What is very interesting as I embark on my (waaaaay overdue) inner healing journey is that there are countless ways to fix issues, address them or put them into perspective that seem core, but given my deep default state of mind and soul are just symptoms of more fundamental issues. Working through strategies to overcome everyday problems then just reveals: „Nope, this isn’t my problem, it’s deeper.„

For example: I’ve got a solid stack of productivity books. Those however are quite pointless if my fundamental state is one with a perpetual baseline of anxiety which disables my ability to focus on a task at hand at fundamental level. Which is why the effect of productivity books is almost negligible to me, even if I eventually read them. At least compared to a regular person without soul- and attachment wounds as big and/or deep and/or wide as mine. Some work to a degree – The Checklist Manifesto* comes to mind – but they all just more or less gloss over deeper problems that need to be addressed first.

Another one: I might score some sex and some intimacy if I learn The Art of Seduction and proactively go out into spaces where intimacy and a formalized encounter between the sexes exists – but that won’t solve fundamental problems that pop up in my relationships and seriously hamper my chances of an healthy LTR with the right type of unbroken/healed people.

Very good books and resources now get put aside for later, as soon as I notice that others that go deeper, address the deeper issues closer to the core, are more important.

The conclusion that I have now drawn from the observation detailed above is that – as interesting and helpful an advice or book may seem – as soon as I notice they aren’t addressing the real issue I actually have, I put them aside for later, to focus on topics closer to the core of my soul, to the origins of my childhood and the generational trauma that most likely runs in my family.

Attached.* is a useful and helpful book. But I won’t continue reading it right now, as relationships with others isn’t my core problem. The relationship with myself and the lack of healthy parenting is. No point in addressing my attachment style to seek a relationship if I don’t fix that first.

And yes, don’t get me wrong, I sure as hell do desire love and intimacy and have a deep, intense and painful longing and burning thirst for it. But I also have to learn to hold out for people who are willing and able to give me that type of love I need and not lunge from one trauma bond to the next where my anxious attachment has me settle for scraps because deep down I think I deserve no better. And in order to fix that, I need to heal a yet a deeper bundle of things that binds me in that own little personal hell that us CPTSD, ADHD, etc. types carry around with us at all times.

It makes no sense to mingle with people who don’t care or have their own set of issues and could are very likely only fit to be a codependent partner in misery in a long-term relationship. Obviously. … Fuck, this shit is complicated.

The Deep Stuff ™

Pete Walkers Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving* (German Edition*) is a perpetually quoted classic when it comes to contemporary childhood and generational trauma insight. This one has moved to the front of my reading list, together with Bradshaws Healing the Shame that binds you. Yeah, this stuff is deeper.

Humility is the key

When we’ve reached a point where our coping mechanisms, lifestyle habits and the great chances and encounters we had the very great fortune to meet and discover do not fly anymore, when the remedy they offer has moved from epic and ecstatic to „Meh“., then it’s time to turn back to oneself and take a deep look into what is still at our core, what is „The Dead Rat“, the waste-dump festering nearer to our inner flame that has smelly fumes seep up into our everyday lives and prevents us from stepping yet more freely into our next league, our next journey that live has to offer and expects from us. Humility. Shoshin. The Spirit of the n00b™. That’s of most importance here and now, im moments of crisis and rediscovery (… The Spirit of the n00b™ is my phrase, I though some humor might be in place 😉).

While humility may be a very good reason to postpone an inner healing journey – perhaps because other duties are more pressing – it shouldn’t be an excuse not to tackle what is deep inside us and will follow us along as our invisible shadow if we haven’t integrated it. I’m 53 years old right now, my SMV has apexed to some degree, I’ve maxed out my basic skills in social dancing (ready for serious skills now), my daughter is a grown woman … in short, my default set of tools that I’ve culminated up to now only can take me this far. A fundamental revision of myself is due. And a solid tackling of the work that comes along with that.

Now is the time, as much as it will ever be again.

The tricky challenge for me personally is that I will have to curb my anxious tendencies to lunge head-first into the next affair and overemphasize my need for an LTR and external validation as a sweet soothing remedy for my deep recurring inner pain. It ain’t fun, but so isn’t being a flaky emotional wreck that fundamentally fails at being honest with him self and others where honesty and vulnerability has been overdue for a handful of decades. Better late than never I guess.

* Amazon.de Affiliate Link