So I've been thinking a lot lately. Between all the things and the snow removal fiasco at my condo (which I never wrote about here; it is as resolved as it is possible for it to be) and the cozy hygge and the reading I've been thinking, maybe not writing or putting into words but still thinking, about the things I had to say about fear. And the importance of us choosing not to react from fears but to have the courage to act from our truest desires and intuitive inner knowing. The other night, when I was finishing up my book about crow neurobiology (it's called Gifts of the Crow by John Marzluff & Tony Angell; it was published about a decade or so ago but I only got around to reading it now; I treat my book collection like a wine cellar and when I find books I'm interested in reading I'll pick them up, especially used or from little library exchanges, and then save them for when the timing is exactly right for where my head and heart space is that they call to me.) Anyway, towards the end of the book, was the line: 

"Emotionally charged memories are rapidly acquired and longstanding. Fear tends to be especially persistent and is not forgotten, but it can be overcome by forming new memories." (p. 190)

And I realize that seems rather banal when you think about how you deal with previously abused animals adopted as pets or how psychology uses behavioral exposure techniques to deal with phobias etc. But I was thinking about how powerful that can be as an acknowledgement for anyone's personal journey, especially when you're in the stages of unlearning so you can learn to be better than you were.  Because it acknowledges that memories created by all strong emotions but especially fear (and behavior patterns as reactionary due to memories) are perniciously strong and difficult to root out -- which makes sense from an evolutionary survival perspective that creatures NEED to remember things that have caused them pain so they can learn to avoid such potentially lethal situations in the future. At a basic survival level, you have to learn and learn fast and remember the lessons from pain or the next time you could die. I mean, the amygdala was one of the earliest portions of the brain and it deals with strong emotions especially fear but it also deals with other emotions.  But I like that the author acknowledges that while living beings learn from fear fast and long term sometimes our amygdala draws the wrong conclusions or doesn't recognize that circumstances are similar but not the same. It's like, a kid who burns their hand learns to be afraid of fires or stove tops or candles or pans or sparklers or whatever cause the burn and pain -- but the lesson isn't to avoid all heat sources under all circumstances, the lesson is SUPPOSED to be that you need to be cautious while using hot things so you can get the good from it without the pain if you're not careful enough. So like with kids, if they get burned by something hot, then you're supposed to actually work with them in the kitchen and teach them how not to get burned but also to create the associations of good food and comfort from the heat and the confidence how to deal with it without being hurt. You're overwriting that first fear and pain filled memory with tools for better associations and how to engage with the source of potential pain in ways to get the good from it without being hurt by it.

And I was thinking about how powerful that is as a technique when you're talking about emotional fears/pains rather than physical pain/fear memories. To actively engage in rewriting your fear created knee jerk responses by acknowledging WHY that memory has been the way it is and why it was so powerful a response while actively finding ways of replacing it with new memories to create better models for engagement in the future. 

That if we want to move beyond the fear created memories/reactions/behaviors from the past, it's not only important to acknowledge the fear and how/why the reactionary strong memories came into being but to also actively engage in the forming of new memories without the fear/pain or how to acknowledge the possibility of pain if caution isn't used but as long as you are aware of the risk of pain you can get the good that can only be created from the potential sort of pain if you don't respect what happens when you ignore the risk s of misuse/negligence. 

The importance of acknowledging WHY it's hard to forget but also that we can be an active participant in engaging in the ways we can overwrite the old fear/pain memory with newly formed memories of strong positive emotions. 

It's one of those things that is obvious when you look at how you soothe and tame and teach children and animals to trust you or a situation that has brought them fear/pain in the past, but is not necessarily a gentleness that adults give themselves or each other in how they approach each other. But I think it's actually MORE important with adults than children to consciously work on your fear/pain memories from acknowledgement followed by a conscious desire to replace the old memories because the mental plasticity is reduced in adults and because the longer you live, the more fear/pain encounters you've accumulated.  Adults are told by society pressure to repress it or just keep moving forward as if it didn't do as much damage as it did, even when you're talking of grief after deep loss, and that just leaves those fear/pain created memories to ossify into behaviors to avoid the pain. You never sat with them and acknowledge them and then figured out how to overwrite the old with new memories of why this is different than the previous pain/fear. 

When you're trying to unlearn from the past modes of interactions, especially if they're fear or pain created patterns, it's important not just to avoid situations that would reinforce the fear created memory, it's also important to find the ways to create deeply emotional NEW memories that overwrite the older fear based memory responses.

I have also been thinking about the three times that I have blocked or put the bond to sleep. The first time I asked for assistance from an ally because it's not something I could ever have done on my own and I was warned that it was a one time assist and if I chose to reopen the bond I couldn't come back to ask again. The second time I did it the way I had observed and learned but it took a major energetic toll on me because the second time he constantly and stubbornly fought back refused to accept it happening until I came to understand that he had a point and it wasn't fair or right of me given it's a shared bond as much his as mine. And so I promised I wouldn't ever do that again, because it was wrong of me to consider as mine what is in truth both of ours.  The third and most recent time I did it, last Spring/Summer while I was in the hollows of grieving over the death of Audrey Pupburn my dog I had raised from a puppy who died at nearly 15 years old, I didn't do it the same way I had before of completely trying to block the bond flowing by putting it to sleep, I blocked out the third party energy he had allowed to become twined all around and through him over the previous year. The connection between us itself wasn't blocked in any way, he just couldn't reach me until that energy was no longer mixed with or wrapped through his -- he wasn't blocked qua himself, just that energy attachment required I  protect myself against it reaching me through him. I was genuinely surprised when he reached me again in the fall, I reacted by checking through all my spiritual protections and defenses to find where they were breached because it had never even crossed my mind at that point that he had separated from her and he had done the work to strip out all the energetic attachments and hooks from her. It took a chthonic goddess telling me in dream space that I was being a neurotic idiot, all my spiritual protections were still strong as ever including my ban on that energy or anyone with that energy attached into them from reaching me -- and if I couldn't figure out what was happening from that information I didn't deserve the good in his return to reaching me. The Morrigan is very very bluntly honest, always.

Would I ever try to find a way to block him out from reaching me via the inner bond again? I, I don't know. I don't want to. I never wanted to the three times I've done it this life...I just reached a breaking point I felt I had to. It has only ever been a matter of ethics in response to his choices or choices made by other people in his name that he allowed. I swore I wouldn't put the bond to sleep again or try to block HIM out again because I respect that the bond is OURS not mine. So I can promise not to do that again unless it's something we both agreed we wanted the bond dormant/asleep/gone for some reason. I don't know why we would do that, but only if it was a mutual choice we were both certain about would I do anything to the bond at this point other than to strengthen it. But, I can't promise I will never raise a protection against a third party energy that is dangerous or seeks to feed via attachments through other people -- and that includes through him. Because the thing with the bond is, it's something in our souls that binds us to each other that is deeper and stronger than any other cords/bonds I've ever encountered... And it's at a root level deeper than any other defenses or protections I could have -- he will always and forever be the weakest place in my defenses. Any energy or anything that works through him can reach me as if I have no defenses at all because against him I don't. There's no barrier there between us. So I can't promise that if he allows any energy to hook into his own work through him that I wouldn't have to protectively block that energy AND anyone it is hooked into from reaching me for as long as it is attached -- but the bond itself between us would remain the same as ever and as soon as he removed the energy from being attached into him then we would reach each other again. I can't promise I won't protect my own self from anything that attaches or tries to reach me through him -- but I can promise that as long as he protects his own self from malevolent energies attaching into him and using him as a conduit for them to feed, then he has nothing to worry about being blocked from reaching me via the inner bond again. 

It would only be as a reaction to something like that it could happen again. And it's in his power not to allow that scenario to happen again. And I suppose it's within my power to remove from him such attachments hooked into him rather than blocking those energies and anyone they're hooked into from reaching me -- but I would need to be certain that's what he wants and his free will choice before I would be willing to intercede and cut those cords remove those hooks and protect him from having attachments like that hook into him. It's a free will thing for me. He would have to free will choose to want that reactive cutting of energy draining cords or like proactive protect him as I protect my own self for me to extend the protection to include him inside it with me so the attachments couldn't hook into him or use him that way. so he wouldn't be a weak point in my spiritual protections but rather would be inside them with me. I could certainly do it, I often do it for any physical space I'm living or sleeping in no matter who else is within that space, but it would have to be because he wants it chooses it of his own free will, not because I selfishly want it so he can still reach me keep the bond flowing strongly between us. Does that make sense? I wouldn't do it for my own selfishness or safety even with knowing the weak spot in my defenses that bond creates just by existing if protecting myself/the bond wasn't his free will choice -- but if it IS his free will choice to want to be included within my protections rather than left outside them from reaching me, then especially with the bond between us, it would be easy for me to extend my own protections right around to include him within them. It would be easier to have him within my protections than without them tbh, even when we are physically a distance from each other rather than within the same space, because of the nature of the bond and how it works. 

But that's about his choices if he wanted me to be doing my protections against malevolent/vampiric  energies and attachments to include him inside mine along with me. But it would be easier for me to just bring him right on inside my protections against malevolent spirits or energy feeding connections than the way I've been doing it without him free will choosing to want to be within the protections rather than outside them. It would be much easier for me, but he'd have to choose it for himself. Just because it would be easier for me and safer for me and I would be happier with it doesn't make it ethically right. That said, without that potential weak spot getting exploited (even without him realizing) I wouldn't have any reason for keeping him from reaching me via the bond at his core inner self soul level and so I could honestly say it would never happen again.

It would feel more whole, more complete, a closed sphere of protection, to have him and I within the same set of defenses. We would both be better protected for a whole sphere without each of us having our defense only as strong as the other's defenses allow in through them.  But he would have to want it and choose it for himself, in his free will. I know exactly how to do it, like I said it would be easier energetically, but it would have to be by his choice that I would act on knowing how to do it. Because the limits I have placed on my wyrd gifts is that I won't use them against another soul's free will choices except as those choices affect others who ARE under my protections. It's why my gifts are as strong as they are and yet so curiously constrained -- respecting the sanctity of free will is right at the heart of my ethical code. 

But yeah, I could safety proof the fear in me of what could reach me via him AND the fear in him of me ever keeping him from reaching me via the bond in that way by putting him within the bubble sphere of my own protections -- nothing malevolent or energy feeding could attach to either of us unless we BOTH chose to allow it in past the defenses. I don't THINK it would affect us choosing to pour energy through us or using energy to heal or other gifts, only about those that would steal and feed upon energy without permission. It would just have us both within the protection and nobody could attach cords to feed upon spirit energy of either of us unless we both allowed it. Like I said, we'd both be safer for it and it would be easier with the way the bond functions (I don't think I could do it the same way without the shared strength in the bond, tbh.) Like I said, he would just have to CHOOSE of his own free will to want that. Though, I don't know that he'd ever even think of it on his own.... But yeah, if he chose it, I could easily do that instead put us within a shared sphere of protections and then he'd never be excluded if I felt the need to do that, the attachments just wouldn't hook into him either. It would also mean that I would always be inside within his defenses and protections as well, whatever those might be or however they might manifest.

The greatest potential negative consequence I can see would be that the blending of the shared space of the bond could create codependency type control issues instead of individuated selves.... But it would be a spiritual level shared protections, what either of us did within our 3d physical selves would be as separated lives as we chose for it to be. It could cause more overlays of strong emotions as a side effect, just because ANYTHING that strengthens the bond causes overlays and mirroring in the other person, especially strong emotions echoing down the bond can create more overlays and more of us both quirkily loving the same things having the same random interests without any good reason other than "it makes me happy and my soul feel warm from the inside" But I think that would happen if we chose to strengthen and nurture the bond even without having our spiritual protections include the other person within our own.  Because every time the bond is made stronger/affirmed instead of weakened/denied, the overlays of strong emotions increase between us. (And no, I don't know how strong the overlays and the mirroring will grow between us, especially with strong emotions, by us both choosing to cherish and nurture the bond. That's something we can only find out by doing because there's no other bond or cord that I've ever experienced that is like this one. if other people have ones like this, I've never been on the receiving end of it. This is a just him thing for me. So how strong the overlays and mirrored strong emotions will become as we both choose to feed it rather than deny it, well, I'll know as soon as he does, lol. I've got nothing else to compare it to for me, in any life except lives we've found each other which has been quite some time, for me to be able to answer that at this time.)

But to return to my earlier point about replacing emotionally charged fear memories by overcoming them with the creation of new emotional memories and to do so with intentional engagement -- yes, I can take the fear of that happening again and make sure it won't by just including us both within the same spiritual shields/protections/defenses always. there are others that I can't find a way to overcome the fear created past memory at this time or on my own, but this one I can do. I can use this solution to bypass this fear created memory happening again so we can overwrite it with better new memories. I just need to know we both choose it and he would free will choose to have us inside the same protections rather than being blocked from reaching me via the bond as a result of protections against third party attachments reaching me through him. And then I can promise it won't happen again that we can't reach each other via the bond, at least without us both wanting it, not even as a matter of ethics. And I don't make promises unless I can keep them. So yeah, there is an answer to this to not have the bond blocked by blocking out a third party attachment, and it's actually easier than me trying to repeat what I did before if I just include him within my own protections/defenses all the time.

Does that make sense?