This is a rather rambling, stream-of-consciousness post, but that fact just reflects how new this stuff is to me.

I went to get some energy work today to help with the pain (which is better but still problematic this week). So much information is held in the body, and if we’re lucky, this kind of work releases some of it to consciousness.

One major realization from today’s session is just how much I’ve ignored my body over the years. Back in my professional-speaker days, I used to teach a class in avoiding burnout for overworked corporate types. And we all know that we teach what we need to learn, right?

Well, I’m apparently a VERY slow learner, because twenty years later, I’ve finally realized, once and for all, just why it is that you have to put your OWN oxygen mask on first if your plane springs a leak. Yup. Took me that long to actually get the message.

Can we all say, “self-care”?

So a lot of things suddenly make sense: why, for instance, the pain goes away when I dance, or when I’m hanging out in the pasture with my horses, doing “nothing.” Those are about the only times when I’m actually IN MY BODY, working with it, and not in my head. So much for what I thought was going on.

I think that’s maybe what my study group was trying to tell me last Saturday, when they were talking about how the inferior function of an intuitive is the “sensate” part—the information that comes from the body itself. Maybe, with practice, I might re-learn to trust my body, instead of viewing it as a source of fear and vulnerability. Anyway—interesting. Interesting….

The second insight that I had was that I’m dealing with “the mother wound,” or “the Dark Mother.” Yeah, you say. You’ve been saying that already….

I’ve been saying it, but apparently not understanding it.

Two blog posts from friends today turned my attention to it, and the light bulb went on. The first one, by my friend Angela Dunning (“Equine Reflections” on Facebook), references Bethany Webster’s blog  post “Bringing the Dark Mother Into the Light.” Angela says,

I see this in many clients who, at first, can only speak positively of their experiences of their mother and/or speak in platitudes such as: “I know she did her best for me…”

Taking the next very brave step to add: “And yet, this IS how I feel about what happened…” though, is when healing begins.

We all have a dark side, all our mothers had a dark side. The need to suppress it and to be seen as only a good mother is massive in our society. Yet when we take off our rose-tinted glasses and see how we weren’t well-mothered, THEN we can begin to make up these deficits in ourselves by learning to be a good but honest mother to ourselves.

It’s not about blame – it’s about honesty and really healing…

(Bethany’s site, “Womb Of Light: The Power of the Awakened Feminine,” contains much interesting and insightful information and is well worth checking out.)

How interesting! I really had no idea! But apparently that’s pretty typical. You either hate your mom or idolize her. That’s an exaggeration, of course, but I’m definitely one of those women who always said, “I don’t have a problem with my mother,” but then would go on to say how she never told me anything about my body, how I have her pain in my jaw, and so on.

But I’m ready—oh, so ready!—to heal.

Been thinking about how this has played out in my life: My body is and always has been “bad.” Look at all the things that “went wrong” around my sexuality, for instance! And look at how I was always “not good” at physical things, when in fact I’m graceful and connected to an unusually high degree. And there’s likely more, much more.

I wonder if this is part of why I have not become aware of the meaning of my bodily sensations—that “inferior function.” It may not be just the function I’m least conscious of, but in fact, it may have been deliberately discouraged. I wasn’t supposed to have bodily sensations—certainly not lusty, erotic ones—and so I suppressed them even more than might have been expected, given my personality type.

Dunno….

But there’s another thing: I’m very much in touch with my body, but I don’t usually attempt to “make sense” of it—is that what they’re talking about? And I tend to ignore it—like when I’m uncomfortable around someone. I feel it, but I don’t analyze it, and I generally force myself to stay put because it’s polite. That kind of thing? Dunno….

Hmmm…..

And suddenly the weird thing that my dear Aunt Margie (my mom’s sister) and I have always done makes perfect sense: We don’t write, don’t call, for months on end, and then have these long, wonderful, intimate chats when one of us finally breaks down and picks up the phone or the pen.

I sometimes feel like, “If you really loved me you’d call me.” Maybe she feels that way, too. I’ve always felt that the communication was largely from me to her, at least in the last decade or two, and I’ve actually resented it…and then felt guilty for resenting it. But that’s how she was raised, that’s how I was raised, that’s how my mom was raised; that’s probably how her mother Hazel was raised, and on back through the generations. It’s all we know. And we do love each other, very much….

All of this is has been mostly unconscious, of course. Add to that the genuine doubt that we are, in fact, loveable…so if the other one doesn’t write, or call, or whatever, then maybe they actually don’t love us. Maybe we actually do not deserve to be loved. That’s how it feels to me, at least.

Well. Onwards and upwards, I guess. Onwards to the next phase of the learning.