I wake up and I am sad.
Checking in with
myself, and the actual present reality around me, I find this sadness
unnecessary and totally unjustified. And
yet I can't help it. Emotionally I am stuck in some abyss-like chaos where I
cannot pull myself out.
I am alone in my bed.
Only 2 months ago I
moved to another country to be with the man I love. He has a little daughter
who lives almost 300km away from him, which can be very hard for him at times. I
am compassionate. I also like her a lot.
I have never been in a
situation like this before, neither do I know anybody who has nor read about
it, so there is not a single bit of experience I can base this on. Currently, I
am moving on research ground, I try, I fail, I error, I succeed.
The last couple of
weeks, I have felt extremely lonely, missing my friends and my family a lot -
my whole former environment. This turbulence in my emotional body was strangely
new to me because I travel half my life already and have lived very happily in various
different places.
Now, the situation I
committed to master in this new country though presented itself as more
complicated than I initially thought, since his Ex doesn't want me to stay in
the same house with the daughter. This sounds like an easily solvable condition
for a grown person if you think about it, especially considering that my new
partner gets to see his daughter only every second week. So, between us we decided
to solve it like this: I move out of our bedroom while the daughter moves in.
And that's how I find myself this morning again - alone on the single mattress.
And it's Valentine's Day. It's the first time his daughter stays for 10 days in
a row, not only the weekend. And her daddy loves it.
I focus on gratitude. I
try meditation. Yoga helps, but then somebody disturbs me and I don't get in a
flow. My mind is strong, I know, so I try using it as a tool to pull myself
out. Actually, nothing helps. Sometimes simply nothing helps. Can you really
jump from a place of complete frustration to gratitude or would the pull simply
be too big? Small steps seem to be a better solution just now: Just feel totally
off, then just a little bit off, then slightly better, and from there - yay:
sunshine, blue sky again!
The worst is: I know, I
am not supposed to feel like this. Solely viewed from a mental perspective this
is absolutely wrong, but emotionally it is just what it is: I feel sad and
lonely. New place, new environment, no one to call into on Valentine's morning,
no job yet, and no feeling of being home. Not yet. I feel desperate. Caught in
a downward spiral. I sit with the emotion and try to peel away the layers to
reach the deeper issues of this emotion, which is hard, especially this
morning. The impulse to just pack my things and go is strong. Run away to a
place that feels more supportive and loving, something that I much rather
deserve than this. Why do we think life has to be challenging in order to be
good? What about effortlessness and easy flow?
After everyone has left
the house on love-day-morning, the numbing sadness turns into anger. Someone
told me that anger is kind of a next level emotion after sadness, which shakes
things up inside instead of holding them stuck in one place. So, if you are
coming from depression, anger is the next best thing, it's one step further
than where you were initially. Was it Abraham Hicks, who said that? I think so.
And then, from anger there would be strange feelings of revenge (which you don't
usually act upon, of course), and after, there would be new feelings of hope
and a little bit more lightness. So, as a matter of facts, at a certain point,
anger is definitely the next best emotion, much better than being stuck
depressed.
So, I enjoy.
Sorry, what?
How can I enjoy being angry?
Especially this anger
doesn't seem to help. It's like a blind rage inside of myself that I can hardly
control. I want to break things, to scream, to hurt - and yet, I sit silently
and watch it. I observe the fire. It takes me a couple of hours to even
understand what I need in this moment, and to find this tongue-tied strategy of
what could possible make me happy right now.
I take the bus into the
next village, raging because I have to wait for it, raging because it
accelerates to quickly and I almost fall, raging because the man next to me
gives me strange looks, raging cause the woman in front talk into her phone
awkwardly loud. Nothing seems to be right. Even when I pull out my ultimate
medicine, my journal, the flow of words is sticky like too thick pancake
batter. I only get to write short, uninspired and unclear thought streams:
# What is it that makes
me so angry? I have millions of negative thoughts and images in my head - like a beast unleashed. A beast ready to bite. I
don't love anybody right now and
just want to run, run with the wild ones, bared teeth display, dark, bad. This energy clearly wants to be moved.
# I hate every day
because there is not outlook. (What? Me? A day-hater? Really?)
# A conversation on the
next seat: "What are you up to?" - "Goin' home." A line that has instead power over another
part of my heart. Home. HOME. One billon characteristics
are building this place. I feel like a pressing stone in a random shoe. And I hurt while walking. I don't belong
there.
# Love is like a fierce
force. When you are 36 and have been a happy Single and an extremely free spirit for the last couple of years, love
can suddenly be devastating. It
rips my heart so open and lets fear creep in which such persistence. Fear is the devil I am fighting since it all began.
# I feel entirely
lonely. The darkness of the ink resembles the feeling of my heart. I embraced loneliness once but now I fighting
it. I don't want it anymore. Tasting the
sweet nectar of unity has woken up the fear again.
#I am unbearable for
myself because I went back and forth like a restless hurricane 500 times in 2 months only. Or maybe only like a scared chicken in a coop.
Stop.
Stop, I say to myself.
The ocean in front of
me mirrors my rage with white foamy waves that leash up from the surface like
silent screams. Hastily I walk to the end of the beach, turn around and walk
back. As if I wanted the anger to loose track of me. Can you just stay at the
other end of the beach? Please? I want to throw the rage into the ocean and let
it viciously drown, so that it never comes back. I am so drained by this
emotional vortex.
Right now, I cannot go deeper. I am feeling stuck.
And then, out of a sudden, I sink and I understand a simple truth: I am
jealous.
Oh, no.
Oh - yes.
Deep in my heart I
suddenly know it. I am at the core: I am jealous of a child that is
unconditionally loved by the man I chose to be with for the rest of my life.
The untainted pure nature of this love is something I can never get from anyone
except my own parents maybe. This isn't even worth a discussion, or a fight.
Can I even voice that in front of him? I feel immensely embarrassed. And yet, suddenly
I feel as if someone had just taken a blindfold from my eyes. I am jealous of a
4-year-old child.
The clarity comes with
an immediate judgement: This is so wrong! Of course it is. I am not supposed to
feel like that! I feel wrong. It is like a downward spiral: The more wrong I
feel about myself, the worse it gets. I am far beyond my comfort zone in a new
country with no friends yet and no supportive system around. I am alone most of
the time of the day. The worse I feel about myself, the more I am dependent and
clingy on my partner to give me the reflection, that I am actually quiet a nice
person and totally all right AND absolutely loved. So, emotionally I become
extremely needy and not attractive at all. The more I'm becoming dependent and
clingy on him, the more vulnerable I become towards him sharing his affection within
this deep connection he has with his daughter...
... A dreadful ping
pong - AAAAAHHH! I am caught up in a subconscious competition for the love of this
one man. And in addition to all this, it is a cold grey winter. I feel like a
child myself. I create more and more tension because I know this is definitely
not myself in my full power! I feel weaker and weaker, while my partner has
millions of things orbiting around him: the child, his ex, his job, his
family... And the more I try to support him, the more I feel hollow inside. A
catch 22 on all sides. I am completely loosing out.
Now, to put things into
the right perspective I have to say, that I am a pretty strong and independent
woman. I have been around the world, teach Yoga and meditation, mindfulness and
other conscious practises, I am a lover and a child myself sometimes - I
honestly never experienced something like this. To be fair, I am jealous, yes,
but only if there is a real chance that my jealousy is actually justified. And
now this: I am jealous and miserable because of a 4-year-old child, that is
absolutely adorable and magic herself.
Has anyone ever
experienced this, I asked? As a counsellor I talk to hundreds of people, as a
friend too, but no one has ever mentioned this to me. Do I actually have
friends, who are in relationships with children, which are not there own? I don't
think so. I even question the eligibility of this emotion amongst all the other
ones constituted within the human emotional range.
Every past day I tried
hard and picked myself up. Though, jealousy in a cocktail with loneliness is
such an intense emotional mixture. I try to push myself mentally into a space
with more clarity and less emotional energy. But I am constantly tired of this.
It is definitely exhausting. The only few periods I thought I got it right
though, was when I actually managed to do something I absolutely loved.
(It is the hardest
thing to do if you have to pick up yourself and go out to meet (new) friends,
to find a job, or only the joy of doing something, which involves passion. So,
please don't expect me to manage to do it every day. Right now, I am happy
about every other day. Sometimes - as I said before - I takes me half the day
to FEEL (between all the other stuff), what it actually is that would make me
happy right now.)
I am not writing this
to release anger or frustration but rather to create a necessary understanding
for those who find themselves in a similar situation, where they are "not
supposed to" feel a certain way. My partner does so many things to make me
feel happy - why would I still be sad? He tries to involve me, shares his
precious time with his daughter - why am I unappreciative?
In a world, where
migration goes hand in hand with patchwork-family-concepts, I say to everyone,
who experiences something similar, to really be gentle on yourself. From an
emotional perspective it is hard-core work you are facing, especially if you
don't have your usual support system by hand. You haven taken yourself out of
your comfort zone into a territory that is your partner's - if not also his ex
girlfriends' - with your usual sources of support all gone. In another world,
you would probably just go out with your friends and do something nice. Here,
the approach to do something like that is 10 times harder. Be gentle!
It is hard-core work,
specially, if the relationship is still very fresh, and you're emotionally
experiencing an absolute honeymoon-phase, while having to do all these
compromises, which - within yourself - you do not want to do at all. You just
don't want to make any compromises and you shouldn't have to. You don't want to
move out of that bed, away from his side. You don't want him to interrupt
kisses or hugs, cause his child is calling. You don't want to be hidden or lied
about - "This is my new roommate, darling." No, you don't want any
compromise, even though you do understand him perfectly well. So, be gentle on
yourself. It is normal that anger is coming up because it is an enormous inner
conflict between what you see as an ideal - that, which you can envision as an
ideal of living with him - and what you're actually living at present.
Every day, I try to
embrace those thoughts I shouldn't have - that I want it all to myself and not
share anything. I know, it is a silly thought but of course I am reaching for
it. I am only human after all. I try to embrace that I feel selfish and
egoistic - yes, big time! Of course, I want to be the happy smiling peaceful
zone-harmony-yogi, but this is simply not the case. Not always. I embrace it. I
want the hugs, the flowers, the cuddles, the presence. I don't want the tired
5-minute-good-night-kiss. I want it all. Isn't that absolutely selfish? Yep. Undeniably.
No question. I embrace it. The conflict starts when you push it away to
"be a better person", to be more socially accepted, to fit in, and in
the end to be loved eventually, which is where it all comes down to. We all
want to be loved - the big number one reason, why we bend, pretend and
compromise. I don't say: avoid compromises. I say: just be gentle. By not
accepting what is actually going on, reality gets distorted and the outcome is
de-pression, unnecessary wounding and a relationship to yourself that is based
on a lie.
You know, sometimes I
imagine my negative emotional chatter as coming from a radio. Sometimes I only
label emotions and pretend to be in a supermarket, where I get to choose.
Sometimes I depersonalize the experience and pretend it wasn't me who feels all
this. In the end everything is going to change. The eternal law of impermanence
can give me a lot of strength and patience. And in my secret profession as a
"psychonaut", I am actually entirely grateful for this whole
situation. No one has ever told me about it before, nor has anyone ever prepared
me for this otherwise. How would I ever have known that this existed within my
emotional range without this experience?
Even though there are
so many people in our society living in that situation, most of us still shy
away from allowing us to feel it. We even shy away from the topic in general.
We are supposed to be "happy family", but even for the partnership it
is enormously challenging. We are dealing with emotions we are socially told we
shouldn't be dealing with. (And I am talking about deep subconscious
conditioning here!) We feel bad about ourselves, because these feelings
certainly exist, but we shouldn't be feeling them. No book is written about it.
While I Google search how to behave in a new partnership with a child, I find
tons of advices on how to relate with the child of my partner - but not a
single advice tells me how to deal with my own emotions, those which I have
never felt before!
So, be attentive with
yourself and don't deny your inner voice. Take things slowly, draw back if
necessary, protect your own living space, and create a life for yourself that
is empowering for your own sake. If your inner voice is saying, "I really
can't handle this right now", don't beat yourself up. I am talking to
myself here in the mirror as well as to thousands of other childless partners
out there, that feel the same way I do. If you can't handle a situation in the
moment, simply disengage. Own it. There is no need to push through right now,
because it will happen naturally. If you need to, do jump on a train and take a
break. Go visit your own family, your friends, fly back home for a while. It's
ok to have an oasis of recharge. That doesn't mean the end of your
relationship, but only that you cannot handle a situation in the moment. As
simple as that. Nothing more. Nothing less. You don't need to force anything.
Just give yourself a break. Go have some fun, and when your partner can, he or
she will come and enjoy this fun time with you. In the end, I am having a
relationship with my partner and maybe, for the biggest part of my life, I
should view both relationships separately: his relationship to his daughter and
my relationship to him. Don't judge yourself, you're doing great! The more
secure and happy you feel, the whole situation will change. Just hang in there
for now.
