Client Journal: Sad Lonely Boy Afraid to Express

Post Date November 23, 2010
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The dialogue with myself these past couple of weeks makes me sad. I know (again) so many ways I have to keep the sad, lonely little boy quiet and alone. Repeating my family’s work on him. Very elegant.

Everyone has broken pieces, I think, resenting (more accurately: fearing) the prospect of healing work. It’s not like that just goes away.

My life is so fortunate, I think, outlawing feelings of sadness.

So I dwell on the things I’m grateful for, which are many, and genuine.

And yet. What I am aware of in myself is that enormous unwillingness, fear, to express, especially the negative. “C’mon, J,” you said in last session, “Don’t be a withholder.” I have tremendous fear of expressing the wrong thing, saying something only half-true and therefore hurtful.

I’ve been reflecting about how this shuts me down.

I am happy doing creative work: theater, lesson-design, teaching. I loved the No Holds Bard work. But I don’t work on such projects until a deadline is nigh. I don’t do any creative work just for my own satisfaction these days. (For awhile, before I met K, I carried Shakespeare monologues around with me, just to memorize for my own pleasure. I have about a dozen still by heart… I love them. And I think a lot about writing, but then quickly paralyze myself with thoughts of product and audience.)

And my life is full. I need much more exercise than I am able to arrange for myself, for instance. I’ve taken to getting up between 4:30 and 5 every day in order to have time for myself, which usually means I can go to the gym. But there’s school work to do as well, which takes up some mornings. Weekends and evenings I’m with N, or N and K, or occasionally just K. I’d like to arrange more social time with friends and family (my brother and his wife and kids moved here), more dates with K, more… you know. Life. I try to balance it all.

But what I got in reflecting last night is that the time constraint is an illusion, that I can take time for me if I choose. If I work out two or three mornings, for instance, that leaves two mornings at least that I can sit and write. That’s better than not sitting. I can schedule that.

I need to listen to the sad lonely boy and feel with him.

I need to write, for myself, until I discover what creative, expressive work I want to be doing. I have been feeling that yearning, for some creative passionate endeavor that I want to commit to 100%, as I did with NHB, and that loss to know what it is. I am aware that freeing that up is connected to the process of freeing my bereft lonely boy self to feel and express.

Client Journal: Rejecting my Sadness

Post Date March 28, 2010
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So I was distracted for awhile analyzing everything that was wrong with C in avoidance of my truth.

I was picking her apart…hating her…and then I had a revelation…not just a brainy one but a deep one.

I realized that she makes me feel my own rejection…it is so hard to explain but I somehow felt that all the anger that kept coming up for me with her was that she constantly rejects her own sadness and I was judging that so harshly only to realize that, that is what I have been doing this whole time.

I hate her fake smile and the way she numbs out her pain..it makes feel the deepest parts of my anger. Now I fully realize that I have been doing the same thing just in a different way…the mirror effect.

I am now working on stabilizing, grounding and action…

I would soon like to begin therapy again but I decided I would benefit most when I was feeling more grounded..which is a bit of an oxymoron but makes perfect sense to me.

The more time I spend away from therapy..the more I realize how much I learned from it and benefited from it.

I was sick of being lonely and sad. I could no longer stand in the fire ..I guess I kind of gave up ..took a breather..I was sick of my depression..being so serious and beating myself up.. I needed an escape and somehow gave myself permission to go numb for a bit because the pain and self hatred got so great for me.

Now I realize that I love the deeper sad part of me…and I dont like how it feels to reject her…..it is painful. The sad part of myself is actually the more beautiful part…at least from what I have discovered thus far. She is the more real part.

Anyway…I don’t know if you minded that I checked in with you…but I just wanted to
say thanks…again….for teaching me so much…

I look forward to learning more about accepting all the parts of myself that I reject.

Here’s a poem:

My wounded heart warrior wants to be left alone in her weeping darkness.
I hit her with my judgment stick.
An invasion…a rape as I spit on all who she longs to be. Poking and prying…poking and prying

I am the Queen! And you are shit!
I stand before my warped-twisting mirror, dangling and clawing up the rejection of my own sadness. Stepping close to my hope
One foot in front the other dragging bloody perseverance

I Lunge towards my very own existence, flying through freedom kisses
landing with the running wolves

Client Journal: Fear of the Depth of Sadness

Post Date January 13, 2010
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Client: I exploded. I exploded. My heart became light. I can breathe. I cried I broke. I feel open. I feel something flowing through and out of  me. My chest broke. The broken pieces melted and flowed through. I broke down and I exploded. My chest felt heavy. I hit the pillows until I broke open. Now I am here coming back from where I was. I am back. I am here. And I look back and wonder about the grief that came out of my body. The pain, the crying. Where did it all come from? Have I really been keeping that locked inside this whole time? How sad? It’s been living in me and I kept it locked in all this time. How sad. So much pain hidden and trapped and I’m sure there is more there. More sitting inside of me, living and dwelling, resting in my heart to heal.

Marta: What stops you from going deeper into your sadness?

Client: I don’t want to see it.  I am afraid of the depth of my sadness. I am afraid of knowing how sad I really am.

Marta: Do you want to learn from your sadness?  Learn to take care of it with love instead of judgment? Feel the beauty of the sadness as the healing of your heart?

Client: I’m afraid and I want to.

Marta: Sadness is a connection to the soul of your little girl’s heart. She needs to be seen and received in this sadness. The anger is a defense against the healing of the sadness. When you embrace sadness it becomes compassion…and it helps you to understand your how much you need to be loved, recognized, treated with kindness and care. It helps you set boundaries, make discernment and choices in how you want to be treated in life. Keep going at a slow pace. Bit by bit, step by step…your heart is a tender organ…when it breaks open, it is allowing the light to come in…

Client Journal: Sadness is Natural

Post Date December 15, 2009
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Client: I am feeling sad today.  and yesterday I felt sad too.  i started letting my head kick in and i have been allowing myself to feel hopeless and defeated and horrible about myself. I am just feeling really lonely right now.  and I wanted to ask you for some encouragement and confirmation that i am not going to be like this forever… that i will have a good life and be happy eventually and won’t be alone forever.

Marta: Feeling sad is different than feeling defeated and horrible about yourself. Defeated and horrible feelings about yourself are judgments and you are telling yourself things are hopeless. The sadness is just release from past wounded feelings or something that is happening in the present that you are needing more of, or haven’t expressed yet. Sadness is a natural feeling. Be kind to your sadness it has a gift for you because it just wants some attention and nurturing. I am going to tell you when you stop judging your feelings and begin to receive and love them as partners in life, then you will begin to feel self-acceptance. I know the sadness can be overwhelming, but don’t go into “defeated and horrible feelings.” Telling you everything will be all right is a fairytale. You need to participate in what you believe is possible for yourself; that you will feel better about yourself, even if you feel sad.  But, everything will be all right and get better and better the more and more you learn to receive and create the inner support in the present moment  I know that you are learning to do that…You are on the path…Just by reaching out to me and asking for reassurance is a step toward self love. Your sadness is the child wanting to be held and stroked. Just feel I am there next to you letting you know that you are doing well, and the sadness is part of the journey. It takes time and patience to give yourself permission to be sad…..it can be a cleansing feeling not a defeated belief. Sadness cannot defeat you, it can only help you understand how much you need to be loved and to love yourself. Go in and feel the sadness. Hold it. Embrace it…don’t JUDGE IT. It wants to be nurtured. I am giving you support and nurturing…now how can you give it to yourself. What belief do you need to let go of about the sadness that is not serving you? Tap on your collar bones…Keep saying I am loved even though I am sad.  I am loved by________ (list who loves you and cares for you, is there for you).  Receive all of whom and what supports you… fill yourself up… and then ask yourself who does the sadness want to express to?  What will transform your sadness to a sense of well-being?