Posted by Dinah on September 3, 2009, at 8:38:22
In reply to Wanting, posted by onceupon on September 2, 2009, at 23:07:38
"Lastly, here's my latest epiphany. After two years of a LOT of pain, wanting, and yearning I've come to the following conclusion: the yearning isn't so painful without the berating and beating myself up. Most of the pain came from judging myself and my feelings of yearning and wanting. I'm not sure that I yearn much less right now, but it isn't such a hard feeling now that I just let it be. It's when I pulverize myself for yearning that it really hurts. I've finally realized that most of the pain from yearning was self-inflicted and not so much a result of the yearning itself. So, do your best to be kind to yourself and try to be ok with your feelings."
I love what wip said here. It is more or less what I've found, though I never have thought it through as well.
After years of shame, and more years of telling my therapist how I feel, but with embarrassment and fear, I'm now to the point where we talk of it easily.
I'll tell him of my between session fantasies, which are very telling of where therapy is at the moment.
Sometimes I want to curl up on his lap like a kitten, other times I want to burrow all the way inside back to his womb. That one disconcerts him a bit, as does my mention of his milky breasts. For a while not too long ago, I instead had the image of wanting to tell him to look at me! Pay attention to me!
My usual between session image now, which actually shows a bit of growing up from the lap images or the womb images, is of myself at his feet with my head against his knee. Once, I told my therapist I wished I could do this. He knows I have very good boundaries so he said that if I wanted to do that, I could. Which led me to decide that the fantasy was too important to me to ruin it with the logistics of actually doing it. Because obviously I'm a lot bigger than I am in the fantasy, and my head would not comfortably rest against his knee. I'd have to twist to make myself smaller. Now he's accepted it, I can express the wish whenever I like, and the pain of all these longings has all but gone away. Now they are a comfort, not a source of pain.
poster:Dinah
thread:915522
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20090730/msgs/915575.html