355 Marbles
It’s hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head.
Sally Kempton
It’s my 3:00 am mind that causes me the most distress ( as F. Scott Fitzgerald noted, "In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning). Especially right before Ex-man moved out, I would wake up in the middle of the night and be unable to fall back to sleep. Thankfully, my naturopath prescribed a nerve tonic that I refer to as my herbal Valium - one shot and I’m out like a light. She also told me an old Chinese hydrotherapy to quiet the mind. Before bed, I soak my feet and calves in hot water. This is meant to draw the blood from the brain and lead to a relaxing sleep. Not sure if it’s a placebo, but it seems to work.
Here’s the rub – I am now one hundred percent responsible for my two minds. It was convenient that in my last relationship I unwittingly delegated the job of voicing a negative mind to my partner. Ex-man was the proponent of “Plan B.” “He” didn’t like the idea of me putting all my eggs in one basket. “He” wasn’t sure about me following my dreams. Now he is gone from my space, and what I’ve noticed is that I have these two minds myself. I’m left wondering if I should have a Plan B or if I’m putting all my eggs in one basket. Sometimes I drive off course and let my mind enter the “dark side” before I become conscious and steer back on track. Yoda would say, “You’re not a Jedi yet.”
In my parent’s relationship, I often witnessed moments when my father would berate my mother verbally. I used to ask her why she put up with it? But then I noticed something curious - even in moments when my father was absent, if she would make the smallest mistake she would say to herself, “Stupid woman.” I wondered, was this the echo of my father talking through her or was it something that she truly believed about herself? It’s hard to know which came first, the chicken or the egg but I do know this, if you have a positive self image, you’re not going to stay hooked into someone who has a negative image of you. You’re going to leave.
I remember listening to a story about a woman who was physically abused in her marriage. She stayed with her husband and the abuse became worse until the husband started getting their two sons to record the abuse on videotape. She eventually left him and went on to create a more positive life for herself and her two sons. One of the residuals of this relationship was that she could not seem to shake her ex-husband’s negative voice in her head, calling her names, telling her how useless she was. Was this his voice or was it something she feared about herself even before they got together? I am not trying to place blame on the victim here, but if we acknowledge that we stay hooked in negative situations because of less than healthy self images, it might allow us to unhook from the external mirror and do the internal work needed to make better choices. This realization can be emancipating because the one thing you can change is yourself.
Is there any negativity that you are carrying from your past relationship? Does “the enemy” have outposts in your head? If so, is it time to take responsibility for the negative voices and start replacing them with more positive ones? Sometimes a good therapist can be helpful here.
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