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Is this something that you shouldn't do
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<blockquote data-quote="Copabanana" data-source="post: 741673" data-attributes="member: 18958"><p>Forgive the lecture, here. I am lecturing myself. (Please feel free to skip to 3rd paragraph.)</p><p></p><p>I am thinking a lot about stories I tell myself and stories I do not want to accept. I think that is what is called denial. We are geared up as human to make stories about our perceptions, largely in terms of cause and effect. These stories get reified, that is they achieve a life and power and luster of their own. And then, in turn, these stories (which in themselves are just that, stories, have power to shape other stories, our own and those of others).</p><p></p><p>Lots of times there is what is called misattribution. We make up stories or embellish them to account for our feelings, or events that impinge upon them. We make false assumptions. We attribute cause where there is none.</p><p></p><p>I am wondering as I write this how much about my life, each of our lives is real. And how much is just a conglomeration of stories I have taken on to account for what I have felt and what has happened to me. I have big stories about what I have done. I like those stories. They are about conquering and surviving and mastering and moving and achieving.</p><p></p><p>But I am seeing that there are other stories that are not so pleasant that rear their heads and want to be heard: isolation, fear, helplessness, terror, incapacity. I find that these suppressed and difficult stories come up around my son.</p><p></p><p>If I cannot control his story. Or do something to respond in a way that there is a happy ending or a hope of one, the noxious feelings seep or surge out. I am trying to integrate the two polarities of experience as I get old but it seems sometimes that I cannot do it fast enough to keep up. There was a movie once called <u>I am Dancing as Fast as I can.</u></p><p>This is my experience in a nutshell. He was not thousands of miles away. He was a 55 minute walk or a 25 minute bus ride or a 12 minute drive. He did not want what I was selling. Never. But I needed my story to be true. And if it was not true, I still wanted my story to win. It was a battle of stories. His won. Duh.</p><p></p><p>In fact not only did his story win, his story conquered my own story of winning and surviving and heroism. My winner story cannot absorb all of this pain, defeat, sorrow, fear. It has no spaces for these words. Back to the drawing board.</p><p></p><p>So what to do. I am trying to learn to experience my life in discrete moments, to not craft my experience into a narrative. I hate it. Because the stories have been my safe space and now there is no place to hide. But I think other people are able to do this. They meditate. They pray. They go to the gym. They dance. They cook and clean. They watch movies and do needlework. They run and they hike. They have lunch with friends. They talk on the phone. They dig down deep and they inhabit their lives and themselves rather than escape to stories.</p><p></p><p>My problem (one of them) is that I locate myself in my son. I experience his distress as my own. So the issue first is getting myself back into me. This is a whole lot of work.</p><p></p><p>Thank you Albatross.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Copabanana, post: 741673, member: 18958"] Forgive the lecture, here. I am lecturing myself. (Please feel free to skip to 3rd paragraph.) I am thinking a lot about stories I tell myself and stories I do not want to accept. I think that is what is called denial. We are geared up as human to make stories about our perceptions, largely in terms of cause and effect. These stories get reified, that is they achieve a life and power and luster of their own. And then, in turn, these stories (which in themselves are just that, stories, have power to shape other stories, our own and those of others). Lots of times there is what is called misattribution. We make up stories or embellish them to account for our feelings, or events that impinge upon them. We make false assumptions. We attribute cause where there is none. I am wondering as I write this how much about my life, each of our lives is real. And how much is just a conglomeration of stories I have taken on to account for what I have felt and what has happened to me. I have big stories about what I have done. I like those stories. They are about conquering and surviving and mastering and moving and achieving. But I am seeing that there are other stories that are not so pleasant that rear their heads and want to be heard: isolation, fear, helplessness, terror, incapacity. I find that these suppressed and difficult stories come up around my son. If I cannot control his story. Or do something to respond in a way that there is a happy ending or a hope of one, the noxious feelings seep or surge out. I am trying to integrate the two polarities of experience as I get old but it seems sometimes that I cannot do it fast enough to keep up. There was a movie once called [U]I am Dancing as Fast as I can.[/U] This is my experience in a nutshell. He was not thousands of miles away. He was a 55 minute walk or a 25 minute bus ride or a 12 minute drive. He did not want what I was selling. Never. But I needed my story to be true. And if it was not true, I still wanted my story to win. It was a battle of stories. His won. Duh. In fact not only did his story win, his story conquered my own story of winning and surviving and heroism. My winner story cannot absorb all of this pain, defeat, sorrow, fear. It has no spaces for these words. Back to the drawing board. So what to do. I am trying to learn to experience my life in discrete moments, to not craft my experience into a narrative. I hate it. Because the stories have been my safe space and now there is no place to hide. But I think other people are able to do this. They meditate. They pray. They go to the gym. They dance. They cook and clean. They watch movies and do needlework. They run and they hike. They have lunch with friends. They talk on the phone. They dig down deep and they inhabit their lives and themselves rather than escape to stories. My problem (one of them) is that I locate myself in my son. I experience his distress as my own. So the issue first is getting myself back into me. This is a whole lot of work. Thank you Albatross. [/QUOTE]
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