Thank you to everyone who has posted on this illuminating thread. I have every sympathy with you Huxley and I would share many of your anxieties. I was wondering Huxley if you have considered whether you face significant, unresolved childhood issues perhaps generated by a relationship to a narcissistic parent or family structure and that perhaps there may also be some deep seated insecurities as a result of early learning difficulties which can go hand in hand with the previous scenario (you mentioned not liking reading before the age of 18)? Have you ever looked at any of these threads? They offer reams of valuable insights.
The Narcissistic Family
Fear Of The Abyss - Aleta Edwards
Attachment Avoidance: Addiction to Alone Time
Covert Depression
Splitting as a Symptom of Internal Considering
The Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine Aron, PhD.
Self-Compassion: Stop Beating Yourself Up and Leave Insecurity Behind
I also agree with Genero81 when he talks of a 'transition between motivations', which I would simplify to the difference between ‘thoughts and deeds’ or ‘wishes and actions’. There is a serious fault line here which undoubtedly turns so many of us into walking talking Hamlet's of inaction. Most of our fears relate to an imbalance in the ego which the Predator’s Mind is expert at co-opting. Children of narcissists often experience a chasm of emptiness between their secret expectation of self and the cold, hard reality of life. They have been so damaged by the absence of any true feelings of being worthwhile in themselves that they need to create an inflated, prickly ego to cover up for the total lack of validated self belief experienced at an early age. Thus, inadvertently, they take on many of the narcissistic traits of their abuser. I know for myself that moving beyond this stage is extremely challenging, especially when STS life smells blood and pushes all those programmed buttons!
Like a fish who knows nothing about water, such a person actually knows nothing about self worth no matter how much others point out the opposite, no matter what feedback they get from the surrounding world, and without great effort of will, can find no internally generated means of transcending this reality. It seems to me that the fear of posting is the resistance of the Predator’s Mind to the potential of us escaping this fate at this time. Like most self perpetuated horrors, the wounds of shame and self disgust are ‘familiar’ and ‘comforting’ for they are self confirming and known. They are easy – beating oneself up, blaming oneself, self hatred, etc - these are intimate, much loved friends in the dark. They were taught young and learned so deep that they have become the only known reality for that person. The learned survival tactic was to invent self importance through fantasy and a kind of fake will that stretches a mirage of confidence and worth across the wound. So putting oneself at risk of not being that clever, or aware, or able to turn a phrase, or whatever it is the voices within suggest – of being found out as the mediocre, frightened, damaged creature one is - simply can’t be risked! Of course that is exactly what one needs to risk. Of being mirrored, of seeing oneself with all one’s warts and welt marks throbbing and learn that you can survive the experience (I think of the image of the part of Voldemort’s soul hidden under a bench in the final Harry Potter movie, grotesque, red raw and cowering – I remember upon seeing that the first time I thought instantly ‘that’s me!’)… but instead we say No, no,… much safer to keep saying ‘I’ll post some day soon’ or ‘I’m not worthy’ or ‘I’m not ready yet’!
Of course we are not ‘worthy’ or 'rady yet' otherwise our actions would mirror our thoughts – but we can at least try harder at working to become so, and its deeds of effort that matter not the false chains of comfort that bind us. This forum is about the deed of sharing words as deeds and of making that act a sacred one – imbued with compassion and trust and honesty and above all courage. Pick up thy bed and walk! That’s what we have to do as individuals. Risk the shock of being seen! Do what Gurdjieff instructed – seek out uncomfortabliity, use shock as a means to rebirth. For those of us with the wrong kind of water, we need to raise the stakes of the need. We need to see the water as our enemy – that if we don’t get out fast, the water will drown us! We need to grow some lungs and crawl out onto the mud, gasping and risking; to go beyond our comfort zones and our familiar reflexes and force ourselves to do what does not come as naturally as it does to some others.
So let’s all work together at getting over ourselves. Spend less time worrying about how we may be perceived by some imagined core group (like mummy and daddy) and start shaping up together; then we might actually be of use to the forum and to the wider world. You’ve come this far, don’t fall at the last when achieving what you set out to achieve is within your grasp. So Huxley I say to you, I am here side by side with you and the same goes for all the other members of this forum who struggle to be as active as we know we should be, come on.. let’s dig in together and become more active, one post at a time.
We would do well to remember how the C’s of late have suggested that things will get interesting if the Network expands to ‘the full tribal unit strength’ and ‘many others take the initiative to move up to the next stair step’. Sounds to me as if we need no greater motivation; let’s not be the ones who let the Ark down!
Ps although I should have edited this I didn’t! I ignored the voices which said ‘its been said before’, ‘you’re rambling’, ‘it’s a waste of yours and others time’… there may be truths in all these statements but for now, just to show others how its worth getting stuck in, here is a post straight off the cuff! Nobody died! The ground did not open up beneath me. I’m still here!
