Self Awareness

My verbal tone doesn't match my intention to create peace and the content of my messages get lost. My tone matches my feelings. Lately, I'm afraid. I act like a caged animal at all the wrong times.  When others become empathetic, I feel pathetic and weak which just makes me angry.  The nurses around me start with their therapeutic language setting boundaries around the expression of my feelings as if I could seal them into a nice pretty little box and set it up on a high shelf. Then, I get more afraid and snarl even more. It's as if I am purposefully sabotaging myself. I have to figure out how to stop acting like this.

What's my problem? My need for security is not being met. I've been kicked down the stairs to the bottom of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. My fear of abandonment is intruding into my peace of mind. My workplace does not feel safe. Any day I walk in the door could be my last. It's the economy, nothing personal. I'm expendable and expensive and I know it. No amount of group therapy will change the facts.  

I found this website today and read several articles. It reminded me that I used to be better at applying these communication techniques. That was before I became a single Mom, before my parents got old and needed to be cared for, before my position was downsized, before my daughter broke her arm, before I had cancer, before I started graduate school, before my consulting contract was removed from the budget of a global corporation, before I went bankrupt due to medical bills. Now I'm screaming to be heard every time someone asks me to tell them, briefly, about myself. It's not a brief story. Unless you want to cut to the chase and say briefly, I'm afraid.

The ironic thing is that I value peace and my intention is to be a peacemaker. I'm a birthright Friend, a Quaker. We're a peace loving bunch. My father used to say, "I'm a lover, not a fighter." He died six months ago. Mother was the fighter in the family. When she is afraid, she yells. It used to be that when I was afraid, I cried and shook all over. Lately, I've begun to get angry. I'm grieving and there's no safe place to grieve. If I let the grief loose at home, I'll frighten my children. If I let it loose at work, I'll hurt my coworkers and risk my job. If I let it loose at school, I'll impede the learning of my classmates and students. I have no resources to pay a counselor to listen to me or advise me. Maybe expressing my feelings here will help me release the fear and grief so I can be at peace again.

I remember being secure in my spiritual understanding of Divine Love. That was then, this is now. I feel abandoned by Divine Love. Where is it when you really need it? In my experience, the expression of Divine Love comes from within when I am at peace. Right now, when I am not at peace, I need it to come from without. I need a job. I need secure employment. I need someone to show me the way to be at peace when my world is in shambles and there's no guarantee that its not going to get worse.