Self-Parenting

On January 2 of this year, I began in earnest to go in depth about my life, my style of living and a writing project.  What I know for sure after just over three months is that, going in depth is not for the faint of heart. I can tell you that there have been many, many days I have felt very faint! For those of you out there that are friend’s of Bill W or have been Twelve Steppers for any reason, this going in depth is much like the inventory of the fourth Step.

Cleaning out closets and drawers is easy compared to personal depth work. Paring away those excesses of reactions, false beliefs or insubstantial activities means one has to be - I think the word is - mature. Their own parent. For those of us whose children are themselves no longer children, one would think this would be easy. Not so. At least not in my experience of the last three months. Definitely more life experience to fall back on, but that inner child! That inner child still wants what she wants when she wants it, just hangs onto my shirt tail with a grubby little hand whimpering softly that I just don’t understand. (She really is quite sweet most of the time.)

So if this is so difficult why do I continue? Why have I come to believe in it’s value? Because of all the space it is creating in my life for me to engage with my home the way I want to. The space in my life for easier travel. Looking hard at how I am responsible for maintaining stressful situations. I have worked diligently to avoid pesky grand mal seizures, the result of epilepsy, by learning how to manage stressful situations. An unexpected side effect is minimizing my own stress responses. Stuffing them into a back pocket where they become forgotten by my conscious mind, but not my subconscious mind.

“The conscious mind may be compared to a fountain playing 

in the sun and falling back into the great subterranean pool 

of subconscious from which it rises.”

~ Sigmund Freud