Today is my birthday and I’ve felt like crap with a bad runny nose. All is good though it was yesterday I watched an inspiring video which built on a lot of thought I’d been having recently about life being played like a game and always taking back to you and working with attraction.

I’m finding recently all my work is branching me out naturally to more metaphysical realms which is really great and exciting.

It was about 12 months ago I started to have dreams all of which involved video games. I made logs of them. There must be around 20 in total. They involve a feeling of excitement and a searching for/finding /being given a game console or games. It’s always a 90s console a super Nintendo or mega drive.

Since I was such an avid gamer of those back in the day I wondered if it was just nostalgic revisiting I needed but I didn’t feel much excitement for those things outside of the dream.

I did buy a mini super Nintendo when they came out last year and yeah it’s a good bit of fun but doesn’t match emotionally the dream content.

Mixed with this I’ve been dreaming of the East. One dream I had where I woke with a feeling of incredible peace I was in a retreat in Thailand.

I’ve been dreaming lots too of living in South Korea where I did live 2002 to 4. In the dreams I just felt so happy doing what I was doing then which was teaching English and partying. I knew I had no desire to do this again. In one of them I was with people I know from my spiritual development group. I had a big room which was bright green.

I’ve thought of different analogies around all this and feel at best my conclusion is that the east is all about me embracing my more eastern side of intuition. The games all show this greater healthy detachment where life is becoming more played like a game. Outer circumstances all taken less harshly and with a reflection of what does this show in me? I’ve been getting this more.

I believe things have metaphysical patterns. My illness now I believe shows further uprooting of past patterns which I’m digging out as a create new foundations. Today I’m just relaxing and listening to my body. Working on redeveloping foundations.

I’ve been working more to see less of a distinction between good and bad but rather just seeing things as experiences playing out which we are to work with. The video I watched yesterday made a good analogy of how we often seek to get rid of things eg like the cold I have now maybe seeing it as the issue blocking us to get rid of. We’d be okay if it wasn’t for that. The goals will all have to take a break type of thinking.

It seems better though is the way of looking at all this as a whole and what is this telling me? What work does this mean there is to do on me so it all becomes integrated and aligned.

Yesterday’s video said too how when we manifest an idea or goal that inevitably these things come to the surface more as these are the things to integrate before we can get there. I feel this is a great reminder. Here too we can let go of time and remember not to see things as good or bad but these seemingly bad issues are just a precursor and a thing to integrate on the path to manifesting our hearts desires.

I often dream of and see green. This is always very much in dreams and I see this as a heart colour. In my green room in Korea, I see as my heart being in the east. My latest dream with games involved my nephew in spirit and me finding the old video game ‘sim city’ where you build your own city. I let him take charge and he built trampolines which then popped up in real life. I felt this was a great further indicator of seeing life as a game and inner child connection. Whereas I don’t consider myself hugely spiritually aligned I see myself as getting on the path as much as possible and I feel there is certainly something in moving to this way of feeling about our lives.

I’ve practiced journal writing pretty regularly it’s fair to say since around 2002 when I first had some therapy. People can have a misconception that it can be something that needs to be kept or about something in particular.

However, journal writing as a therapeutic practice is purely just about daily connection. It’s just about a stream of consciousness coming out. It’s rather like a meditative/mindfulness practice. It’s a way of validating this is me now and where I’m at and how I’m feeling. It may start something like……. feeling pretty good right now. Looking forward to seeing x later today. Got a bit annoyed with that person yesterday but feel handles okay on the whole but will be careful around him / her in future.. etc etc

People with narcissistic traits attack our experience of just being human, of being ourselves. As humans we can sometimes be irrational, we are emotional beings and we are never perfect. Not be perfect is what makes us human. To think we are perfect is what often makes a narcissist. Narcissists operate in a holier than though self righteous paradigm. What they say is correct and anything against that means you are abusing them in some way. In breaking away from them you become the bad person. I’ve experienced this first hand, hear about it from many clients and this is the general documented thing which happens.

I linked the book here called ‘Becoming a person’ by Carl Rogers. This is about Person centred therapy which was in fact my primary grounding training when I studied to be a Counsellor. It’s a very moving book which discusses the process people go through when treated with purely empathy, congruence and unconditional acceptance. This combined with the trusting relationship formed between the client and therapist and the clients wanting to change causes them to walk the path of becoming more of what Rogers calls a ‘fully functioning person’. I know this process works from my own experience as a therapist and in encounter groups. This book shows clearly the way people’s resistance break and they are able to let go and change into someone they want to be free of restrictions, they become more human. Our humanity is what narcissists try to take away.

I always remember back in 2005 when I was first studying to be a therapist when I brought an issue with a friend I had at the time. His traits were later said by my Counselling mentor to be symbolic of a diagnosable narcissist. I was totally unfamiliar with that term at the time. The healing and growth journey from that detachment has lead me so far. To now supporting people who have been abused as being the main niche of my work. It’s a very ongoing journey and an ongoing puzzle I continue to grapple with. I remember the group was all about emanating those same core conditions as in Carl Rogers therapy. I always remember someone asking me ‘what would you achieve by seeing this person again?’ to which I could only answer ‘nothing’. Detachment was difficult but it was a strange enmeshed friendship which involved narcissism and my codependence (conarcissism) buying into it. I’ve never regretted the decision for a second. I detached, I moved to New Zealand. This wound has popped up numerous more times and I have kept going into greater depths of my own self realisation. Involved in this time I had a romantic relationship with someone with narcissistic traits too. That was what fully lead me to have this primary focus on recovery from narcissistic abuse.

It’s interesting how when we hold our pure feelings whatever they are as being valid that we grow. Funnily enough when this type of therapy first emerged in the midst of more expert like Freudian therapy it was thought that to accept our feelings like this would infact lead to narcissism. I can understand why it would be thought this could happen. However the exact opposite takes place. We become growing people and start to move towards what can be said to be a more authentic version of ourselves. We become calmer, more creative, more forward moving. Rogers used the term ‘the fully functioning person’. Maslow uses the term ‘The self actualised individual’. Carl Jung speaks of the journey to individuation. There is much ovelap through all of them. I remember feelings that I felt were always crushed down and being able to shine a light and just accept they were okay was so incredibly liberating. Leading to greater and greater depths, creativity and development.

It’s interesting how in this process of becoming more human too how there is naturally a level of irrationality about us. I remember reading it in a book about boundaries and it saying to remember our right to be irrational. That’s odd I thought. Isn’t irrational just stupid? I then thought though about how narcissists operate in a purely rational dogmatic system. It’s through this they are able to take dignity away and trip us up and take control. It’s important to remember that in the world of Psychology that it is narcissistic individuals who fall on this scale of pathological mental health. Their incessant rationality and combined with the view they are 1000% right makes their spell so convincing.

The way through this is to honour our intuition. As my counselling mentor said simply ‘If someone is making you feel not right much of the time then there is a chance you are dealing with a narcissist or someone with narcissistic traits.’ Wayne Dyer once said that our intuition is our connection with God. Whether you believe in God or not I do feel intuition is a profound function that we are only just getting to understand more and I feel it is through this and our feeling selves where we are able to honour our humanness and really walk this path to our full humanness.

A coach I heard speak a few days ago said ‘always remember the world has a place for you. You’re great just as you are. Honour your boundaries and just be you.

https://www.bookdepository.com/Becoming-Person-Carl-Rogers/9781614278689?a_aid=philwalker

This week I spoke with my counselling mentor and supervisor to gain more insight around relationships and couples. An important distinction was created which I am using more in my work with clients. It was obvious but was one of those things that needed to be spelled out before it became more integrated in me as an idea.

This was to constantly make a distinction between connection and relationship and to see that no matter how much of a connection someone may have with someone that it does not necessarily mean that a relationship is the best way forward.

It is said that in relationships particularly at the start rather than an attitude which can be good in areas of life of ‘don’t sweat the small stuff’ it can be a good idea to blow up things that may be going on to be able to think about how this may look further down the line. It’s easy to become enchanted and overlook things that may not work for us in an actual ‘relationship’ due to parts of the ‘connection’ we are feeling.

A great connection does not always equate in any ways to a great relationship. My supervisor put it bluntly as ‘you can still have a great connection with an axe murderer’. A relationship would certainly not be a good idea.

It is good to blow up certain things that may cause issues and to make steady traction to see if other than a connection whether this is something which can develop into a relationship. Slowing down intercourse can be a good idea some psychologists say for around 2 months to allow this process to happen. After that it becomes must more difficult to be able to go back and retract feelings from connection felt which may have then just gone into relationship without as much conscious choice as could have taken place.

In the connection phase there can be a lot of interaction and attraction with unconscious material between 2 people. Therefore although it can feel amazing it’s important to acknowledge that this can often be an interplay of wounds and issues. Healthy relationships often go well from being very slow burning. While chemistry is great it can definitely be a warning sign to make sure you are taking things slowly before going into a relationship.

The book ‘families and how to survive them’ by Cleese and Skinner is good for discussing different family dynamics and how they impact in relationships. The book in the photo good is often a well recommended text for couples too and how we bring out things in the other person that we may be needing on an unconscious level.

The important main point though… connection and relationship as distinct and separate. Have a great day everyone