Social Boredom?

I feel it is time for some healing or a big change. There are these ups and downs in life. If I was to judge this last few weeks there has been a little more down than up. I sense something is not quite right and I haven’t been able to release it but I am getting a pretty good idea of what is causing it.

Over the past two and a half years I have made it my mission to get the word out about grief. I have put my heart and soul into bringing information and education to those who like me have suffered a devastating loss. Through all of this I have made many online friendships. I feel so fortunate to have met so many amazing people on my journey. Fortunately, I have also had strong family ties and some good long distance friends that have kept me going. I don’t know what I would have done without that support. Yet lately it has felt like something else is missing. I can only conclude that I need the happiness and fulfillment that  social interaction that having in person relationships provide. 

So I decided I best start looking for ways to get out and meet people in my community.  I  started to say yes to more opportunities. I thought, “How hard can it be? You get yourself out and join a few groups and make some friends.” Yet there are some things I hadn’t considered. First of all, my interest for the past two years has been in learning more about grief and how we awaken spiritually through the process. Let’s face it, that is not a mainstream career move! It is hard for a lot of people to relate to what I do. I also need to find something I am interested in. There are some things that I simply would not want to do. The good thing is I can usually join in whatever conversation is going on though, and the people here are nice. Not only is it Canada where we have a reputation for being nice, I also live in Saskatchewan where you will not meet nicer people.

So last weekend I decided to take level one in the Touch for Health program. I felt there I would meet some like-minded people as it is an energy healing modality. This program works with muscle testing and there is a protocol that you follow and sometimes the balancing requires the investigation into an emotional link. I volunteered to be the one receiving the balancing and in the process the emotion word that came up to correspond with my personal imbalance was boredom. I laughed out loud! Me? Bored? Yet as I lay on that table and thought about it, I realized I could describe myself as socially bored. I am not sure if this is a real condition or one I just made up. Either way, I am realizing it is not necessarily an easy fix. 

Building lasting friendships doesn’t happen  overnight. I lived in Val Marie for 35 years. Blaine was my best friend. I have a dear friend I stay connected with regularly and thank goodness for her! I also had other friends but when I left Val Marie I left it all behind. Those personal connections I had with the school and the community that I had built for the majority of my life were severed. Time, distance, my quest for spiritual healing and my completely different life path has caused them to fall away. In fact just the way it happened so quickly, I am finding myself feeling like these social connections were completely ripped away. I think now that I am getting my feet under me I am realizing in my healing process something has been neglected. I am looking around kind of wondering…. Hey! What just happened?! Everything seemed fine until now.

This has also  triggered a wound from my childhood. When I was nine years old my family moved to a larger center. I went from a class of 3 to a class of about 23 and that would have been enough of a shock but the teacher was not very welcoming. I think I have written about it in a previous post but essentially she humiliated me in front of the class and made fun of where I came from and so as things go when you are a kid, you take those things to heart. I consequently spent much of my life measuring my self-worth by the opinions of others. I was constantly looking for validation. Luckily I had a lot of very supportive people in my life and the nurturing and encouragement I received through my musical interests kept me from falling apart. Yet there is a pretty big, sneaky critic that comes out when I get into uncomfortable social situations. Meeting and interacting with people through my work in education, through building the summits and building a support community has provided me with a lot of validation that I can meet and interact with others and I will be okay. Yet the in-person social situation is just another step on this journey and even though I find myself quite able to meet new people and be okay in those situations, it is not without some kind of effort to keep the critic from coming out and sabotaging my comfort levels. 

We also moved again when I was in grade 9. That was a bumpy ride as I was bullied. By the time I moved to Saskatoon, Blaine was in the picture and I had him and a best friend. After  I started to connect some dots I realized… hey I just made another move and now I am without Blaine.  No wonder I have found it hard to make myself go out and meet people. If I had to judge by those past moves (which were without having Blaine by my side), I would say moving and meeting new people is not easy and very uncomfortable. Why would it be any different this time? 

So now I have the task of changing the story that my unconscious mind has been telling me all along in an effort to keep me from getting hurt. A few of these messages running around up there might be something like …. This is going to be uncomfortable. It won’t be easy. You will do and say things that are awkward. You will feel inadequate and unworthy. It might even add, “What’s the point of making lasting friendships they can fall away easily in circumstances beyond control?” Wow, right? Can you see how this is happening in the background? So I believe that’s been the resistance all along. I just thought I was too busy to get out. I thought I was fine with that.  I had connections online and that was enough.  I had my family. I had become independent and I was good.  Until now…. up it comes for healing. Why now? Well I don’t know, but judging from past experience, I am sure it has some kind of divine purpose. 

I might add one more piece that came up and then I will wrap up this lengthy post. One evening last week I started to feel regret. This has come up for healing already and I had dealt with it but this time it was so incredibly strong it surprised me. As I was processing it all, I realized that this also had a connection to my social anxiety. Let me explain.  I have written before about my regret of not spending enough time with Blaine. So many times he told me he wished he had a “normal wife” because I spent a lot of time working. Teachers are notorious for spending their evenings and weekends planning and marking and doing extra curricular things. I was putting my heart and soul into my work. Now it wasn’t that we didn’t spend time together. We did. But it is the fact that had I known that our time would be so short, maybe I would have done things differently. I felt like I failed at being able to confidently find the proper balance between my family and my work. So my subconscious again is thinking, if you couldn’t do it then, what makes you think you could do it now? Would you be able to balance your chosen work with the new relationships you long to seek out? Would you again have trouble recognizing what is most important and where you need to set boundaries? Is it even possible to have a close relationship alongside the work you do? Is there even time? There are so many more things that could be considered but I will stop there. 

So there you are….  I hope through reading this you can see how things can come up for healing and how if we can stand back and observe ourselves we can see the connections. Notice how the support helped me to start recognizing the source of my discomfort. Perhaps you can relate to my healing journey in some way. Often when I start connecting the dots like this and journal, it starts to release. If it doesn't, that simply means there is more. Each time this kind of healing happens it is just a little different. Sometimes it feels like it is a quick realization and release and sometimes it feels bigger, like this one. When I am in this process, writing, the pieces start to come together and this often helps me move through the wounding. Just because of the nature of this one I don’t know how this will end. All I know is if I resist the emotions, or I get impatient with the process it will just hang on so I have to find a way to love myself through it and let go of the pain. If it gets too much, well I always know where to go for support. So as I step out into this 3D world, I will trust that I will soon get more comfortable and I will learn to be myself. I will learn that I am enough, I am worthy and in time “social boredom” too shall pass.