R U okay, Confused? Did U have the video 📞?

You are welcome, Confused!

“I started crying saying ‘not my baby, no!'”- this is an emotion that expresses a strong attachment, this is you NOT having checked out!

As I read the above, I’m becoming aware of how much what I recounted above felt like it didn’t happen to me. That I wasn’t there.

And that healing- the filling in of empty spaces (‘ I wasn’t there’)- is about finally FEELING that really I was there.

And then FEELING- finally- how I really felt, the girl that I was- to be told by my mother that I was “A Big Zero”. It finally landing again (50-60 years later).

The girl I was- I was hurt beyond words can describe. It was a severe emotional blow.

And then, her saying: “The only thing I like about you is that you don’t resist (the message, that ‘I am a – big-zero’)-

The implications of this extra message: to submit- in adulthood- to abuse because that’s the only praiseworthy thing about me.

More later.

Anita

How time flies, Peter:

It’s been almost 2 years since you posted your original post on “Blank Canvas”, June 20, 2024.

Copilot: Here is Peter’s post rewritten in the simplest, clearest language, while keeping the meaning intact:

Peter remembers a school trip to an art museum where he saw a painting called “blank white canvas.” It was literally just a white canvas. Next to it was a red canvas called “red canvas.” He and his classmates laughed at how silly it seemed.

Recently, that memory came back to him after he read about an older man who was dying and said he was afraid. The man was scared of losing his identity and the sense of self he had lived with.

Thinking about that, Peter wondered again: Is a blank canvas really blank?

And why do we think a painted canvas isn’t blank?

Then he had a realization:

A canvas is always “blank” in a deeper sense. Even when something is painted on it, the canvas underneath is still there. It holds every painting that could ever be created. The painting appears for a while, but the canvas remains unchanged.

This made him think about life:

Moments come and go, but there is something underneath them that doesn’t change — something like the “eternal present.” When he holds both ideas together (the moment in time and the timelessness beneath it), he feels calm and his thoughts quiet down.

He remembers a quote from Joseph Campbell about how the center of life is where movement (time) and stillness (eternity) meet. When you see the eternal inside the present moment, you feel the real meaning of life.

From this perspective, nothing is truly lost or gained. Everything arises from the same “blank canvas” and returns to it. And he wonders about the dying man — whether his fear comes from clinging to the painted picture instead of recognizing the canvas beneath it.”

I am recognizing the canvas beneath, Peter.

Anita

The thing about SSRIs- it’s a personal compatibility thing. It takes time for a good (!) psychiatrist and a patient to figure out what drug is best for the particular person and at what dosage.

Weird numb sensations..? Something unpleasant that you didn’t experience before?

My obsessive loops back then (in the 90s)- jealousy, obsessing about someone’s past, his ex girlfriend or girlfriend’s (I don’t remember now) like it was happening right there and then in front of me.

It was really nice to not have those movies playing in my 🧠 again and again.

✂️✂️✂️ Anita

Hi Peter:

As I’ve been reviewing my past replies to members years ago, running them through Copilot’s analysis and seeing it clearly myself, I can clearly see my own hardened heart: not responding to others’ emotions and focusing on intellectual analysis, then getting impatient with members at times, etc.

It’s embarassing to go back in time, not too long ago, and see the clinical, emotionally unattuned (closed, hardened heart) replies I produced.

But then, what is to be expected from a person (me and others) growing inward in environments that attack and punish the once soft heart..

“He (Peter) is not asking you to perform. He is inviting you to rest”-

To rest in a softened heart, an unpunished heart.

Is this the promised land: safety within a soft heart, is this the resting?

🖼 Anita

Emojis in regard to Copilot’s criticism of my reply 😠 🤢 🤕 🤮 😫 🤒 😡

Hey Confused:

I believe so, yes, that you will be able to feel again.

I was diagnosed with Major Depression long ago. Fast forward, I am no longer depressed and yes, I am able to feel. I feel like a teenager (using the computer, no emojis)