It seems that you and me alike, are afraid of letting go of control.
We are afraid of life out of control, of sh-i-t hitting the fan, of what we will do when that happens. So we keep on controlling, suppressing, resisting, and living a shadow existence.
Whether you believe this or not will make a huge difference for you. At the bottom, at the root of this miserable life is a word, a statement, about you, that you are using your life to alternately prove and disprove. A word that sounds like a fact but it isn’t… it is an opinion, not a fact.
A typical “oscillating structure” is the result, and no one is immune from it.
Oscillating structure (the expression comes from Robert Fritz’s book, The Path of Least Resistance.)
An oscillating structure is like a rocking chair: it gives the experience of movement, but it doesn’t move. It just goes back and forth, proving or disproving a “fact” that is a non-fact, untruth, un-reality, non-fact, therefore it cannot be proven.
Imagine spending your whole life trying to prove something that is unprovable, like the existence of god or the existence of life after death.
Not provable, not disprovable… forever an oscillating structure, that uses many lives, instead of living, instead of growing, people spend their lives to prove or disprove… pitiful.
But it is repeated also on the personal level, and this is what this article about: my own personal oscillating structure that is using my life… to my detriment.
You will see that “misery loves company” also helps keep the oscillation alive and well, while killing softly and kindly the unfortunate recipient of the so-called loving support.
Now, one last thing: knowing what it is, knowing you are a victim of it, seeing in other people won’t do you any good: it will just make you arrogant and self-righteous, like all tree of knowledge does.
The only thing that can make a difference is to let go of complete control and allow the untruth to surface, to allow the sentiments to be expressed and drained.
This core issue is like a buried wound: will never heal, but it can be managed by draining the accumulation of toxin in it.
OK, let’s begin the telling of my oscillating structure. I found it with an incident that is NOT the core issue, but came from it:
The clues
I noticed that I am asking people if they want a refund. A refund on purchases I fulfilled… I started to get suspicious. I don’t make a lot of money, and I earn every penny I make, and I also need it to stay afloat. So what is operating under the level of obvious that I would offer my money to people? Hm.
Earlier clues
I looked for similar behavior and I found that during the time I sold on Amazon, I had a practice to give a full refund AND fill the order again, if there was any peep from people, like they didn’t like the packaging, or anything.
I didn’t have to do both. You either give a refund or you fill the order again… but I made sure that I come out magnanimous, generous, giving, self-sacrificing, and therefore the righteous one.
Amazon promptly removed my products given the number of refunds I gave… voluntarily, like a lamb.
The incident
When I was 5 years old, my brother hung me on the heavy rope of the wood shutters and also beat me with the same rope.
When my parents came, I cried and complained. They beat my brother up. I was horrified, mortified, and wowed that I’d rather be beaten twice than to let anyone suffer around me.
The oscillating structure started to become obvious: I will give you mine, so that you don’t suffer. I have more examples, in fact hundreds that I can remember, of giving away my rights, my stuff, my food, my money, my happiness.
Digging deeper
I started to have a hunch that by the time of “the incident” the unreality, the untruth was already entrenched.
I shared the incident with my chiropractor who is also a friend, and as I was lying down on the table, I started to sob, saying “I deserve”… I sobbed for a few minutes while he continued working on me.
My “Observer” was watching, I wasn’t lost in self-pity, rage, grief, disgust, I was just emptying stuff that was there… mostly tasted like bile… old bile.
I realized that the original incident was about being deserving, deserving of anything, maybe even deserving to be alive, to use the air that someone may need, to eat food that somebody may need, love that could not belong to me, because I was alive and I didn’t deserve it.
I recalled the core incident. Partly speculation, partly memory.
My mother didn’t want another child. But abortion laws were in effect in Hungary at the time, and she was pregnant, with me.
When I was born, three months premature, she refused to feed me, she refused to touch me. We never had a relationship other than being beaten by her, or being yelled at.
I decided that I wasn’t supposed to stay alive, I wasn’t supposed to live, that I had no permission from her to be alive, and that was the “untruth”, the “unreality”, but that is the dynamic of the oscillating structure.
You see you can’t prove that you deserve to be alive. You can’t prove that you have the right, like any other, to live, to eat, to enjoy, to have fun, to be loved.
The unreality
Why? Because it is not a right issue. In life what you take is yours. Life offers you everything, and you take what you think you deserve, and leave the rest.
In a world of abundance you take a pittance, because you declare yourself judge, jury and executioner, and then you live your life as if you were a victim.
I did that, you do that, everyone does that.
You can’t prove an unreality, and you can’t disprove an unreality.
You can consider it unreal, but unfortunately when it’s your own unreality, you are tied to it in a bond that no surgeon can cut, no energy can cut: it is your cross to bear.
You need to find, you need to trace back to the original incident, to the untruth, express the feelings, experience them, empty the toxins. It will give you a few good years with no oscillation, until you need to do the same thing again.
In 1988 I did this work, and I got 20+ good years from it. I am almost done cleaning myself out this time around, and it may take me till the end of my life…
But if not, I will be ready, as soon as I notice, again, the oscillating structure.
I have started to do this work with students on the coaching calls. It can also be started on a private session, if you are afraid what will come up: most people are, including myself.
I used to get seriously ill before every course that threatened to open up old wounds. It didn’t stop me, but the illness, nausea, fever, fever blisters were a good indication of how frightening it was for me to be out of control, even for a moment.
great share, Catherine. There is no transformation that can be done diy, do it yourself… just like no one can operate on their stomach by themselves.
You are exactly right Sophie, when you say, “Do it yourself transformation.” I used to think that everyone had a different path to take for clearing, but that the solo approach was the only one that would ultimately bear fruit.
Twelve years later, it looks like there has been a lot of healing (there have certainly been lots of positive growth; habits changed, life cleaned out and pared back etc), but since beginning work with you, I can see that this work is just on the surface.
It’s a strange paradox, that my life can look so structurally different and work so much better, but also to know that the depth work that I have been (unconsciously) avoiding has just begun.
And yes, it has begun because of the symbiosis that happens working with you and the others on the call … taken reverently, seriously, this work elicits a positive sense of accountability, which balances all the rest; what if I fail? what if I am stuck in my oscillating structure forever? What if blah blah blah …
no one can dig out their incident on their own. That is what everyone on this site is trying to do: Do it Yourself transformation.
I will keep digging if finding and exposing my incident and story willmake me free. Somehow, I took on the message and strategy of self-negation. That’s no way to live.