Monday
short gap of time before heading out for hospice transport gig…..
I started an edit for formal session of Saturday, and only reviewed just a tiny portion and there’s a lot of meat and rawness in there….
I suppose, the theme played out through the whole meeting and afterparty… and that might be what the group and mental health space… and maybe even society sorta needs right now… more space for the feminine…. pure potential, but that often starts with chaos, destruction, fury, etc…..
One potential takeaway lesson from Saturday is the futility of boundaries…. I’d argue that’s often over-used male gate-keeping energy…. but the other side of space and feminine ‘good enough’ evaluation, is what’s missing…
Enforcing boundaries when there’s overflow/overload/overwhelm, when that fails, then emotional cut off and exile are the only options…. but what kind of mother would do that to their infants growing up?? there’s lots of room given to act out and explore…. you can limit their physical exploration.. but how much can a parent limit their noise and emotional expression and exploration?? har har!??!
In that case, of babies flooding space with emotional, sound & verbal overwhelm….. what can you do? offer space, place, distraction, displacement, etc… it’s not that hard gate-keeping energy of the ideal masculine protecting home from invaders, etc…
Instead of enforcing boundaries and social identity with gate-keeping, policing type of stone wall type force….. maybe the feminine style is to play with space and place…. so design and present your space as more homey, attractive, beautiful, warm, loving, etc… and others will gravitate towards that space and social identity…..
This boundary setting style, is often too harsh and rejecting…. it’s over focus on the walls and entry point doorway… it’s neglecting the home inside of the walls.. is that attractive, is that warm, is that nourishing?? is that welcoming?? is that worth going through the gate-keeping?
or is that inside the walls….. neglected? obscure? a void? etc. etc…
Boundaries…….maybe it’s a combination of structure/walls and space/place/pace which is what’s inside the walls, and also empty space to play and explore…
……
waiting and break time while cancer client goes back and gets IV fluids & magnesium today
A little bit of scheduling chaos going on, with an appointment block for next Monday due to staffing challenges for Thanksgiving week…. and then she’s got added appointments for a CT scan and an additional IV fluid appt to help both before and after the CT scan…..
oh.. that’s also with the anticipation of what CT scan results might say or not say…. though I think there’s a good chance it will have a lot of unclarity…..
Since there’s a bit of chaos around scheduling…. I’m sticking around outside in the hallway for now, as Joan talked about possibly calling me to help with something…. which was the backup idea of moving next Monday’s appointment to the Bethesda location, which currently has openings in the morning….
……..
Deef maybe we need a 3rd baby that’s different from sad baby and mad baby……
terrified baby?
Diving a bit deeper into terrified baby….. a better phrasing might be scared shitless baby
And this might be a neglected area in mental health….. and it feels like similar territory to holding space for this cancer client, along with other hospice work… most people freak out when other’s scared shitless baby gets triggered…. it might be a combination of ego death anxiety, but also just that concentrated dose of uncertainty and imminent demise that’s put right up in your face…. that cripples most people….or maybe cripples the super-ego…..
Though… this scared shitless space, doesn’t really fit into a positive vs negative emotion space…. pure terror is and can be quite adaptive and links to pure survival instinct… and it’s that palpable vibration of really feeling alive…. being that at edge of life and death, makes decisions feel much more important…. and it can make time seem to stand still… or time hits a timeless nature to it….
Adrenaline addicts might be wired to get even bigger highs from being at that edge of life & death…. or it’s a the high that happens when one’s survival instincts kick in???
I suspect that scared shitless baby can also have links to the spiritual/transcendent emotion of awe/reverence… Part of religion used to be Fear of God, with the pointer of a God fearing person, as a good trait…
That fear of God space, naturally humbles a person, along with opening that door to awe, wonder and reverence, type of kneel down and worship type of space and collective ritual type of behaviors…. things that modern society tends to dismiss, and also neglect….
See how Awe is right in between anger and Fear in this chart… that’s the land of inspiration and transcendence…
But also Disgust came up a lot in last zoom, which is between anger and grief… (mad baby & sad baby)…
But what’s missing might be scared baby… which is pure fear, but balanced by raw awe and raw shame….
Healthy awe leads to inspiration and humility.. while healthy shame leads to state of joy & growth & shared humanity…
If one doesn’t have link to infinite through awe/inspiration/transcendent emotion, along with healthy shame that leads to humanity & authentic pride balanced by humility from Awe…..
Then one can try to control connection and belonging with disgust… neglect.. dismissal.. rejection.. disapproval…
oh.. and maybe that’s what’s going on when people are battling between mad baby vs sad baby’s needs….. it’s really an issue of whose disgust is stronger… battle for moral high ground and who can hold the strongest moral outrage to control belonging and connection….
But on this chart.. it’s too much in the top left side… the bottom right 3 emotions of Awe, Fear & Shame are being neglected…..
To properly balance it out, would need healthy fear, which might be what leads to respect and space for others…. that’s cuz you fear both God, but also other people’s survival instincts and potential for danger…. but respect is giving them space, vs staying in disgust, which would reject other’s fear, along with possibly rejecting and being disgusted with one’s own scared shitless baby … and that raw terror and raw fear… has been written out of consciousness by academia, knowledge, and technology…..
we’ve lost touch w/ survival instincts and raw human and animalistic nature of being… because of modern comforts, technology and knowledge models…..
another visual for scared shitless baby:
All the focus on safe spaces and coddling has led to disconnect and lack of exposure with scared baby…. but linking it to triangles of meditative skills…. without pure terror…. we lose touch w/ clarity… deep truths… path of growth and mastery…. and that desire for safety that naturally directs people to look for others…. shared humanity…..
while mental health is promoting an attitude of being entitled to safety…. by setting boundaries and leaving.. but that only works for privileged people…. of which even when you have the privilege of escape… leaving… there will still be situations where you can escape….
ergo… cancer client and the whole cancer industry, where people are totally oblivious and clueless about how to interact and live when there’s no escape from cancer…. how to live gracefully in the face of knowing your days are numbered from out of control cancer growth and multiple prognosis….
Before modern medicine, I’m guessing that people died suddenly from all sorts of reasons along with unknown reasons… so there were lots of reminders that your days were numbered… just living on, probably gave people a sense of being lucky…. for just surviving… my dad had 2 younger brothers who died in the single digit years….. his mom told him that his life was hard, because his younger siblings didn’t survive… lol…
But… back to scared shitless baby…… not having that integrated… leads to unearned wisdom… and all the dangers that come with that… along with just this lack of exposure to real danger and losing that muscle of tolerating and navigating danger….
so… emotional flashbacks end up feeling like life or death…. or hearing an insult from another person… ends up being treated like a mortal wound…… from a cognitive frame, it isn’t, and rationally/logically that’s obvious and easy to agree with…
But… maybe scared shitless baby has been exiled and is feeling lonely… so it’s taking any opportunity to participate and express itself… and stretch it’s legs…. so an insult or emotional flashback or whatever grief trigger comes up, then Scared shitless baby, floods the system and takes over….. cuz it just wants to play….
and it also might be linked to libido…. or it’s the death drive…. that might just be the opposite side of libido….
oh… and the great mother.. might be the territory of facing death… life and death are linked…. to give new life to something, means something has to die…. maybe the energy of giving birth to first child, meant that girl and womanhood must die, and one is reborn as a mother…. clinging onto that old life of girl/woman, might be living in the past, stuck in the past, a sort of zombie like existence? without a real social place and purpose.?
Granted society is much more friendly to atomized and independent islands of people or tiny families…. but our dna and genetics might still be hardwired to tribes and tight knit communities… so if we’re divorced from an embedded community… we are supposed to feel out of place, lacking belonging, and just incomplete…. cuz we are probably hard-wired to be part of a big family, group, tribe, community, nation, etc…
…….
add on
some more ideas on scared shitless baby….
Maybe it’s not baby space?? It’s more so a super-ego hijacked that’s out of control and shared shitless?? or a social self that doesn’t know what the fuck to do?
There is an inner rebel child like energy that’s rather fearless….
but then again, yah there might be a deep part that’s just pure terror and fear…. is it an inner child? social self? super-ego manager? Where is this part that’s holding pure terror…. stark terror… paralyzing fear? hmm….
