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Limbic System...With the strengths and benefits of limbic association comes a danger. If indulged, the limbic bond is seductive. It becomes a habit. If we indulge it, we may lack the strength to separate ourselves from the suffocator. The most powerful suffocating personalities develop through exposure to trauma. They wall off large parts of their personality, parts that are critical to sustaining healthy relationships, and therefore mental well-being. In order to preserve some order in their personality, the suffocator must absorb those capacities from others. Limbic societies tend to regard suffocators as people to be treated. Unfortunately, the psychology of the deeply traumatized is to avoid confrontation with their pain. They seek to blame others for their personal failings, and involve their supportive community in attempts to obtain justice for supposed wrongs. Thus involved in an unjust battle against reality, the community becomes involved in ministering to its own wounds. Unfortunately, even if they succeed in seeing off one threat, the wounded personality will generate another and another. The response of the community provides a feeling of power and control that is lacking within, and thus a way to avoid wrestling with his or her internal demons. Embroiled in the limbic bond, it is the rare personality that can say: "Enough! I won't participate any longer in your game!" and walk away. Mature personalities refuse codependency. Trapped in the reality of their weakness, the wounded personality must look within, and take ownership of their healing. Since healing cannot take place until ownership is thus taken, the mature attitude is the only effective way to love a deeply damaged personality. It is the step that places the dependent personality on the path to healing. Short of the point of destructiveness, the defect of the weak limbic personality is to cling, to bind, and to cheat others of chances to create. They attempt to preserve the precarious security of their dependency, a security that is cruelly penetrated when the care-giver either dies, or abandons them. For women, the fear of separation runs deep. My own mother consciously chose to start a career as the last of her children prepared to leave high school. I have observed other women that refuse to let go, and have encountered spiritual groups that insist that is a mother's right. Unfortunately, if we don't release them, our children can only become fully adult by tearing themselves from us. That trauma is a root for dependency. I like to dance. I consider it flirting. When I share that with my partners, I also share a wisdom that I wish had been given to me when I was younger. Flirting has two parts: seeing how close you can get (moving into the limbic), and then seeing how safe it is to get away (reasserting our right to independence). The more practiced we are in this process, the more rapidly and accurately we can make that assessment - not only in dating, but in every relationship. It is joining and separation. |
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