Awareness To Do List!

Abandon all hope of being validated by me!….it made me stop in my tracks. Yes yes of course was my reaction, I know enough to stop when told but I didnt understand why.

I know I have asked for validation, manipulated for it. But I never occurred to me that you would declare an absolute embargo on validation. Ok You will not validate flirtation, you will not validate flippancy, you will not validate cleverness but I guessed there would be some level that I would find where you would say that is of value, that is valid, be like that for me and we will get on fine.

Ok so I am slow to connect the dots….Any validation is strengthening my ego. It is the ego craving for validation, to be see as something of value, valid. And you say the ego, the personae the faces have no value to you. you are not interested in them.

Ok got it (for now at least) but …..

I must I think apply this to my husband too.

Yesterday he took me to lunch. I dont know if it has been 5 years or 8 years or more since he has done this. The lunch was a simple meal at a local cafe, but he asked me to just come and have lunch with him. Of course when we have been out with the kids doing something else we have sat at a cafe to feed the kids but I have suggested often over the years that while the boys were at school we could just meet for lunch as he seldom eats when the kids and I do at night. It had never happened. The conversation was light and comfortable we shared each others food etc, we went for a little wander to a furniture shop to see if we could find a little table for his Mum, then after as we past an adult shop, I made a cheeky comment so he dragged me in. (I couldnt find anything that interested me) but I am saying this because it was playful and affectionate and intimate. Remember last week he used my name for the first time in what seems like forever and it had such an impact on me after so long feeling shut off. You said he didnt do it to validate me, but …..

After so many years of not being validated by him, not being given any of his time, not feeling that affection …… I am sort of scared of losing myself in it. Wanting to do anything to get more of it….of taking my desire to be aware and authentic and honest and exchanging it for the desire to be validated, valued and cherished by him.

I am not scared of what I might do I am concerned about losing myself in why I do it. I am aware of the danger of his validation of me motivating my various faces to be more of the face he likes.

I’m struggling to find clarity with this, struggling to be honest in this. Their is a saboteur, some part of me that wants to pull away from the very intimacy that I crave from my husband. I am shaking. I fear falling in need with him again, (not falling in love because love is nothing like this pathology.) This fear makes me reactively pull up my most powerful ego face. The effort not to don its super confident, sassy, cheeky seductive personae and play it with you is leaving me raw and naked and vulnerable and insecure. I am afraid of my desire. BECAUSE I know that desire is not pure. Its not true. It is fear manifest as desire. That part of me wants to use you. Use you right now as a thing to pull my need for connection away from him. Help me prevent myself from hoping, wanting, expecting things to become different and then I can be happy. I am frightened of buying back into the illusion that he has the power to make it all better for me. I am frightened of handing back my power to him. Believing in this kind of power again. Believing in this fairy tale where someone outside of me can make me happy. You wont feed this illusion. It feels safe in some way that I know you will foist the responsibility back onto me, one part of this facade wants to use you as a mere distraction, some way of preventing another part of the facade holding onto that one addiction too tightly too unconsciously. The addiction to HIM making it all happily ever after…….

There is an unnecessary contempt for him. And the ego parts he is playing for me now. And resentment for the ego dramas he has played on my ego in the past. How silly is that! To generate the poison of hatred to bolster an unwanted illusion, worse the memory of that illusion!!

I have felt the temptation to seduce him. Understand I am delighted with any genuine loving impulse towards him that makes its way to a physical expression. I have no problems with that. But I am wary of the insecure little slut who decides to grab the reigns and reaffirm her prowess. I will not be inauthentic with myself anymore.

My reaction to use you as an object of my flirtation, it is contemptuous of you too. To play that role, that character, to make myself feel good is contemptuous of men. I have never seen the underlying hatred of men that comes with that face. It is beyond simply manipulative, it is an act of hatred and arrogance. The willingness of a man to be seduced does not excuse it, how can it be a source of true pleasure when the intent is not authentic. All it is, is the mutual ramification of falseness. A mutual strengthening of egos.

I know love, it has nothing to do with how nice or otherwise he is to me. It has nothing to do with who he is. It does not identify with the him-ness of him or anyone else. When I love it has no other, no someone, no focus. I cant honestly say I love any one person because thats not what love feels like to me. But the temptation to trade love for the euphoric intoxication of being wanted, validated, desired again……

I am becoming aware of the choice. I can often feel the intention to manipulate arise and I can pretty much guess that a fear of some description lies beneath it. I have been writing it, forcing myself to become conscious of it and accountable for it. I have asked you to witness this because it makes me feel even more accountable. I am experiencing awareness of many of these ego traits in relation to you because you haven’t given the predicted unconscious responses that I am used to.

Is the awareness of the intention to play a role enough? I am able now to say; I am struggling with a slut, hang on its hard for me to concentrate on what you are saying because this slutty insecurity wants to take over and play games, distract, detract or diminish this truth we are exploring. Will this disclosure alone be enough to dissolve the pattern? If not what else do I need to do???

I want to be spoon fed, coaxed, led. I want to play good girl, I am asking for validation again. Tell me what to do, I will do it and you will be proud of me and like me. Its another role, another role, role after role after role. Why bother swapping seductive slut for little good girl slut? Seducer is at least more fun to play, doesn’t ask you to play protector, leader, Daddy, she at least has balls and purpose.

I’m trying to find some way of being real without ANY roles and faces. Should I just shut up and bite my tongue, sit on my hands and be silent unless I am sure that the sluts are not in the drivers seat. Will I recognize it when they are every time? What else can I DO about this???

I need to practice being authentic with those who expect that from themselves and me. It must become a habit to be authentic so that not to be becomes a hair shirt. I must be vigilant, watch for the fear that is the precursor of the slut face. When the fear arises speak it. Give it a true form. Don’t let it don a personae to play out. The fears are for the moment real. I know they have no long lasting reality but denying them now is just another delusion.

I have fears perhaps they are all arising from the fear of non existence but right now they center around the fear of not being accepted, not being desired or wanted, not being enough, not being heard or seen for who I am, never feeling that someone else understands me, the fear of being surrounded by people who simply don’t connect at any meaningful level, being surrounded by people who simply want a face to reflect themselves back at them. The fear that even in  my most intimate relations I am simply a mirror for someone else’s ego. The fear of sacrificing my growing awareness for the hope of comforting my ego. These fears need to be heard otherwise they will continue to control the reigns.

Is being aware of the fears and the faces they don, voicing them and acknowledging them enough to have them fade away? That much alone has taken courage. Is still taking courage. Is the next step to dismiss them. Discard and consciously reject each face every time it arises? What would I need to do to resolve these fears beyond acknowledging them as they come up?

I need to have the courage to be authentic in every situation, with every one I meet, to deal with all people with the standard I am struggling to hold with you even though the cost of not doing so is the termination of this friendship. But with everyone else I am afraid that the opposite may be true. That to be authentic would cost the relationship. I am not there yet.

I realized as I wrote that earlier today that my old fear of being un accepted alone and unloved is now less than my fear of being a fake. I am scared to live the rest of my life as a bunch of ego compulsions. Just blindly crashing against other ego’s. I won’t stand by and let that occur. I need practice speaking to people who are authentic. Who can see an ego trip a mile away and won’t buy into it. In my life you are unique in that, I dearly value you for it….. Months ago you accused me of only bringing my vulnerability, that bit of me which I see as broken into this relationship. I think I am guilty of that again. I am worried that as I feel more confident I will be seen as arrogant, if I relax and become playful I will be perceived as being sexual if I discuss something without the raw wound feeling I am accused of being cerebral and fake. I am on guard against my ego, ‘this bit is broken, I am not being true here, I am at fault’ seems to be the only safe way to be open with you. I will get better at this, but for the moment I am awkward with it.

So what is at the top of my To Do list?

1. Don’t stuff up this opportunity to learn from you by indulging my ego.

2. Practice being authentic, honest and aware with my mentors.

3. Be aware of my ego faces. Continue to shine light on how when and why they show up.

4. Be more conscious of listening to everyone without needing to have a quick reply.

5. When the impulse arises to react to anyone with any one of the ego faces, pull the focus back to the heart meditation breath and wait.

This seems to be focused on what to do when the fear arises rather than addressing the source of the fear itself. Resolve the fear underlying this.

1. Remind myself I would rather be alone, than feel alone in a crowd of ‘friends’.

2. Practice letting myself be seen without ego faces.

3. Enjoy what is, let go of what could be and what was.

4. Apply  Who am I? to feeling fear. Who am I that is afraid? Rather than; I want to manipulate, why do I want to be manipulative? I am afraid, what am I afraid of? Where did the fear come from? Why is it still an issue? Is there more under this? What happens if I don’t act on this impulse? Does he need to know that I have this impulse? am I being dishonest if I don’t tell him? Am I asking him to buy into it either in reaction or as a rescuer by revealing it? What does he think of me now? etc etc etc Yup! Who am I? It is a much more destructive path.

Ok I have read my lists a couple of times and I am aware of a resistance to part of it. I have experienced warm feelings of intimacy through the rawness of this kind of disclosure and your acceptance of me despite it. I am being asked by you to conduct myself differently from now onward. To be stronger, more autonomous somehow. but… Who am I that is frightened of losing the intimacy?……