I don't walk on water

Yesterday was my last class at Antioch; one more paper and I'll be done -- hurray!  Not that school hasn't been lovely, or an incredible learning experience, but it will be a pleasure to have my free time back.  And -- of course -- there's the fact that learning experiences by definition can be challenging, though not necessarily in the ways we expect.  Yesterday, for example, I felt this surge of frustration at one point, and it looked like I was going to have to say something to the person who I felt was creating the problem for me.

Fortunately the moment passed, and I didn't have to end my day with an angry confrontation, but there was enough emotion around it that I thought later, sitting in the ferry line with nothing else to do, that it might be good to take a closer look.  And when I did, taking the time to get to the root of all those surging feelings, I realized (surprise, surprise!) that she wasn't the problem at all: I was.

The clarity I found can be traced directly to something I read yesterday in A.H. Almaas's book, Elements of the Real:
"When we are children, the functions of nourishment, care, protection, release of tension, and comfort are provided by the parents -- particularly by the mother... As the personality of the child develops, the child becomes more independent of the mother, but this is accomplished by introjecting the mother, recreating her inside.

...The mother inside you is not a physical thing; you have her emotionally in your unconscious.  You behave like her, and you seek out people like her.  You feel the way she felt, or you find people who treat you the way she treated you...  Even those who deny they want mother ... continue to unconsciously seek the negative mother while consciously feeling the opposite.

... Even when you are by yourself... you are still relating to your mother -- the mother inside you.  You relate to your superego which is always beating you up.  Why is your superego beating you up?  Because it makes you feel that your mother is around.  When you were a child, your mother was always judging you.  So every time you feel like a little kid, your internal mother comes and beats you up.  Then you feel secure.  You might complain, but you feel secure."

The person I resented was only blocking me from being something my mother wanted me to be.  And I had been allowing her to do that because my true self didn't see a need to be that something -- and then my internal mother was disappointed in me for not being that, so she was beating up on me.  Which means -- like any other child under attack -- I pointed the blame finger outside.

I know; it's complicated.  But I can't begin to tell you how freeing this realization was -- and how grateful I am that  I didn't "speak my truth" (or what I thought was the truth in the moment).  Add to that the fact that my learnings confirmed something I've suspected for some time now, and set me free of yet another "should" I've been carrying around... well, I'm feeling pretty light-hearted this morning!  Of course it helps that the sun is finally out, the weather is finally warming up, and my daughter will be home tonight for the first time since February...

So yay!  Life is good!  Hope you're having a good day, too.