Discovering my feelings and needs.
The following excerpts are indicative of my journey from Jackalling to thinking about and identifying feelings and needs, what my feelings are pointing to, that is, what needs are at stake. As I think about my identity statement, I see the peace warrior starting to emerge. I’m starting to recognise my unmet needs, my anger and my timidity in the face of opportunities to express myself honestly. I’m seeing the beginnings of some self-regulation while at the same time not taking full responsibility for my feelings and needs. I can see myself as a work in progress. And I’m not yet stepping up to Giraffe-ing: honest self expression. But right now, I’m celebrating the work I did when I was being coached by Alex Norman. Her caring support gave me the courage and skills to explore myself.
Journal - 26.8.2019
Today is my third session with Alex, my coach. Before sitting down with her, I want to reflect on the massive avalanche of learning and healing that has been given to me over the last month.
To begin, I need to list who I’ve been given to work with to see my part in each of the painful conflicts.
Dad
Kief, my host mother in the US
Becky, my host sister in the US
Emily, my daughter
Ned, my son
Tony, my partner
Johanna, my sister
In amongst the feeling-fulness of my interaction with these people are constant lessons. They are the lessons of self empathy and humanising. I am learning that it is important to connect with myself first. Alex suggested I use the following questions as I explore my relationships and my reactions.
1. What is going on with me?
2. What am I telling myself about them?
3. What is alive for me, what are my unmet needs that my interactions with them reveal?
In the moment with each of these people whom I love, my ability to self empathise is diminished as I get drowned in the hormones of fight, flight and fawn. But now I want to see if I can answer these three questions as I recollect and reflect on what happened between myself and them.
Dad
1. I have felt anger and resentment towards Dad because he was an ‘absent’ father, leaving all the work of parenting to Mum. I would recoil from him and his aloofness and or outbursts. I felt rejected by my father.
2. I told myself that he was a better business man than a father; that he was more interested in the boys than me, a daughter. He was gendered in his relationship with me. He never praised me.
3. What was alive in me was a screaming desire to be seen and hear. I wasn’t invisible but yet I had no voice and had no presence. I needed both. I became the ‘good girl’ to be seen and heard, to received praise and love. I remember getting the Year 7 bronze medallion award for academic excellence at school. Dad was so pleased he took Mum and I out to lunch in the Sydney CBD. I ordered barramundi. I was so proud that day. I had managed to get my father’s attention. He gave me his acknowledgment. I have lived with these feelings of resentment and anger all my life, and with them also the feeling of guilt for having these feelings. I’ve carried an enemy image of my father throughout my life.
Kief
1. I felt nervous about spending time with Kief on my trip to the US. I wanted to be there for her and have a warm, enjoyable time. But I was also worried about feeling trapped by an old lady whose views I no longer share and who will want me to listen and approve of her thinking and life choices.
2. I’m telling myself that she is a drug addict; that she is deluded because she thinks her back pain is her problem. Her problem is her conservative religious views which have cruelled her all her life, in my opinion. Her trust and reliance on the western medical model to alleviate her pain has left her an 80 yr old drug addict on oxycodone.
3. When I think of her faith and her addiction I am very angry. I think she has been complicit in her own victimhood. She allowed it all to happen to her. What is alive in me is a screaming desire to shake her out of her complacent victimhood and into a more powerful state of autonomy and agency over her own life. She says she is loner, but I hear that more as a cry, “I’m lonely but that’s my lot.” I am angry at her for accepting her lot and now she is just waiting to die. OMG. I’m so angry. I need her to change. I need/want to tell her all this!
Becky
1. I was looking forward to having some private, quiet time with my dear friend on my trip but that wasn’t to be. We were never alone for any length of time; we had Kief, Ayantu, Boran and Emily always in our earshot. I was disappointed about this lack of time together because I felt like I didn’t connect with her deeply in the way I needed so that I could communicate openly and honestly with her on our forthcoming road trip, particularly if conflicts arose.
2. It wasn’t long before I started to react to her. She was too sugary, always pointing/appraising in exaggerated rosy-ness. “So beautiful, so stunning, Oh, Liz, so special”. It was annoying me no end, particularly as I felt obliged to affirm her exaggerat3d appreciations. I wanted to tell her to shut up. She didn’t listen. Emily, Ayantu and I would be having a great conversation, having made important points or comments, then Becky would pipe up and say exactly the same thing as though she hadn’t heard what had just been said. She hadn’t listened. It was rude, in my opinion. She did this with driving directions, most annoyingly from the back seat. Ayantu and Emily would have addressed the route, looked at the options, and made the best decision and then Bec would pipe up and tell them to do just what they had agreed to do. She wasn’t listening and it was infuriating. And finally, she would command and demand, “..Liz, come with me.” “Liz, you have the front seat”, “Ayantu, take that off ramp”, “Hand me my glasses” – always in the imperative mood! Do this do that! No room for negotiation or free willingness. It drove me crazy and sent Emily spirally into reliving her own traumas. I was watching a slow train wreck between them, despite having given Becky clear direction on how to succeed with my emotionally fragile daughter. Of course, the train wreck arrived…
3. What was alive for me, amongst the array of Bec’s behaviours, was the unmet need for agency.
“Don’t tell me what to do, ask me, make a request!” And again the unmet need of being heard. “Don’t ignore me. I’m not invisible, please listen, I am worth of your attention”. I didn’t want to affirm her sugary appreciations. I didn’t want to feed the seemingly bottomless pit of neediness and low self esteem. I wanted to change the dynamic. I didn’t want to be positioned as the person to build her up. She has a choice. So I decided,.. no more affirmations from me. Eventually she stopped asking for them. I felt more autonomous and more in control of my choices after that.
Emily
1. So much has been going on for me. I’ve had a spectrum of emotions and feelings to do with Emily. When she was starting to struggle with Becky on our road trip, I empathised with her. I was having the same struggle. I had to witness a lot or Emily’s jackals directed at Becky. I was hoping and waiting for the moment of reflection when she would see her part ( her constructed enemy image of Becky ) in the emotional turmoil. I’m not sure how helpful acknowledging her enemy images was by way of helping her manage herself and self-regulate her emotions. I could have just fanned the flames. So when she snapped on the last day after 6 days of sniping and comments on the side to Ayantu about her mother, I was very disappointed. It felt like 14 yr old Emily was back, throwing a tantrum, forcing everyone to give her their undivided, negatively charged attention. As I observed, nobody actually did anything to her. She just couldn’t/wouldn’t cope with them and their idiosyncrasies. She snapped and I was sad and my old feelings of disappointment in her returned. I then turned into mother; told her, “Enough. Now get in the car.” I spoke to the 14yr old. She got in and I think realised what she was doing. Soon after, shame and guilt overran her as the adult Emily evaluated herself.
2. I told myself that she couldn’t control her emotions; that she lacks resilience; that she is relentless; that she will find a way to run away rather than face the reality of her intolerance. I also told myself that this is not my fight and that I can’t fix the situation. It is her choice to choose to be different. I hoped and wondered if she could. My waiting paid off. She apologised to Becky and Ayantu. It instantly cut the tension and enabled reconnection. The love directed at her by Ayantu, Becky and I was powerful.
3. Alive for me after her apology was a release of pent up, anxious energy. I didn’t realise how much emotional pressure was building up with me. I could feel the pressure release. At first it felt like a welling up of emotions and then it became tears. I cried quietly in the backseat behind sunglasses. It felt good. Emily eventually snuggled up beside me; having recovered she started to talk normally, and before I realised it, we were all back doing our usual enjoyable interaction. Emily had, of her own choice, freely reconnected with the group. For me, I was proud of her and of myself. My need for connection was restored. I hadn’t read my feelings up to this point to recognise that I was mourning a loss of connection between Emily and the others; and what might have been my loss of connection via association. I felt a new level of autonomy, like I had freely chosen to not try and fix it; the circumstances were Emily’s to address not mine. Earlier in the trip, when Becky and Ayantu sought clarification question about Emily’s behaviour, I provided explanations as well as advice on how to ‘be’ with Emily (no hugging or chasing her for connection) but I didn’t interfere. It felt good, autonomous, free of someone else’ burden.
Ned
1. After I listened to Ned’s natal chart recording, I was overwhelmed with a lot of feelings. I feel grief, sadness and deep connection. We were tied physically by circumstance. My mastitis, five weeks into Ned’s young life, set Ned up for a life time journey. He lives with strong mixed emotions of deep sensitivity towards women (his mother’s pain as she suffered through feeding) yet also deep need for survival, “I have to eat/drink, so I have to hurt you, mother!” My son has a life lesson to learn and it exists because of our physical connection when he was a newborn. He has to learn that ‘getting what you need doesn’t hurt people’.
2. What I’m telling myself about Ned now seems to make sense. I feel he ‘puts me down’, makes me feel stupid, has an arrogance about him which keeps me uneasy around him. His tongue can cut deep. It feels underserved. He can laugh at my expense and make me feel small and insignificant. I feel like it is his father interacting with me. I feel he puts me in my place, and leaves me there in my own unresolved pain.
3. First of all, I never set out to hurt my son. My love and connection with him runs deep, deep wells of rich feelings and desire for him to heal and succeed. I would love for him to find love, to have a family and be fulfilled. He has chosen a tough vocation – that of academic – but now I feel it isn’t important or a marker of success if he isn’t healed and happy. I feel sadness and loss knowing I have a damaged son. It seems his journey is fateful, tied up with me, yet I wasn’t able to prevent of change it. I was just doing my best. But can I forgive myself? Maybe I need his forgiveness, or his acknowledgment that it wasn’t intentional. I need to know that I’m OK, that I was a loving mother and not cruel by intention or choice. I need acceptance. Am I willing to seek it? Will I receive it? Can I forgive myself?
Tony
1. As I write, I feel relieved and open to the precious possibility that our needs, both sets of needs can be met. Following my session with Alex, I’ve been reassured that needs aren’t/can’t be in opposition to each other, but rather it is strategies that are deployed to have our needs met which can be. Alex has reassured me that Tony and I can meet our needs, we just have to negotiate strategies and make requests of each other which don’t use demand energy but instead ask a do-able and enjoyable request of each other. This advice has lifted my spirits as I was feeling trapped, sad and then very angry. I love the idea of us working out together doable and enjoyable requests. Alex has asked me to activiate my internal wisdom by being present in the now. So, “How do I feel now?” Very hopeful, and excited. I feel my happy self.
2. I’ve been telling myself that Tony wants me to do all the changing. I feel that that is deeply unfair. I want him to see that he can change his strategy of saying, ‘No’ each time I offer a plan, an activity, a purchase etc. I also want him to stop being in his head and not available – either aloof and therefore not available, or distracted with some thought or action and therefore not available. When I demand his attention, he reacts like a bunny in the headlights. He is shocked, hurt and embarrassed. I can see immediately that no malice or unkind intention is there. Instead I just activate his shame and guilt. I feel guilt, shame and grief at the possibility that we are at an impasse. Meeting our respective needs would result in hurting the other. I am stumped.
3. But what is alive in me now is joy now that I understand it is about doable and enjoyable strategies. It isn’t a ‘crisis of imagination’ – it’s an opportunity to create, imagine, cooperate and enrich each other’s lives together. This approach will meet my need for communion with the man I love, and my loneliness will dissolve. I feel hopeful. Tony comes home today and we’ll meet each other and speak about what is alive in us. I anticipate this with joy!
Journal 6.9.19
Johanna
In one of Alex’s sessions, we talked about translating judgements into needs which are alive. She gave me two questions around which to centre my thoughts:
· I don’t like people who…
· When I make that judgement of a person, what am I needing?
I used this approach when I was reflecting on my relationship with my only sister, Johanna.
1. What I don’t like about Johanna, my sister.
There are lots of things I don’t like about Johanna. I don’t like her aggressive defensiveness. It is so hard to have a conversation with her because she snaps back. So I usually don’t try in order to avoid the possibility of feeling accused, judged or blamed. I watch her with others and see her defensiveness which confirms my negative judgement of her reactiveness.
I don’t like the way she makes you feel guilty. She makes martyr-ish statement to guilt you into doing what she wants. For eg, “I can’t come and have a look because somebody has to do the parenting”. This translates to, in my opinion, ‘I want help’ or ‘I want to come but feel a parenting obligation first and so should you’. When I receive this kind of message, I feel bullied, harassed and guilty.
I don’t like the way I’m exploited by her. She works on you to get you to do what she wants. For example, her text masquerading as her son, James, asking for a birthday present is an example. I forgot his birthday, actually his birthday isn’t on my radar. I don’t have a relationship with him and feel no connection. By Joh indirectly acting as James activated my guilt, made me feel manipulated so she could get me to buy James what she wants. I feel ashamed.
So when Joh is defensive and aggressive, I’m scared; when she is martyrish, I’m guilty; and when she is manipulative, I’m trapped and ashamed.
2. In addition, when I make these judgements, I feel resentment because I was expected to be her mother at 11 yrs old. This infuriated me because I was just a child – it was a task a child shouldn’t be asked to do. I feel jealousy because she got away with bad behaviour – spoilt, tantrums, moods. She got to be a naughty girl with no consequences, while I had to be a good girl which included parenting her without recognition or gratitude. So, I was jealous. She could get attention and could be the child. I had to work hard for attention yet at the same time had to be the adult parenting her. I also feel loss because I never got to hae a sister like I had so desperately wanted. Instead I got a child to raise, not a sister to play with. And as she grew up, her behaviour became risky to be around. I became scared around her; I hated her mood, tantrums, huffs. She became good to alying guild trips, acting like she was the ‘good’, ‘helpful’, ‘reliable’, ‘tidy’ person being unfairly accused or treated. Her guilt trips and manipulations made me feel trapped around her. So for me, I was best to keep away. It was safer that way. My need for safety keeps me away. She is so hard to be around. I feel guilt and shame when I’m interacting with her. I don’t want to be positioned as mother. I want and need to be able to choose. Choice matters.
So in relation to being ‘little mother’, my unmet needs are·
for recognition and appreciation for the parenting of Joh;
for acknowledgement of my capacity to parent her
for a sisterly connection with a sister whom I never had.
And in relation to Joh, my unmet needs are
for autonomy and choice to decide how to interact with Joh
for safety in order to be relaxed in her presence
for ease to be me, and be playful so that a sisterhood can begin to grow
for enjoyment when I’m around her, but that rests on my need for safety being met.
Reflections:
I carry a lot of anger
I’m timid and fearful
My need for acceptance is strong
I am deeply wanting connection with those that I love.
I give away approval of me to others rather than give it to myself.
I’m not very grounded in my own home zone; my own truth; I have self-loathing
I might manage how I feel but I’m not expressing it. I haven’t learned how to express myself honestly. Instead, I suffer in silence.
