Posted by galtin on October 1, 2001, at 22:18:15
In reply to Re: Getting it all out Kristi-galtin, posted by Kristi on September 30, 2001, at 23:26:47
But who knows, I will heed your advice, and hopefully think of someone comfortable enough to do this with.
kristi-"Sharing," as they so benignly call it in AA, is a bitch. I didn't get all chatty because it seemed like such a neat idea. A number of years ago I finally got the fact that I had a choice. I could either stop hoarding my emotions and start talking, or I could drink myself to death within the year. It was very, very hard at first and today I still sometimes need to grit my teeth.
Sometimes its funny. I think I have been the model of honesty, only to realize the next day that what I said was a bunch of bull. I am very easily deceived--by my own self. Which is another reason why I have to talk to others. They can tell me what they are hearing and this may be quite different from what I think I am saying. At this stage of my life, anyway, I learn more about myself from other people's reactions to my various "self-disclosures" than I would from a year of self-reflection.
I used to luxuriate in self-reflection. What I really loved, thoug, was first my own ego and second the illusory sense of safety.
When I started down the new path I hated it. I thought I was uniquely cursed to have this humiliating and undignified ordeal forced on me by fate. But like so many things, the more I did it, the less difficult it got. I have sometimes revealed more than I should have to somebody and then later felt betrayed or used. But whether I confronted this louse or not, I got over it and very slowly I started to get freed from my need to control how other people think of me.
I also found out, by the way, that other people think about me far less than I used to think they did.
I have been doing this for a number of years now. Sometimes it still seems like hard work, especially after I have lapsed into a period of isolation. But if I don't do it, my emotions feed chaotically on themselves, and I start to feel like somebody I don't want to live with.
I didn't mean to go on and on. But I know so well how the locked soul feels and I hope you can begin to liberate yours. I bet for you that it would turn out to be worth the trouble.
galtin
poster:galtin
thread:11796
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20010927/msgs/11988.html