quote:

Originally posted by Derek:
But after that, you just need someone who'll provide a safe place for you to do the work of feeling. That's why books and websites can't help you.

Hi Fred---I hope you're doing okay. I think Derek made a good point here. In a therapeutic relationship, someone can know you as a whole person, of course, and truly be in a position to commit to walk with you through any rough spots as they arise. I'm sure you know that.

But for me,as someone who's prone to be shy about staying open when I feel misunderstood or hurt, I think an more necessary thing that Derek may be saying is that in a therapy relationship any insights that need to be given to help the client can be delivered within the warmth --or at least commitment-- of that relationship. There's a world of difference between hearing something in that circumstance compared to having someone talk to you or about you on the internet. The internet is great as a medium to deliver words, but it can stink as a way to let people truly know you; additionally, it doesn't convey warmth well, and it's so easy to "mis-hear" someone's true caring intentions if they say something hard to hear. On other forums I see people often get hurt where no harm was intended.

Fred, I don't know you or anyone here personally, so I really try-usually successfully-not to assume anything demeaning about anyone, including you, other than the obvious fact that we're all very imperfect.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Ariel Jaffe,

Shasha--Thanks for the links you provided on this thread and the "Psychoanalytic therapy down to earth" thread. They were helpful in answering some questions I had about psychoanalysis.

Before I go to sleep, I wanted to say this. I have only a superficial familiarity with therapy--I don't have the good experience with a humble therapist that you and most others here have had-- so I know that on top of the limitations of internet communication, I'm doubly likely to mis-hear your words.

So, when in an earlier post you talked about SP readers perhaps becoming aware of "Help Rejecting Complaining", I think I would have felt like I was being put in a rather chilly quarantine cell if it had been me you were talking about...like, "Beware-- she has the dreaded Help Rejecting Complaining disease." I know that's not how you mean it! Dr. Shedler's "That Was Then..." paper talked about how therapists recognize their own weakness and humanity as they seek to collaborate in finding healing with their patients. And I've seen that humilty and humanity in you. I just mean to say how it might have felt to me initially, with me being aware of my own sensitive tendency to assume a threat and draw back rather quickly when I'm worried about being isolated.

Dear Ariel,

I appreciate your question to me about this. Yes, how can such a nice person like me say such a stupid, hurtful thing?!

Your mulling over the group dynamics in a way that shows your tender heart and protectiveness of Fred is very sweet and thoughtful. Gail's post was similarily compassionate. My comment about “Help rejecting complaining” was a calculated risk: that the potential benefit of the group’s awareness of a harmful dynamic would outweigh the cost of it being hurtful. I see that I made the wrong choice, at least the way I presented it. In retrospect, I could at least have put it in a softer context or used different words. I guess I assumed Fred understood that he is certainly welcome and cared for at SP--judging by the history of our interactions. Hello, Fred....are you there?......



Ariel, maybe I could have you edit my posts? You are certainly gifted with tact and sweetness in your words…yes, that’s it, I’ll run them by you first!

Shasha:

First, it's kind of you to say I'm tactful in my words, but some people who know me, and some animals, would beg to differ with that thought. I do try to be thoughtful--mainly because some friends and my older sister have repeatedly told me I'm too blunt. I thought maybe they were just being too touchy, until one time a few years ago, my horse told me in no uncertain terms, with no drama, that I can be a real grouch. That was hard for me to discount and I started to listen up better to my friends' feelings. ( This horse is available for rent, at $500/day plus hay or grass, for especially thick-headed people.)

And Shasha, I know you are kind, so I figured you were taking a calculated, loving risk with your words. Just speaking for myself--I'm not trying to protect Fred--I am easily hurt by words, but not as easily healed by them. If I were in a room with a therapist, or even on the phone where I could sense voice tones, I can take quite alot of astute, incisive verbal surgery. On the internet, I'm a fish out of water. Plus, I take a critique much better if I'm comfortable that there's some sort of commitment between me and the other person...such as a sibling relationship, friendship, or therapy relationship.

I really do mean to speak only for myself. I instinctively trust you quite a bit, Shasha,--and likewise for the regulars here- and moreso after reading many of your posts. At the same time, I struggle with almost all people except strangers (such as at a concert where I'm really happy to be hanging out with a large group all enjoying something together) and well known friends to stay open when something feels like it might hurt. So thank you for explaining yourself so kindly. As I said, I thought you were probably doing what you confirmed you were, but it helps me be less squirrelly to hear it from you.

Dear friends,

Shasha, I indeed had quite the same feelings about this 'Help rejecting complaining' stuff as Ariel expressed so well. But me too I find you a kind person and I have been asking for help time and again, so I could understand it after all.

Although I have read much, I think I don't understand many things. Phil will of course understand that I am putting his latest private message to me here:

Fred, I do not agree with you that craniosacral and other body therapies address emotional issues, at least not in the way psychotherapy does. I've been away from the forum but have read some of your exchanges with others about psychotherapy and you seem adverse to the idea from past experiences, which is too bad. I hope you can find a good counselor who can assist you in this regard. It doesn't have to be a psychiatrist or psychologist. Clinical social workers are often very good; look for someone with experience in dealing with family of origin issues.
Peace, Phil

Last Friday, I went to this ayurvedic therapist who is only specialized in giving massage and was quite honest about not being able to do much more. He adviced me to certainly go to this other therapist, but there again it is all about energetic and emotional body work... He is not a psychotherapist or psychologist or social worker, but as I heard he is very good in dealing with emotional issues. I ask myself what there is more about disciplines such as psychodynamics and primal integration.

Clare wrote:
When I say psychotherapy I mean psychodynamic, primal, anything which will connect your head to your body and your feelings....... exactly what I have said before. All is psychotherapy ( TRANSLATED HEALING OF THE SPIRIT)

You will all know
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_therapy
and the work of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_Hellinger

A colleague social worker just said to me that system therapy works with the here and now.
I had talks during more than a year with a psychiatrist, but since I don't remember almost anything of my youth (he even practiced hypnotherapy which didn't succeed either), it didn't bring me any relief.

Another question is: does one have to go again through the suppressed emtions/pain or not? Some say it is necessary for healing, others say it isn't.

I can say some things about my family constellation when I was young but that is all.
Moreover, Hellinger seems to be very controversial and dogmatic.

Where do I find someone who integrates all those different aspects?

Fred

Shasha, you are right to the point about this somatization disorder.

Fred

Hi Fred,

One doesn't have to remember one's past to receive healing from it's negative effects. For that, you need a therapist skilled in transference issues (see Shedler's paper on psycholanalysis).

With somatization problems, the body is a kind of theatre for the emotional pain that is "acted out" again and again. And in a few of your posts you report that your pain has gotton worse 1) around your father, 2) returning to work, and 3) in reaction to some simple-minded, dogmatic, religious folks--all of these suggesting that your physical pain is related to the emotional significance of those things.

So yoga and body work would not likely bring relief to your somatic symptoms as long as the emotional conflicts do not get resolved/healed. I know I'm repeating myself here, so I'll stop already!

Peace,
Shasha

Someone wrote me on this Hellinger:

Hi, Fred...
>Hellinger) and old mental patterns is essential but I always thought that emotional body work also addresses these issues. <

Of course, it´s better to let the hands from this man - Hellinger. If you are in crisis, you will get a nervous breakdown; some people have made suicide after the setting up as I read in the media...
Yes, Freddy, a controversial and - not my own meaning - a criminal person who let the people more down and making money with his theses. He loads blame up to people who need help, and of course, it is sick, to load up blame to people, to transfer blame from parents or grandparents or still more generations from the past. From the time on, I was in a family-setting up (?), my problems began - even one person liked to help me to overcome from my suffer about the lost of S. After this three days I were there, my hard nightmares began, my lost memories came back, and it don´t help me, to know that, what the release from this time was - and that´s the reason, because I cannot trust "professionals".
The bad luck was, that I didn´t know that he is a controversial person and the person who made this gift for me, also didn´t know it.

Dear friends,

I didn't have this extreme pain as I have now at thsi moment. I am getting mad because of this ongoing tension in my chest.
I am still into http://www.bodymindworks.be/
I went three times.
This therapist is also very good in symbolic language (of the soul) but I don't know whether it can really help me. For God's sake, what to do??? I am suffering so extremely from loneliness, certainly in week-ends!
Do I have to go for psychoanalysis?
I don' seem to understand anymore (or not yet) what you all tried me to say???
Is this guy unsufficiently trained in psychological issues?
Please pray for me!!!
Sometimes I get some relief from adoration, rosary prayer.

Fred

quote:

I am getting mad because of this ongoing tension in my chest.

I think your body's wisdom knows best Fred. Perhaps you need to get really mad to release the tension and move through it....

Relief is fine, but it is what it is - relief!

Fred,
I do not mean to take lightly the sincere intention of your seeking, your searching, and your pleading for an answer. Those who follow Jesus to God learn the way to the garden of Love to experience intimate encounter with our Lord.

Let your mind be silent until you can speak of Love.
There are no books in the world that can do anything but point you toward the Source of all Love.
Only your heart can name the Beloved One who will free you from your pain.
Self focus keeps endless thoughts circling within the self, and blocks the heart from opening....causing great pain.
Talking, talking, talking, talking does not ease the loneliness, it aggravates it. Silence allows the invisible One to enter your heart.

The heart must open... and Love will ascend like the rising moon or the ascending sun
in the sky of the soul.
Nothing will truly ease your pain except the pure Love of God.

Divine Love is flowing around you, surrounding you, waiting for your surrender to what you
cannot grasp with the mind....release your clutching at the knowledge of the rational mind.

Allow the fountain of living water to cool your burning pain, and let it rain upon your endless longing, which at a very deep level is for the soothing balm of Pure Love.

This life-giving fortune is already yours by grace....be silent and receive it....gratefully.

Open your heart and feel the infinite generosity of God.

In the Wake of His Great Love,
Naomi

My goodness, Naomi, that's absolutely beautiful!

Yes Naomi, It's beautiful. I echo Derek's words. Only one who has experienced this can write with such grace.

Dear Naomi:

I also found your words refreshing in a visceral way; and somehow they convey not a pat answer but the sense, as noted by Clare, that you speak from real experience.

While I don't want to mistakenly hijack something Clare said earlier, I'd like to note from my own experience that I've found it good to just be honest, even if angry, with God. Naomi's words are meaningful, and welcome, in me, I think in part because I know from my own whiny experience, that Jesus also will meet me where I truly am--angry with Him and confused, but willing to say so to His face even while knowing I'm being unjust and immature. More recently as His work has taken deeper root in me, a genuine gratefulness has sprung up. But I couldn't go from point A to point D in my case--grieving a friend's death-- without turning repeatedly to Him with an acknowledgement of where I really was for a long time--angry, confused, feeling He'd been too hard on me--anything but grateful.

Fred, again, I don't mean to compare my struggles to yours. But I do want to clarify that, in speaking of a friend of mine who was killed, I should say that it happened 13 years ago, and it's really taken me this long to understand how angry I was about it! But my body has known all along how really mad I was--it was literally something I "had to get off my chest"--repeatedly, and in boring detail, to our good and long-suffering Maker and a patient friend -- before I felt my breathing free itself up.

For me, breathing better was never the goal, as I had no pain, so again, I don't mean to imply that I know exactly what you're going through, Fred.

Dear friends,

Thank you so much!
By the word mad I meant really crazy. I had to take some more medication yesterday afternoon to hold on. At such moments, I understand that people commit suicide.
I cannot stand this loneliness anymore. I more and more feel isolated (certainly when being alone at home) although I play theatre, I paint, I pray a lot, I do many things and I know what silence is ...
I cannot explain it!
A colleague advices me to stop for a while all contacts with this devotional woman. She is good-hearted and she would do everything for me but things are not right and I cannot communicate about so many matters and going for a 'date' is something which I don't dare to do!
There is also here this scupulosity in the sense that I think that having a girl friend (and of course everything involved with it...) will cause a separation from God!
These are not easy matters for a Christian after all!
But there is a lot to Christian faith. Compare Padre Pio (suffering, sacrifice mysticism) with St. Bernard (bride mysticism) or Eckhart (apophatic mysticism) or St. Francis and Celtic mysticism (nature mysticism).

Greetings in Christ,
Fred

I forgot to thank you, Naomi for your kind words.
But is not easy at all to keep the mind silent in such circumstances!
After all, surrender is the one and all but a path to grow into.
And ther is this overwhelming paradox:
I am alone at home in such pain and the I go to a tearoom and seeing those couples, I feel still more lonely. On the other hand, when I can talk to or just be with someone who understands (always partly of course), the pain is less present.
So, I know that the cell will learn me everyting but on the other hand I probably have to plan my week-ends better. But even there seems to be this resistance to go somewhere...
My pain is unpredictable!!!
Nothing will truly ease the pain except the pure Love of God!
Do you understand how much I have prayed throughout these years!
You don't say a word about therapy as others have done on this forum?

Fred

PS Did aynone read the other thread on psychologists of the soul?
Hillman and Moore are opponents of a logical, trying-to-fix-things therapy....

Ariel,

Not at all feeling hijacked, in fact heard. Don't get me wrong I too raged and raged and raged for what seemed like forever around life's circumstances until I came to a place of insight, to discover that my pain was caused by humanity and it's separated condition, and not by God!

So rage is fine as long as it's directed safely to where it belongs. Christ can't enter in fully until we have cleared the decks so to speak, and from my experience, people can't do this alone - we need the enlightened witness to be with us, and not some 'nice' do gooder.

To All who come to this place of peace and welcome to share with each other....
I have appreciated your faithfulness to your own experience in your exchanges with each other, the compassion for pain, and your honesty about the emotions of loss and all that affects our wellbeing. I lost three of the major people in my life in a period of three years, and I had to enter into the darkness that follows.....and I had to reach a point of wondering what could ever give me release and freedom from the ache I felt. I lost the identity that I thought defined who I was.

Certainly, anger can act as a catalyst to empower a change in us. We reach into the darkness for that elusive joy however we can.
For me, there was something about the stripping away of my own sense of control that led me to the surrendering and emptying that opened me to God in a new way. I read, I searched, I pounded heaven to find the answers, so what I share comes from the wave of divine presence that gave me what I couldn't imagine or achieve on my own. I think it is the "agonizing loneliness" that struck me in listening and reading of another's pain. Only God truly knows our hearts and can touch the empty places. The moment when God became real to me, not an idea or a belief or some concept that theology seemed to own, I began to live in a new way.
Nothing in the universe has touched my heart with the unimaginable healing and grace and unending stream of love in the way God continues to manifest in my life in a very personal and intimate way.
I have no ability to help anyone else find the key within them. I can only witness to the living Presence of what God has to give every person who truly seeks the companionship of the Holy Spirit at a cellular level, emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually, at the deepest heart and soul level of existence. It doesn't mean that all the problems go away. It has to do with how we live with them, and how we respond to them.
The grace of magnificent love helps us to bear them and rediscover an inner joy that transforms the aching loneliness and despair and anger and whatever else may be blocking our remembrance of the Source out of which we were created. It is being bereft of purpose and meaning that can sometimes invite the wave of love that can turn us inward to discover the light of God within our own hearts instead of seeking the answers in the world. Grace is a beautiful truth, a divine gift, and suddenly, the revelation of love can overtake our searching, and we let ourselves be loved without earning or deserving it. It is as if we were created to be loved, and then all we can do is love in return. The miracle is in every story of conversion across the world....waiting just the other side of the veil of mystery that hides God from our outer seeing. Love rises up from within us in an astounding way if we dare to allow it.
We cry out and say yes to the miracle of this life we are given and to the wondrous love that longs to be released. The Holy Spirit shapes itself to our deepest longing, and we carry a secret joy that cannot be described in mere words. There is no distance that love cannot bridge at a heart level. Heart to heart to heart we find our reason for being as the Spirit is released within us to know the ways we have been created in the image of God.
Why would I risk writing of such an experience to share with you if it weren't as available to you as it is to every heart ever created.

With much Love to each one of you,
Naomi

quote:

Originally posted by



So rage is fine as long as it's directed safely to where it belongs. Christ can't enter in fully until we have cleared the decks so to speak, and from my experience, people can't do this alone - we need the enlightened witness to be with us, and not some 'nice' do gooder.

Clare: Yes, I think I understand what you mean. Thanks for sharing some of your own experience here.

As for directing the rage to God, I can feel a difference in me between "gossiping" about God to a friend but not engaging Him directly, compared to facing Him first with my real, raw concerns-- selfish and immature though they may be--while also seeking human insight. One is false friendship with Him, the other resonates as true friendship to me.

quote:

Originally posted by Naomi:
To All who come to this place of peace and welcome to share with each other....
I have appreciated your faithfulness to your own experience in your exchanges with each other, the compassion for pain, and your honesty about the emotions of loss and all that affects our wellbeing. I lost three of the major people in my life in a period of three years, and I had to enter into the darkness that follows.....and I had to reach a point of wondering what could ever give me release and freedom from the ache I felt. I lost the identity that I thought defined who I was.

Certainly, anger can act as a catalyst to empower a change in us. We reach into the darkness for that elusive joy however we can.
For me, there was something about the stripping away of my own sense of control that led me to the surrendering and emptying that opened me to God in a new way. I read, I searched, I pounded heaven to find the answers, so what I share comes from the wave of divine presence that gave me what I couldn't imagine or achieve on my own.

Naomi, well said, again. And thank you, too for speaking more of how you were brought to the place where you are.

You are right, I couldn't have imagined myself what God was trying to do in me. He's the doctor, the parent, the horse teacher, the sculptor, the lover, the creator--I am not.

Dear friends,

I've been away for a few days, helping my seven siblings settle the estate of my recently deceased father and mother, which is why I've been out of the loop, here. It's heartening to read your caring interactions. I should be back to "ordinary time" in a few days and look forward to joining in. Please carry on . . .

Peace, Phil

Clare:

As I re-read your post, I think maybe I did misunderstand what you meant about directing rage.

Fred:

I read your posts this morning, and several times throughout the day I thought about some of the things you wrote.

I don't have much to say, except to say that I think people may be remembering you in prayer even if they don't post here.