Dear ninibee:

It is better to respond in small amounts, like you did in your recent post. This kind of work, emotional learning, is different from intellectual learning, such as we do in school, tackling a large amounts of information at one time. Emotional learning is about tackling a small amount of information at a time, and repeatedly over a long period of time, returning to the same topic  already understood, because there is more and more to understand about it.

This means that if your thread is to work for you, it will need to extend over a number of pages and over a longer period of time.

“You also said about my belief that I am bad/ problematic: ‘But I can see that it is not true..’ I am confused on this one because many people do see me this way. Many people tell me I have lots of problems and that I am difficult”.

I will explain this point further: you believed that you were bad and problematic from an early age while you were good and not at all problematic. You believed this as a child because your mother treated you as if you were bad and problematic. In other words, the core belief was formed before you displayed any abnormal or problematic behaviors.

Later on, as you grew up, you did/ do act in problematic ways: dysfunctional, ineffective ways, because dysfunction is the consequence of childhood mistreatment.

Healing is a combination of correcting current dysfunctional behaviors, and going back in time, so to speak, so to understand what kind of child you were (not different from any other, not abnormal, not problematic, and definitely not bad).

Understanding your beginning in life will make it possible for you to catch up to the child that you were, and know that you are still good and that there is nothing wrong with  you.

anita