Dear Girija:

You are welcome. One belief we have that is not true is that feelings are dangerous. Back to the deer- the reason fear is so very unpleasant is to motivate the deer to run away as fast as it can and quickly, immediately! The fear itself feels very badly, but it is  not dangerous. The fast approaching mountain lion is really dangerous, the fear of the mountain lion is not dangerous.

Fear is uncomfortable. We cannot be comfortable with it but we can remove some of the fear of it, the … fear on top of the fear. Sadness also is not dangerous, neither is anger or any other feeling as long as we are careful about how we react to those feelings, what we actually do, for example: avoid accidents when fearful, pay attention to the road we are crossing when we are very sad and spaced out.

Separating your voice from your mother’s is healing, questioning your core beliefs and correcting those that are not correct is healing. Give yourself time doing this work, take breaks, no way of rushing this kind of work. If you go to fast, you will get overwhelmed. And as you do this work, make sure you don’t find yourself arranged to be married. My goodness, your mother is not qualified to arrange such a thing!

anita