Dear Cali Chica:

After writing to you yesterday I realized I made a mistake when I wrote to you that your parents (I see your mother as  the  dominant parent) communicated to  you that  they need  you to survive. I think your mother communicated to you something like: I am suffering, I am drowning, I am weak, I may be  dying.

The  core belief:  they need me  to survive, without me they will drown, I must be super, be their lifeguard or else they will die, that was your conclusion and proposed solution to  the situation. You took it upon yourself, as children so often do, to rescue the parents so that they will be able to survive so.. that you will be able to survive.

Point is, they, neither your mother nor  your father saw the little girl Cali  Chica as a lifeguard. Neither one saw you as their rescue. They still don’t.

You wrote: “the thesis is that  no matter  what I do or don’t do, what I say or don’t say… she will always be the same. She  will continue to go up and down, curse me then cry to me, be happy, be miserable, feel like she’s losing her  mind, be ecstatic with glee- all of which has  nothing at all to do with my actions”-

I believe  it is true, and will add  to  the last sentence above: … all of which has nothing at all to do with who Cali Chica is.  They don’t value you as a person but as a  mean to an end, the  end being relieving themselves of distress when they are distressed, and providing moments of ecstasy and glee when in need  of such.

The law of action means, again, that every time you avail yourself to being used  and abused by your parents, you choose to use and abuse another, yourself and other people.

I remember hearing the following a long time ago: we are not born to our mother/parents, we are  born through them, that  is, we  don’t belong to them, not their property to do with us as they please. It makes sense. After all, the mother has sex and  gives birth, she did  not design the fetus, oversaw the process of the zygote developing to a human being. She only had sex and well, then she had  to give birth, the baby had to exit, she didn’t choose that part  either. Who you are has a lot more to  do with nature, evolution, something way, way  bigger than this particular woman and that particular man.

Bottom line, your parents do not value  you as a person. They value you as a thing to use and  abuse: Distressed? Dump the distress into that thing. Miserable? Call the thing and share it, transfer it. Angry? Blame the  thing, make the thing feel bad. Need  a pick up, a  moment of ecstasy and glee? Have the  thing do this and  that to bring that about.

If Bodhi’s mother in the shelter  was a good mother, that is, did  not use  and  abuse Bodhi, but showed  him affection, Bodhi himself  would  have loved to  visit her. He would have been motivated to spend time  with her. And  she  would not have demanded that he visits.

As a child you don’t have any experience but the one you have. Imagine, now, an experience that you could have had but didn’t. That  of having  parents who were kind  to you, who didn’t use you or abuse you, parents who valued you as a person. Think how that would have looked like, sounded like. If that was the  case, you would  have loved  to check in with them, to share good experiences with them. You would have been motivated to do so, enjoying their company in person and on the phone as much as they would have enjoyed yours.

anita