Our training last night was so revealing to me on so many levels.
We do role playing on the phones. Meaning, a person is the caller and we are the liners (on the crisis line) and we then get a feel for the type of a calls and what is helpful and what is not.
What came out last night was very interesting. How as you sit listening, you yourself and your experience history can become a block for the person on the line. Unknowingly, you are not as free to explore their pain.
This unconscious belief is there, and it blocks you from moving, and you don't even know it...until it is pointed out.
As one person is in the hot seat (being a liner) the rest of us are watching. And being a witness to the call and not on it, you are so wise, for your unconscious issues are not threatened.
What I thought about as I was falling to sleep, is that we all can solve issues and problems in anothers life, especially just witnessing it and not being actively engaged in it. However, become engaged, and your unconscious pain and wounds will not let you respond freely, you will hit a wall.
You will only explore as far as you yourself have gone...you move up to the wall of uncomfortable, but not beyond it. And, if you are watching the dialogue, BUT not in it, you are free to explore options, for your own unconsciousness is not engaged.
But, put yourself into the scene, and you freeze.
Wildly intriguing to see...and extremely telling in how we operate in life. Very good at knowing what to do as long as we are not engaged in real life.
I can see as a therapist, that they will unknowingly have blocks that will block exits and pathways to healing, depending upon their own life experiences.
If you are seeing a therapist and it feels like you are making no progress, IT very well may be because, they can only take you so far.
And, it also came to me, that if your support system is all from the same stock, you may just stir the pot, but never find a solution or healing way out.
I can see I missed my calling or perhaps I am just entering into it. I thoroughly am engrossed in the how abuse is spoken of, not spoken of, how it manifests in lives, how it is treated, how abused individuals act and how it is best to respond, etc.
Widening the circle of understanding the human psyche and how abuse impacts your living and the unconscious beliefs that stunt your growth and turns your life into an anomaly.
I looked up the word, Anomaly...making sure I had the correct meaning.
"Something that deviates from what is standard, normal, or expected."
This anomaly...my father deviating from what is normal, then created in me the same. I became an anomaly when I didn't act as expected or what is normal or standard. Meaning, I didn't run screaming and report it.
However, I do have this one memory that I did tell...well, I showed, my private parts to my mother in severe pain...And she deviated from what was standard, normal or expected. Nothing was done. She didn't leave my father or bring him to the court of the land. When they didn't act as expected, I learned that in our home, our normal was to act different from the standards or what is expected.
It wasn't that the child didn't act normal, she did, but she witnessed how abuse was dealt with, how others responded. They didn't act like she did...while her alarm screamed in pain, they were the opposite. No reaction.
It is this non-reaction that we notice. That it is our three alarm fire, not theirs. We are acting incorrectly. When my mother didn't respond in kind, I had to as a child read the message that all was okay. No reason for panic. Settle down, it is all right.
Her deviation from a standard mother's response, is all it took for me to take cues in how to react to abusive behavior...calmly as if it is okay...no more than a scrapped knee.
Her reactions programmed mine.
This anomaly is the set point for our family...deviating from what is standard.
