Let me just admit it at once. Aside from the fact that I am a highly sceptical person (inherited from my dad) and that I wanted to please my dad for my entire life, including rejecting a lot of what I was actually interested in – I am a spiritual person. I do believe in many things, I use certain techniques to communicate with spirits, I have had visits by dead relatives (including both mom and dad), I have had experiences that I can’t explain any other way.
And before I begin, let me just say how annoying and conflicted it is, with one parent drowning in self-help books, believing in lots of alternative techniques but being too dishonest to make any change (guess who – yes, correct, mom!), and the other being sceptical and rational to the degree of being ridiculous. It’s very difficult allowing yourself to believe in something when you don’t want to be like one of your parents, especially not when the other one so clearly despises and resents these sorts of things.
So, for large parts of my life, I have been rejecting my interest in this area. And there’s no denying that I got some sort of talent for it. I’ve had odd experiences since I was a child, and the first time I had someone dead visit me, I was about twentyone years old or so (at least that I can remember). It hasn’t happened that often, but mom came to see me about two weeks after she died, and my dad few months after he passed.
But there are of course many ways to find answers, and that’s what I do. I ask for answers, I try to find ways to discover and understand how to live. Anyone who grew up with a narcissistic parent can tell you just how much we never learn. I have been terrified of conflict for my entire life, although it’s better now after my last round of therapy (the only round of therapy as an adult, I might add). I have no idea what it means to have a close relationship with my mother, the way I see other people do. I don’t understand the concept of loyalty that goes two ways in a family. I don’t know what it means to love in a healthy, natural way that doesn’t consume one party.
Spirituality is my way to go finding answers. To someone else, it might be math, logic and science. It doesn’t really matter, as long as we get the answers we’re looking for. For me, it has mainly to do with two paths; the power of thought, and communication with that which we cannot see. I’ve been dabbling in astrology, tarot, Law of Attraction, the use of energy and the chakra system, shamanism – et cetera.
What I’ve ended up with is not wanting to put a lable on myself. I don’t want to be a shaman. I don’t want to foresee your future in Tarot, I don’t want to believe in astrology alone, I don’t want to be a witch or a Wicca, I don’t want to be a buddhist or a Hindu – and above all, I don’t want to be religious. Period. That’s just completely out of the question.
As a sceptic and also being quite critical, I have many opinions about some of these things. I’ll write more about each later on, and discuss what it is that I don’t find useful with them, for me personally. But pretty much all of them has the potential to reach answers to the questions we have about how to live. As I see it, they are all buried deep inside us, we just need to wake them up. To do that, we may need assistance – and that’s where all these things do come in quite handy.
One of the reasons I don’t want to lable myself is because I don’t want to buy something as the whole truth. I don’t believe there is one single truth. I am actually considering writing a book on “truth” as we percieve it in photography, which in many ways correlates to this. We are all biased by what we already think we know, and we choose to belive in that which confirms what we already believe.
And so, I choose parts from various paths, I connect the dots between them to create an image that rings true to me. And right now, I combine yoga and shamanic journeys to communicate with a rather large variety of creatures/guides/animals/whatever, to learn, evolve, grow and expand. I’ve had some really interesting experiences through my yoga journeys, untraditional as it may be.
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So how does all this correlate to the recovery from narcissistic abuse, then?
Good question. Again, it’s all about finding answers. And while therapy can be amazing, I find it leaves many questions unanswered. Like; how does it feel with a mother’s love, the way it’s supposed to feel? And where a therapist is always a human, regardless how objective they may think they are, there is always an emotion behind their words, there’s always some sort of judgement (or at least I feel that way). Finding answers through spiritual work, the communication – at least for me, is something completely different. I find that the emotional respons from my side is set aside, so that the information ends up exactly where and how it’s needed. Very effective, I might add.
Spirituality is not for everyone. If you don’t believe, there’s no point even in trying. But if you’re interested in it, I do invite you to find a path that works for you.
With love.
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