anupturnedsoul

And then something invisible snapped inside her…

INsideOUTside

“And then something invisible snapped inside her, and that which had come together commenced to fall apart.” ― John Green

Do you ever feel that there is something inside of you trying to get out. Get outside of you and colour your world with a new hue.

An emotion, perhaps.

A burst of creative self expression.

A part of yourself.

A trait, side of your character which you know you have but which doesn’t reveal itself openly. What would happen if it did…

Words, something which you would like to say but never do. What would happen if you said it…

An action, something which you would like to do but stop yourself from doing. What would happen if you did it…

Something inside which wants to get outside, run barefoot and free through wet grass…

But there is an invisible barrier which keeps it from crossing the threshold between the inside and the outside.

There are so many colours, shades, hues and blends within us.

They colour our world, the one inside.

They seep out of us from every pore like a gossamer energy which is absorbed by the open pores of the world.

They colour our world, the one outside.

If you are blue inside, the outside becomes infused with your blue, you swim in its ocean.

If you are red inside, the outside appears to be on fire and burns to the touch.

If you are green inside, it is always greener outside, your green turning the external green greener.

If you are yellow inside, the yellow outside hurts your eyes as though you are staring at the Sun, and you turn away to shield them.

But we are never just one colour inside, we are a canvas splattered with the paints on our inner palettes, rich and vivid.

Some of our colours move easily from the inside to the outside and some… find themselves blocked.

We feel the pressure of that which wants to get out, pressing against the invisible which holds it in…

Sometimes it stays there forever… a secret colour, one which is never shared, but which still colours our life inside, how we see the world, the world outside just can’t see it.

And sometimes something snaps, the invisible barrier gives way, the prisoner within escapes, rushing and gushing out like a tidal wave, a new hue which washes into all the outside hues and changes the colour of the outside world completely.

The new colour of the outside world… seeps into us, and changes the colour of our inside world too.

Everything flows both ways.

15 comments

    • Thank you 🙂

      What do you think would make you feel alive? What’s stopping you from feeling alive, from expressing the life within you?

      I don’t actually see this as an emotional manifesto, but you do, so perhaps it is an emotional manifesto for you, and the aliveness you see in it, perhaps it’s not mine, but yours speaking to you through my words.

      One of the things humans do is project ourselves onto and into others, this is a part of why relationships are important to us, this is neither good nor bad, it becomes what we make of it. At a certain point we need to take back our projections and integrate them into ourselves. To realise that what we see in others is something we recognise because it is within us. Through others we make ourselves whole.

      The colours within you are colouring me 🙂

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      • i perceive as someone who is alive and kicking, with a blossoming creativity and fertility of thought, therefore if you speak of colours it makes me think of your energy irradiating to the outside and the outlet to absorb what’s alive and inspiring on the outside.
        I can’t see myself as this, as i am not creating anything really, just struggling to survive, to get up in the morning, to get assleep and survive the day in between. Love would make me feel alive but no chance, and now I have lost all hope as i don’t think i might be attractive to a man nor intellectually, as i love weird things..What is stopping me to be alive is my image of myself, how I see myself, how I am. I have to say i really like what you write, your way of thinking, you are a born artist to me, and you givethe right value to yourself, to your work without a boasting ego. Your work is between real and reverie to me, that makes it special.Thank you for the straightforward questions, hope you don’t mind my straighforward answers!

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        • You are an artist… a very great and powerful one who has yet to share all the art and colours within with those outside, but when you do, those moments when your inner colour flows out and paints… so beautiful and raw and real. It makes those outside gasp… you just can’t see it, a blind spot of natural talent.

          Perhaps you should explore self-portraits in a past, present, and future way…

          se solo tu potessi vedere in te stessa ciò che vedo … ma quello è un paradosso di interazione umana.

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          • thank you for your words, they re like precious gems when my thoughs are drifting away and dragging me down, I bear them in mind.
            I am into Rubin’s book, it’s great, insightful and now i understand plenty about my behaviour and why it was unknown to me, mille merci. s xxx

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  4. This spoke to me: “And then something invisible snapped inside her, and that which had come together commenced to fall apart.” ― John Green
    When I fell in love, I felt like all my pieces came together. And when I realized it was about grooming, something invisible snapped inside me. It was my belief in the world being a fundamentally safe place. I’m working on that.

    I love your question: do you ever feel there is something hiding inside you trying to get out? I do. It’s this: I’m beautiful, really, but I don’t show it. I don’t show that I think that about myself. I hide it. I’m humble girl. But imagine how lovely life would be, if I could walk around knowing it and showing it. Sometimes, I think poor self-esteem is a safety precaution. It’s just a way to keep people away from us.

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    • I have to admit I’m a bit confused about your life story. There is a complexity my mind is finding difficult to work out. You’re an enigma. I’m mentioning this because it may connect with the last bit of your comment.

      Here’s the thing which is perplexing me – you say you’re a child of narcissists, that you relate to the experience of being a child of narcissists, yet you also say that at some point you felt safe in this world and that sense of safety was shattered by a narcissist.

      How did you do that – feel safe in this world?

      Seriously that is a profound gift! One you may or may not realise. One which would benefit not just children of narcissists but all those who’ve been affected by something which makes them feel unsafe in this world – which at the moment is at epidemic proportions. If you have a secret formula for finding safety, you hold a valuable gift, which if you can re-find it would benefit many, and you too.

      And if you can bottle it, you’ll make a fortune – be it in money or in life satisfaction.

      A child of narcissists finds the world hostile from day one and finds it almost impossible to shake that feeling as that sense of the world being hostile is constantly confirmed through varied experiences of it. To find stable ground, as the ground is always shifting, on which to build a solid home and safe place to live and from which to feel safe enough to venture into the rest of the world with open arms and heart, is almost an impossible dream. The other shoe is always poised to drop. Hyper-vigilance is the norm.

      That quote is the norm to me. A theme of life.

      And yet…

      I’m intrigued… if you can recall what made you feel safe in this world, perhaps you can share it, it is unusual, and may be connected to your individual beauty that once expressed… hmmmm… or perhaps it is just for you, maybe it can help you to heal what has been broken.. perhaps the break occurred for a specific reason.

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      • You see the gift in everything. I know you say you seek it out and that you learned to do this, but that doesn’t change the loveliness of it. It is deeply admirable.

        I will try to explain it to you, and to myself too.

        The “gift in the curse” of my parents is twofold: I learned kindness and self-reliance. Temperament aside, I attribute both of these personal traits to my experience adapting to my parents. I didn’t see the gift until my early thirties or so. I spent my teens and twenties very angry at them, and angry at Life for giving me my particular parents. But once I saw the gift, my perceptions and feelings changed. I know from personal experience that what you write is true: finding the gift is the freedom from the pain. I don’t feel any “sting” about my parents anymore- none at all. It’s an old story about an old time.

        Now, on to the self-reliance. I was an observant child, I think. I could see and feel my parents’ lack of love, their emptiness for me, but I have loving brothers. I don’t know why, but my brothers have always had, and still have, a desire to look after me, to enjoy me. You can actually see it our family photographs, from when I was a toddler. It is something my friends have always admired. They marvel at it. Hmm, something for me to think about, but I get off topic.

        So…. I learned to study my environment and the people in it. I became good at “seeing” people, picking up on the mood of them, their intentions, their capabilities. No, I became really good at it. Sussing people out. Call it a radar. And this is the truth: Nobody has ever surprised me, since my parents. Nobody. Not once. Ever. Until her.

        It may sound like a need to control, like I have been trying to control others and my environment. Quite the opposite. I let life bring me what it did. One of my brothers said to me once “You are the only person who doesn’t need things from me, who doesn’t always want things from me, who isn’t trying to change me”. He was weary of people’s expectations.

        It may sound like projection too, like I have been putting my image of people onto them, a prejudging about who they are that fits my “seeing” of them, a changing of them. But I don’t believe that is true either. I’ve tried to let people be who they are.

        All of my life, I’ve just had this intuition, this “seeing” of people. And that’s the “safety” I mean. It was the safety of “knowing” the person in front of me, even if they didn’t share the words. I could feel in advance who they were, what they could share, what their darkness was… and I could adjust accordingly. And that’s the thing, I always adjust accordingly.

        The safety was not in the world itself. It was in my ability to approach or adapt to it, and only go as far as this person was willing or capable or interested. This feeling of safety has given me a confidence, I guess. And it’s one that I took for granted, until her.

        I didn’t see it. I didn’t feel it. I wasn’t safe, and I didn’t know it. In fact, it was quite the opposite. I was in danger. She has been called a predator, but I didn’t pick up on her mood, her intentions, her capabilities. She is the darkest person I have ever met. And not only did not see it, I saw the exact opposite. For the first time since my parents, my skill failed me. And that’s the shakiness I feel.

        You asked: How did I do that – feel safe in the world?

        Maybe it’s an illusory kind of safety? Maybe this is still a version of the hyper-vigilance you speak of? It’s the hyper-vigilance of studying my environment and adapting to the people in it, in advance of the unnecessary. It’s just that I’ve never known otherwise. I’ve always been this way.

        It’s funny you use the word enigma. She called me that also. If it’s true, maybe it’s because I’ve had a life of polarity? I have been deeply cared for and I have been deeply ignored. I live at both extremes. And believe me, I mean that literally. An echo of parents, with exemplary brothers. A life lived alone romantically all my life, yet with the deepest appreciation of friends. My life has been a study in extremes.

        So, the gift of feeling safe in the world and re-finding it? Maybe this is the grief I feel. Maybe the grief is not what I thought it was. Maybe this is my work. I must think about this more, but I would answer your question- How did I feel safe in the world?- with this. This is what I have always believed:

        The world is a hostile place. It is. To say otherwise is to lie. Just because children of narcissists can’t shake the feeling that the world is hostile doesn’t mean that we need to, or that we even should. It is hostile. It’s not necessary to lie to ourselves about it, and it is fruitless to even try. We can’t unknow it. And we don’t need to. We have the strength to know the hostility, and not need it to be otherwise. Let the world be hostile. Let people be who they are. Let life bring you what it does. Let yourself be all you need. And when you do, your world becomes oddly safe– not the world, just your world. That is the stable ground. That is the solid home. That is the safety I have lived.

        But there I am again, the polarity. ☺

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        • Thank you very much, what you’ve shared is wonderfully insightful! Lots of food for thought. It would also make a great blog post, if you ever want to write a piece for my blog as a post let me know.

          One of the thoughts which your writing stirred was the experience which spurred me to write about narcissism. Up until a couple of years ago I used the internet mainly for research. I was what is known as a lurker. I did not engage. Then through a series of events, prompted by a couple of people close to me, I entered the fray of social media and found that my mind in particular loved it.

          Long story short – I made friends via social media with someone who later turned out to be very narcissistic. One of those narcissists who is completely oblivious to their NPD. A particular interaction with this person kicked off the urge to write about narcissists, because I saw that I was repeating an old pattern and I needed to use this fresh experience to sort out the old, the past which affects the present. This person was a negative muse of sorts whose inspiration has been positive for me in some very surprising ways.

          There is something almost magical about writing and relating your story. Magical as in transformative for the self not as in rainbow chasing outside of the self.

          It’s up to us individually to turn our traumas into fertiliser for our own benefit. To find our own gift in the curse which afflicts us.

          There is a parallel between you and I, or at least I see one. A new experience, an unpleasant one, has broken us open.

          My blog is what I’ve done with my being broken open. It wasn’t what inspired me to create my blog, but it has inspired how I have evolved my blog.

          So, I think your recent experience with a narcissist holds a personal power for you, what you do with it needs you to focus and figure it out. And you’re very talented in figuring things out.

          And I saw you mention in a comment to seashell about age… your age is actually an advantage.

          Thank you deeply and truly 🙂

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  5. This is very beautiful and I deeply feel that sense of something wanting to burst forth. I think its why I have had several major accidents at critical times. something repressed was trying to bust out. I now realise. Its very hard when you are raised with such a strong inner censor and critic and you touched on this really well in another blog. Love that photo.

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    • Thank you 🙂

      I have always been intrigued by what we hold back, the things which aren’t expressed, there is a power to them which seems so much stronger because they are withheld.

      With some people you can feel this palpable quality which never gets out but which is there underneath bubbling and boiling away.

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