How are you, Lucidity?

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