Just Stop: Why is it so hard to quit?

What is the antidote to the struggle, when you want to end or find a different relational pattern with a family member, friend, or substance and it feels SO HARD?

photo credit Brad, westviewstudio.com, @westviewstudiocr

The title of this post comes from what happened when I met with H.

I knew H for over a year. What I didn’t know is that H was writing her own book and was starting her own editing company. She was interested in topics of personal transformation and healing, told through stories. When she told me about her book, I could tell it was going to be a success. Trust me. H has written a book that is going to do well. It is going to do well because of the content, the subject of the book, which is Taylor Swift, and because H knows how organize and market things.

Now she was interested in talking to me about mine.

So we scheduled a meeting for a few days later and soon H and her blue eyes were staring at me across the table, as they pierced through my soul.

This is a different H from the one I wrote about last week, the naked-on-the-beach H. This H is a female who recently also appeared on the beach at just the right time the morning after I told God, and my book, that yes: “Yes, I am finally ready to cross the finish line!”

Finally ready to go through it one last time and re-write things, organize things, add things and delete things. Ready to hire someone to help me make it as good as I can while still having fun. Ready to put it out there for people to grab like a life raft or simply entertain themselves with after a long day of life on this planet.

There was the famous guy I dated for a time, who looked at me as we strolled down the street, as we held hands softly, and I told him my secrets. He listened attentively without judgement and said, “That’s in your book, right?” To which I replied with chagrin, “NO! I didn’t put THAT in!” He, with a few NYT bestselling books under his belt, along with staring in a few movies, suggested I should.

Which led me to the coffee shop to write what I cringed about and mentally called, “The Sex Chapter,” in my head.

It was not as fun to write as the other parts of my book. Somehow, it felt like the usually-friendly people in the coffee shop could tell what I was typing discretely on my screen, which I had turned shamefully away from my friends.

I finished the chapter quickly. Then, I stewed for a few days before I hit the “delete” key and sent it permanently into the ethers. I wanted it to dissolve away quietly and secretly. Some things I just wasn’t ready to say.

But time has passed and I have continued to change. I am ready to rewrite my book one last time and I am going to put things in that used to feel too personal and edgy. I am no expert on sex. I have tried to be. I have taken classes (God help me, I have taken classes on everything sometimes I think). But sex? As I said, “God help me.”

But God has and does, so I might as well write about it and see if it helps someone else. That is the way I am starting to think.

And I had a few things to say that I have thought about and experienced that have never been mentioned to me in my classes. Things I think might be helpful to others on a healing journey.

I care a lot less now about what people think of me. Not that I am completely free of seeking validation, but I am better than I used to be and that is progress as far as I am concerned.

My decision a few days ago was decisive and I opened Google Docs for the first time in years to actually reacquaint myself with what I had written and revised so many times. The impulse to visit my manuscript has been poking at me for months now ever since Kora Kwok, a fellow writer here on Substack, gifted me with editing comments on my first chapter. The chapter I wrote to hook people. The chapter that is still painful for me to read.

“I want a divorce.”

That’s how it starts.

That sentence and I said hello to one another again and I felt the familiar loss of gravity in my body as I read it, and felt that moment live in me once more. I realized Kora’s suggestions were good as I read them next to my words. And I told God once more that I really, really needed someone to help me with things. I needed more than editing chapter by chapter. I needed someone who knew how to find a thread of meaning and then help me prune my content into a beautiful tree.

Someone who could look unfazed, at the 70 chapters I had (they’re short OK?), that I wanted to add MORE to, and help me hone it into something pointed, helpful, and hopefully, an engaging read that is not too thick and daunting.

I had been telling God I needed someone like this to help me for about three years. There has been an offer from a friend here and there and I have considered them. But somehow, I was still waiting. I was Goldilocks in the house of the three bears still tasting the porridge and I hadn’t found, “just right.”

One person worked with entrepreneurs on crafting best sellers and the price tag was too hefty. The other thing I had told God was this was an offering, but whatever money I put into it, I wanted to make back. This is a big ask as many people will tell you that it is very hard to make money from a book. However, I am a determined woman and sometimes I stand up and tell God how it’s going to be. I imagine this mostly makes God laugh.

But, for Heaven’s sake, I was not going to PAY to help people. I knew I needed to change my relationship to money and I knew it can be helpful for people to pay for things when they are healing. They try harder. I tried harder when I was paying $300 an hour to Beverly. Yes, I paid that and I didn’t feel wealthy. That’s just how bad I wanted to change. I recorded our sessions and listened to them over and over. Honestly, I don’t think I would have listened that much if the sessions were free.

Then, it is also helpful for me to allow money to flow my way with ease. I was healing a part of myself that finds it easier to give than to receive.

Many books are lead magnets for on-line, pre-recorded courses, speaking engagements, or one-time offerings. But I didn’t write it to be a lead magnet. I wrote it to help people just like one book in particular, and a movie, helped me when I was going through my difficult divorce.

I wanted my book to stand alone.

I didn’t want to be the next on-line guru and I wasn’t going to make my book into a lead magnet for anything.

When you make a decision, a real decision, and you are ready, I think the universe breathes a sigh of relief and divine forces rush in like air into a vacuum, ready to provide just what you need.

“I want a divorce” was one of those moments for me.

“I am ready to finish this book and publish it,” is another.

Which is how I believe H showed up on the beach. God sent her right away, just after I made my decision the day before. God doesn’t mess around; she appeared right on schedule. It was probably only 7 or 8 am.

H and I knew each other as we both live here. What I didn’t know is that she was almost done with her future best-selling tome. I also didn’t know that she used to be an attorney, loved to do research, had studied book marketing, and was starting a new publishing company.

God and my book waited for me. God knew when I was still hesitating and digging my toes into the sand. God knew when I had enough root and sacral chakra energy flowing to just “Stop it!” and move forward.

A few days later, H and I were sitting in my favorite restaurant at Puro Surf discussing my book and how she might be able to help me. H seemed to be just as excited about my book and topic as me. This was new as most publishers or future editors are less than enthusiastic when introduced to something. They want you to jump through more hoops than an elephant and then you might, just might, be lucky enough for them to give it more than a cursory read. Some of them won’t even look unless you already have a following on social media that is daunting for most unpublished authors. After they are sure you will sell a lot of books with minimal marketing efforts on their part, they are happy to take a cut of the profits. Of course, the industry is changing and writers are coming to Substack, and starting to self-publish as well.

Happily, H is not in that category. At least not yet while she is starting. And I imagine her blue eyes will look for books written by people like me on topics she feels need to be heard that people are searching for.

Our discussion led, of course, to things I had written about in my book which include childhood “disturbing events” more often called trauma and CPTSD. I mentioned things I had learned about like attachment styles and family constellation work. Right before our meeting, I listed all the courses I took and things I had done that provide a foundation for what I wanted to say, so I could remind myself that I have done stuff and know stuff that might qualify me to say something useful. More than I often own or admit to myself.

I could see in the questions H asked and the things she mentioned about books and how to craft one, that she was just what I had been looking for. She was interested in my content, wasn’t daunted by the length of what I had (“We can always make it into more than one book, Terra, if it all is worth keeping”) and encouraged me to go ahead and add in the things I had been too afraid to share. In fact, I could tell she was highly interested in my topics and in reading what I had to say.

As the highly priced entrepreneur-editor had mentioned, I was early to writing on the topics I want to address. My book has some unique themes and both he and H felt that there were readers who were waiting for it.

I was starting to feel attached to the outcome of our meeting because as much as H was feeling interested in me, I was feeling equally excited to work with her.

So when the topic of her mother arose, and I could feel the shaky ground it brought up, I got a little worried.

At the time, my recent challenge from the night before with my own mother was not on my mind.

I was simply listening to H talk about hers and what I found myself wanting to say, I knew was less than helpful or profound.

I remembered aYouTube video I had seen in the past and it began to play in my mind as H was speaking…

“Stop it!”

“Just stop it!” I wanted to say (to her and subconsciously, to myself).

Of course, I did not say that to my new friend and hopefully book-midwife. I knew better. I had someone in my life with substance use issues and “Stop it!”, rational as it seems, is ineffective.

“Why?” you might ask?

And now this is where we get into the meat of things, as the answer to that question is the answer to the title up above before I went seemingly off-track to tell you about the backstory of my time with H.

H had mentioned that her mother liked to complain to H about H’s sister, which felt energetically draining to H. So, H decided she was not going to listen anymore. The moment H made that decision, her mother, with internal radar that reached half way around the world, called H said, “H! I need to talk to you about your sister and you are the ONLY ONE I HAVE TO TALK TO and I really need you, H….” (Those are not the exact words and you likely have heard your own version of them. They are not uncommon, nor are they simply an evil ploy of a narcissist. Although they are certainly framed that way if you watch even a small amount of YouTube videos on codependency and narcissism). I prefer to see them as a desperate attempt to obtain energy and attention.

H looked at me with those blue eyes, as she told this pinnacle moment of her most recent mother experience. I saw where the energy was going and why and I didn’t like it. H was my new friend and this just wasn’t ok now was it? “Not ok at all,” I fumed inside. Because I saw that H’s strategy was to just allow it out of love for her mother while I imagine she felt depleted, hopeless, and drained.

I decided the best thing I could do was share a few things I had experienced around energy draining from my body as a child when a needy person I loved held my hand and I felt the energy flow out of me to them. Then I mentioned Dr. Gabor Mate’s thoughts on cancer as a result that often happens to those of us who may have a tendency to over-give and over-help.

I didn’t feel the stories were landing well and the selfish part of me was concerned that I was ruining my chance with the best editor God had ever sent me.

H assured me things were fine and told me she would send me a proposal soon on how we might work together.

I walked away feeling troubled by her story. It was niggling at me and that YouTube video, which is incredibly funny, just wouldn’t stop playing in my head.

I wondered why was it bothering me so much? Mira has been reminding me and showing me how to see people and their experiences “over there”. I know these things take time and we are all learning in our own ways and doing our best. “So what was triggering me about this?” I wondered.

That was when I turned the spotlight on myself.

The night before I was a bit tired, and yes, maybe feeling a tiny bit alone and lonely, which is rare for me now. But it was there. I felt the need for some connection and company. What I really felt was the need for some mothering.

My mother has recently spent some time in the hospital. I was very worried for a time that she might need a lot of long term care. But Mom is spunky. After her hip surgery, and escaping the skilled nursing facility known as the “SNIFF”, she sniffed her own sniff and strutted her way with walker and wheelchair back to her own bed and house, after refusing the care of my doctor-sister and her family.

I worried about Dad under the circumstances and how he would care for her.

A few weeks later I learned Dad was worried too, but not for the reason I expected.

It seems Mom was up and around, often without a walker, doing or attempting to do, many of the things she used to do. Gardening is still too hard for her and she is frustrated by this. But frustration and doing what she wants are fire in my mother’s belly. I think it is why she is mostly walker and wheelchair free. My mother is feisty.

My mother, also, bless her heart, has been through some childhood things which, in my opinion, have made it difficult for her to connect with me on a deep level. She feels things, but not the same as me. And there have been many times, I have wished things were different.

Our relationship has evolved and I have learned, at times, to observe her with some compassion. I observe her as she is talking at me. This is our pattern. My mother talks, and I listen. She often says the same things and tells the same stories. Mom is a voracious reader and I think, could have been an excellent and humorous writer if times had been different and she had been able to address the things that likely held her back.

There were a number of years when Mom was very interested in Byron Katie. She would talk about Byron Katie every time I saw her. Mom would name drop constantly. At one point, my sister looked at me across the room and when the topic of Mom came up, and rolled her eyes while she moaned the words, “Byron Katie….” in a voice as tortured as I felt when the name came my way.

Don’t get me wrong.

It is because of Mom that I went to meet Byron Katie early on, before she was as famous as she is now.

It is because of Mom that I met Eckhart Tolle (ok, I didn’t actually meet him and I was in the front of a room of about 40 people while he spoke of his new book, The Power of Now, that had just come out. Mom has a signed copy.)

But, anything that gets repeated can become tedious. So tedious that regardless of the gifts in Byron Katie’s teachings, my sister and I acquired an allergy to the name.

I started my recent call to Mom a bit tired. I called the main number, rather than her cell phone as it was more likely that my dad might answer too, and it is nice to hear them both, even though Mom usually does most of the talking. I feel a bit of a respite if Dad happens to say something here or there. And if he doesn’t, I can interrupt her and ask him a question now and then. It breaks things up a bit.

This night, Dad did not hear the phone. It seems the new hearing aids he finally succumbed to purchase at age 88, were uncomfortable. Mom said he only puts them in when he “needs” to. He was in his typical place, out in his office working on his computer. Clearly, he decided to leave answering the phone to Mom.

Mom, bless her 82 year old self, was lying in their bedroom with one cat and a pile of books around her (I know this as she said she was in bed and this what my mom always looks like with her small frame that sinks into the top of the puffy red bedspread). She spends a lot of time on her own and Dad spends a lot of time in his office. I know she was happy to have some company as she picked up the phone and knew it was me. She started talking right away.

After about 20 minutes, I started to feel tired. I knew I didn’t know how to change things in our relationship. I knew my mom could connect to a certain point and that, in my opinion, there were things in her past and coping strategies that made connecting deeply and really feeling other people, challenging at best. And I felt she was talking to me like I was a lifeline.

I was losing energy fast.

One of my teachers used to say, “Where attention goes, energy flows.”

I felt tired before the call, and now my exhaustion was increasing rapidly, along with a sense of hopelessness that this is just the way things are. I love Mom and want to stay connected with her as best I can, and yet, I was feeling drained and that did not align in a positive way with the life I wished to lead.

I realized as I looked at H across the table with a related mother issue that my inclination to tell her to “Just Stop” listening and let her mother suffer, was an absurd thing to suggest or ask in the circumstances. Change is a process and shifting out of patterns like this is a process too.

For me, my participation in this kind of transactional love is an addiction. I was participating right along with my mom.

This wasn’t just about H. This was about me.

I knew I was doing better when it came to loving Mom and feeling less drained when around her, and more grateful. But I was still struggling sometimes.

My coping mechanism the night before was one I learned from my dad.

I had a Great Grandmother who also talked quite and bit. Dad and I both found it tedious. When I was a child and mentioned how hard it was to listen to Grandma Claire talk “at” me, Dad told me how he handled things. His strategy was to go visit her, which she loved, and then to sit and listen for certain amount of time. He watched the hands on the clock move slowly along, minute by torturous minute and when the time was up, he would interrupt her flow of words and excuse himself. He had done his duty and provided her with some company.

Mom was at about 20 minutes when I looked at the time on my cell phone. I gave myself ten more minutes and felt sad.

Mom is old. I don’t know how much longer she will be here and I know it will not be forever. I wanted to savor her and her words. I wanted to love her just the way she was, at this point in her life. I wanted to do this: “Father forgive them for they know not what they do” and I wanted to do it from my heart and to not feel tired and drained.

My phone showed that our call had reached 30 minutes and I excused myself. Mom said goodbye almost apologetically. She often mentions she wants to know when she repeats herself and mentions that maybe she talks too much…

And I felt sad as I knew this is not what I want for Mom and me. And as I listened to H talk and saw how she was sacrificing herself out of love for her mother, I know that it was not what I wished for her and her mother either.

“Just Stop.”

Well, I wanted to. YouTube videos will tell you to cut people out of your life that drain you. Lots of people will let you know that self-care really matters, and it does. They will suggest you just need better boundaries and then they will give you some techniques and tell you to practice them.

Energy can be an addiction. So can drugs. They both fill a need Gabor Mate calls, “The Hungry Ghost.” The ghost is never satisfied, because they feel like there is never enough of what they want. Those ghosts suck life force energy into what can feel like a bottomless pit.

As I turned the spotlight from H to me, I realized I needed help. I really didn’t think my guides would have an answer because what I wanted was not what the YouTube videos tell me to do. I wanted to stay connected to my Mom, to listen to her, and to feel energetically full in myself.

Writing for guidance is my form of prayer and it has always been helpful. But this time, I had my doubts. I had worked on this particular issue for years.

I had done family constellation work around my mother, talked to my codependency recovery coach about her, and had her energy show up to work with in various ways, in various groups I was in. I had seen people feel into the energy of my mother, without knowing her past and describe things about her that brought both compassion and sadness in me.

And things hadn’t changed. I wanted to connect to my mother more deeply and I had never stopped wanting that.

So I wrote, because telling H to “Just Stop” was not going to help her and it certainly hadn’t helped me.

So now I come to the answer to what I wrote above in the subtitle:

What is the antidote to the struggle, when you want to quit a relational pattern with a family member, friend, or substance, and find it SO HARD?

The answer I received is this:

Feel that you have support.

First, before engaging with the challenging person you love, or the energetic hole in yourself that you want to fill, feel that you are not alone. Close your eyes and feel it. Maybe you feel subtle beings around you? Maybe you see little scenes of people doing helpful things for you? Feel the care in it. Even if we are talking about a substance here and not a person, there is an unmet need for love. Instead of looking for it somewhere out there, can you feel that you are held and loved, right now, in this moment? Even if it is simply through reading these words. You are not alone. Can you feel that?

Yes my darling. So the first suggestion we have for you is to feel this. This is your shield so to speak, or your strategy. When you feel this you will be more able to care for yourself when you face depleted, needy, or angry people and yes, Dear One, often all those frequencies come together.

—a message from guided writing, Oct. 6, 2024

There is no right or wrong response to a situation and your response may change depending on how you feel and what you have the capacity for in the moment. So even though I am listing some techniques, this is not about techniques. It is about energy, love, and how to care for yourself. It is how to have a cup that “runneth over” (Psalm 23:5) that you offer others, rather than one that has a limited supply and leaves you feeling thirsty when you share.

Do your best to be curious about things, to discern more, and to not make yourself wrong, or others wrong, in these relational situations. There is no “wrong”. That is simply judgement and anger that tells you so. The simple truth is that no one is getting their needs met in a healthy way.

I mentioned this dynamic to my friend Mira recently while she was showing me her artwork. Mira reminded me that sometimes, one person can talk a lot and it is fine. Sometimes, we can be with people who can talk for hours, and we just want to hear more.

to see Mira’s work go to Instagram here: @miramiraarte

So this is not about not talking too much. This is about energy and relationships between people.

My mom could talk less, and I would still want to connect with her more (and likely her with me) and it would be quietly sad and frustrating for us both.

The codependent side of this dynamic often doesn’t feel the anger which lies beyond mere frustration. Codependent people tend to be “nice”. Or they feel it as tension in their body and have no idea why it is there.

Well, I believe it comes from things like this.

Sweet and sad things where there are simply unmet needs for love, playing out in messy ways.

I remember reading once that the “high” from shooting Heroin doesn’t come when the needle goes in. It comes from the ritual of the process. It starts before the person injects anything. That need, to feel better, is so strong. But how to fulfill it can be terribly distorted.

There is a relationship there, between the drug and the person. One that says, “Please, please, help me feel better. Help me feel loved.”

So feel that you are.

First, before anything, feel that you are surrounded, in some way, by care and connection. Feel it in your body before you pick up that phone to call that “difficult” person and maybe don’t make the call when you feel a young part of you is searching for something. Because she or he is probably not going to get it there.

But show that young part of yourself how to get their cup filled at a different Spring.

Find it in God. Find it in nature. Maybe you find it by feeling the sensations in your body as you simply bask in the feeling of a cool stream flowing over your hands or the wind on your skin?

You are not alone and you are loved.

“Dear One, this is a process. If you feel support and care, you can reach out to connect from a more full state in yourself. If you reach out…with a sense of lack and a very understandable childhood wish for connection, it is likely the old pattern will play out.

…She feels her own wounding and wishes to fill the pain with your energy, which provides only temporary relief.

But Dear One, if you show up full in yourself, not looking for anything from her, feeling the frequencies you often felt a lack of from her—and she from her own mother—then you embody the answer.

You are full and your cup runneth over so to speak.

If you feel an unhealthy draw on your energy, you love yourself, you feel what you need, and you honor that.

This is enough.

—a message from guided writing, October 6, 2024

These words apply to more than mothers. They apply to any place in you and in me that wants to be filled with love and didn’t get quite the musical tone that we thirsted for. That is a thirst that people attempt to quench in many ways. But there is only one way to truly fill those holes in yourself and that is through finding where they are and infusing them with the light and love of the divine, which is infinite.

You feel supported and cared for. Then you sense what you want and need and you honor that. You honor that my Darling. Without blame or anger.

—a message from guided writing 10/06/24

Then when you meet those people or substances that you used to think were the answer, you can vibrate differently and choose differently.

You can look through the eyes of compassion at them and at yourself. You can observe people, like you, trying to fill energetic holes in themselves, in the best way they know how, with the tools they have, from the place they are at. And then know that the pattern will change when they are ready and to be ready is a process and a timeline that is in hands bigger than yours.

In regards to mothers, yours and mine, and our own mothering that we may wish was better…these are the words they left me with:

She didn’t get the mothering she needed. It is not your job to give it to her. But as you mother yourself, love yourself, care for yourself and feel the support and care from us, from other physical beings, from divine frequencies, you heal the wound of lack inside yourself and that changes things.

That my darling, is true recovery.

—a message from guided writing, 10/06/24

May all the Hungry Ghosts be seen for what they are, places waiting to be seen and loved the way they weren’t, and may we do so, and fill the darkness with light.

You are a beacon and all you do on your healing journey, your transformational journey, and your adventure here…all of it matters. Your music is heard, even when no one can see.

Love yourself and feel authentic care around you, holding you. Actually close your eyes and do it. Feel what you want. Feel it like you have it now, and are living it now. Reach a point of readiness, however long it takes. Then Stop. Just Stop.