Enduring a lot of loss or trauma can take the ground out from underneath out feet, on the way to the dog part to meet my friend Deb I was listening to a song by Bob Moses in which he talks of losing his way and the ground beneath him today. In the song I will share below, he then finds that in a woman he loves..
Sitting with my friend Deb surrounded by dogs this morning we were in touch with the ground, life and the present moment, walking with Jasper along the cliff edge next to the lake an hour before we we grounded in the present moment, listening to music, going back to the park bench and picking up all the cigarette butts dropped by someone who likes to sit there smoking we were very much in the present moment but it occurred to me after coming home how much time I used to spend in my past before I had resolved it and learned to make friends with it. The vortex of traumatic memory and imprints would so often pull me deep in there.
Earlier today I had been reading some chapters on mindfulness in Daniel Siegal’s book Mindsight : Change Your Brain And Your Life, I was thinking about how focusing in on your body in meditation is not always useful for trauma survivors as we often then get pulled into the vortex of those swirling trauma imprints, layers and memories… And I thought of that dichotomy of needing to face the past but not be captured by it so that we can feel free to live in a present moment and a body that so many of us trauma survivors have learned was too painful or we could not trust.
I actually woke today feeling so grateful for my life.. I had a lot of battles with Scott this week over the continuing help he is asking from me.. Part of me does not fully trust that things will work out, a part of me is wary and part of me feels its also important that I do fight to keep my life manageable and operating well in the present moment despite promises he is making about a future that may or may not come true should I chose to trust him one more time. To be honest I am starting to feel happy for the first time in such a long time, I am starting to be able to ground in the present moment and not be as captured by body symptoms. What has helped lately is that friends reached out to me in love wanting to be connected, concerned with how I am after I shared a few months back I was struggling. I got invited over to a friend’s house yesterday with Jasper which was lovely and I am starting to feel I am building a life and friendships for myself outside of my family and past trauma… and its a good, grounded, simple, basic life full of the things I love that feed and nurture my soul : nature, sunshine, plants, dogs, music, poetry, books, good food, fresh air, and friends as well as long walks.
A lot of forgiveness and gratitude rose up towards my Dad yesterday while at my good friend Jane’s place.. Her parents were also Dutch and came to Australia leaving everything behind in the Netherlands following Nazi occupation.. Jane told me that her Mum was actually raped by the Nazi’s and that her father had to fight in the resistance for a while.. we spoke about how distant and silent my own father was and I felt for him and understood why it was he had left Holland behind in 1938 and didn’t want to have much to do with his sister’s there in later years. I am just grateful that my ex husband Jonathan and I were able to make a visit to Maastricht back in 2000 to meet Aunty Lies and form a bond and that Mum and I followed that up with a visit to her on September 11, 2001. Yes we were sitting around eating breakfast in our PJs together as we watched the twin towers collapse after planes flew into them.
I feel the Dutchness in me so often and my ex partner after Jonathan used to call me ‘the Dutchess’ often. Sadly in the years I was with him my grief over Dad and his harsh, distant emotionally disengaged treatment of me lived underground and probably came out sideways. I have had a difficult relationship with men for most of my life not fully trusting them or knowing how to connect and also carrying that anger I did not really know the roots of before.
Today I thank my Dad for the life he tried to build here, I recognise how hard he and Mum struggled and how that affected me as the youngest.. I am grateful for the positive aspects of that legacy. Luckily I will never have to struggle financially as Mum and Dad did and money cannot always buy love, I wish they had more time to spend with me as a child and teenager but that was not to be. Although I can never give myself a happy childhood, I can try to have some of that happiness I longed for in some ways in the here and now with new ‘family.’
I never got to know my Dad before he died, we clashed a lot in those final years of his life as I underwent two hidden pregnancies I did not carry to term. He could not protect me from Mum’s rages or boundary invasions and so like him I never got to develop great boundaries either..I see the softer side of my brother too and how lonely and quiet and disconnected and work focused his life so often is.. Today I thought a lot about wanting to call him but something in me held back, I will do it, I had a bit on today with meeting Deb and now I have a free afternoon, having just finished lunch… Jasper is tuckered out from a long walk and time at the park and is resting quietly not far from me.
We are a peaceful, contented house this afternoon… I truly am grateful to be in grounded in the present moment today, its not that I don’t look back but now I can do it without staring or being fixated on all the painful out of control things I could not change.. Today I can feel pretty safe and comfortable in my body to know my capacity to set boundaries is stronger and my willingness to let down any inappropriate defensive wall is growing.. I am loving the present moment and these words from Kool and the Gang resonate.. lately I am repeating them like a mantra :
The world is always changing
Nothing lasts forever
But love will stand the test of time
Lets cherish every moment we have been given.
Emerging From The Dark Night 