Smaller Steps

by Charity and Mary

After starting a forum thread about grounding and the here-and-now, and seeing the discussion become increasingly more complex, we've realized that we need to step back from that thread until we're better able to handle it.  We want to thoroughly address the points that were raised, but we just can't.  Yet.

We've always pushed ourselves hard.  We expect a great deal of ourselves, and we expect a great deal of others, particularly people of significance to us.  This is because in our formative years, people of significance expected a great deal from us and never provided positive acknowledgement in return.

So, basic formative needs went unmet, and this lack of foundation impairs our well-being even in the present day.

We realize that we need to take smaller steps.  Right now, the smaller step is to address the fact that we have so much difficulty accepting the past.  We have difficulty accepting the reality of what is.  We engage in magical thinking because we want the past and present to be something other than what they are.  And we have not fully absorbed the fact that we are not a helpless young child with no power over our life. Because we were repeatedly traumatized, we never developed the ability to advance through this particular growth stage.  And we remain stuck there.

This is all we can say right now from an observational, rational standpoint right now.  We need to honor all of the emotions that this is bringing up for us.