Control

Control is related to FEAR.

I must remember that when I feel I am being controlled. I think it a lot. It often sounds to me as if people are telling me what to do. Gosh do I react! I disagree, I get quite bolshy and defensive or I openly and sharply say the opposite. I feel it in me. I tense up.
I wonder if my reflections on being left alone from a little girl after school was anything to do with it. I used to do whatever I wanted really and then my parents would return and the rules of behaviour would suddenly be harsh compared with the previous hours of utter freedom. Confusing when I describe it. I remember SC pointing this out to me. It made sense. And now I wonder if it's been a part of this aversion to people seeming to tell or suggest. Also I think my dad was very manipulative. He would say things like "you're over doing it" because he wanted me to do what he wanted to do. Instead of stating his needs he would try to control. I've thought this of G too.
When I think people don't consider that I might know something I feel really pissed off with them - yes it's anger but whats the word. It's stronger than irritated.
What is this in me. I need top practise listening. It's worth listening and not reacting. Take things in.
G said that it was difficult to talk to me. I thought it was because I wasn't doing what he was suggesting and I thought what he was suggesting was because he didn't like what I was doing.
Another divorce resulted. But there was truth. The thing is I wasn't liking things he was doing or feeling that the relationship is the way I want things to be in my life. No doubt he would pick up on that.
There are so many layers in all of this. People with people.
I've always had to answer to my parents' judgement of me which I think was often misjudged. Yes some it was based on my terrible attitude and distorted ways as my "illness" was developing, ripening.
But there is control is this on my behalf too. Fear of being compliant, fear of losing self, fear of being controlled, fear of ??????
I'm not sure really what's going on but there is something.
With FA ad my sponsor I get really cross with being told what to do. Sometimes it's just about being liked and loved anyway for doing it my way and making mistakes. Does that me a bad person? I am very self-willed. I don't like disappointing people or annoying people but sometimes I think that's there stuff to deal with and just let me get on with it. But there's ego and selfishness in that. I must think about the consequences more and establish what I'm comfortable with as an outcome whatever it might be. Then I take or can make more informed choices. BUT let the outcome be whatever it is. Don' try and control it.
I do try and control outcomes by being people pleasing. I don't want people to think badly of me so I compromise myself. I lose a sense of what it is I really want.
It is such a muddle sometimes it feels too difficult to unpick.
So Universe I need your help is understanding and then please show me how to be and what to do for the very best of everyone concerned. I really mean it. Please give me courage where there's fear to follow you. I don't think that's always the easiest route but I would like to take it nonetheless. I don't want to stop living life though to do it.
So perhaps it is simply that I am going with the flow. I am not doing anything to harm anyone and if I could be upfront and honest then I am less likely to do that. I think Ga will be disappointed with me as I have gone against her suggestion. That's all it was and yet it sounded like an order.
Right then ...

I've done little about anything this morning. Does it really matter?
Probably not. I've had a relaxing morning and feel a lot better than I have done over the past few weeks. It's been building to a crescendo that I think erupted with me angrily presenting my case to Auntie O. It was not well delivered. It's what happens when I'm driven by anger.
So the truth is out there more and more now.

Gosh this song resonates. Not with the long ago blues. I've got the blues for love itself I think.

Still Got The Blues (For You) Gary Moore

Used to be so easy to give my heart away
But I found out the hard way
There's a price you have to pay
I found out that love was no friend of mine
I should have known time after time

So long, it was so long ago
But I've still got the blues for you

Used to be so easy to fall in love again
But I found out the hard way
It's a road that leads to pain
I found that love was more than just a game
You're playin' to win
But you lose just the same

So long, it was so long ago
But I've still got the blues for you

So many years since I've seen your face
Here in my heart, there's an empty space
Where you used to be

So long, it was so long ago
But I've still got the blues for you

Though the days come and go
There is one thing I know
I've still got the blues for you.

Bliss
XX
 

LIES

Sometimes, what's really cool, Bliss, is giving profuse thanks for the good fortunes that befall others - no matter who they are - because, invariably, your joy for them will yield the same good fortunes for you.

Shoe-wee!
The Universe

Not easy to do but I'm prepared to practise this. However, I feel angry and I see how much of a block it is to being able to practise such spirituality. The thing is I do feel angry and I guess I need to let it out. I just don't know how to do that well. I have in the past raged and in my rage I can be so destructive. I don't want to be destructive anymore.
So how do I vent my anger. I'm sharing about.
I'm angry that my dad left everything to his wife. I'm angry that he wouldn't allow me to be close with him in anyway and was actually just rude. I'm angry that he has cut me out for the past 11 and a bit years. I am angry so won't even allow it to move towards 12 years.
I'm angry that he bothered to keep in contact and I'm also confused about this. I'm angry that he more than likely (but I don't know for certain) told T, his wife a whole host of untruths about everything including my mum and me too. How fucking dare he. I'm angry yet I don't know this for sure. And I'm angry about that too.
I'm angry as I'm discovering that all these years I've known him to be a liar but I've been too afraid to challenge that. I'm angry that my mum did nothing about it. As someone said denial perhaps and how strong denial can be. I'm angry that she might have been in denial as I've always thought her more together than that. Perhaps I was just hopeful. And I'm angry that she might have known more about the way my dad was towards me but did nothing at all about it. I'm fucking furious about that because it's taught me that it was actually the right way to be treated.
I'm angry that I'm so bloody well controlled by other people. I'm angry that within that I'm compliant yet rebellious and resentful inside. Or I desperately attempt to control and can't even see yet how that manifests in me. I know that I can be secretive, dishonest, manipulative and flounder attempting to justify. Just today I didn't say that I didn't mean to share specific details but to share how a person feels about situations. And this person can sense my avoidance. That's it avoiding owning the reality which some of it this morning was not knowing what the reality for me actually was. So flipping infuriating.
I'm angry that my dad abused me sexually, physically, mentally and emotionally. And I'm angry that at times I question whether that's even true. It was true for me! I'm angry that my dad was never made answerable for that. There is justice at a higher level. I need to trust that.
I'm angry that he disinherited me and discredited me and this I do know as he's openly belittled me for as long as I can remember. And in my anger I'm prepared to discredit him. I am bloody deliriously happy that other people know he was a liar. It's vindicating. So other people knew too. Someone asked me why I'm not angry with them for doing nothing all these years. I was angry. I didn't understand how people could stand by and not do a thing about it. But denial is easier. I am concerned that the little girl opposite me has been abused in some way by her father. He was odd and now isn't around thank goodness. I felt so uncomfortable with him. A would scream oddly at times and behave outrageously. He asked me to take her under my wing. Yuch! And yet did I do anything? NO. It's quite a frightening thing to do. But we as adults are these days told we are all responsible for the safeguarding of children. And there was nothing like this when I was younger. People turn a blind eye. What goes on behind closed doors is no one else's business. I'm not angry with those people anymore. What could they do with their own uncertainty?
I'm angry though. I'm bloody angry.
And then I'm angry with me. I'm afraid of people. I'm in the grips of power of it. Powerless over people, places and things. And yet I give people so much power. They have control over me and I am furious about it. It's not them. Well they have their part. If everyone was simply loving and giving - apart from boring - things would be easier. I am sick and tired of giving my power to people. I don't know how to alter this but I am seeing it more clearly.
On Wednesday I met with PW, a friend of my fathers from the HAC. I had always believed because my dad implied it, that they had served together in Korea. No. It turns out they met when my dad was in the HAC. My dad was a sergeant apparently with MT (motor transport). Basically I've discovered what I always thought, that my dad was an oik. He tried to be something else. He was a snob. My mum was but at least she admitted it. I am a snob too but a lot more covert. I want to be from wealth and graciousness. Why? It's crazy, because others seem to respect money and status and power.
PW told me an endless stream of his adventures in life. Surviving Cancer in his 50's, a scholarship to Brentwood. But at 14 years old he joined the army. He joined within education and so when in Korea he was a correspondent. My dad implied that PW didn't see the raw end. But he landed in the Battle of the Hook. And having read about that briefly as with all wars, it was devastated with casualties.
PW and JH are uncertain about my dad's honesty. They are questioning the medals my dad has actually worn. PW said that they think he wore medals he wasn't entitled to wear. PW wanted my permission to explore this further. As we talked and talked, he said we really clicked. I told him that my dad sexually abused me. He was sad for me but was neither shocked nor surprised and said this. He told me that my dad was the randiest man he had ever met. I feel it in my female areas as I write it. It disgusts me to know it yet is also a relief. People are not disbelieving m. I told my second cousin LW last Friday. She was sad for me having asked why I thought the relationship between my dad and I was so awful. hey apparently had wondered as a family for some time why it was like it was. I told her. The sexual abuse of course gets the reaction but really it was the emotional ad mental abuse that;s just if not more destructive. I thought I was the problem for as along as I can remember. That has had a devastating impact on my life. Yes I am sorry for the behaviours that I brought to my parents' door. But frankly there are situations from childhood that have contributed to my inability to fully function effectively. I have had little or no self esteem. I do recall in my 20's thinking I was indestructible yet feeling so worthless. I was unworthy of a relationship I would have liked instead accepting crumbs. Always! Still do.
I am so angry about this. But how do I release this anger? It feels like an energy that is bursting out of me. Yet I don't know how to let it out. Sometimes it simply phut phut's out. Other times it roars out of me. Addictive behaviours have been ways of expelling anger. Dramatic reactions another. And some addictive behaviours I think are closely associated with things that happened in the past. FUCKING HELL!
So now do I contest the will? I think I need to. It's about the money but it's also about the principle of it all. He completely denied the past. I suspect he had to to cover his lies in the past years with T. But it is pure speculation on my part. And infuriating that I can't get the truth out there. Having it publicised in court is quite a cathartic idea. I've feigned difficulty with the idea. I believed it at the time but actually the difficulty is the entire situation, even my discomfort with it being about the money to any extent at all. I feel guilty and thieving; my dad's thoughts about me. He always said I would steal the bricks of the house if I could. He thought I was a taker. I probably am but it's not all I am. I'm very caring and giving. I like people and I care about people. I am a trier even if I don;t attain the top. I achieve as best as I can and that's good enough. My dad didn't have any self respect so he was never ever going to have any respect in mediocre me. He was less than mediocre as a man so had to fabricate his status as a hero. I wanted him to be the hero he said he was. He instilled in me the belief that high achievers and high status was the only thing worthwhile. And of course money and medals and things like that were the evidence. Poor him, never ever feeling good enough and more than likely right to his bitter end. And I was a disappointment to him.
He called me and said I love you and wish you the best for the  future. Did he really? Was anything he said or did believable. There must have been some truth in there somewhere.
And then G arrives here in his grumpy mood and snaps at me when I speak about how I'm feeling and thinking as meaning  nothing. Fuck off then. Take your constant grumpy mood away. I'm tired of people. Tired of being bloody well scared and controlled. I am not happy with this situation. And whilst I try to be acceptant there are beginning to more things that are dissatisfactory than not. A magnificent man, nice, intelligent, interesting, quick witted, amusing, passionate about birds and flowers and such like and some people. But there are behaviours and attitudes too that are completely horrible. I am tired of it. I need space and a break. How do I do this? Well however he reacts is up to him. He dog sits soon. But I want space and time before then. Maybe that;s all it is, me wanting some space and time. I am tired of being criticised based on his issues. I'm tired of being accused for things I do not do. I'm tired of being controlled i.e. not being able to have my friends arrive when I want or go out when I want. Is that selfish? Perhaps it is but it's how it is for me. And I'm tired of his mess. He's done some lovely things.
He owes me money and it's funny that as he might get some money he is getting grumpier and probably working towards an exit left. Apparently the left hand side of the stage is bad luck or something. However, I can't find anything on a first look on the Internet. Anyway I am using it in that context, meaning linked with nastiness or resentment and all words that could be associated with this.
So if people don't like me then simply fuck off. What's the point of badness hanging around. There are plenty of people with whom there is no badness overall. Perhaps if I was living with them in my life to the same scare the badness would always become more significant for me. I am demanding and want to simply be more accepting. I think transience can make acceptance easier. Perhaps?

So how am I going to practise giving profuse thanks for T's inheritance from my dad?Especially when I feel so angry. It's almost as if by giving profuse thanks I let go of it completely. And yet the idea is that being profusely thankful I receive in heaps and bounds. It would be releasing. Please God help me to be profusely thankful for T's windfall. Please can I have a windfall as well somehow?
What would I do with it? Well my dad's message would be that I will fritter it away on some fucking idiot. So what if I did? Is that so wrong? It was in his bigoted opinion. PW agreed with me when I called him a bigot. And PW married a Chinese lady. How international PW seemed. But I saw him get quite angry and pompous with a lady behind the bar when he couldn't get the life. His ego rose sharply to the surface. He also spent nigh on 5 hours talking about himself. Interesting. Yet there were moments of humble acts he talked about. If he was truly humble I don; think he would tell me about his decision to leave money anonymously to Brentwood. And I was aware how important money and status was for him too. He talked about it all the way through. He has a remarkably charmed life though and that was fascinating. I am profusely thankful for him although a little envious too. I'd like to have some of what he has. And I was horrified that as I sat there talking about how painful it has been to be disinherited by my father, he talked about disinheriting his own children. He talked about his daughter in a derogatory manner. I think he might have been more thoughtful about that but he wasn't to know how dreadful I feel as a result of my dad's constant castigation of me. It rubs off and I believe it.
I would like for this to lift. And so with a relapse on my food on Wednesday I am returning to Step One with a look at the ways in which I give power to people. I was so afraid to ask for the food I needed to remain abstinent and as a result I ate bread! I couldn't ask for veg and salad. How alarming it is to realise that I would not organise my food in fear of showing my ignorance and not asking for what I wanted. I was able to say that I didn't want the whisky and water PW had bought me in error after I asked for a sparkling water. But I wasn't able to ask for the food I needed.
So a relapse. I'm off the AWOL and that's not such a bad thing as I have now joined one on a Thursday evening at 9pm. It's quite late but there are benefits - a UK mobile number, a gentle co-leader who I like how she seems. I will have my whole Sunday for study and relaxation without guilt of being o the AWOL or having not to be on the AWOL. Plus I will not have to listen to B and take inventory of her controlling manner. Back to Step One and an opportunity to look at this powerlessness of people. And the unmanageability when I comply and be open to look at the controlling as well.
Today I was affected having yesterday raised an issue in connection with safeguarding children. I hadn't raised the alarm myself from a 1:1 but my error was not being specific on advising the client to talk about her feelings and the impact on her of a alcoholic in her life. As a result PD wanted to raise the confidentiality issue when concerned about children. I felt bad about not having thought to raise the issue, so criticised without being criticised actually. So I react with the client and she has reacted badly to that. Consequently PD is annoyed that she might leave. The consultant is annoyed that I frightened her. But worse than all of that she is disappointed, angry and has had her trust in me broken. I feel sad and have let her down. I don't like that. Partly because I want to be a party to a persons well-being, not create more pain. But also because I want to be liked and get things right. That's the bit I want to drop as it creates all sorts of unnecessary behaviours and attitude. Please God help me, show me what I need to do and how I need to be. It's a bit of a shove for the ego too as I was beginning to believe in my own hype as a good therapist, even better than therapist! And clearly I'm not. I'm human like all the rest.
I know I do my best. I'm currently hurting slightly. It will pass and I don't want to hang onto it for too long. It can be washing over me so entirely that I think I am a terrible therapist and person. I take it to extremes. So it would be good to keep this in balance.
Another thing I've done is let the clients go early. There was little left to do. We had questions and answers, we had a check out and a farewell and that was it. I'm now worried that there will repercussions. I stayed until 5 myself but hey ho! I will own it with PD and see what happens.
I mess up a lot really. I am a bit all over the place right now. It's not okay but it's not intentional either.
I would like some time out but it's not possible.
So I'm not going to Oxford Brookes for a day with the OU tomorrow when I thought I was. Instead I'll go to London on 27th April. I will miss any snow that might have dropped on Oxford tomorrow, save petrol and give myself some catch up study time. I have 3 days to really pour some work in. Sod moody G.

I think that's all I have to write at this moment

Angrily yet somewhat centred and calm surprisingly,
Bliss
XX












 

Dad

My dad is critically ill. At first it was water retention, then a fracture in his backbone was discovered after falling sometime a few months ago helping T. I'm annoyed with T and with them both for refusing the care help they were offered. I wonder if she hadn't fallen and he hadn't had to try and help he wouldn't have fallen and now wouldn't have Cancer. yes there is a large shadow behind his rib cage. He is too rail and unwell for them to do a biopsy. hey say it's not good but because they hadn't done a biopsy wouldn't say for certain it was Cancer. Now I think following a scan they have confirmed this. He is being returned home with care as there is no treatment now he can take. He is going home to die. My dad! I never thought he would die before me. I sort of believed the quip I have often made that he would outlive me. I said it believing it and also angry about it.
I hate my vulture-like thinking. It goes like this. "Get on with the dying then and lets see how much you've left me" Then I start thinking about how much it will be and what I'll do with it. In my thoughts I get cross as I reduce the amount. I think I over estimate how much he has anyway. And then I get angry because he's surely going to leave the house to her and she'll get the lot and then her daughters will get it. That's my mums money!!!!! Will I have the balls to contest the will? I bloody hope so. Will I win. Who knows. My mum has been dead now since 2001 - over 11 years. Bloody hell I miss her every day.
Other thoughts are the disgust I feel that if say there is a Heaven and spirit my dad will be able to see right into me. How repulsed I feel. He used to spy on me through the cracks in the door when I was undressing or in the bath. Vile. And he used to read my diaries and things like that. Everything was in his control and it makes me feel sick thinking of it. So if there is a spirit world that can see straight through us it makes me cringe at the thought that his spirit will see me. I want to be cleansed of every thought and every inch of me. Cleansed from the inside out and become someone else completely. Not exist as me anymore.
I think this contributes to the feeling of wanting to sell everything and fuck off. Where to and how I have no idea. I just do not want what I have. I have to stay still and if this thought is still there in 6 months then I need to prepare to go. Take the risk. I am sick and tired of being crimped by my fear. fear of not having enough or being out in the cold. Fear of old age with nothing.Who the fuck cares.
I am angry. Angry with T. The other day calling her I added the comment that I was glad he allowed me to see him. She then went into a retort about how she has never stopped him from seeing me in fact the opposite. She said she had never said a bad word against me except questioning why I don't contact him, send a birthday card or Christmas card. She went on and on, I listened. G was irritated that I said nothing. But I am glad I didn't It would only worsen things by entering into the affray. Instead I was raging afterwards. The injustice!! She keeps saying she doesn't know why it is like it is. My mum used to wonder why too. They have no fucking idea. He abused me sexually, physically, mentally and emotionally. Oh and spiritually. It wasn't the worst on a grad scale of things but it's affected me all my life. He knows. Surely he does. But he just can't deem himself to talk to me or see me or even like me a little. Is this his guilt? I don't actually think it is. I truly believe he believes his speel as I believe mine.
It's been a vile life with him. Always fighting and for what? I have done lots of things that I would rather not have done. Yes lots of men, stupid decisions, running from responsibility, getting into messes. I took those to his door. I wonder how much the childhood did or didn't influence my condition of disarray with life. I have always felt at odds with the world and everything in it.
I used to think I wasn't my parents child. I look like my mum sound like her too. I look like my dad. And what's worse is that I am a liar like my dad. An embezzler of the truth, an exaggerator, a secret squirrel. I hate taking ownership for things I've done wrong. Please Universe, please remove this deect of character from me. And give me tolerance and discernment and diplomacy. Please Universe help me with this.
The spilling of food by my friend on the chair at work. I just was so scared to tell peter. I am sure he wouldn't have gone too crazy but so what if he did. I didn't do it for one, it was an accident more importantly.
Oh it's lunch time - no studying or accreditation done but some admin things have been sorted. Things that could bring in a little money or help with the year ahead with savings at Uni.
Some achievement. And G is on his way offering to come to the hospital with me whilst I visit my dad.
I am not as nervous as he wasn't annoyed last time. But then that has been a pattern - I will be easily lulled into a false sense of security.
I hate too that the other daughters are frequent visitors and he talks to them. He lied to me about that. I said I was upset at his closeness with them so instead of owning it he lied. G does the same. I have done the same. I don't want to do this kind of thing anymore. I can be upset or angry without being unloving or dismissive. But that's what people do. They get angry and then smash any togetherness to pieces.
Fuck them fuck the world fuck it all.
I am upset and angry. It's annoying how fucking codpependent everyone is. Including me. I do not separate myself from this but for goodness sake everyone lets start getting honest and take responsibility.
Then again I was reading Tenzin Palmo this morning. It makes sense.
"And the difference between being aware of the thought and just thinking is immense. It is enormous ... Normally we are so identified with our thoughts and emotions, that we are them. We are the happiness, we are the anger, we are the fear. We have to learn to step back and know our thoughts and emotions are just thoughts and emotions. They're just mental states. They're not solid, they're not transparent. ... One has to know that and not identify with the knower. One has to know that the knower is not somebody"
I have had miniscule glimpses of this. And then  really wondering what it would be to know that I am the knower but how to move away from that level. Gosh it seems more than difficult it seems impossible. And then again there are people who try to tell me how to eb and how I am and what I need to do. I want to tell them I've had glimpses thanks but it would seem egotistical and say I haven't really it's just my imagination that I have. They would think I was daft to think I have had glimpses and know what this means. So I say nothing. Perhaps I just have to stay open to their suggestions because I will undoubtedly learn something from it if I listen attentively

Amnyway I also love my dad. I hate seeing him so ill and so little. He is nothing more than a rib cage. His legs hardly made a bump in the sheets. He has no voice. His smile doesn't fit over his teeth. He is sleepign all the time. Where is the fury of the man now? I'd rather that than this pitiful unwell man. It's horrid to see him like this.
And it's horrid that T gets to be the one he talks to. I want to know. I wnat to know what he's thinking, how he's feeling. Talk to me. What arrangements does he want for the funeral? What has he done about the Will? What does he want????
Why isn't he evr ever available to me. Why does he hate me?
Always everyone else came before my mum and I. I do it with friends. So influenced by the new person on my meeting line. I take people for granted or do I? People expect a lot. I expect a lot.
It;s all just nonsense. Bring in Tenzin Palmo please Universe.

Thank you G for introducing me to the book to get some sense of something good.

Lunch
Bliss
XX

 

Fine lines

I've been pondering the fine line between rigidity and chaos or a lack of boundaries. These thoughts relate to my latest difficulty, i.e. the situation at work. As SH, my colleague, pointed out from the start, LK has no boundaries. She has no boundaries around anything it seems. Offering to lend us and then giving us £20 each for Easter seems to be without boundaries. Even so there is the act of kindness in the offer itself. or is it? Or is there another motive? Am I being suspicious and ungracious in taking the offer on face value. Is that another fine line? Then there are the ever changing decisions. She will make a decision about a clients destiny with us and then afterwards discuss it often changing her mind without there being any clear boundaries or reasoning. Then there is the dashing about in reaction. Yes she's very reactionary. And conversations with us about her personal life, without first making any assessment of the situation. For example, I might be beavering away at something , work orientated I mean, and LK would rather chat about something. Then when I'm leaving at the normal time, well this happened on Friday at least, she seemed huffy. I just went anyway, thinking to myself that if she had just got on with her work during the day instead of being so easily distracted all over the place, then she would be leaving on time too. PD never worked late and all the work was done. A lack of discipline, which is boundaries isn't it?
It's a funny thing this concept for boundaries. I used to balk at rules and regulations, often rebelling and yet with some rules , sticking absolutely rigidly to them. Boundaries create safety. There is certainty. I can't quite put my finger on something as an example. But I can absolutely see the importance of parents for example agreeing on the boundaries for the family. The children then know the boundaries and so long as there is consistency they will learn security and certainty. Of course children will push to test the boundaries, seeing how safe they actually are. Whether in Freudian ID and Ego, they can push the boundaries for what seems like self gain. The funny thing is that by pushing the boundaries, by manipulation or sheer dogmatism or even violence or some other way of pushing through, the child then starts to learn uncertainty which brings fear. If they can be that powerful then they are also in charge. To being with this can seem appealing. Bearing in mind that this is mainly at an unconscious level. So the child takes the power but them also becomes the one in charge. That can be fine and fun when it is a first bursting through, but a child doesn't have resources and experience to deal with every situation. That's when parents need to be there to help deal with life issues and help the child negotiate through difficulties. But if the child is "out there", there will have no certainty that the parents will contain them and have to start dealing with issues but with childlike points of view. It becomes all too frightening. The child might return to the nest as so to speak but without the faith that the parent can truly protect them, which might simply be guidance. The parent has already shown that they are not capable of keeping things contained.
I repeat that all of this dynamics are unconscious and this is just one play out as an example.
A child needs to learn that it isn't the Superego. The child needs to have room enough to experiment within the confines of certainty. This of course is not control though.
Now there is the fine line I suppose. When does this certainty need to be flexible. It doesn't need to be flexible for the sake of appearances with other people. I am specifically thinking of for example setting table manners. The parent may have strict rules for behaviour at the table at home and to maintain these has to constantly be reinforcing the rules. I was thinking for example of my friend removing her daughters plate if she got down from the table. The little girl was constantly distracted from her meal and so not eating properly. Now to begin with the parents kept allowing her to get down, play and then return to the table. There is good reason I am thinking for this not being OK. However when we went out to a restaurant because the constant telling off didn't feel comfortable in public, the boundary altered. I didn't actually think this was a good version of flexibility because it was motivated by worry about what strangers might think. So what would be good flexibility. I think an example might be the little girl requesting to go to the toilet on a first occasion. Allowing that with discussion. And then ensuring for future meals that a parent takes her to the toilet before each meal so that any request to go to the toilet is only a way of pushing the boundaries but also creating the disciplines for onward life.
These are mild examples I think but examples nonetheless of developing structure and disciplines without being controlling.
Why are humans in need of boundaries though? Otherwise I suppose it's anarchy. And I see what that brings in my work place right now. None of us really know whether we a re coming or going. o boundaries are important in the community. We all know then we are working together and the part each of our individuality's can come together without having to be just one person. I wonder what the lack of boundaries does to raise fear. It creates uncertainty and with uncertainty comes fear.
This is a psychologically interesting question. Uncertainty evokes fear and fear means there's no faith. So is faith to do with certainty. People say I know it will be OK as if reassuring oneself. The funny thing is that despite everything over the years things have turned out OK. There have been grave difficulties along the way which I suppose contribute to my fear. For example this situation at work creates uncertainty and fear in me to the point where I agonise and agonise. That agonising and analysis turns into wanting to run, wanting to run feels me with a sense of the lack of self ability and control. Which can become depression and depression can become suicidal for me. Not to mention the horrible feelings and thoughts that come with depression. It's bleak and painful being in depression. So I am scared of this too when I'm thrown into this situation with LK and no boundaries.
As B said, change throws people into trauma. When introducing newness into a company structure, a large unnamed company actually bring a counsellor into the fold to help with the management of change. Sadly we don't have a manager that is capable of managing the change that is occurring. So here we are, little people, whose rights have been removed by a scared person who has to control, we have no adult voice. There is no room for open discussion and opinions to be shared and negotiated. It has to be this way or no way. It feels miserable and throttling to be like this. But any discussion that is attempted is taken to be threatening and personal. Wow! What lessons I can learn. This is the outward looking picture.
But what about me and how I am with this lack of boundaries but instead rigidity of rules. Now there's the thing. Injustice? It was similar with my dad. He had no boundaries yet imposed rigid rules. I would rebel secretly against the rules. And that's what I'm doing now. I have no respect you see. So I'm doing what's told to me to keep myself as safe as possible but inside I have utter contempt. How can I learn to be flexible with the situation. I recognise the lack of boundaries and the replacement with control. I guess the start of going with the flow is seeing this. Now God please help me to be OK with this internally.
It helps not to be getting into the nasty gossip. I'm not fuelling the negativity within me. That will make more and more space to see the bigger picture. I want to practise listening and asking people what they are going to do about it. For example saying "will you raise this with someone?" or "would you like to do something about it?"
As my sponsor repeated from something said to her - be the change I want to see. This brought to mind the St Francis of Assisi prayer:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Where there is injury, pardon.

Where there is doubt, faith.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there is darkness, light.

Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

So God please help me to bring this into my daily workings. I think with this you can show me how to be flexible around someone else rather than critical of them getting it wrong. It doesn't mean I have to drop my boundaries. In fact just the opposite, I need to ensure my boundaries are in tact. I have values and they will be bound to disagree with others' boundaries. But I can be gently assertive without causing friction when my boundaries meet someone else's rules. I see how boundaries contribute to a stronger sense of self whereas rules and rigidity can be a manifestation of fear. I wonder what LK is so afraid of. I relate to it. In my fear I can become so controlling. And it's not nice to be on the receiving end of at all. It's not nice being in it either. But having boundaries which are the manifestation of values and principles and self esteem, they actually contribute to a growing sense of worth. I am worthwhile enough to ensure I leave on time. So long a I've got all my work completed then I have that right. If I an't get my work completed because of someone else, the I will ensure I take the time back. If it's because I've been messing around then I am not owed anything and in fact I have owed. Following these principles will surely stand me in good stead to feel OK and decent about myself. Then I can let go of the irritation I feel when LK doesn't work to similar ethics. That's her business not mine. I trust that if it is actually a real issue then it will come to the surface for all to see. If it's not a big deal then it can continue without a problem for others. And I mean this about everything. If on a bigger scale there is something unhealthy and wrong about it all, it will start to show through the big picture and then thins will change. Whether it changes in the way I want it to is another question all together. What I'd like is for me to be right and everyone see it the way I do and then change it the way I think it should be changed.
But for example rather than change things back, it might be that we just don't get enough clients in the way we've had them and so ATP is disbanded. It's a possibility. Or the whole format of the progamme will alter to accommodate a different style of keeping clients. Those relationships we've developed with consultants will merely fade and they will find another outlet to work with even if it's not us. I actually don't like being a part of that disintegrating reputation. I'd like to talk with Dr F actually but it's none of my business. What I'm trying or hoping I could do is protect my reputation. God if there is meant to be a way of talking with her or any of the other consultants then I'm certain you will present that opportunity. I feel that Dr B is of a similar ilk, very low in self worth and so he's going along with a different style. Well it will change of that I'm certain. There is nothing I can do to fight such a force. So rather than fight please God show me ow to let go of my need to control and instead go with the flow. At the same time help me to trust that I will be OK.

So my thoughts about fine lines with boundaries and rigid rules - have I really come to any conclusions. Yes I thnk there are some ideas formed and thankfully no absolute certain answer which means there's room for flexibility and space to add more knowledge.
By George, I think I get it.

Bliss
XX

Full of sound and fury

What a week of blind obstruction moving to awareness and resulting in change and more freedom. Thank you God. Herrrr hmmm, still I feel so vulnerable using that name, God I mean, potentially to be read by others who might freak out and think I'm religious. You see I think of religious people as indoctrinators and single-minded. I hope people will see beyond all of that but know that it can deter so many very quickly. People who won't keep and open mind will have already turned off this page I suspect. Oh well I need to be true to myself but even so I feel a need to once again explain myself. God for me is not in any shape or form connected with a religion. It is a convenient word, yep capital letter included, for the enormity of the Universe and how it works as a force that is more powerful just for it's unstoppable force. It is how it is and that's life. We humans are meager even en masse. Well clearly I do not yet know how to put into words the wonderful sense of being a small cog in something so immense. I hope somehow you will have your own understanding.
This week or actaully two has involved me being in raging fury. It has worked into it's frenzy gradually in the early few days then once it had escalated in me it's been refuelling itself. All I say is in hindsight now. perhaps I should have written more often whilst in the midst of it all so that there was a view of what it was like from the inside. I will do my best as now I feel filled with love and a peace and it's not quite as easy already to write about the intensity with the fullest dynamism.
It revolves around the new boss. Well lets have a little lashing out here as I condescendingly point out not so much boss but merely (that's the vicious bit) team leader. You see if I'd been discussing PD he was most definitely the boss in the very best of that meaning. This one, LK has the title of team leader and thus far I do not see her as anything more than that in title. Oh yes it's still there alive and kicking, the anger. But it's more at a level of disappointment.
A number of events started fuelling my rage, which I feel certain is driven by fear but I haven't quite got in touch with the fear, maybe I will as I write here. A monetary break for a sip of peppermint with liquorice tea. Mmmmm Teapigs as well as a French Menth/Reglisse version. I'm not sure you see that I can recall each event but I will write those that are clearly in my memory. One involved a hospital appointment. It meant that I would be late arriving for work, in fact not until lunchtime. i suggested to the team leader in the capapcity of knowing the office (rather than the controlling versio that I now see) that she would be well advised to get some cover for the morning. She turned to me and suggested that actually I do the late shift then whe needn't get cover as she knows she needs to be aware of expenditure and budgets. I saw red!! I said I would not wish t do that as after having been through various procedures in the gynaecological depratment I would be struggling to return to work let alone work until late. At which point she sniped at me with the comment "well I will need to see a doctor's letter to verify your appointment". To be honest I'm not sure what her exact words were but that was the essence and I heard it said in a very accuational and venomous manner. I replied saying that I was offended and that I am entitled to hospital appointments without hassle. She backed down slightly saying that she didn't know the procedure here and so would have to check it out with NL, clinical manager. The fury started. I guess in rality I was already feeing vulnerable with the whole idea of the appointment. I also felt afraid (here's some of the fear) that suddenly tings that have been accommodated without any issue were going to start being issues, issues that would somehow make everything much harder and steal my freedom and security. Some of this is linked with finances for instance if we now had to start taking appointments at our own cost it would make things even harder for me to go to the docs. For some reason I struggle with this degree of self-care. Lots of vulnerabilities I think were immediately fed into. Not least the difficulty I have working for an outfit that have no concern for employees well-being, or rather little, unlike HR who i realise now were truly investing in people, even if it was because they felt they had to. Competitive staff markets can drive that and also I would like to beleive and investment in people to treat other humanely and encourgae development. Something tthat I don't think I've really experienced or appreciated fully from a little girl and yet can take for granted when I have it. So you see already LK is not PD. Whether he liked it or not he never "turned his nose up" at anything for SH or myself. He was a little more resentful about this sort of thing with AW and I think this links with her resistance to working as a team member. She doesn't want to do many of the things that we generally muck in with to keep everything going. So I understand the resentment as I felt it too. Why should people get the same when they don't put the same in (this is all underlying anger with injustice).
Then there have been several daily working issues that we as a team having been trying to convey as the way we have agreed to do things. LK has argued against them, not hearing us. I think on reflection what I was expecting is that she would come in and frstly do things our way. Discover through experience what works and what doesn't and gradually implement new ideas through discussion and openness. But the fear (there it is) is that she is arguing against that, in a backhanded way criticising our way and telling us to do it differently - straight away. So there she is saying on the one hand I don't want to change anything, it's a great programme you have here and you are a great team", but actually doing something completely the opposite. I hadn't been aware of this until just writing it now. So with each little situation I have become more and more frustrated, not feeling heard at all and overridden. The frustration has been devloping into fury and the fury has been exhuating me causing resentment and fuelling the ever growing fury.
So then it starts to become personal. I can't abide the way she completely goes off track. On one occassion we were processing the previosu group as a team and as we always do. One of the clients had breeched the boundaries and this was not the first time. We felt as a team that we needed to escalate this, more than processing in the group and that there needed to be consequences. This is something agreed between the team and not taken lightly. LK disagreed and started talking about all the things the client needed to be working on. Both SH and I looked at each other incredulously. We know that and yes sure everyone beings new ideas to what a client needs to work on and how. Even writing the the word "needs" seem presumptious. How the hell and who are we to try to determine what the client needs to work on. I get very uncomfortable when colleagues start diagnosing or saying "what they mean by that really is ..." How do we know anything of what the client means, needs, knows unless we have that open communication with them? Anyway SH thankfully said what does that have to do with the fact that boundaries are being breeched and what are the consequences for that? I backed her up as I totally agreed with her. So on a back foot LK complied with our wishes, even though she clearly didn't agree but had not valid argument, only through deflection. I get that though. I mean knowing that I think one way but not being able to back up my argument. I would like to be able to practice saying it ust doesn't feel right to me but as yet I'm not sure why.
Anyhow I thought of her as stupid, really harsh I know but this is how my rage becomes. It's demeaning and cruel which in turn feeds the fury. I witnessed myself bad-mouthing her to a couple of colleagues in another department. I wanted to keep my mouth closed but I just couldn't. The first comment would have been OK but I went on. And then on some more, making sure they knew just how awful things were for me because of her. Puh! Ugly. I knew I didn't feel good about this immediately but didn't know at that time how to do anything about it. Furthermore, their positive comments about her and their negative comments about PD infuriated me even more. I thought "bully for you that she's a breath of fresh air" and was also feelling really angry that they bad-mouthed PD, again! How flipping dare they, they had no idea how good he was and could only see his bullish manner (and actually intolerance of their inefficient and rude attitude, which I agreed with him on but had never found a way to express. PD just never found a subtle way to express himself - at least everyone knew where they stood). Funnily enough as I am writing this I am seeing something that is not quite forming for me. Other people's attitude and the way in which it manifests, all driven by unspoken thoughts and often a lack of awareness of coinciding emotions. I know it, I just forget to step back and invite God into to show me how, what, when.
So there I was stomping about the hospital bad-mouthing here and there, just subtly at times. Little hints at how exhausted I was battling to keep the office together. Grumble, grumble, grumble. And getting more annoyed if people seemed to be nice to her. That even sounds familiar with my dad. I would be furious with the person that was pleasant to him screaming inside "you don't know what he's really like!!!!".
I was aware that I didn't like myself but just didn't know how to stop myself. LK and I had a blow of a situation when talking about staffing needs. It was really SH that insitigated the conversation and when LK fired back at her, I stepped in. I see how drained and angry SH is and I am afraid (there it is again) that she will leave. I don't want to be left by SH. Somehow with PD I feel more secure that he will be around anyway and that I haven't lost him forever. But with SH she is very independant. She has said that she doesn't come to work to make friends she has enough. But I really like her company and like her style. I perform best with SH. I feel safe with her in group. She always knows where she's going. I feel less safe with PD and AW and know that's my attitude to their ways of therapy. I think we all feel safest with SH, well it's what I observe. She is genuine and warm with clients, challenging but in a way that she doesn't generate resistance, often anyway. Only the addic icks out against her not the person themselves. Whereas I can still cause the person to resist me. And PD too. AW can seem very angry in group at times. Actually I'm not quite sure how to describe how she is in group and there are times when she makes spot on observations. I have learnt from SH to not learnt differences in style be away to become split. I want to work with her to keep learning and growing as a therapist. Selfish? It's rare to work with people that can really show me the way. I work with a lot of people that cause me flounder and that's life I guess as it's a common experience for me.
So anyway I have a lot of fear about SH leaving and so find myself backing up things I'm not sure I truly believe in but will argue on SH's side. I notice SH steps back whenever it's not soething she fully supports. So I argued about staffing levels when actually I didn't fully beleive we needed more. But I know SH was even more frazzled than me so I jumped int here and made it my arguemtn. I became raging with fury as she just wasn't listening. When I said this to my sponsor in my daily morning phone call my sponsor suggested that if I wanted to be heard I needed to listen. Oh yes of course, but could I apply this no, no, no. Not until yesterday actually, when once again we were discussing but more like arguing completely opposing views about what consequences should be applied if someone repeatedly relapses. LK's argument was that this is a relapsing illness but as AM pointed out yes it is but it's not a using programme. Loved it! Anyway the point of change in me here is that I actually heard her say "yes you both have your view on this but I have mine too and it's different". I heard this and I acknowledged that, saying that this is something else unresolved that would be good to discuss in supervision and find a way forward as a team. Phew! I stepped back. Thank you God. Thank you. I felt so good about this and actually putting into action the intelligence I know at an intellectual level. And I also see my utter need for control. Nothing can be different you see. If she makes changes to little things, she will change everything and overall it's a damned good programme. Plus she is going against her world. She IS wanting to change things. It's not to say that there will be good things introduced BUT it's against her word and making changes before she fully knows what is so good about the programme. I don't want to lose everything that is so valued, reputation included.
Fear! My reputation is included in the success but can equally be a part of a disaster. Inside this does not need to matter. Practice caring not to care, another pearl from my sponsor.
Thank goodness for FA and the disciplines I follow - quiet time, daily calls to my sponsor, daily readings, weighing and meauring my food, calling out to other FAers. And most importanly for my growing relationship with God. Throughout all of this, this self-hatred for the fish-wife appearance of my rage, the rage itself, I have not over or uner eaten. I have stuck with my food plan and as of yesterday I had lost another 7 pounds since my last weigh-in on 30 January. This is a way of life for me now. A commitment. No flour and sugar, weighing and measuring and following the suggestions just gives me freedom and a confidence that I have so much more space to continue developing as a person to be the person I would olike to be - and more than that too, I now believe, as I cannot see beyond my linits of knowledge from previosu experience. But I do have an inner soul knowledge that there's more. I have faith. Even though I forget to turn to faith and God in every situation, I am practicing more and more to do this.
And because of this I had a little breakthrough on Tuesday evening. I had had supervision as both a team and then individually. How I value supervision. I talked through my rage. PT kindly reminded me he was aware that eh could slip into therpay and this was clinical supervision. He is setting boundaries with me, I can feel them and I appreciated his honesty the other day with acknowledging that he likes me and so can swayed into a sort of collusion with me, this was referring to my case study, but I think I have sensed it slightly in other situations too. I respect his boundaries and feel them. So I enjoyed anyway expressing myself and also my realisations. I was very hectic afterwards, 1:1, brief meeting with a client, dinner, Aftercare. During my dinner break the opportunity presented itself that I had been praying for. CJ one of the nurses was also eating his supper. He made comment on LK's responsiveness to child safety in connection with one of our clients. I seized my oportunity to say only good things about her. And then I went into the office and told her about CJ's complimentary comments about her vigilence. Then even better, I knew that I did not need to speak a sorry to her unless as my sponsor pointed out to me I am making changes in my attitude and behaviour. Of course I hadbeen finding this difficult but with God's help this altered as soon as paid her a compliment. I did by the way say that I appreciated her vigilence too around this matter, never really knowing before how to approach this matters when feeling concerned.  So on the way to work as the love was beginning to re-enter my soul, I decided I would buy her some flowers. Just a little bunch of purple tulips. I arranged them with care, enjoying getting all the stems in a pattern as importably as how the flower itself looked. She said she truly appreciated this. I hadn't known what I was going to ay and wondered too if SH and AW would think I was being a traitor. However, I meant it and the words flowed easily. I said it was just a little token to acknowledge how difficult this was for her just as much as it was for me and that it wasn't personal. I said that I really appreciated what AW had said in supervision, reiterating the fact that she was new and we were all in a state of flux. Well in so mnay words she said this, this is my own version of the actual situation. And I continued to say the same to LK when we were in together yesterday morning before AW arrived. I said that it's going to be a bumpy path but that we will get there. I'm not sure if she heard me (she's deaf too, and wears hearing aids - I think sometimes she chooses not the hear mind you). As I was leaving last evening she once again said she really valued the gesture and said she would leave the tulips on her desk until the weekend when she would take them home. The rage in me thinks she wants the others to see because if she can break through me she might be able to get through to the others too.
I realise I'm not so flexible when things are being desconstructed. Intellectually I know that a deconstruction might bring more that is good. But I'm terrified that it will deconstruct what is good and be replaced with shoddiness. I don't see much yet that gives me faith that she is overall good. Can she make things work? Her fixation on the child protection seems as if she's hanging onto something she feels safe within and the rest she's uncertain about. I fear that she will want to be an "Addictions unit" pure and simple yet we do so much more than that. I noticed i group how she kept things at a very superficial level, but the clients were expressing fears about relapse so it was bearable. I was critical and I can do that with other therapists. Because I want to be more psychodynamic not just an addictions therapist. Well differences of styles are good for the group. If we all did it one way there would be less dynamics in our programme. How wonderful to be able to write about going with the flow. Now I would like with your help God to flow with the flow.


One thing I would like to write about here is the part a conversation with my dad last Tuesday will haev played in my escalating anger. Having been to the hospital on Tuesday morning, where they prodded and pulled at the very heart of my femininity, painfully, I decided to call my dad en route to work. It was a longer jounrey that normal as I was at QA hospital, Portsmouth. I was very tearful actually, wanting my mum. Wanting to be held in my tearfulness and feeling violated in some way even though I knew they were just trying to help. They had performed a little operation tehre and then, removing a polyp. This she said was the cause of the bleeding, but I've been bleeding ever since. I hope she's right and that it's just been the gradual healing of the removal of the polyp. The pain in my pelvic region seems to be consistent, if not worse at times. I hopet he scan on 13th March reveals an explanation for that and it's not complex or corrosion causing. Before I called him I realised I wanted binge foods. A great bif bag of stuff and lie on the settee chomping through sugar and flour products watching endless films or TV rubbish. Remembering what was said to me during a phone call with an FA person; what is it your actually wanting from the desire for a particular food?, well in this case it was comfort; to feel snug and warm and comforted, hugged and held. I recognised this and even though I had to go to work knew that I could organise that when I got home and started looking forward to curling up on the sofa in my big red comfort jumper and watch a film, all cosily. IN the meantime I needed to get through work, which was challenging to say the least. I kept feeling tearful and of course this added to my resentment fuelling my rage, stomping about telling people how affronted I was with her comment about the note. Anyhow, I couldn't get a hold of my dad. So afer work I called him again to say Happy Birthday - 84 years old. Blimey. He thanked me for his card and so I made a remark about him liking Spike Milligan, t which he cut me down and disparaged him. I felt hurt. I tried again saying how I remember watching him laugh when I was a little girl and laughing with him not knowing why. I mentioned my truth in that I'd been to QA, sadly a reglar haunt for him and his wife. Then someone called out and he said he had to go but ould call soon. He didn't though. Being vulnerable with  him for instance telling him really what's going on for me. And the insanity is expecting him to be diffrent. And then the hurt that my rights haven't been met. Huh! Rights? No acceptance at all of him as him. But as always I absorb this inwardly, almost clamly but in a sinister way and then WHAM! Which int he past has manifested itself through wild partying, drikning, drugging, sexually acting out and either anorexia or overeating. It wasn't like that to being with but gradually built up to be exactly that regularly. But that's how this addiction escalates. Not one of them was enough on their own in the end or only some of the time. A poly addict!
Today it's so different. I talk about these thigns with my sponsor and other FA'ers. I can also talk about this at meetings now as I've achieved my 90 days. I can write here in my blog, whether anyone reads it or not is of no matter. I write because it's gorwth and clarity for me. It's eventual clarity sometimes as in the midst of things it is difficult to see the wood for the trees. But writing, talking, sharing, not acting out, asking for God's help this all contributes to picking my way through the trees and back to the path. This is enlightenment. Not all at once even though that's what I think I need. Oh no, this is enlightenment through experience, contemplation in quiet time and mulling over ideas with people who have also experienced life's tapestry, insane thinking an all.


Thank you God.
And you know what? As God's love started filling me it occurred to me yesterday to call my dad and tell him I love him. And so I did. A little clumsily admittedly. There was a lot of fumbling on his part and off he went in a flurried click of the phone line. He called me back - angrily because he couldm't get hold of me. I explained I was at a meeting to which he again fumbled about with " oh oh one of oh". He cannot or will not accept anything to dow ith me being an addict. And he then muttered about meeting up and hurting his back again. I said look I am off next week so can drive down to Hayling and meet you somewhere there as he had aid in a recent call that he prefers to meet me on his own. Good that suits me better too as clearly his wife doesn't want to have anything at all to do with me and I feel the same. She strikes me as very angry indeed and quite nasty but I don't really know. So he will call he says and arrange a day after I've submitted my essay. Which I need to start working on now.


Thank you for reading if you've got his far ....


Bliss
XX

How can we truly know who we are ....

.... in a world that rewards conformists?
I don't know whose quote that is but it resonates. And then I will try to rebel just to have a voice. Yet the best way is to be neither rebel not conformist as they are really the same thing. So says Paul Vixie and goes on to say "find your own path and stay on it".
I think the anger I've felt this last week has been fuelled somewhat by trying to find my own path and staying on it yet having to adjust to others paths too.
The new team leader is a real challenge for me. I don;t feel safe. There is a viciousness that lashes out from time to time and a sincere lack of taking any responsibility for her actions. Furthermore, she is easily distracted. We were talking about a breech of contract and taking action as a consequence. Her case was based on what the client needs to work on and way off mark of the subject of the action to be taken for the breech. It was weird and both S and I were thinking and S said what has that got to do with it. Then she said well I'm not used to working this way which again had nothing to do with her complete distraction. It's a little weird to be honest.
My greatest difficulty is sitting watching the unit being changed and not in my opinion for the better. If only I could let go and just allow it all to happen. I don't know how to do that and so I'm praying hard. I become harsh in my judgements within the anger that wells up. I see S getting frazzled and the unit being compromised and eventually that will effect the clients and the programme and our reputation. I don't ever like t be  part of something that is flailing as my reputation gets dragged in with it.
My anger was so raging yesterday. I stomped about the hospital making comments here and there. I didn't like what I saw in me. But at least I am looking at me.
unconscious incompetence - don't know what I don't know
conscious incompetence - the most painful but also the learning phase
conscious competence - starting to make changes and apply the lessons
unconscious competence - things become second nature
I have experience of the unconscious competence as there are changes that have become more natural over time and every so often I get a momentary realisation that these changes are a part of my everyday now.
The amazing thing is that I haven't had to use on any of this to date. I did think "duck it" last evening as I was driving home. I saw a person coming out of a supermarket with a big bag of goodies and my next thought was to go and get a bag of sugar products, get home and lunge on the settee chomping and watching films. I could almost taste the sugar flavours. I can even feel the urge as I'm writing about it - euphoric recall. But then thankfully I know this is not my food today thank you God. And I don;t want back all the misery that then ensues. The problem will still be there but ten-fold as I will be in internal agony yet again. So even though I'm struggling it is nowhere near as bad as it could be if I was using. And then today I drifted into a film that talked of depression and suicide. That is always an attractive option. The melancholy seems a sweet place to me, it beckons me constantly. Misty, lonely, dramatic and to be gone, a memory fading in the very same mist. That would be it. No more struggle. The greyness within would no longer have a home to be growing in me. Yet with my recovery I can keep it at bay. Sometimes it seems terrible that I am only keeping it at bay and it's never gone.  But keeping it at bay I can have good times. Then it swapped to wanting to be with a man like Aidan Quinn or rather the good looking character that he represented on the screen. That makes me smile as I quickly start the fantasy and have to come back to reality. I am so committed to not being in any kind of relationship right now.
I feel sad when I think of JC - his reply was so kind. But it's so right.
So how God do I deal with this anger by which I mean allow myself to be angry about the real things and let go of the need to be escalating the anger. I feed it and then it's rage. I feed it with resentment that is my own doing, such as doing all the crossing of t's and dotting of i's where others aren't. I get a sense of power from the anger too. In talking today I heard and recognised the feeling of powerless I have brings fear so the power from anger seems to compensate. But really it's destructive. It is at the levels I'm talking about anyway. Destroying me and then I lash out. I do this by getting over involved and argumentative or gossipping which quickly goes beyond truth. I did that yesterday. I wish I hadn't but I did so what do I do about that now God? I am truly sorry. I don't think I exaggerated when I was talking to NL but I'm not sure I could put my hands on specifics. I have to prepare myself for that. I was very pleased with the way he stopped to ask and listen. It was a change in him I really appreciated. And reassuring that there is some stability in the hospital now. Maybe he's finding his confidence??
God I offer these people to  you - L, N, A. Please protect them.

Then there was the hospital on Tuesday. That was so violating and afterwards I just felt so tearful. It was odd as I left. Coming out of a lift was a man in a wheelchair, very pale faced and in a white gown. Then I noticed a very silver, long chain connecting him to one of the two people behind him. One was pushing the wheelchair. They were both in uniform. I tried not to be too obvious about looking. I wish I had looked more. At one point they were standing chatting with this very silent, white man, headed tilted down sitting without moving. I felt for him but at the same time wondered what sort of criminal he was. I felt vulnerable and exposed. My skin crawled. I didn't want him looking at all the people especially the children. There was something sinister I felt inside of me. I am so dramatic I think. Perhaps I need to listen to my instincts so as just to be wary. But I also believe in the good in everyone although it might be dug in deep under all the blackness. After all I am only sometimes consciously incompetent.

I called my dad in my extra vulnerable state. Really I wanted my mum. Oh I considered a sugar binge that day too. Similar thinking actually. Please God help me to get rid of this thinking in case it gets more powerful and becomes the binge. I just wanted to go home and curl up and hold myself from the violation I was feeling. I am concerned about the results. Something is so not right and hasn't been for a while. They found nothing untoward last time apart from a polyp, probably in the same place. They thought that was the cause of the bleeding. I keep bleeding but I am hoping it is a result only of the procedure. If it hasn't stopped next week I will go back. Having been offended by L with regard to the hospital appointment on Tuesday I didn't try to make a convenient time for the scan appointment I now have. It seems that they couldn't see all of my womb with the internal ultra-sound because not only is my womb tilted backwards but it is over to the side. She also had problems finding my womb through all the irritable bowel symptoms. I was amazed to see it and kind of glad to have it confirmed visually. It's never been actually confirmed as a diagnosis. But I felt myself swell in the morning and the pain was there. Then to see all the holes filled with gas apparently and she said that this should be completely flat. It was worrying really but not surprising its painful.
So calling my dad resulted in little comfort from him. I braved saying that I had been at the hospital and suddenly someone in the background was calling out. I'm not sure who it was but he wanted to get off the line. He ignored the fact I'd been in the hospital even though I'd made myself vulnerable and told him. He lied I believe about who had come in the door, it just sounded odd in his tone. Anyway, that's my dad. As I write this I remember that he cannot be different and it's not a personal thing against me, even though at the time and often it does feel like that. Tank goodness God is my parent.
I thought this the other day looking at the wonderful moment when the sperm meets the egg. An electrifying energetic moment. So powerful to create life. The man and the woman are merely vessels of the two elements. God gives the life to the combination. The mother has the privilege of carrying the life. But then they are are imperfect human beings mostly unconsciously incompetent. Some people are more conscious in their incompetence and then some others are wanting to be consciously competent. To be honest my dad was conscious of incompetence, always saying he should ever have been a father. The problem was he didn't want to or didn't know how to make the changes. And that has a cost.
So today I have felt very tired. And things are fling aroun my mind. The consequence has been on my ability to focus on my studying. I watched instead Sarah's Key, walked LouLou and dozed. Oh and listened to music. I love listening to music. I love creativity, art. I am inspired at such a deep level inside of me. It's like sparkles sparkle in me. I am thankful to God for this appreciation. I sparkle when I see the sun rising or the sun setting and the moon appearing with the stars. I marvel at God's creativity and when it shines through people it's just as glorious. Sounds of the sun rise that make me smile.
I need to hoover so that it's decent tomorrow when A and M visit. I need to food shop for them too. I need to get to Petersfield by 6 I think. Bloody hell it's 5. I won't make it. I wonder what time they open in the morning. I could go before I go to Uni.Hmm it opens at 8am. I need to leave here at 9 am.
If I left here at 7:15 I cold shop at Sainsburys Alton on the way but then the stuff has to stay in the car for a couple of hours. Hmmmm. I should have gone earlier.
So much to do ..... ad I've lounged around a lot today. Mind you I did update my CV and send it off to the agency. I put some good action in to bring about change if change is meant to be. I need to trust in God to show me the way.
I was surprised that the agency have knowledge of Sporting Chance. And it's a good job they asked about the CRB as now that's being updated too.
I just need some money now. I'm overdrawn again and there's no spare money anywhere to draw from - so a 4 day week at lesser income will not be do-able. I need £25 gross for 4 days no pro-rata and that's the minimum. Bloody hell everything is becoming so so expensive. Thank goodness for some 1:1's recently and some overtime even though I need the time. I can't have both it seems at this job.
So yes some positive action and a little studying even though mnimal. And some well needed rest.

OK off to have my lovely clean food meal - thank you God for another abstinent day and room for growth and freedom. And thank you too for the facility to talk to people and write this all out.
Bliss
XX

Theorizing conspiracies or reality - who do we believe

From Before It's News online 8 July 2011 ....

Bilderberg 2011 Discussion Leaked Via Moles Inside

07 July 2011 16:42:54

PT-1

Understanding the Bilderbergers and their way of thinking and what they are planning!

Also, some hard facts.....and very grim reading! Be warned! See Conclusion. Here's a few extracts........
From Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase and beyond, the system is imploding: banks, financial markets, bond markets, housing markets. And now, we can add the United States to the list of bankrupt nations. US dollar has lost 12% of its value in one year. And China, for the first time, has become a net seller of US treasury bonds. What it means is that the bond bubble is about to explode and when it does, take a front row seat and enjoy the fireworks. This is once in a lifetime opportunity.

China´s warning was reiterated at the Bilderberg conference by a first time Chinese delegate, that USG´s planned attack on Pakistan will be interpreted as an act of aggression against Beijing.

The Bilderberg Group is not the end, but the means, to a future One World Company Limited.

The ultimate goal of this nightmare future is to transform Earth into a prison planet by bringing about a single globalised marketplace, controlled by One World Company, financially regulated by a World Bank, and populated by a dumbed down population whose life´s needs will be stripped down to materialism and survival “ work, buy, sex, sleep“ all connected to a global computer that monitors our every move.

And it is becoming easier because the development of telecommunications technology together with profound advances in present-day knowledge and new methods of behavior engineering to manipulate individual conduct are converting what, in other epochs of history, were only evil intentions, into a disturbing new reality.

Each new measure viewed on its own may seem an aberration, but a whole host of changes, as part of an ongoing continuum, constitutes a shift towards total enslavement.
===================================================
BILDERBERG 2011 DISCUSSION LEAKED VIA MOLES INSIDE

By Daniel Estulin of DanielEstulin.com; via Domas Jefferson

The background

In the world of international finance, there are those who steer the events and those who react to the events. While the latter are better known, greater in numbers, and seemingly more powerful, the true power rests with the former. At the centre of the global financial system are the financial oligarchy today represented by the Bilderberg group.

Bilderberg organization is dynamic, in that it changes with the times, absorbs and creates new parts while excreting the remains of the decaying parts. Members come and go, but the system itself has not changed. It is a self-perpetuating system, a virtual spider web of interlocked financial, political, economic and industry interests with the venetian ultramontane fondi model at the centre.

Now, Bilderberg isn´t a secret society. It is not an evil, all-seeing eye or a Jewish-Masonic conspiracy. There is no conspiracy even though a lot of people with their infantile fantasies see it as such. No group of people, and I dont care how powerful they are, sit around the table in dark room, holding hands, staring at a crystal ball, planning the world´s future.

Bilderberg is not a Cartesian fantasy world, in which the isolated intentions of some individuals, instead of the dynamics of social processes, shape the course of history as the movement of evolving ideas and themes over successive generations. It is clinically significant, that today´s more popular varieties of wild-eyed conspiracy theories, reflect the peculiarly pathological style in infantile fantasy associated with the Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and Harry Potter cults. The characteristic form of mental action these cults express, is the magical power of the will, acting outside real physical space-time dimension.

It´s a meeting of people who represent a certain ideology. Bilderberg is a medium of bringing together financial institutions which are the world´s most powerful and most predatory financial interests. And at this time, it is that combination which is the worst enemy of humanity.

Not OWG or NWO as too many people mistakenly believe. Rather, the ideology is of a ONE WORLD COMPANY LIMITED. Back in 1968, at a Bilderberg meeting in Canada, George Ball, the then Under-secretary for Economic Affairs with JFK and Johnson said: Where does one find a legitimate base for the power of corporate management to make decisions that can profoundly affect the economic life of nations to whose governments they have only limited responsibility?

The idea behind each and every Bilderberg meeting is to create what they themselves call THE ARISTOCRACY OF PURPOSE between European and North American elites on the best way to manage the planet. In other words, the creation of a global network of giant cartels, more powerful than any nation on Earth, destined to control the necessities of life of the rest of humanity.

-----------------------

Iraq
One of the key discussion points regarding Iraq centered on the future of the US mission in the country given that the eight-year occupation is coming to an end. Under the heading “What rights do we have in Iraq? Bilderberg delegates discussed whether the USG is entitled to some kind of squatters rights.

For now, this issue is off the charts, but in the foreseeable future the story will undoubtedly get lots of mainstream attention. What concerns everyone involved is the last page, the ending to the Iraqi occupation. If the US military leaves Iraq, something that most Bilderberg delegates do not see plausible, under what conditions and agreements will this be made possible?

As one American delegate reminded his colleagues, as of October 1, 2011, full responsibility for the US presence in Iraq would officially be transferred from the military to the Department of State. Translation: we might well be sold a false bill of good by the mainstream press. USG has no intentions of ever leaving Iraq, even if ownership changes hands.

What one US delegate stated can sum up US position on Iraq: when you think of Iraq, think big. Indeed, to understand US position in the country, one only needs to remember that the US mission in Baghdad is the worlds largest embassy, built for just under $1 billion and comparable in size to the Vatican and visible from space.

One European delegate asked point blank if after eight years of war, anyone can truly say that it was worth the effort. At a staggering cost of trillions of US dollars, over five thousand US lives and over a million innocent Iraqis killed few can admit to the spectacular failure of the mission. With the supposed upcoming transfer of power from the Department of Defense to the Department of State, one is left to wonder exactly what will the US mission be in Iraq beginning in 2012. As another European Bilderberg retorted: “It is anyones guess.

The US delegates pointed to the fact that there is a stable government in the country as a result of a democratically held elections. He was reminded that the initial reason for the invasion had to do with finding and eliminating weapons of mass destruction. The concern for their freedom was an afterthought, said one European. There was also talk of major financial investment in Iraq to jumpstart their weak economy. However, most attendees agreed that the investment was completely self-serving, centered on the US embassy and justifying its existence and costs.

Middle East
Let´s start with the conclusion: As cash for counter-revolution is dolled out by the billions, the future of the great 2011 Arab revolt looks grimmer and grimmer. Bilderberg fully backs draconian repression and perpetual war all across the Persian Gulf and is willingly using its staunch ally, Saudi Arabia to do it bidding. This war will include every nation in the Middle East except for Israel. Saudi Arabia is a strategic partner, not only because it is a repressive Monarchy and a dictatorship, thus unaccountable to an electorate, but also because of their oil as strategic energy reserve.

Instability across the entire Middle East allows Bilderberg an excuse to push oil prices to a $150-180 per barrel. This would put tremendous political pressure on Germany and the European Union on the one hand and on China and its economic and political aspirations on the other.

Keep in mind that no matter how you role the dice, Bilderberg wins.

Back in the summer 2008, oil shot up to $147 a barrel, something I predicted back in May 2005, after the Bilderberg conference in Rottach-Egern where it was decided to manipulate prices to that level by the summer 2008. At the time, JP Morgan was advising the Chinese government that China buy all the physical crude oil because it is going to $200 a barrel. What few people know, is that almost all of the price of oil is pure speculation, manipulated by the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index. Thus, Wall Street controls the oil price irrespective of supply and demand. Rest assured, that this is all part of a long range objective to control not only the oil price but the world financial markets.

If you take a closer look, Saudi Arabia has their fingers in every Middle Eastern pie. Take Egypt. The House of Saud has just given Supreme Military Council leader Field Marshall Tantawi US$4 billion in cash. In Yemen, the Saudis are buying Yemeni tribes with money, in the name of stability in the region. In Bahrain, they are overtly supporting the National Human Rights Organization whose president was appointed by King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa in 2010.

From Wikipedia July 2011

The Bilderberg Group, Bilderberg conference, or Bilderberg Club is an annual, unofficial, invitation-only conference of approximately 120 to 140 guests from North America and Western Europe, most of whom are people of influence. About one-third are from government and politics, and two-thirds from finance, industry, labour, education and communications. Meetings are closed to the public and often feature future political leaders shortly before they become household names.
Because of its exclusivity and privacy, the Bilderberg group is accused by conspiracy theorists of being an all powerful secret society fixing the fate of the world behind closed doors for nefarious ends. Critics of Bilderberg conspiracy theories counter that the group is neither a supreme world government nor a mere social club but rather a meeting ground for top executives from the world’s leading multinational corporations and top national political figures to consider jointly the immediate and long-term policies facing the West in order to reach a consensus.

Sit back and enjoy the ride .......................

Stop thinking that you have to make it happen Bliss and let it happen ......



That you have to be better, and be yourself

That I've ever judged you and be free

The Universe



I like this reading - powerlessness and acceptance of it means I can let go and relax.

So long as I have put my action in ......

If and when I can take this on board, I feel so calm and free and peaceful.

I had a sense of this briefly this morning - just let everyone be as they are and be myself too - generally I have quite a happy disposition. Not thought when I am trying tos econd guess what everyone esle is thinking. Oh no! Then I am in turmoil and usually very negative. I get paranoid and everyone is against me.

Oh my gosh! I think it's flipping well hormonally magnified too. At times these last few days my thoughts have been pure lunacy - people telling me lies, or at least hiding the truth from me. Not really likeing me at all. Any nice behaviour is actually just a cover for all the shitty stuff being done behind my back. Gosh it must be a nightmare at times trying to be my friend.

I saw E the other morning. She said she had a sore throat and was feeling generally grotty. She was less than friendly towards me. I have spent the last 3 days trying to work out exactly what I have done wrong that has annoyed her so much with me. I have replayed recent weeks of conversations. Almost verbatim. Do you do that? And how bloody self centred!!!!! Everything is about me.

And then I thought I had upset M. I had written on Skype that I thought she was grumpy and then thought she had seen it. Not only that I thought she was judging me on an issue of behaviour that we have differing opinions about.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrr I am mental

Gosh I just heard my friend in such pain. I am so so scared of being hurt. I feel real love for JH. I hate my insecurity and paranoia and am working on this within myself.

I am putting trust in him because he says I can. I like him so much and love him so much.

But as my feelings are intensifying I am becoming more afraid of being hurt. It's so sad.

I do not want my fear or my insecurity to stand in the way of my love for him or stop him from being able to love me.

I truly enjoy all that is rich about the way I see we are together. If I can keep things in today, then everything that has been in this day with JH has been lovely. I could do with more just because I like the interactions and communication between us. I like how I feel.

As soon as I think beyond this moment and into tomorrow - argghhh - the projection can be annoying.

So in today - i feel fondness and love. I smile with the funny things that pass between us, the silliness at time, the hours and hours of talking about things. Our thoughts around elements of our relationship (think we certainly analyse a lot and maybe this is not so healthy - I don't know, any thoughts??)

I am so so looking forward to being with JH on Saturday evening.
So the Universe' message is so appropriate. I am in a beautiful relationship with JH. I so enjoy it. I love the feeling that comes with loving and being loved. Enjoy - stop trying to make things happen and be myself just as I am. I am enough!!!
The groups and 1:1's today seemed easier. The migraine symptoms are mainly easing. There have been a few moments when I have felt clumsy and not seem things clearly. And of course the tracking of what is being said and the meaning has the eluded me.
I feel so sad for one client who just cannot see beyond her self-berating. I truly think she needs some long term help. She has a lot to come to terms with. Sometimes there is a client that really touched my heart and she is one of them. Dual diagnosis - so horrid to see the confusion brough on my MD.

Anyway there was some good work in group. Enjoyed the Step One lecture I gave. he he - so long as I enjoyed it as P would say then that's all that matters!!! Ha ha hahahahah

Pah, I have eaten too much this evening - feeling fat! Grrrrrr

OK now I am either going to watch a film OR go back n SL. SL isn't that inspiring this evening - actually I have not bothered to explore places really. Catching up with a few of the characters I met.
And that's it. It is very different now that I am consciously not being flirtatious with or without any motives.
I did think that trust takes time, and faith grows with consistency. So in reality, like my very very wonderful friends, the trust in them and the faith has grown over all the time I have met them. I also grown to like and love them. Some people have fallen off my bandwagon as they did not live up to the person they presented. That's the way of things I guess and how we learn to put boundaries down and still the other person is about and even close.

I have been getting a little confused. M spoke about the amount of time JH and I are speaking. I mentioned it to E too. Both thought it a lot but neither are judging outwardly. I said something to JH about me thinking we were talking a lot. Actually I am loving it and so said this because in my nutty hormonal madness i thought i should to appease them. Grrr at me. I am not keeping things very clear. Jeez hormones are a bloody nuisance when they do this ort of thing. Not a great natural evolving system. Hormones are clearly necessary but have not evolved without curses. They should have developed a way of functioning without messing up other things like my sanity he he he he he.
At least I have some clarity now of what is being said and patterns that I can pick out. I am best in group after about the second week and the clients are starting to move forward slowly. I am not so good and become quite controlling whilst they are in the first 2 weeks. I am not good with the chaos and then don;t like my controlling behaviour. Never like it when I emerge as controlling. Something is very wrong as my usually other unhealthy mode of operandi would be to be completely passive.
Learning there is in betweenie land.
Want to tell JH that my reason for talking about time talking is not because i think anything is wrong.

I hope he makes contact with me this evening after his time out and about. I love him and miss him. Everyone is also saying that it is not easy to have a long distance relationship. Well I know for one thing I want to be with him more and more.
Gosh it's weird thinking he might read this.
Not only my slushy stuff but also my appalling English - lack of colour and creation with my words. I would like a more extensive vocabulary but I don't do anything to help with this. I need to read more I think.