was instead the source of my terror.
One key difference this time, in addition to being able to stop, is that I can finally fight back. It's just now hitting me how much having to take abuse without complaint or trying to protect myself made me angry and broken. The few times I stood up to my mother when she was in a black-out rage were to step between her and my siblings, because I didn't trust her not to do more damage than even she meant to. I didn't fight to protect me. The battle over my will was already lost, the flesh was just collateral damage.
When you hear "I beat you because I love you" all through childhood, is it any surprise it makes things a little weird later on?
