The Self-Healing Power of The Ready Mind (Part 3)

​The Logotherapy student workshops were wonderful yet again… exhausting and wonderful all at the same time… a bit like the fun and joy of a rollercoaster ride, and at the same time, the non-stop speed-mania rush of the ride… a totally crazy time… but so energizing and rewarding, even if also exhausting to the extreme at times.  I always wonder how I get through it with all the traveling, long hours, stressful expectations placed on me, work waiting for me, preparing for the next day and being very sleep deprived… but it proves a very important truth, that if one has meaning in their life, they can get through anything. 
 
My Logotherapy world is still one of the most important areas of my life, that keeps me going strong… it is truly the oxygen of my life and food for my soul.  I love everything about being at the workshops… the students, the trainers, the lectures, the opportunities given to me for growth… and the love and goodness that is discussed and shared on a very deep level… so different to most other life experience… it’s just too wonderful for words… a place where my soul feels lifted beyond the norm and I feel free to just  be in each moment… to be authentically me... and to enjoy every aspect of it freely in the depths of my soul.
 
Things were not all wonderful at that time though, because around that time, during a discussion with someone whom I honour greatly and who has helped changed my life in so many ways due to what I believe is their unconditional love and belief in me, I mentioned to them how, because of another relationship that they had been pulled into by a person who I’d lost so much trust in, I nearly pushed them away also, just as I had already done to others who were so close to me before, as a result of recent setbacks shattering my trust levels so drastically. 
 
My psyche had already been so affected at the time, that the slightest reason to mistrust was enough to shatter ANY of my connections.  But I honestly thought I could never possibly lose this persons love in my life when I spoke to them about how close it came to pushing them away also, because of the mixed messages I was receiving concerning them and their relationship with the other person.  So, it was a terrible shock to me when they responded angrily and with so much hurt over the fact that I could possibly have come that close to losing trust in them also.  We parted with all that pain, confusion and horror between us…
 
And so still, the destroying ripple effects of May have continued to pull my relationships and I into an ever downward spiral.
 
I have even distanced myself from my neighbours, not wanting them to visit me in my home anymore… not wanting to get too close.  I am very close to the old people who stay on the left of us and another neighbour inside the complex… but only close via WhatsApp and I occasionally share some of our vegetables and vege products with them. 
 
I have overcome most of my fear of the new neighbour on our right.  I broke the distance between us when I got my youngest son to take some vegetables over from our little garden.  We like to share our produce whenever we have excess to spare.  As a result, we now have neighbours who we get along fairly well with and feel reasonably comfortable with… the son is still a concern with his occasional car revving and so on, but he has been trying to keep things good and even helped to secure the bumpers onto our car because they were hanging and ready to fall off.  I was so grateful for that.  He and his father also fixed the gate that the son had broken due to the son driving into it three times when they first arrived, so now I don’t have so much trouble opening and closing it anymore.  
 
Let me tell you about how I got to take my chances with these direct next door neighbours… The little bird that woke my son and I up so early every morning outside our windows, suddenly stopped soon after these neighbours moved in, and it moved onto another tree.  We could still hear it, but it was quite disconcerting to not be woken up by it anymore.  One day I had to leave our house very early only to discover that the little bird was now chirping his little beak off in the tree outside our neighbours house… and I instantly decided, that the little bird had already succeeded in giving me its messages of love from Life… to rejoice every morning I wake up and to thank Heaven for another new day and opportunity to live my life meaningfully, etc.  I now realised that the little bird had moved, in order to bless our new neighbours with its’ life-enhancing early morning messages of rejoicing and love… and I immediately knew, that its new message to me was to also be there for the neighbours… to welcome them and to trust that all would be well between us… and so far, it is working out that way.  This year we exchanged gifts for Christmas… I took over some preserves and vegetables I’d made as Christmas gifts and they gave us a small Christmas cake and koeksisters in return… I am grateful.
 
Harmony and loving care is so much more comfortable than living with fear and contention.
 
Of course, I am still talking about Patricia when I talk about my mistrust struggles, because as mentioned in the previous blog posts, it was her who had surfaced since May, and it had become increasingly apparent to me, that it was now her time for facing up to her past and working through her lifelong struggles… it was her who was causing all this havoc in my life… it was her that was sabotaging my relationships… and it was up to me to really focus on all that was going on within my own psyche, heart and life as a result, so that I could do something about it… I had to find a way to embrace Patricia in her struggles and help her to find HER answers so that I could help her to find her healing… OUR healing. 
 
Blocking Patricia out, or pushing her emotions down and ignoring them just as my abusers and others had done in the past would NOT help her to heal.  I have to face my reality and work with Patricia to help her to decipher her own back-story and to see for herself, how all that she had been through in her adolescence was still haunting her and controlling her life; as if the abuse from her past was still being played out on her today, so many years later.
 
It is up to her to put and end to what her abusers did and are still doing… and it is up to me as the adult side of my whole being, to LOVINGLY help her to find a way to do that.
 
Someone suggested that I was hyperreflecting far too much on my past and all, but I disagree… if I were only thinking about the past, without a view to now facing it… dealing with it and finding my healing, then I would agree… but I am not… I want to find healing and I will do whatever it takes to get there, even if it means that I have to keep going back to what is still affecting me today in my 60’s, in order to find a way to heal from that dreadful past… surely there is NO other way!  If I deny my ugly past… then I deny my wonderful future!  I must believe that there is still an even more wonderful time awaiting me, but I can never reach it if I am still constantly being dragged back into my past by triggers, etc.  Without personal understanding of each and every past-surfaced-in-the-here-and-now-trigger and how it affects my present, my relationships, my happiness, others, etc. how could I ever find a way to heal from it all?   I have to KNOW IT in order to WORK ON IT!  I cannot ignore the fact that it all happened in the first place and I cannot ignore that it is still affecting me today!
 
I feel that if I want to heal… and I DO… because I’ve seen for myself how much each stage of my healing through Logotherapy, having real feelings of belonging, and feeling truly LOVED, has already changed my life for the better… and I KNOW there must be more change for the better available…
 
I am literally fighting for MY LIFE right now.
 
Someone also suggested that I am just trying to get revenge on the people who hurt me so much around May… That could not be further from the truth.  But who would understand this after all I’ve shared about how much May has affected me up till now? 
 
I have NOT shared all of this to get at those who hurt me… I am only sharing how I am affected to illustrate how child abuse keeps on keeping on for years after the abuse…
 
The First Cut Is Always The Deepest
© All Rights Reserved ~ www.pattyskeys.co.za
 
Little girl, once innocent and sweet
Ripped apart for his panting need
In tear-soaked emptiness... left to bleed
Forever, drifting on a far and distant plane
Never to return again
Lost but still alive... she will survive!
 
~ Panayiota Ryall
(16 October 2014)
 
These posts no longer have anything to do with the people who hurt me… my posts have only to do with my reaction to that hurt and my work for healing.  And like I said in a previous post… it is not about ugliness or hate or even revenge… NOT AT ALL!!!… it’s all about LOVE (TRUST) that’s what it’s always been about right from the start… Lost LOVE (TRUST) … LOVE (TRUST)  denied… LOVE (TRUST) betrayed… longing for LOVE (TRUST)… needing to feel unconditionally LOVED (TRUST) … to believe in LOVE (TRUST)… etc.
 
My reactions to what had happened in May has been spiraling out of control… I have also still not been able to control the negative changes I have made with my diet since then and I’m still battling to lose the 5kg’s I put on as a result.  I can feel my heath deteriorating gradually with the weight gain.  A few days ago, I ate gammon that my family had left for us while we are housesitting, and overnight ended up with water retention and a terrible migraine that lasted for two days.  I have not had water retention since I think it must have been around 2013, so I realise that I have no option but to get this eating thing under control again and urgently! 
 
Life has been sending me messages to help Patricia to find her healing and to help me to know how to help her.
 
On three occasions during the workshop, because my mind was so otherwise occupied with the difficult situations that I’d been struggling with of late, I came very close to having a serious accident.  I narrowly evaded each one with quick thinking and maneuvering of my car… breaks screeching and swerving into the next lane of traffic or into an intersection as in once case, with another car crossing at the same time.  What struck me most each time was the realization that I had not gotten a fright… there was no adrenaline rush… my emotions were dead (I could have been dead!), but I did not care… I knew that those were Patricia’s emotions.  She has never cared about living and would be happy to take my inner-child self, (Patty), and my adult self (Panayiota) with her, as her ultimate way of protecting all of us from anymore harm and pain in this world. 
 
I found that being so aware of Patricia’s will to die was very chilling!  Were either Patty and I (Panayiota) of the same mind as Patrica… Patty… maybe, but Panayiota NEVER!  Panayiota is the mother of four wonderful children and the grandmother of six incredible grandchildren… Panayiota still has too much to do in this world… she is NOT ready to die yet…  NO-NO-NO!!!  With all the positive healing growth-changes that have come into my life since Logotherapy found me in my 50’s, my will to live is HUGE!  I have so much to live for… I have books to write and get published and some other exciting projects that I long to complete… presentations I want to develop for Logotherapy teaching purposes and for presenting to adult survivors of child abuse.  I want to find time to paint again and to be creative… I miss that so much… I’m not ready to give up on my creative side. 
 
I want to live… I MUST LIVE!
 
So, to feel absolutely NO emotional response after those three close accidents was quite an awakening for me… I knew that Patricia was in the driving seat when those happened, and I knew that I had to help her to a new and much healthier way of being and behaving. 
 
Being so aware, I stared to take some control over my driving… at stop streets, I stopped still… and it actually felt like an achievement to have Patricia’s emotional consent with this… I spoke to her… allowing my parenting self to reason with her… “We didn’t quite stop… we could have done better there Patricia”… “We can do this”… as if I were training an adolescent on how to drive in the kindest and most patient way I possibly could.
 
But then, on my last day of the workshop as I (Patricia) was driving home and passing a township, I was in the fast lane, driving a lot faster than I should have been and behind me there was another car traveling at the same speed, too close to the rare of my car, as if he wanted to push me off of the road.  We were the only two on that two-lane road for some distance and I felt angry that he couldn’t just go into the left lane to take over… why should I have to move!!!  But then, I remembered the lesson’s I had been trying to teach my Patricia self… I needed to be a good example… and immediately, I made the decision to start slowing down to the proper speed, moving over to the left lane, to allow the other car to pass… but… as I moved into the left lane, still going too fast, a black man came darting at full speed out from the township, straight across the road… How I missed him, I will NEVER know.  I noticed in those few seconds of time, that he was bolting with a huge grin on his face!  I slammed on my breaks, swerving to the left, almost leaving the road altogether, and narrowly missing the man… the other car in the next lane was only just behind me, racing to prove that he could go faster than I was originally going, and he only saw the man as he passed my car!  I could hear him slamming on his breaks also, his wheels skidding noisily on the tarmac… I glanced in my side mirror, absolutely convinced he’d hit the man, and saw his car skidding towards mine… somehow, he miraculously missed me!  Still checking in the mirrors, I saw the man still bolting at full speed across the grass section between the highways (our highway and the one going in the opposite direction) and that’s the last I saw of him… did he make it across the other highway also… or did he stop… was he hit by a car?  I will never know.
 
Now driving at the correct speed… still with no adrenaline rush… just a flatness of my emotions and a deep thought state… THE MAN’S GRINNING FACE… a horrid flashback from my past… New Year’s Eve… I was a young woman… I write about this in my book, but will include some of it here… all the community had gathered for the midnight countdown to the new year… I was standing next to my first husband and brother, Peter… 10-9-8-7… I barely noticed someone coming towards us… slipping between us, I felt a hand grab me between my legs… I was absolutely horrified in that moment of time… I swung around to see a young black man walking away, grinning at me as he went… I didn’t know what to do, knowing that if I told anyone I’d ruin the countdown and everyone’s happiness!  My husband was a violent man who would have chased and beaten the hell out of that man in front of everyone… my brother was an epileptic… if anything upset him, he could start fitting… I didn’t want to ruin everyones’ evening, so I kept quiet… that man’s grinning face and the feeling of his hand between my legs, haunted me for years!  It was HIS grinning face that the man running across the road wore… it all came back in that moment in time…
 
Thinking about what had just happened with the running man, I said to myself out aloud, “That man was playing Russian roulette with his life!”… and almost as if answering my own thoughts, I heard myself saying, “and so are you!  You are also playing Russian roulette with our lives (Patty, Patricia and Panayiota)… and also with other people’s lives… you could have killed that man or the other driver! 
 
This was another big awakening for me… (for Patricia)… for the first time in her life, she was facing a truth that she had never thought about, realised, or admitted before.  This was something new for Patricia… Was her life really so unimportant… Did she really want to die?  This was the first time she’d ever asked herself such a question… and she responded… “I WANT TO LIVE”.
 
It was the very next day that I told my friend about this incident, and of how close I’d come to deleting them from my life due to lack of trust… I believe that I was telling them about this, because I felt that for me it was such a great achievement that I was able to push past my own behaviours… I was able to see how my behaviours were affecting me and my relationshiops and I was able to beat my own inner weaknesses… so for me, to see the person’s hurt and anger over what I’d just shared with them, was very hard to swallow… it hurt me so much to know I’d hurt them… it hurt Patricia… and I realised for the first time in all the years… Patricia does care and does love… she’s just been hurting too sore all these years and not known how to live with her own pain.
 
I am left now not really knowing where my relationship with my dear friend and I stand, even though they assured me it was all sorted out… how do I believe in myself with them again… how do I trust myself in a friendship with them… have I lost them already?  I feel very sad that I had hurt and angered them so deeply with my sharing.
 
So, in the self-defeating state of mind that I find myself in at this time, I realise that I could never really allow myself into a relationship of love with any man… would I keep hurting him like that also with my many ups and downs?  How could I take a chance with another person’s heart… or even with my own again? 
 
And I then realise that my recent request on this blog for cosmetic surgery would have no purpose really…although I’d at least love to have the abdominal skin removed, because that’s a real problem for me… but I’d need to raise R20 000 to get that operation done…
 
Do I fight for that still or just let that dream go as well?  For now, the dream is on hold… feels futile… an empty dream…  
 
Tomorrow’s another day to think about other things I guess… right now, I have enough to contend with.  I feel like I am a hurricane that just leaves devastation in my path… so… WHAT’S THE USE! 
 
But… I’m not ready to die… nor is Patricia, or Patty… at least we’ve gotten that one right at last.  Perhaps Patricia is ready to heal now… Perhaps she has begun her healing...
 
I think that I have so much to be grateful for… even to be grateful for all that’s happened since May and all those involved… Thank you for being a part of Patricia’s journey and helping her to see more clearly that her life is worth living and that there is value in life, and that she does truly LOVE… 

Thank you for sharing with me today.  Please let me know if my sharing has helped you or your clients in any way.  
 
~ Panayiota