Still not forgotten, Laven. How are you?

Hey 👋 Confused:

Yes, I do pay attention to n I numbers and anniversaries.

Is “not pressuring myself” same as relaxing?

Feelings as a treat, what an interesting way to put it. I hope you reward yourself every day.

The image of Confused thawing came to mind.

🧊 💧 💧 Anita

Good morning, Confused:

Today, March 1️⃣9️⃣, is the 3-month anniversary of you joining this thread (Dec 1️⃣9️⃣, 2025), filling 1️⃣9️⃣ pages of posts (if you click on your screen name, you’ll see that)

Interestingly, Ada, with whom you felt much in common, posted on March 1️⃣9️⃣, 20222

Looking back at your first post, what strikes me most this morning is how trying to force feelings to return doesn’t work. You wrote back then about “…constant rumination for my feelings…” → Rumination is a form of self‑pressure — repeatedly checking, analyzing, and trying to force feelings to appear.

Here’s what Copilot (AI) says on the topic: “When someone suddenly goes numb and panics about losing their feelings, they usually start trying to feel again. They check constantly, analyze everything, and pressure themselves to ‘love properly.’

“But emotional systems don’t respond well to pressure — they tighten, freeze, or shut down even more. That’s why forcing feelings never works.

“What does help is when the person eventually… stops pushing so hard. The moment the inner pressure eases, the emotional system can breathe again. It relaxes. And in that softer space, feelings often begin to return naturally — not because the person ‘tried harder,’ but because they finally stopped trying to control something that can only unfold on its own.

🌿 ✨ 🤍 🙂 🌙 🌱 💫 🌾 🌼 🌬️ 💛 🌟 🕊️ 🌸 🔆 🍃 💭 🌻 ☀️ (19 emojis), Anita

This story made me smile, Peter, even though I am also partly hearing the war news of the day.

Thank you. Thomas, for inviting me to analyze. But better I give my heavy analyzing habit a break.

Talking about mirrors 🪞🪞, I prefer not to look at one. I often feel like a child or an adolescent. I don’t want the mirror to tell me otherwise. How dare it??? 😤 (unexpected anger.. at the mirror).

😤 🪞 👵 👶 👀 🪞 Anita

Dear Nichole:

Bogart is improving except when 🐇 🐇 🐇 are involved. The other day I let him off the leash so that he could freely run as I’ve done before and it went well, before. This time, he got himself into a huge, dense, tall mass of thorny, sharp blackberries. Next, I hear him making horribly alarming barks, so, I am thinking he’s caught in the blackberries bleeding and calling for help.

And there’s just no way for a human to get into the blackberries (tens if not hundreds of thousands, dense blackberries) without special equipment and team work of some kind.

Fast forward, at the point where I’m beside myself, he finally showed up, no injuries. The Sounds he made- those were the calls of excitement a beagle makes when on the tracks of 🐰 🐰 🐰

I am not letting him off the leash anymore, at least not close to that area!

“The flying 🐒 🐒 🙈 coming out of the woodwork”- ha ha, you have a way with words, Nichole 😃

I 🤞 you more floating out of depression as you steer away of flying-monkeys-paths.

“Becoming more Me”- I like the idea behind it: Nichole becoming more.. looking forward to reading!

How do you “harass” your 🐈?

🙈 🐇 🐒 🐰 🐕 🐈 Anita

Thank you, Thomas for letting me know that Zen Stories are not meant to be analyzed.

“I Am, therefore, I analyze” is what I would have said in the past, but that’s a rigid, limitin belief (referring to Peter’s story).

I Am- I Notice, therefore I can coose to not analyze.

🙏 Anita

Good morning, Peter:

“Even when there is noise and violence, there is a part of us that just notices… the ‘quiet Id.’…The lowest chakra is the highest.. we return home (to) know it for the first time? The last shell be first and the first shell be last.. an inner fact?”-

I am in awe of your creative, original thinking, Peter.

In Freud’s theory, the Id is chaotic, primitive, impulsive. You softened and reframed the old meaning, using it as a new metaphor (Peter’s Original Metaphor- POM) for the deepest, quietest part; the steady, observing core of the self— the part that doesn’t get shaken.

You flipped the meaning completely.

You are saying that the deepest part of me is not wild, or broken, or chaotic, or in danger. This POM is revolutionary for me because it brings the abstract (up there) to the concrete (down to earth).

You are saying that my fear, anxiety, tension, that’s not the core of who I am. These were “first” only because they formed early. But they are not the deepest truth or the final word, or the essence of me.

It, the Id, is the part that existed before fear, before danger, before breath‑holding. It’s my inner quiet, inner strength, inner home.

The outer, first shell is the anxious part, the breath‑holding part, the danger‑scanning part, the part that reacts fast. This shell formed first in my life. The inner shell (the last shell) is the quiet, steady part, the part that notices without being shaken, the part that breathes naturally, the part that isn’t “good” or “bad”. The part that simply is

So far in my life, I tried to heal the first shell almost exclusively through one lens or frame (analysis of childhood, psychology). In a concrete way, you introduced to me a 2nd frame- to shift my attention from the first shell to the last.

.. The “last shell” (the quiet awareness) is actually the first in importance. The “first shell” (the fear, the breath‑holding) is actually the least true part of me — just a protective layer.

Saying it yet again: fear is not my core. My quiet is my core: I am sensing an identity shift. This is not a matter of abstract spirituality for me. It’s a matter of shifting identity.

* So, when I feel tension, I can name it: ‘This tension is the outer shell.’ No judgment. No fixing. Just naming. Then bring my attention one layer deeper: ‘The inner shell is quiet.’- shifting my awareness from the anxious surface to the steady underneath.

“What if ‘exhaling’ isn’t a luxury, but… Something available to everyone with eyes that see and ears that hear?” (Peter)-

Shift the fight‑or‑flight reflex that says, ‘don’t let go.’, ‘don’t exhale’, => => => ‘I am life exhaling. It’s not something for me to control’, ‘Breath is happening. I don’t have to manage it. Or to earn it, or to wait for it’

Outer shell is tense. Inner shell is quiet. I am life exhaling.. I will let it all settle.

Thank you, Peter 🙏 🙏 🙏 🙏

🌿✨🍃 Anita