childhood trauma

“When I was a child I made up my mind that no one loved me — that life may not be worth it and that love was a conditional transaction between people. When I grew up, I soon learned I was wrong. Children learn wrong things about the world; about life; about love, but I promise you that children don’t think that way without good reasons.

Fortunately, I did learn people do love me and life’s worth living. But I felt that second learning developed much later than early on, because I know when I’m stressed out, when I’m hurt, when I feel betrayed or when I’ve really screwed up something or hurt someone, I relapse into being that little child who believes there is no love in this world.”  ~ Jee Hyun Kim

 

anti-inflammatory lifestyle

I started on an-all- out anti-inflammatory campaign a few months back.  Being on a low glycemic eating plan means a lot to me. For as many years as I care to remember, I waged a losing battle inside my own body. My work in teaching only exacerbated the anxiety, metabolic imbalance, brain fog, mood swings and fatigue.  I distanced myself from the band aid solutions of conventional doctors.  Conversely, as I began to understand and apply natural alternative approaches to healing, the better I began to feel.

“Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food.”  Hippocrates

Holistic practitioners believe the body is able to heal itself, only it needs the raw materials to do so. This also involves eliminating harmful foods and customs in order to prevent oxidation damage, inflammation and blocking of amino acids and essential minerals from doing their work.

Finding consensus among holistic philosophies is unrealistic, so I arrived at the list below according to the research I’ve done so far. Most of the points come from Dr. Peter Glidden who has been a Naturopathic Doctor for twenty five years related to holistic medical nutrition.

As a result of this lifestyle change, I feel less prone to moodiness; I experience greater mental clarity; I feel less stiffness around the joints; it has cleared up my digestive issues and all my headaches have disappeared.

I have found the majority of people I share this with, resist change and would rather adhere to their long established habits than get better.  I’ve learned in this regard to keep my expectations low.

What to Avoid

1. Wheat
2. Rye
3. Barley
4. Oats
5. Any Oil in a Bottle — Vegetable Oils, Olive including Coconut Oil
6. Deep Fried Foods – frying foods at a high temperature causes oxidation
7. Carbonated Beverages — Washing your food down with carbonated drinks blocks the absorption of the nutrients you consume
8. Well cooked red meat — eat red meat rare or medium rare only
9. Luncheon meats because they contain harmful nitrates
10. Skins of baked potatoes, yams and sweet potatoes
11. Sugar, Fructose, Artificial Sweeteners
12. Most refined high carbs even “Gluten Free”

 

letting go graciously

“Some walks you have to take alone.” — curiano.com

Humility helps us realize we are not as indispensable as we imagine. The more we put others on a pedestal in order to pull them in, or the more time we dedicate to those who are manifesting love avoidance, the more we feel taken for granted.

Part of the problem of being codependent is codependents seek to make themselves indispensable in order to secure a place for themselves, but this pursuit precipitates the opposite effect. As Mari Ruti, says,

“There’s no greater test of our respect for our friend’s autonomy than letting someone know she is free without protest when that’s what she needs. This is one of the greatest gifts – one of the greatest acts of love we can ever give. Love is bighearted. It wants what is best for the other even if the best doesn’t involve us.” *

Letting go is a part of loving. If you’re always with someone, you’ll never know how strong your connection is.  Though letting go can seem too much, we can derive inward consolation as Ruti explains,

“Letting a friend walk away before we are ready to let go is one of the hardest things we will ever do… It might help us to remember that friendship can die without us having done anything to kill it.  It’s better to lose a friendship than to watch its initial passion turn into a faint shadow of its former self.”

Whenever we sense disparity of feeling, even in friendship, it is time to let go. It is a needless weight upon the heart. We become desperate for someone’s affection, at the cost of our dignity.  We approach the friendship according to what we want to hear, rather than what is being said or done. Roger de Bussy-Rabutin uses a metaphor to help us read where we stand with another when he says,

“Absence is to love what wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small, it inflames the great.”

~ vincenzo ©

*in these two quotes by Mari Ruti, I have substituted the word, “lover” for “friend” in order to contextualize the quote to my present situation

 

what doesn’t work

when you show yourself vulnerable

and your friend pulls away

your deepest feelings fly into a tailspin

it hurts when someone treats you special

then at once their affection, it fades away

coz soul friends, they don’t come around every day

when you don’t know what to do

you can play the victim

or you can stop doing what doesn’t work

let your friend go where they need to be

stop chasing her and with time

learn to embrace your inner strength

make your life a resting place

feel the carathis of your pain

when true friends understand they are free

they will find their way back to you

and if they do not, do yourself a favor

just learn to let it be

~ vincenzo ©

 

on growing up

Much of my personality was shaped growing up in an emotionally dysfunctional and disconnected environment. My physical and educational needs were being looked after, but there was something missing like a wilted plant receiving water and sunlight, but deprived of nutrients.  My “friends” were always competing to be the best athletes as if that was all that mattered. I was always trying hard to win recognition, but due to my underdeveloped athletic skills, I never got close to getting it nor playing on the school team.

Now as an adult, I am learning to turn my insecurities into strength by not allowing others to quell my love and creativity.  Just because society rejects your sensitivity, doesn’t mean you have to reject it.

~ vincenzo ©

 

the passing away

“If we listen to the bad behavior, we have a chance to meet / encounter our fears, our disappointments, our prejudices, and the things we haven’t thought through before.”  — Jane Deeth

It hurts to see you laying there in a cold and sterile space

Helpless in being able to reach you  

For even in close proximity, I always felt you far away  

You’d get angry and unreasonable

For reasons I could never understand

And rather than try to reconcile my ideal world with reality

It was easier to stonewall you from my thoughts  

To face the departure of a loved one I fail to understand

Whose dark and foreboding moods I refused to enter

Coz it defied the happy endings of my Disney scripted world

I try not to look at the familiar family photos

Projected on the funeral chapel wall

For reasons I cannot explain

They produce dissonance to happy feelings

Like facial features inside a Picasso frame

Their random order, or something

Are interruptions to the memories

I seek to knit together but in futility can’t…

 

loneliness

“Loneliness is not found by having no one to touch, but instead in letting yourself be touched…” — www.ricksreviewz.wordpress.com

“Louis Moore was used to a quiet life. Being a quiet man, he endured it better than most men would. Having a large world of his own in his own head and heart, he tolerated confinement to a small, still corner of the real world very patiently…

“I used rather to like Solitude—to fancy her a somewhat quiet and serious, yet fair nymph; an Oread, descending to me from lone mountain-passes, something of the blue mist of hills in her array and of their chill breeze in her breath, but much also of their solemn beauty in her mien. I once could court her serenely, and imagine my heart easier when I held her to it—all mute, but majestic.

“Since that day I called Shirley to me in the schoolroom, and she came and sat so near my side; since she opened the trouble of her mind to me, asked my protection, appealed to my strength—since that hour I abhor Solitude. Cold abstraction, fleshless skeleton, daughter, mother, and mate of Death!

“It is pleasant to write about what is near and dear as the core of my heart. None can deprive me of this little book, and through this pencil I can say to it what I will—say what I dare utter to nothing living—say what I dare not think aloud.

“I know this is the talk of a dreamer—of a rapt, romantic lunatic. I do dream. I will dream now and then; and if she has inspired romance into my prosaic composition, how can I help it?

“What a child she is sometimes! What an unsophisticated, untaught thing! I see her now looking up into my face, and entreating me to prevent them from smothering her, and to be sure and give her a strong narcotic. I see her confessing that she was not so self-sufficing, so independent of sympathy, as people thought. I see the secret tear drop quietly from her eyelash. She said I thought her childish, and I did. She imagined I despised her. Despised her! It was unutterably sweet to feel myself at once near her and above her—to be conscious of a natural right and power to sustain her, as a husband should sustain his wife.

“I worship her perfections; but it is her faults, or at least her foibles, that bring her near to me, that nestle her to my heart, that fold her about with my love, and that for a most selfish but deeply-natural reason…”  — “Shirley” by Charlotte Bronte

 

external locus of motivation

I sometimes act and think as if my well being depends upon others. ~ vincenzo ©

 

confessions

What is important for friends to know about me?

I have an overbearing sense of responsibility toward others. I enjoy honest and meaningful connection where noble values prevail.  I learn most from those who are honest about their struggles. I find myself needing solitude in order to appreciate the company I keep. I am selective when it comes to showing my playful and humorous side. I need a high level of independence in a relationship.  I am open to new experiences when I don’t feel rushed or pressured.  If I don’t have my own space to retreat to and recharge, I get fatigued and irritable.

As far as my temperament goes, it is artistic and colors the way I see the world. I seek beauty in the commonplace. I align creativity to my spiritual calling.  It’s a side of me few take time to get to know.  I seek substance over style. I shun doing things in a run-of-the-mill way. 

I am called to attend to what is invisible to most, in a culture that has little or no understanding of the calling to spiritual and creative attunement.  My faith can be summed up in the Incarnation.  God descended to earth to show us humility, grace, servanthood and serendipitous wisdom. The teaching and challenges I have received for the past years at church have been lightweight and repetitive: so I have been searching greater depth to the Christian life.

Having a low threshold for sensory stimulation, I want to develop greater coping strategies. I have an aversion to loudness, triteness, small talk and ready-made scripts.

I admire literary authors and how they delve the subterranean currents of the human heart.  I never tire exploring the forgotten world of classic literature. I am skeptical when it comes to convention, the media and consumerism. Writing (as well as Classic Literature) is intimately connected to my spiritual walk. Since my youth, it has been a way of exploring my faith and personal growth. I admire how authors view life through an inner lens. I enjoy reading classic literature over contemporary appreciating how authors infuse feeling into words, creating word pictures through the five senses.

 

emotional validation (1)

Heightened sensitivity has occupied a prominent place in my head and heart.  As a boy, I’d often gaze at the reflection in windows or mirrors to look at my face. Although I could vaguely recognize or detect it, invalidation permeated my environment. Little by little the emotionally toxic world sowed self-doubt within my sensitive nature. I tried to decipher what triggered the contempt. Why were only some children targeted while others favored? Was it my dark skin, my slower speech or my hesitancy?

When growing up, resources about emotional issues were scarce. Internet was still in its mother’s womb. In order to survive, I grew up out of touch with my emotions. By example, I learned to express pain as little as possible. To complicate matters, communication was minuscule in my family of origin. Thus, I felt unworthy, though I pretended none of the antagonism was having any effect on me.

Self-esteem comes with healing. A background full of pain, anger and sadness often creates dependency without realizing it. When Christ’s love becomes a reality, you begin to feel less compelled to seek approval, and yet it takes time to process insecure attachment, especially when it is the driving force behind all your endeavors.

~ vincenzo ©