Thoughts colliding in my brain, sometimes connecting like marbles ...sometimes like grenades, detonating walls from the past.. the last few days have been intense, as the consciousness of who I am expands, the walls that contain the past are crumbling.I say they're crumbling, I want them to go, but I'm scared of whats on the other side? The key events in my life that made me who I am...on the other side is freedom ... so why the fear? I'm listening to Cuban music as I write this. Sometimes oppressed people understand freedom better than anyone....
When every choice is controlled by someone else, dance & music become the medium of freedom of expression.
I'm analyzing the oppressive regime in my head...the key experiences that influenced my brain to make choices that don't serve me now. Sometimes the things I think, the choices I've made because of different experiences are SO DUMB!! How could I let the argument I had with my mother when she wouldnt let me listen to any other station but the classical one, make me tense for the REST OF MY LIFE when I listen to recorded music. My brains been taken hostage ....It's time for a revolution!!
I'm a musician who doesn't, usually listen to music....unless it's live. I've just started playing in a latin band, despite just about never listening to latin music. (I've already turned off the Cuban music, it was hurting my brain even though I like Cuban music). I listen to recorded music accidently, but hardly ever on purpose. I don't listen to recorded music, - but I do listen to the versions of reality that I've recorded in my head, replaying them over and over.....and I replay the worst moments when I made some very bad choices about reality. I made things important and formative when they shouldn't have been. I made some bad tapes from certain experiences, and I listen to them TOO MUCH. right now I feel like running away...problem is I want to run away from myself - and that's not possible. So instead... I have to come back to myself.
I tried to tell my friend about what happened last night, how I flashed back to Andy beating me up. How I skipped out of the reality of the present reality and into feelings and emotions from the past. I was talking to a woman I'd just met about learning salsa. She suggested giving it a go now, there were only a few people around and I could try it out with George, a lovely Chilean guy that I kinda fancied who was there. Only problem was that my very occasional Mexican lover who had pretty much been ignoring me all night (apart from the part where we played wonderful music together with the band) was there too...and all of a sudden I felt intense fear.The thoughts crossed my head that Filo may be jealous if he saw me dancing & also the thought that I was attracted to George caus he's just a really nice guy. But mostly I felt intense fear...and a feeling like walls were caving in - I felt claustrophobic and had to get out of there.
When I was walking down the street I realised the situation had triggered a fear from association with Andy beating me up after he saw me dancing with some male friends. We weren't touching, we were just having fun,enjoying the music. Andy had disappeared for three months without a word. I went through intense grief and then had thrown myself into music and dancing. John had become my dancing buddy. An happily married older man, who just loved dancing and encouraging others to share that passion (only on the dance floor though, he was always respectful & a total gentleman off the dance floor, & even there we only danced next to each other..). John is a lovely safe male friend who I have no physical attraction to at all. But when Andy came back, I'd become used to the freedom I enjoyed dancing and going out with John and other new friends. When Andy saw us dancing, and enjoying each others company in the music...his intense jealously was triggered. On the way home we went through a park and he exploded with anger. He tripped me up, and then made me lie on the ground while he attacked me.
But now that I understand where that fear was coming from... I simply have to let it go. And all the other fears that rattle around in my brain..all the associations with dance, with sex, with being physical that are painful, I can let go of them all.
I've seen in the last few days just how many loops I've had in my brain taking me to a bad place about being a physical person, being passionate, being sexual.
From being a baby in an incubator and desperately needing touch. From my father pushing me away when I wanted cuddles, trying to get him to hold me hand tighter because it felt good - when I was three and him making me feel like I'd asked something really bad... discovering gymnastics at twelve and absolutely passionately falling in love with the freedom & pleasure I found in my body - in being able to throw myself into the air or go round and round on the bars at school. In doing the splits, and backbends.... & then my brother getting turned on, the disgust I felt when I saw him masturbating behind a glass door. The hurt in his betrayal as the friend that I adored...the pain of the loss of his friendship when I finally confronted him. After his voyeurism continued for sometime. All associated with my greatest passion. The eating disorder I developed as I tried to fight with my body and fight the emotions and feelings I had. The isolation and loneliness I felt as I struggled with my feelings by myself. I only told my 47yr old twin sister about it a couple of weeks ago.
As well as this - My mother not allowing me to go to a gymnastics competition I worked towards for months after an argument. My mother always using gymnastics to punish me when I misbehaved because she knew I loved it so much, but never going to see me perform in competitions or go to classes with me. For some reason I feel I have to collect every single memory that's sifting around inside me...get them out and then light a big fire and burn them. I'm really aware most of all right now of the baby inside me that desperately wants cuddles and doesn't know how to get them. Wants to be held close....
I feel the key to undoing all those painful associations is within reach...that just seeing it all for what it is releasing the power they hold over me... I want to feel good about my body, not for how it compares to all those images out there, but for how good it feels to have a body, how good it feels to move, how good it feels to touch and be touched...That every part of my body is good and beautiful and natural as God intended it to be. And I want to start using my body again, to walk and climb and run and bend, and dance...I want to enjoy the immense pleasure that's possible as part being a physical being in a body. Not just the sexual parts, not excluding that either but enjoying having legs, and arms and hands and eyes... When I finish writing I'm going to walk up Mt Eden, and enjoy the earth and the trees and the view, and stop at my favorite tree... where I often shed a few tears as I pray and meditate. And I'm going to give thanks for every part of this body that God created exactly as it is. And I'm going to give myself permission to ENJOY being physical again. And I'm going to LOVE every particle of this body I've been gifted. That's all.
No comments:
Post a Comment