Where you’re headed (part 2)
Now is the time your psyche has been waiting for.
Depending on how long ago your feelings went underground and how young you were will depend on how accessible your authentic Self is now. You may be caught in codependency that just won’t quit. Or you’re seeking therapy because you don’t feel real. Or the depression is unbearable. Or you’re tired of dealing with narcissistic partners. Or you’re fed up with never being able to win in your family. Usually in the beginning of therapy, it’s the symptoms that are most accessible- depression, anxiety, inability to feel, codependency, or imposter syndrome, just to name a few. Or perhaps you experience unhappiness without understanding why. Or you feel empty inside. You may wonder: “What’s wrong with me? Something is not right. I grew up in a good family, right? So why do I feel this way?” But something doesn’t add up.
When you’re born into an environment with no empathy, you’ll have no reference point for what real empathy is. Empathy is not the same as sympathy. Empathy is the other person seeing the world through your eyes, imagining what you might feel, and caring about your experience. Without empathy or genuine care, the system operates from an as-if self, otherwise known as image. Outside people are usually kept at a distance to prevent anyone seeing beneath the surface of the image. If they get close enough to become privy to what’s underneath, they would be surprised to find a prevalence of anger, depression, and emptiness, very different from the perfect family image the family projects.
Maybe you’re from a severe NFS or a mild one, or from a family with emotional neglect and you had to disconnect from your feelings. Or you may be confused and wonder what kind of family you come from. You may question, “but we’re a big extended family and we all care about each other, right?” Perhaps that is so, and the structure of your family is different from an NFS. Each family system is unique. Some are textbook NFS, others have some NFS elements but not all, while others are general dysfunction but not at the structural level. Whatever family structure you were born into, connecting to the raw material of the feelings you had to put away as a child is now the the path to your pot of gold. Ultimately your real Self will be synonymous with tapping into your own source energy inside of you- not the narcissistic pattern of hijacking others and demanding sameness like the NFS system. Tapping into love, warmth, your heart, and creativity is the wellspring inside of you that is your potential. A place where energy flows and where inspiration and ideas come through.
Separating from your family of origin’s group think (narcissistic merger) is the hero/ heroine’s journey. It is the journey to your life’s potential. To forge your own path separate yet connected (and not in servitude) to others. It’s not the path of sameness, group think, or image. You may follow in your parent’s footsteps and work the family business if that’s what you’re called to do, but in the hero’s journey, you’ll do it your way and have your own vision. From the outside, the hero’s journey may appear big or small, subtle or obvious, but inside it is most certainly big and daring.
The goal is to help you get out of the dark woods of confusion and pain and on the path towards clarity. Clarity of knowing who you are as well as the family you’ve come from. The ability to take a deep breath and feel relaxed for the fist time in your life. The ability to get back up when you fall into the old patterns and when your mind gets taken over again by a narcissist you know or a new one who’s caught you by surprise. The ability to answer the call to find your way back to yourself, knowing that anyone who’s a true friend, a true partner, wants you to live authentically from your best Self. The ability to keep going until that first moment of real intimacy when you meet your true Self for the first time. What James Masterson calls the Real Self, what Richard Schwartz calls Self, and Napoleon Hill from 1954 calls the Ability to Possess your Own Mind. It may be hard work to get there, but there’s no greater reward. You’ll finally be coming home- to yourself.
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