Exorcise

6. Receive empathy from yourself and/or another person until you experience a shift.

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Silent empathy does not meet my need for empathy. I feel disappointed and… incomplete. Alienated and numb. Disconnected. My needs for empathy were not met. If I had it to do over again, I would have sat quietly alone and given myself empathy -- this would have more fully met my needs.

I feel…. empty. Alone. But these things do not feel alienating. I feel centered, grounded, complete within my incompleteness. I trust that I have everything within me to process this. Would I be willing to work with this some more?

I fought the urge to run, to just pick up my stuff and leave right before the end of the workshop. I felt alternately numb and emotionally overwhelmed, disconnected and alienated. Terminally unique, as one participant so aptly put it. I felt…. invisible, unseen, ununderstood, unknowable. I feel anguish right now; my needs for connection and empathy were not met.

But what is in this to learn? Something…. something that "looks like" an old jackal view I once had, but is different, transformed somehow -- I see the same landscape of isolation from a different level, one that acknowledges the interconnectedness of all things/beings, which recognizes the universality of feelings and needs, but one which also accepts the uniqueness of each individual experience.

Maybe this comes from a chronic unmet need for empathy -- though I know those who can provide that empathy, I seem to ask for it from those who can't. (Today, even randomly so, by accident.) What do I learn? That self-empathy is key for me, that I might be better served to offer it to myself rather than seek it / rely upon it from external sources.

I discovered in myself, underneath the strongest, most toxic, vicious jackal voice, a previously unvoiced need for congruity, for reality to stabilize, to not "sneak up on me" with painful and unexpected messages of hatred and blame. This will never happen -- it is a need that cannot and will not be met. I mourn this and accept it peacefully, if somewhat tearfully.

That acceptance seems to open up a space inside of me, to ground me more strongly and firmly than I have heretofore experienced that sensation. I couldn't speak. I couldn't move. I didn't want to interact. I didn't want to put on my personality. I didn't want to communicate. I just wanted to keep steady with the tides of sensation, to resist the urge to run, to resist my resistance.

If I had had actual, verbal empathy, perhaps I would have processed this to a different place. I realized the potential to feel disappointment over that, but stayed on the ride without bias to see where it would go.

I have no idea where it has gone. I have no idea where I am. I have no idea who I am. Luckily, I can easily accept this -- it is not the first time that parts of My Self have disappeared suddenly, so it doesn't cause alarm. I feel…. hopeful, adventurous -- this meets my needs for exploration and discovery, for practice, for ease within emptiness.

I also feel sad, mourning. I generally feel connected to others, if somewhat uncertain at times, depending upon the intensity of my jackal. Now… now I feel inorganic, object-like, solid but apart. My drive to benefit or interact with others is gone -- I think this is a positive. Benefiting implies helping; helping implies changing; changing implies judgment. I'd rather not care. I'd rather not judge. I'd rather be this rock.

For now.