flashbacks

Woke up early this morning laying on my side feeling waves of fear and anxiety. My thoughts were preoccupied with circumstances on the horizon, not knowing how to confront them or even whether I should. After a few minutes of compulsive thinking, I recognized that I was likely having an emotional flashback and that this was another opportunity for healing. I trusted that I wasn't in a state to resolve anything and that what was really needed was basic nervous system regulation, aka self-soothing.

So I turned onto my back, pulled the blanket over my head and body, put on some relaxing music and just felt what was coming up. Everytime my attention wandered to my thoughts, I disengaged and brought it back to the sensations in the body while breathing slowly and deeply. And in a few minutes, the feelings and their accompanying thoughts passed. I felt exhausted but calm and fell back to sleep.

These flashbacks are at the root of almost all the pain I've caused myself and others throughout my life. Everytime I've lashed out or suddenly pushed people away, I was immersed in this same pain. And I understand it now - it was the pain I felt as a child being repeatedly and endlessly abandoned, neglected and wounded by those I loved and relied on. On some deep level, people and life in general can now very suddenly feel unsafe. I get taken right back to how I probably felt as a scared and helpless kid with family too absorbed in their own pain to soothe mine - who were actually inflicting most of it.

I hope to be free of it someday. It takes so much time and energy. I decided afterwards to let go of planning for the future for a while, which hurt a lot to do. I've been trying so hard to move forward but I keep getting pulled back into this vortex. I think I'll need to let go of pride and ambition, two things I never wanted to acknowledge but now see are in fact there, and accept that there really is a wound underneath that still needs tending. Otherwise I'll continue to sabotage and push things away.

Nothing lasting can be built on such an unstable foundation. Time to let go and return to taking things a day at a time for the most part. The future will have to wait.