I wrote this poem from my heart, and I believe that
the stranger in my poem is who I was when I was
younger. I had so many negative beliefs about myself,
and I truly believe that therapy has helped me
overcome my obstacles with dealing with my traumas. I
haven't learned to FORGET the bad memories, but I have
instead learned how to live WITH them. I now know that
my past doesn't make up who I am, it helps me learn
more about why I am the way that I am. Without my past
and memories, I would not be the person that I am
today. I am happy with who I am, and I think going to
therapy has helped me better understand my life.
POEM
Young girl, I am for you
Your angelic face is washed with fear
Dewy drops cling to the ends of lashes
As a single tear trickles down your cheek
No one knew that when the world turned off its lights
at night,
You sat in the corner crying silently to the moon,
Waiting for someone to rescue you
A face half-hidden in the shadows,
Pleading eyes reveal a sadness that will not subside
Take my hand and let me stop the madness that you
scream of,
Because I know that madness is what I helped create
Don’t be afraid
You let ME be afraid
Let me dry your tears
Let me conquer what came before, so you can start over
Let me wrap you up in my love and heal your pain
From the beginning, the past was never your fault
Unveil your true self hidden beneath your sorrow
Begin to step into the light
I believe we’ve crossed paths before…
You are me,
Or rather, who I USED to be...
but i am here
behind every blank stare
nodding indifference
and typecast
I am here
I wished you saw me brake.
Wished you saw me cry.
Just to prove to you,
my confessions of love were no lie.
I dreamed of destiny.
Dreamed of happiness.
Believed in illusions of love,
without boundaries.
I waited for you.
Waited day after day.
Convinced myself,
that waiting was not in vain.
I thought this was temporary.
Thought this would eventually end.
Closed my eyes to be blind,
and asked myself not why? But when?
When would you return?
When would I hear from you?
When could I've avoided this,
in order not to hurt?
I suffered from your love.
Suffered from your games.
Tried to keep up with your lies,
just to cure the pain.
I lied to myself.
Lied to console my heart.
Unfortunately it died of loneliness,
after waiting so long.
As he thinks of payback,
he enjoys hurting others,
making sure they hurt
like he had to suffer.
He's never serious.
His name is death
His game is good vs. evil
and you just took your last breath.
He sabers every moment,
watches you ache,
covered in blood,
laughing at your pain.
He shows his victims
the " job " the day,
torturing bodies
as if its childs play.
He lifts your soul.
Drags your body.
Grows in power
When he kills somebody.
Aware of what I saw,
but scared to believe.
It's not a movie....
Its what happened to me.
Primary Linkage
When your partner is demoted to second place behind the children, a pet, a friend, or the internet—the partnership is bound to deteriorate. This does not mean that we have to neglect our children or friends, but that we always put our partner first, and let him or her know it.
“Linkage” is the energetic connection one experiences through relationships with people, animals, and favorite activities. Primary linkage is the relationship through which one experiences primary connection. Whether you currently have a primary partner or not, having connection with a variety of friends, family members, and activities can provide joy and richness. However, if you want to sustain a good primary relationship, the priority you give to your various preferences is vital.
Primary linkages sometimes go to the internet, reading, or addictions rather than to one’s partner. Some people find that primary linkage to a pet is the only kind of linkage that is satisfying, as it is safe, reciprocal, and void of complications. All of these linkages, if they become primary, lead to less linkage between partners. When couples predominantly focus their energy on people or activities other than their primary partner, they don’t nurture the relationship or deal with hurt feelings and unmet desires. Unspoken feelings become silent judgments and disappointment. Most divorces can be traced back to the shift of primary linkage from the partner to someone or something else.
Linkage with the Children
A major challenge for most couples arises when they have children. Young children need a great deal of love and attention, and respond very positively to linkage. Of course linkage with our children is absolutely necessary and rewarding. It is also often easier to obtain energetic connection from children than from an adult, because they are dependent and they reciprocate easily. As a result, it is quite common at this stage for a parent to shift his or her primary linkage to the children. Ideally, we bond with our children, while retaining primary connection with our partner. The problem occurs when the primary linkage shifts permanently to the child.
Imagine that Anne, who is warm and friendly, is married to John, who is cooler and impersonal. Once they have children, Anne’s natural warmth feels nurtured and reciprocated through her children’s affection. This is quite natural. Yet, if the linkage with John is not nourished, because it’s easier to get the linkage through her children, the whole family system suffers. While John may not communicate any problem with this shift in energy, he is likely to feel it. As a result of the underlying feeling of abandonment, he may plunge deeper into work and outside activities. Eventually, he may be susceptible to the warm attentions of another woman, missing this within his primary relationship.
Such linkage to the children is not healthy for Anne or the children either. Anne’s linkage with her children, being based on their dependence, cannot be as whole, equal, and multifaceted as the linkage with her partner. The children may feel increasing demand to respond to their parent’s dependence on their affection. Children feel increasingly burdened if they are the primary source of linkage for the parent.
Nothing benefits a growing child more than to see well-adjusted parents, who are caring, and actively engaged in their own lives. Children feel secure when parents take care of themselves and honor each other. A loving partnership between two adults who are emotionally, intellectually, physically, and even spiritually committed to one another is much richer and more multifaceted than a relation between an adult and a child, pet, or electronic device. It’s not appropriate to attempt to have such a partnership with a child, because of the inbuilt inequality and dependence of the child on the parent. Moreover, role-modeling a primary partnership, or some sort of satisfying equal adult relationships, to our children gives them much more than giving them all of our attention and energy.
This is not to say that we should not love, nurture, and give attention to our children. The parent child relation can be irreplaceably magical and special, but not to be confused with an equal and reciprocal adult partnership.
If you can’t go anywhere without your children or have lost the desire to spend time alone with your partner, this indicates that the primary linkage has shifted away from your partner. “The more you and your partner drift apart, the more each of you will link with one or more of the children. The more you link with the child, the more you will drift apart from you partner. The cycle never ends.” (Stone, Hal, Ph.D. & Stone, Sidra, Ph.D. (2000) Partnering, New World Library.)
Suggestions to avoid this cycle
Don’t take your partner for granted. At home, make efforts to enjoy each other and engage in every-day consideration and graciousness. Simple courtesy can keep the primary linkage strong. If you’re on the internet, working, or with the children, and your partner walks into the room, don’t ignore him or her. You don’t need to drop everything, but friendly acknowledgment shows the importance you place on your relationship.
Also, teach your children that they don’t have constant access to you at all times in all places in the home, especially in the master bedroom. Make sure you create boundaries to ensure that you have privacy at certain times and in certain places in the home. Otherwise, it’s easy to become parents only instead of partners. With clearly-defined boundaries, children are not likely to feel rejected. It’s healthy for the children to see the value you place on your primary relationship.
Make regularly-scheduled dates or special rituals together. Spend time alone without the children in addition to family time. Occasional excursions away from home adds freshness and excitement. It’s energizing to step into the unfamiliar with your partner.
Recommended reading: Stone, Hal, Ph.D. & Stone, Sidra, Ph.D. (2000) Partnering, New World Library.
What is Projection?
That which remains unconscious, Carl Jung wrote, gets projected on to another person. For example, Pete may blame his wife for having given up his dreams of traveling the islands with a surfboard, unaware of his own unconscious desire for a stable lifestyle. Debbie may blame her husband for their decision not to have children, unaware of her own fear of such responsibility.
Projection is an automatic process where someone ascribes unconscious thoughts or qualities to another person. We carry the seeds of all qualities within us. Yet, many qualities remain unconscious, in that they are unacknowledged, repressed, or incompatible with our self-image. As a result, the unconscious is both attracted to and repulsed by those qualities, and tends to detect them in others. Becoming aware of our projections ultimately opens the way to growth and transformation.
The Difference between Description and Projection
Projections get cast onto persons with a suitable hook, that is, those who embody the qualities we project. Remember the film Chocolat? The whole town, and in particular the mayor, projected their repressed sensuality on to the woman in red shoes, Juliette Binoche, who carried the projection well.
What, then, distinguishes an accurate description from a projection? When heat and emotion accompany an observation, it’s more than mere observation. Awe and admiration, or disgust and hatred indicate projection. The emotion of projection stems from our having disowned a part of ourselves we now glimpse in another. When we disown qualities in ourselves, we often do so out of fear, because those qualities were not acceptable in our family or sub-culture. Later in life, there is often a desire to evoke that lost part of ourselves. Thus, the underlying fear or desire provide the emotion of projection.
For example, if we were taught to blend in and not to act big, later in life we may be drawn to some people and bothered by others who have big personalities.
Projecting Desirable and Undesirable Qualities
When we consider desirable qualities such as creativity, sensuality, or leadership as incompatible with our self-image, they often get projected onto others, with the result of adulation, infatuation, and falling in love. For example, Maria sees herself as extraverted and gregarious, and may become infatuated with someone who is more quiet and self-contained.
When we judge certain traits to be unacceptable and incompatible with our self-image, we may project them on to someone we don’t want to be like, and develop an aversion towards that person. For instance, John sees himself as kind and generous, unfamiliar of his own sense of entitlement and greed, and thus detests others he sees as greedy.
Often, we prefer to hide or ignore attributes we view as negative such as aggressiveness or selfishness. Yet, having such qualities accessible in moderate doses can be crucial for survival and fulfillment. No quality is negative in itself. Harm results only when a trait becomes excessive or displayed inappropriately. For example, a small dose of aggressiveness allows one to take a stand, to have boundaries, and to defend oneself from harm. A small dose of selfishness allows one to survive and to enjoy the fruits of life.
Benefits and Problems of Projection
All impassioned, “almost-magical” relationships between people involve projection. The value of projection is that it releases energies that have been dormant. The release of energy felt in infatuation and in loathing may lead one to realize that that which inspires or disturbs us, is in us as well. Becoming aware of our projections may lead to our awakening to a new world that is unfamiliar to us, such as a world of creativity, sensuality, solemnity, light-heartedness, even greed, and toughness. For instance, the familiarity with our own ability to be tough can alert us and help us deal with other’s excessive aggressiveness. Without awareness of our own potential to be aggressive, we become victims to every bully, including the unconscious bully within us.
If projections remain unconscious, however, they can wreak havoc in our lives. Take the mayor in the film "Chocolat." He upholds a strict moral attitude forbidding himself and others sensuality, which is symbolized by eating chocolates. In the end, however, he wantonly succumbs to his repressed desire and devours as much as he can in a state of mad delirium. The repression of his own sensuality is so severe that it gets the better of him. Had he acknowledged his own sensuality, he would have feared it less, and it would have been less of a danger to him.
Projections that remain unconscious block our ability to be perceptive and objective about ourselves and others. Sooner or later the person placed on a pedestal won’t be able to live up to our expectations. Worse, projected qualities of those we admire and those we detest remain inaccessible for personal integration and growth.
What can we do with our Projections?
Many marriages are ruined, because a man sees his mother in his wife and a woman sees her father in her husband, neither ever recognizing the other’s reality. If handled properly, however, marriage can encourage growth and transformation.
To grow within a partnership requires opening oneself up to unknown emotions and qualities while retaining adequate ego strength not to be devoured by them. Our task is to take back the projections and restore the contents to the owner—ourselves. Taking back projections opens a person to new realms that demand the courage to explore.
We need to refrain from demanding that our partners do what we must do for ourselves. For example, let's assume we see our partner as being too frugal, and wish he would be more generous. First, we could learn about and develop some frugality ourselves. Not only do we grow, but our interaction regarding the subject will be more effective if we are coming from a moderate position, rather than from the another extreme. When we understand the merits of frugality, our requests that our partner loosen up his or her spending a little is communicated with more compassion.
When we take back projections, we no longer worship or detest others, because we recognize the seed of their qualities in ourselves. Negative qualities become positive qualities when they are present appropriately in moderation. Moreover, our own world of experience and understanding expands, and our relationships deepen.
Jung, C.G. (1961). Memories, dreams, reflections. New York: Vintage.
Jung, C.G. (1981). The development of personality in R. F. C. Hull (Trans.) The collected Works (vol. 17). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1954)