Dear Hella:

“I feel in a way less entitled to harbor these feelings”- but you are entitled to harbor the feelings that you experience. We are emotional animals, we can’t help our emotions. We don’t choose them, any more than any other emotional animal.

Our emotions don’t or shouldn’t pass a test of entitlement, doesn’t matter if we knew better before getting involved with someone, doesn’t matter if it is a sister or parent that did us wrong compared to a stranger.

There is always a valid message in what we feel and that message should be listened to. Once we listen to that message, once the emotion successfully delivered its message, the emotion will quiet down.

It is the same as this: an animal feels hunger, it eats, the hunger quiets down. The animal feels fear, it runs away from perceived danger and arrives at a safe destination, the fear quiets down, and so forth.

If you want to examine the valid message in your anger toward your sisters or toward this man, please do and I will try to help you doing that.

anita