Compassion Group Notes - August 2023
The Invitation
Oriah Mountain Dreamer
It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.
It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.
I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, 'Yes.'
It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.
It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
“When we hold ourselves up while we feel as if we are falling down, we are regal.”
~Charisse Lyons
Attachment Styles
Your style of relationship - how you relate to yourself and others - is a template that was laid from the moment of your conception and fully formed by age 5 when you were still living unaware and instinctually to have the best chance to survive and thrive within the family to which you belonged. The system determined for you how relationship works - internally and externally. In some part this was incorporated into yourself through the experience of fear and shame. Most people did not learn to be aware of their own feelings and needs and have it be related to in an honoring way that was and channeled lovingly or constructively. And, what we learned in unawareness we will continue to live in unawareness without understanding either the cause nor the consequence to ourselves and others. Awareness of motive and consequence comes slowly through dedication to the process of self examination and investigation. It is important to understand the template for relationship that was formed in your first years of life, so the you can become aware of how this is still sabotaging your relationship with yourself and others. The remedy, as with everything, is to start being aware of your needs and feelings and meeting them in way that they were not met in childhood - lovingly. It is to be internally focused, instead of outwardly controlling of other people’s impression of you.
For more - read here
https://psychcentral.com/lib/how-to-change-insecure-attachment-style#how-to-transition
What trust was broken very young?
Avoidant Style - avoiding emotional closeness in relationships - Study and see how you developed this style
Feeling as though their partners are being clingy when they simply want to get emotionally closer
Say they are introverts when there is an expectation of emotional responsiveness
Non responsive - don’t reply to invites, say please or thank you, reply to information, give answers
Withdrawing and coping with difficult situations alone - “I can row my own boat,” “I can do it myself,” “I’ve done everything myself, I don’t need you now.”
Suppressing/repressing/dissociating/denying emotions - “I am logical and practical - I don’t do feelings.”
Avoiding complaining, preferring to sulk or hint at what is wrong, mad when others do not anticipate their needs even though they deny having them - punish using the “silent treatment”
Suppressing negative memories - “nothing bad happened in my childhood”
Withdrawing, or tuning out, from unpleasant conversations or sights “I don’t want to watch the news,” “I don’t want to hear about your problems”
Fearing rejection and abandonment, while being rejecting and abandoning
Having a strong sense of independence, feel safer alone
Having feelings of superiority while having a negative view of others - project their own neediness on to others and live in a superior place of “not needing”
Being overly focused on getting their own needs and comforts met, while denying they need anything- seem selfish and unempathic
Show little empathy offering solutions and practical help instead
Tend to isolate and compensate with addictions
Reject empathy, kindness, closeness
Show no interest in others emotional life - avoid talking about anything but facts and things
Often externally good, right and perfect
“Attachment theory teaches us that true autonomy relies on feeling securely connected to other human beings. Current developments in the field of attachment science have recognized that bonded pairs, such as couples, or parents and children, build bonds that physiologically shape their nervous systems. Contrary to many Western conceptions of the self as disconnected and atomized, operating in isolation using nothing but grit and determination, it turns out that close-knit connections to others are in large part how we grow into our own, fully expressed, autonomous selves.”
~Nora Samaran, Turn This World Inside Out: The Emergence of Nurturance Culture
