YouTube video: https://youtu.be/MWqK7A2ySt0
Yesod of Yesod
Hi everyone, Jordan Drayer, the savvy millennial voice actress who is slowly getting better at bonding. Today is five weeks and six days of the Omer. If you want to know more about the Omer and how it works, check out the links in the description.
Today is Yesod of Yesod, looking at our bonds themselves. I highly suggest you check out Chabad.org for this one, because it has a lot of questions for this day. What I'm going to do here is talk about my journey in opening up to others.
First off, I've mentioned before, I'm a twin, so I'm already greatly bonded to a person beyond what many people will ever experience. Probably because of this built-in partner, I didn't really make many other friends, since there wasn't much reason to. I've learned this is common for twins. But we did make friends in our first elementary school. We had to go to a second elementary school only for one semester due to changing school zones in moving to a temporary house. However, at this point we knew we'd be moving to Florida at the end of the semester, so that was my first experience in purposefully not getting to know people because I knew I'd never see them again. This was before social media, after all.
Twins?
Moving to Florida in the middle of 4th grade, 10 years old, took me a long time to recover from. I didn't want to make friends with anyone. I did try to talk to people but found myself ignored. This is where I began to imagine myself boring, especially with coming to terms with how nerdy I was. My parents became a lot harder on me too at this point, probably because of the grief of one over losing both her parents and the stress of the other, in charge of food for 11 restaurants.
I really only maintained a few close friendships through to college, where I do credit being separated from my twin and joining a music fraternity with opening me up. With therapy after graduating college, I began to see how others' emotions are not my fault, and that I'm not responsible for their happiness. Developing my Judaism and searching for God too has really helped me to better connect to people and also keep them at a distance, a kind of healthier bonding instead of taking on their emotions.
So yes, I do have difficulty bonding even today. People call me personable and friendly and they remember me when I don't always remember them. I have no problem being vulnerable and crying in front of others. What I am still uncomfortable with is telling them when I'm angry or annoyed by them. I have been punished for expressing these in the past by my parents, and I project my parents onto every person I meet in a way, when I consider standing up for myself. Slowly I will get more comfortable at expressing anger, and even taking anger, and not feeling guilty for it.
I'm not going to do the Chabad exercise of the day. Instead, I fervently ask, please allow your kids and friends and loved ones to voice negative emotions. Allow others to say no, they don't want to hang out; no, they don't want to be touched or hugged or pinched on the butt, and actually desist from that action. Bonding means trust, and there can be no trust if the person doesn't feel safe to voice dissent or safe to be around you. I still hope one day I can be my full self around my parents without fear. I hope I have inspired you to do something to stand up for yourself today and build better bonds or break unhealthy ones. Thank you, please like and share, and I'll see you tomorrow.
Comments