Trying to find my way back to generosity

I think it is a healthy part of healing to have some kind of anger at the person who has been lost. You're a human, it's easy to confuse love with some kind of attraction conditional upon another persons behaviour - I think that in order not to have judgement about someone else it's important to be able to accept all parts of ourselves - including the thoughts and feelings that are less than beautiful.

Maybe this is your work here - accept you feel whatever, accept your experience without judging it - it may not be what you want to feel, but it is your current reality, doesn't mean you have to act upon it or buy into it.

hi tnr9
i'm glad to see you able to feel anger, even though i know it doesn't fit with who and how you'd like to be and feel.
it's ok. remember that what you feel, you don't have to change- you just have to feel it and let it be without coercing it to be something else.

your little girl inside has been in the driver's seat with this relationship, and i know you are aware of that.
It's been her longing, her hope, her magical thinking, her fear, her confusion, her abandonment and despair, her heartbreak, and it's her anger.

and she needs your help with it. she needs you to help her see that it's YOU she needs to trust. It's your love she needs, it's your wisdom, discernment, and protection she needs. She needs you to listen carefully to all that she feels and she needs you yourself to see, that she can't drive the car any more. She doesn't have the skill, she needs your adult self to take over. she needs to be safely strapped in the back seat while you navigate these adult situations with her well being in mind.

This man is not a bad man, you are not a bad woman. This is a situation where two people with divergent agendas and desires converged, and made a bit of a mess. Two little kids, essentially, running the show. That's what happens in these dysfunctional and unbalanced relationships. We are driven by unconscious, ingrained patterns and beliefs and ways of interacting. we all are. and it hurts when we crash.

You've done very well at recognizing your inner child, but you've denied her the guidance she needs to get through this safely at times. You shared with me the reason that this man found himself unable to continue the relationship in the way you desired, and it wasn't personal, it was a difference between you two that was nobody's fault at all. And i remember that when i directed you back to that reason, you became very sad because your little girl didn't want to accept it, so you chose to honor her feelings instead of honoring the feelings of the man that you were engaging with. she held on with hope to what was already decided and her poor hands are torn up. i'm very sorry about that pain, i am very sorry and i know it myself.

I am not at all coming from a place of judgement or harsh intent. I'm actually trying to encourage you to embrace this anger and the fallout of this whole situation as the final straw when it comes to letting your internal fears and misunderstandings (personified as your inner child) drive your choices.

Don't push that little girl away, but do tuck her safely behind your hip as you stand up to this whole dynamic as an adult who sees clearly, that mistakes were made, people got hurt, and it's time to change direction decisively.

Little tnr9 will have anger, disillusionment, sorrow, pain, all of it. don't hush her. The adult part of you is very generous, very kind, very loving, very wise. It's just the little part of you that needs a safe space to feel all this so it can come out and be understood, and transformed.
You yourself are that safe space. we are your safe space also.

Seeing the damage done to that wounded girl, might inspire a fierce protective anger in yourself, and a mature maternal instinct that emphasizes self-reliance and discretion over a child-like reliance on others. It might inspire a different type of archetype to be strengthened in you.

We all have these different aspects operating in ourselves- out child-selves and our adult selves vie for the reins all the time i think. We just have to remember that, and keep working with it.

Big hugs, and please understand that i'm not shaming little tnr9, i'm going her a big warm hug and asking her to listen to you, because i've seen that when you can get her calmed down you really have a lot of wisdom and empowerment, and a lot to offer others.

Hey anne....the only thing that all of me is congruent about is that I want to be friends with B...but I agree that for now..that is likely something I need to table.  I am not attending a community picnic.  It is the first time in 8 years that I have not gone...but B is going and if I see him, it will just stir up feelings and I will likely regress..so I am choosing as the "60% adult" to not go...I am trying to think of a treat that I can give my little girl instead because I have already sensed a desire to go to the picnic out of a misguided hope.

Good question anne...by the time I or someone else from this board recognizes she is there...she is 100% in her stuff and the only time the two even meet is when I am in the adult space and can sense her in the background. That is when I come here and talk about her in a loving way...when I still have capacity...but the moment I trip over ( and it happens so very fast) I am fully in child. She doesn't trust anyone and this is where I slip into my own flavor of FA because as much as she wants love, she doesn't trust it..she questions motives, she thinks it won't last. I have been doing some imagery work..primarily I have been trying to have images of her with her velveteen rabbit and with B there to show her that he is separate from the object of affection she clings to. Sometimes it works...most times...he and the velveteen rabbit are one to her. Gosh I sound so very odd don't I.

juniper...I want to be the good adult...but I also don't want to be the "parent" if you know what I mean. That exists in me too...it exists in all of us...the caretakers voice and judgements. I really think the girl needs to get mad, really mad...but I think the first person she would unleash that on is the adult and I don't know if I can stay adult if she is angry...what do you suggest?

for my own ego i am going to insert here that i am a young, hot grandma. hahaha!
ok, enough of that and back to the task at hand.
find your wise mother and cultivate her.
every woman has this in her.

there you go. 
the willingness is there.
i can tell you, my life with my kids was shit and drama when i was parenting from a fearful place.

you know full well, what messages your parents told you.  Good!



Now, what about tnr9?
what do you want to teach her?
what do you want her to believe?
what kind of woman do you want her to grow up to be? show her that.  be that example.
who do you want to be? 
dont let her play in the street just because she wants to- you know the danger, she doesn't.
don't let her eat cake for breakfast even tho she wants it.
you know what she needs, is different from what she wants.

tnr9 you actually have a lot of insight and wisdom cultivated already, just not the experience of applying it in the calm and strong way of an authoratative woman has a vision for her future and a solid plan to accomplish it.

you've not yet empowered yourself in the way you are about to- but you'll quickly begin to reap the rewards of this shift. just keep going.

i think you're on the cusp of a tremendous breakthrough and you've earned it.