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Shame,guilt, empathy
With John Bradshaw. I am ashamed I still have
these addictions, how about you?
Date: 10/5/2006 7:16:13 AM ( 18 y ) ... viewed 1320 times 4:34 AM
October 5, 2006
How do you feel about feeling the way you do?
Can you accept the way you are?
Do you feel ashamed that you are seemingly an adult outside
and can do some adult things, but you are ashamed that it has
taken you so long to grow up emotionally?
Are you ashamed that you can be so addicted to another person?
If you feel this way, you may be dealing with shame.
Last night, I attended a two hour talk by John Bradshaw.
Before the Rosh Hashanah, I spent some time looking through
numbers of my now one-of-a kind poetry books.
I saw many of the same themes repeated over the decades.
I feel ashamed that I saw the same themes repeated.
I remember once during my Creation Spirituality cycle of
interest being with Norm Self, a minister who was quite active
in the Matt Fox work.
I was telling him how I was feeling.
I picked up a feeling, that adults are not suppose to feel that way.
I felt really shamed that I still felt that way.
Bingo!
That is exactly the kind of stuff I would get from my father,
when I was a little boy.
I never got to be the age I was.
When I was nine--I can remember my father saying,
"You are almost ten!" I remember crying because I was crying.
I felt so ashamed that I was not a Big Boy.
This stuff sticks inside you unless you grieve the loss of a lost
childhood.
You lost your childhood if you never got to be a kid when you were a kid.
You lost your childhood, if you were the surrogate husband or wife or for
your parent.
You lost your childhood, if when it was time for dad to come home,
Mom said, sit still and go watch T.V., Dad is about to come in the house.
You hever knew what to expect. Was he going to yell? Was he going to
be nice? Bingo! You lost your childhood, and more than likely,
you are doing the same stuff to the ones you are closest to you.
You lost your childhood, if you took on and internalized the unlived
aspects of your parents lives. We took this stuff in, and it affects
the success you can have in giving or receiving love right this moment,
unless you have done some of the recovery work as expressed by John Bradshaw,
and other Pioneers in Recovery, such as he.
Do the ones who care about you know
what to expect?
Do you take into account how your proclamations
affect others? Ar you taking the time to make sure
what you are doing is understood?
Do you care to hear
how what you are doing
feels inside the ones you care about? Does it matter to you
how others you love feel?
Much of the way we work out stuff like this,
is a carry over from unmet childhood needs
until we have have dealth with your wounds
and grieved the loss of a lost childhood.
You will never have a healthy love life until you see this,
Bradshaw suggests.
I personally, have found the 12- step programs flawed.
I have been looking at a couple myself.
Some of the flaws in 12 step programs are pointed out in this excellent
chapter from a book that I just found on the internet.
The subject is shame, guilt, and empathy.
http://library.uws.edu.au/adt-NUWS/uploads/approved/
adt-NUWS20040401.112759/public/
08Chapter7.pdf#search=%22engulfment%20John%20Bradshaw%22
Your love life,
your successful love life,
hasn't a chance in hell
unless you are dealing with,
have dealth with what Bradshaw
calls "working through family of origin
Counter-dependency.
Here are The Four Stages of Mature Love
as he sees them.
Bradshaw, I call a master.
. In-Love. Co-dependency
. Working Through Counter-Dependency
. Independence
.Mature Attachment Interdependency
Number one, above, feels really good,
but according to Bradshaw, being in-Love, is not
mature love at all. It is the yummy stuff that keeps
us enjoying how good the sex is, but it just naturally
goes away as the hormones and chemistry cycle through.
Number one, gives us a clue to how good
mature love can be, IF, IF, we are willing to go through
step #2, and get to #3, and #4.
Step #2 is the gift of being in relationship.
I have been saying this for a long time.
Hanging in there, brings up Step #2. IT is suppose to.
IT is the Payoff of allowing another person in your life.
It is what Bradshaw was calling in his talk,
"Why the Honeymoon must end,
and what you can do about it."
Bradshaw has some wonderful CD's on this subject he
calls POST-ROMANTIC StRESS DISORDER.
I couldn't help but wanting Best Friend/Twin Soul to have
a chance to hear this man. I kept thinking that as I was hearing
him talk. There you go, always wanting the Other to get Fixed,
so my life will work better. How my Co-dependent can a person get????
I was exhausted from the Yom Kippur, but grateful that friend
Diane took be to hear this opening talk at the Meadows Annual
Symposium in San Diego, that is going on today and tomorrow.
The Meadows is a Treatment Recovery Center in Arizona.
Bradshaw and some of the others at this Symposium--
are their fellows.
The Meadows
800.632.3697
Http://www.themeadows.org
The Meadows packet has a headline:
'Recovery Becomes Reality."
I believe they can majorly help.
Their Annual Symposium is called Pioneers in Recovery,
and it is going on October 4-5-6 at the Wyndham, San Diego
400 West Broadway. 619.239.4500.
They brought in some of their "Big Guns" for shooting to
hell, the hell in us, the hell we make of this wonderment
that Life can be.
Included are Bradshaw, Pia Mellody, Claudia Black, and Bradshaw.
From what I heard and saw,
it all was a Big, Big Aha, last night.
I did numbers of Bradshaw workshops a long time ago,
but I see I need a Big Brushup.
I certainly do not feel I have been applying this info
it in my relationship
with Best Friend, who definitely can get me by the balls,
so to speak, and make me squirm for sanity.
One of the things Bradshaw talks about about
is Arguing Fair. He says you can't have a successful
relationship unless you learn to do this. These leaves quite
a lot ot learn. Both Best Friend and I
come out of rage backgrounds.
Learning to Argue in a healthy way:
Such is the gift of a good relationship.
It was nice to be remembered by Bradshaw.
He was the Big Gun for HCI before they found
The Chicken Soup guys. I have long felt that
HCI would be my own publisher.
In the old days, I would give Bradshaw some of my poems.
those old days, may go back to the 80's, I really do not remember
right now when I did those workshops.
Since then Bradshaw has been all over PBS.
I am sure his tapes are in the Libraries.
I do know it is time for some refresher courses:
These are the Six Fundemental Problems
Inherent in Any Long Term Relationship,
he points out:
. beliefs about Love
. Differences
. Non-Pathological "Wounds."
.Degree of Solid Selfhood (Including Ego Strength,
Emotional Literacy, and Good Boundaries)
.Communication Issues
. Familarity and Fate
Bradshaw touches on all these in his CD's on Post Romantic
Stree Disorder, and talks on the subject.
I am so grateful that I have come to this time in my life--
it feels like I am entering my Job Return Cycle--
As they say in the Jewish Prayer after you eat:
"Sow in tears,
Reap in Joy!"
I have a lot of work to do now remembering
to feel my feelings, and get down into them, and through them.
He calls this grieving our losses.
I feel really grateful for all the landmark poems
I have written that point out the territory for places
where I am stuck.
This will be a good year to assembly these poems
and get them to my friends at HCI.
This will be a good year to go to the next steps of
clearing out, and cleaning out.
I do not feel meditation alone that cover up
the pain that is buried in the Cracks--
where Bradshaw and the other Pioneers in Recovery
pinpoint where we are wounded.
Best Friend is also is a phase now where she
feels she can deal with her own addictive behaviors
by saying no to Sex. She is also wanting to get into
a good meditation routine that she feels will be enhanced
by no man sex.
I have been feeling the sense of impossibility
that I could get through some of my own feelings.
I was talking to Best Friend last week.
She was asking if I thought it were possible
to make the shifts we want to see in the world--
She was looking at how long I have been working in the world
at some of these shifts.
I was telling her that today, we have so many more tools
at our fingertips to bring in the World Peace.
I am just now back from spending time with Rabbi Stan.
He was brilliant. I found a whole deeper understanding
about Yom Kippur. IT is about having the courage to
go visit your deepest wounds. Those were his words!!!!
And now, how perfect to be with Old Friend Bradshaw
who is a master at this.
Stan said something very profound
that I want to pass along:
The Success of a Prophet is not determined
by how well he/she makes changes in the world.
A prophet is deemed successful in that they
return always to be a Prophet.
This Sunday I begin a new phase of work
called the Soilmates Sacred Circles.
I will introduce the 12 step program for
Recovering Prophets.
Step 12 is making and giving Essene Phone Calls.
See that Blog.
World Peace can only come through Declaring Peace
in our own lives.
Bradshaw's materials is all over the web
and everywhere.
We are very Blessed to be Alive today
and have his incredible work so accessible
in many ways.
Here are some other links for his work:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bradshaw_(Theologian)
Bradshaw Cassettes:
http://www.bradshawcassettes.com/vitae.html
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