I get that the point is the last part "Do not reject the ingredients of your life, but seek to understand what place they might have in a more complete and whole you."

But as I read through the list of ingredients all I kept thinking was there's not enough liquid for a cake. Forest and trees. I know... :)

Dammit Matt, your post is as frustrating as your book : )! But I don’t want to make my computer fly. No, actually I really, deeply do want to throw it, it would be so satisfying, but I won’t.

Some personal background, complete with a trigger warning, just in case:

When I was growing up I desperately wanted someone to rescue me. That didn’t happen so I took up smoking as my way of SI.

I went in for my first round of therapy. I wanted my therapist [read: another person] to rescue me from all of my memories, flashbacks, somatic memories etc. That didn’t happen. I kept smoking.

I quit therapy after a few years, and started working on my stuff on my own, and I still wanted someone else to swoop in to save me. This time I no longer needed to be rescued from everything, but rather from the worst of the past events. I was still a kitten in a tree; a damsel in distress. I hated myself for feeling that way. I kept working, though, as I knew full well that my need to be saved by someone else was an archaic one. But I kept smoking.

But now I’m in a new situation. I no longer want someone else to save me. I want someone to help me save myself. So now, I’ve turned 180 degrees to face myself. And I can’t tell you how much I detest what I see. I don’t see a kitten or a damsel, but I see someone who was hated, ignored, ravaged and tortured when she was growing up. I realize that the main ingredient in my smoking is something worse than self-hate. I actually can’t stand myself. I can’t abide myself just as much as I can’t tolerate what happened to me.

So now my work is two-fold. I need to rebuild myself and work through my stuff enough, so that that the feeling of intolerance, as it were, shifts from me to what happened. Once I begin to see myself in a better light, I will be able to quit smoking, finally.

The past events won’t be a part of my cake, because they are pure venom, but who I am will be. (Don't tell me those events have to be in the cake too...I can accept the idea of what I had to do to survive to be in it, I suppose) Right now though, I can’t see a difference between me and the venom. Cognitively I can, but emotionally, *argh* no way.

No, I don’t want a ladder to help me down from that tree. I want to find my own way down. But the idea of climbing down scares me to bits. And besides I like the view from up here (read: I don’t have to look at myself; I can look at everything else)! But I’m getting hungry up here and the sun is setting, so I’d better start my descent. Nah, you know what, I’ll just stay here, lick my paws and create a hairball to entertain myself.

Then again, a platter of cold milk would be nice right about now.

I think the first part on its own, during therapy, could be very telling on where a survivor is in their process. Do they see individual elements or a recipe?

As I was reading that list of ingredients I was thinking that sounds gross; maybe if I put them together they would taste better.

It reminds me of a visualisation I did with my fish. Back then I didn't realise I could just be me with my thoughts so if my thoughts made the visualisation make no sense, I would change my thoughts/imaginings to accommodate the plan. So seeing that the cake was a part of the teaching, I would have reversed over my thoughts and imagined eating the things separately first - or similar.

I guess it's the ability to see change. Healing or trying to hasn't changed the fact I was raped..it's still a gross ingredient but if I cook it right; then it might not be so bad. And some days it doesn't feel like such a bad fact. It just is. A bit like how mayo is made of raw egg and sometimes that completely grosses me out and I can't stand the idea of mayo let alone eat it..but other days I can eat the mayo and enjoy it. (hmm possibly the first time I've ever thought of myself as mayo)

Maybe one day I can be the cake :) I shall ask myself every so often...where are you today? Are you the raw egg, the mayo or the cake? A weird and wonderful alternative to am I survivor or victim :)

First thing I thought of was cookies or cake, not what the individual ingredients were on their own. I don't know if that means anything as far as who I am goes, it just means that I saw the whole instead of the individual pieces. A few years ago maybe I wouldn't have seen it like that, or maybe it was the fact that I've had a bad day and want chocolate ice cream and saw the ingredients as a nice endorphine eliciting combination to drown out a day where things are just downright frustrating. I won't know, but there again, is it important that I do? It just is, and maybe that is enough today.

Matt, by your first post, it's not clear to me if you are inferring that the actual rape itself is one of those ingredients?
I'd have to concur with Innereye and say that I wouldn't want to include that in my cake, regardless of whether it had been baked (!), because it was wholly bad and I do not want to say in any way that it had any element of good or worth in it at all.
Healing from it, yes, but not the thing itself - I think there is a bit in your book where you say that your healing makes you stronger but not the wounding itself?

No, you're being way too specific in that interpretation. This is more about the broader things that make us who we are. In that context, "struggle" would be one ingredient generally, without having to over-think the individual issues in that. This teaching is meant to pertain to every living person, not "here's a teaching about rape victims." So don't limit incoming positivity through the "rape filter." If you find that you have a hard time accepting kind and encouraging words because you squeeze them through the "rape filter" first to see if they'll still fit you, it's going to be tough to feel good!

its good to know that you wouldnt include that in it, i didnt think you would! i guess we all naturally see things more in a rape context here because of the group, so its a good reminder that we do chat about other stuff too!

im happy to include struggle - like a raw egg! - in the cake because actually there is worth in the effort that goes with that.

for me, it would have to be a chocolate cake - they are simply the best!

Yeah, we ALL encounter struggles and setbacks, so just look at it like that. I don't think anyone needs to sort through the list of individual issues and cram them into this teaching, because it gets too weird at that point--"So rape is part of my life recipe? WTF is Matt even talking about now? I knew the guys was weird, but..." And besides, if we did that it would render this teaching inapplicable for anyone in the world who WASN'T raped, and I sure don't want to do that! So without over-specifying the parable to the point that it falls apart, just look at it as a general statement: you are, today, the product of ALL the life you've lived to this point, and even though not all of it was pleasant, you are a worthy, valuable, ever-improving person.

Oh, celtichope you said the magic word. Chocolate cake! *drools…* Who? What? Oh right, I was typing. Got a little dreamy there for a second.

Well, speaking of chocolate cake, (Matt, look way now, because) I will dissect the parable a little. No, wait! Don’t turn your computer off just yet! This will get interesting, I promise.

I want to add chocolate to my personal recipe at least; gooey, dark, but not bitter, and Finnish (!) chocolate – not only because it’s my favorite kind of cake, but also because one of the ingredients deserves to taste good all by itself. I find I’m not only the sum of my experiences – there are things about me that my problems couldn’t dissolve or change. Good things I was born with that kept be going then, and now. And other things I’m busy discovering that were gone for a while, but never wholly lost. This works for non-survivors, too.

And then we could add raspberries, because if you look at it from another perspec… no, just kidding! Just kdding! *ducks behind the couch*

God, you can't say ANYTHING to this group'a women without it turning into something about chocolate...


[*ducks behind the couch*]

Ha! I see you behind there, Matt! Beware, I’m armed with a box of chocolates and I’m not afraid to use it!

Here’s a truffle one I could throw at you… good weight, nice aroma… umm, well, no, on second thought I’ll just *slurp* eat that one, but here’s a good one with a blue wrapper and everything. Marzipan! No wait, I like those, too.

It counts if I only throw the wrappers though, right?

Don't forget, empty boxes fly well, too.

[*takes careful aim...*]

MATT!!!! I'm so shocked!!!!! How dare you!!!!!

Chocolate is the reason we live!!!!!