Changing of the Inner Guides

Last night when I got home from our monthly 'awesome-day' as we call it -- severely overstuffed from Olive Garden, under-sleep'd from the night before, and rather exhausted -- I had the feeling that for some reason, I really needed to go see the Four. I could feel the Senior calling me.

I've been avoiding my internal world. Not for the usual denial reasons, but for a reason I'm embarrassed to write about: much like in my external life, I've had a hard time dealing with a personnel adjustment.

***

I have a hard time getting to the point where I genuinely trust someone fully. Blame it on a bad childhood, I don't know. But I don't have many people I call a true friend. When I DO finally trust someone fully, I over-bond to them, as if they are my sibling, lover, friend, parent, etc. all rolled into one. I would die for them. I'm a bit of an extremist and friendship is one area where that really becomes apparent.

When I lose a friend--which used to be very rare, until I made the mistake of making a few friends in the RV world, where people become irrational and paranoid, assuming they weren't 'friendly-but-slime' to begin with--I take it really hard. It's a huge thing to me when I lose a friend. Even though it's me that makes that decision, I grieve deeply over it. And it usually takes a great deal of abuse or betrayal that nobody sane would take before I will give up on someone, because loyalty is a big part of my Taurus Moon I suppose, and I seldom see the problems at first because I trust, and I give the benefit of the doubt for far too long.

It's no wonder I don't get that close to too many people; it hurts so damn bad when it doesn't work out, it's like close family dying on me.

I am not much different in my internal world. I over-bond.

***

So I sat down and met the four (which includes me) and we merged, and just sat there gently and quietly for awhile. Normally we 'do' something when merged, so I was a little confused by the not doing anything except existing in tandem. I finally relaxed truly, to let them in. At which point I understood why I was there.

It was about IG. Inner Guide. Which is why I've been avoiding my innerspace for awhile.

Since I began archetype work with my inner guide back in ... 1991 I think it was, one thing has happened at intervals: my inner guide changes. The problem is, this invariably happens just when I have gotten to the point of genuinely LOVING my inner guide, I mean really bonding to them like an inner divine. And then it is time for them to go, and I get a new inner guide. Which is always uncomfortable for awhile, because I don't know them, don't trust them, and I hurt because the IG I loved so much has left.

About a decade ago, one of my outer guides answered me, when I asked why all my guides were always men, that they all appeared as men to me because I was not as comfortable with women. Not as trusting. It's harder for me to make women friends than men friends; I had terrible (as in, genuinely insane, slightly homicidal) role models in women when young. And although I've been lucky with friends much of my life, the fact remains that the crazy- and betraying- ratio of women with me is about 10x higher than that of men. (This is probably less because women are more prone that way, and more because my childhood modeling gives me poor judgement about the women I choose, I suppose.) Some of my archetypes are women, but that's different.

Some months ago, IG told me that it was his time to leave. I was deeply upset. I cried. I told him I didn't want him to go. My new IG appeared and for the first time ever, it was a woman. I left my innerspace and didn't go back for a long time. And then when I did, I "forgot about" the change. I called my old IG and insisted that he work with me. Which he did. And a few more times, conveniently "forgetting" that he had told me he needed to move on.

About a week ago, IG made me remember all that. I realized that I had been in some kind of deliberate denial, forcing him to stay with me, refusing anybody new. My intent pulled him in, anyway. I refused to let him go.

As the four, we Understood this was... Inappropriate. I hadn't realized until last night, when they shared their understanding, that there are several implications to this.

The first is that he has his own destiny, and development, and when it is time for him to leave me, it's because he has other things to do.

The second is that I have my own as well, and my inner guide apparently reflects something about the inside of me. It isn't coincidence that they leave sometime after I've been working with them while utterly in love with them, as it turns out. They showed me, that it is basically a stage of developmental completion. When I get there, it is time to move on to a new stage of development, which means a new Inner Guide.

I tried to refuse. I started crying my head off. I pulled IG to me and threw my arms around him and begged him not to leave me. I shifted our forms and laid on his giant froggie head and bawled like a little girl about it. He shifted us back and stood with his arms around me for awhile and then told me he needed to go, and I needed to let him go, and accept my new guide.

I finally stepped back and let him go, still being a baby about it. My new IG stepped forward. I looked at her and shouted, "I don't LIKE you!" and burst into tears again and vanished her back to the other world and away from me with the four.

I could feel from them that she understood (of course; IG knows everything) and wouldn't take it personally.

Well I do. I don't WANT a new guide. Especially a female guide.

I know that all my IGs are some % of me, that we overlap in the middle. I don't care. I know that eventually I will love her just as deeply. I don't care. For now, I feel a little embarrassed that I was so immature about it that the four actually had to "adjust" me, like I'm a child. And a lot hurting because my closest friend in my inner world has moved on and now I'm without him.

It's one of the oddest things about the inner landscape, that all the identities in there, while part of me, are "more" as well, and that everything has its own stages of development. I know it reflects as much about me, as about him, that my known IG has left me.

Still. I already miss him terribly.

Returning my attention to the four, I promptly passed out into sleep. Sometimes I guess the only time they can really commune with me is when I'm unconscious I guess.

***

This morning I finally acted halfway responsible and went back in to talk to new IG. The problem is I'm planning several meditation rounds that are pretty hard core and I need IG desperately. Having to do this with someone I don't even know let alone have that level of trust with is not appealing at all. I told her that plainly. She said that's why I need her (the new stuff), as if somehow she is best qualified to help with those things. Whatever.

Eventually I sorta made friends, held hands and then finally hugged her, and then cried on her because I was still mad and missing my old IG. I can't see her very well at all yet. That means I am not integrated with her. The detail of appearance tends to come over time. She's a little taller than me but so far that's all I have.

My last IG was the first one who ever wasn't fully human. He was some bizarre amphibian-like creature that took human form for me, but he had liquid black eyes, small holes where ears should be, and a funky spots along his head, and kind of pale clammy skin. I wouldn't have known that weirdness if I hadn't insisted on knowing him as he truly was in his natural state. Kinda slimy, but gigantic, the size of one of those Olmec stone heads. I used to lie on top of his huge head just to be with him. Had I seen this at first I probably would have feared him or been grossed out by him, but as I grew to love him more I grew to see him better and it was ok then.

And this IG is the first one who wasn't male. This makes me laugh, thinking maybe it was easier for me to accept a bizarre clammy amphibian than it was a woman.

I grilled her for awhile as if it were an interview for the position. I've never done that before, but then I've never been quite this upset about the changing of the IG guard before either. She is putting up with me acting like a bonehead. Odd, most the time when I've got a new IG I'm actually rather intimidated by them. Her I'm not. Maybe because of the gender difference, I'm not sure.

I fell half-asleep, and kind of woke up in the middle of some unusually sensual half-dreams about a woman. Not the kind of sexual yearning I tend to have (certainly my boyfriend would be surprised). I wondered if that was some inner way of relating to that new part of myself being female.

Well, we'll see how it goes. It cracks me up that I can be traumatized and crying over something "in my head." It's lucky for me that the people who know me in person don't know anything about my interior and psychic life, I suppose.

PJ