Dear Seaturtle:

I’ll reply today in a different way, different from quoting and commenting. First, thank you for your support and kindness in response to what I shared with you recently!

The title of the book by itself “Living from a place of Surrender” is powerful. I see it as surrendering to what I cannot change, which first takes SEEING that which I don’t like (and cannot change). Connecting this to N, maybe you can add Surrender to the list of the stages of a breakup that you wrote about in your journal entry (May 13).

Seeing him clearly and then surrendering to the truth of what you see can free you from going back to fighting within-you, trying to.. change him still, even after the breakup (in your thoughts and dreams, perhaps)

And seeing him clearly is seeing that he didn’t see you. He only saw a bit of something here, a bit of something there. It is amazing how blind a person can be to another in a supposed intimate relationship. It’s like being Anonymous for the person you love. He told you that he loved you, but he can’t tell you who.. you are.

There is a book titled People of the Lie: The hope for Healing Human Evil. I imagine you, Seaturtle, authoring a book one day, with a title like People who don’t See the Ones they claim to Love: The Hope for healing Human Blindness. Something like that.

anita

Dear Robi:

“It took me less than 48 hours to feel like I regret leaving Spain to come here. In Spain I had (some) work and (some) privacy. Here, we live with my girlfriend’s mother in a small flat with no doors… My girlfriend was telling me a few days before leaving Spain together – ‘I’m afraid the moment we touch down you’ll start hating it again…’…. leaving Warsaw because I didn’t want to be here anymore, and after 3 months come back here because I didn’t want to be there anymore… I feel like I’m missing something. There is something I don’t see.. I don’t quite see the bigger picture. Of course, I could always ask my previous landlord if I could have my old room back and go back to live in Alicante.. which I’ve been considering these days. All this starts to look more and more.. like a game of ping-pong”-

– My easy “answer” or suggestion would be: yes, Robi, you feel so uncomfortable, so go back to Alicante, and maybe you will feel comfortable there! But this answer will keep the ping-pong game going. This is not what growing up- becoming adult is about: it’s about the bigger picture= enduring discomfort and becoming more of a quality person as a result, more of .. a quality adult.

At this time, in your situation and quest to adult, I suggest that you remove your focus from your own discomfort (and quest for comfort) and focus on the comfort of your girlfriend and her mother. Try to make them feel comfortable. Say and do what will promote their comfort. Do that and let me know how it feels for you, will you?

anita

Dear Kshitij:

You are always welcome!

(I am adding the boldface feature to the quote): “I am rushing, I do feel lagging behind.. I am living under self-inflicted pressure… I want to release this pressure now… my intrusive thoughts and flashbacks are hindering me…  And just like that, I scrolled my mobile phone for less than a minute and I came across something that again triggered my anxiety and intrusive thoughts… I do accept that I have a habit/tendency of self-loathing from a long time”-

– As a person who suffered from heavy-duty OCD for (I am guessing) 25 years, a Rushing person: mentally and physically (I was “blessed” with Tourette tics which is like the muscles are rushing with nowhere to go),- I can tell you (some if it told again, I suppose) what worked for me:

1) Psychiatric medications: Sertraline and later, Fluvoxamine (two of the SSRI anti-depressant used off label for OCD. I have a distinct memory when I first took Sertraline (prescribed by a psychiatrist), I felt that the drug was like a pair of scissors that cut off my obsessive/ intrusive thoughts (I no longer take any psychiatric drugs since 2013).

2) Psychotherapy (2011-13): Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) with a heavy dose of Mindfulness.

3) One day, I remember it well, I asked myself: what power does an intrusive thought really have? I purposefully thought “dangerous” thoughts and realized that nothing really happened as a result. I understood that the intrusive thoughts happen only in the distance between my two ears, and not beyond. When I no longer feared my thoughts.. they stopped being intrusive, they were just thoughts, mere thoughts and nothing more.

4) I used to compare myself to others, most unfavorably, feeling like a failure in comparison. One day I accepted my failures, no longer fighting within, no longer resisting.. it took the pressure off.

5) Through.. eventually, feeling empathy for myself, I no longer loathe myself: I am on my side, I am for me; not against me.

anita

Dear Zenith: make it last, lol, and let any trouble between the two of you pass on like..  Passing clouds.

anita

Dear Seaturtle:

I looked up Body and Brain Yoga, it reads: “a unique blend of Yoga, Tai Chi, Breathwork and Meditation exercises”- reads like a winning combination. I did lots of yoga and tai chi classes back in the day. I miss the Tai Chi Sifu. He was indeed very skillful, physically and mentally.

“you are not directly in my shoes“- true.

“Currently, and recently I have been made aware of these shadows, aka false selves, and they are overwhelming when stacked together… I lost that little girl for a while because, as you know, I had to quiet her to stay in that relationship“- I will tell you what this means to me, about me/ my life, being directly in my shoes: the little girl that I was, she was trusting and loving and beautiful. What I just typed, I typed comfortably, spontaneously, with no self-doubt, no guilt attached, no shame. It never happened until most recently (I was sure- almost- all along, that I was a bad girl= bad person). But not this morning as I am typing this for you to read.

This was/ is my true self: trusting, loving and beautiful.

My false selves: (1) the angry self, angry at all the people my mother was angry with (everyone, sooner or later), (2) the suspicious, distrusting self, suspicious and distrusting of.. everyone, sooner or later, (3) the unintelligent, inattentive self = a reaction-self: a reaction to significant/ severe abuse, (4) the helpless, hopeless self, again: a reaction to abuse, (5) the ugly self, the self that wronged others… (6) the inferior self, inferior to my peers/ people, (7) the superior self, the other side of the same (# 6) coin.

I am now significantly free-er of these false selves, never before free-er than I am now. Thank you for being part of this self-freeing process.

anita

* I forgot to edit out the sentence “May the chapter of “Telling the difference… come to an end.” from my reply.

Dear Arie:

You are welcome, and thank you for responding to me, it’s nice to be acknowledged!

Since my last reply to you, I do the NPARR strategy just the way I suggested to you, so my advice has been helping me, And, in my last sentence in my last reply: “Redirect my focus to behaving myself in ways I wish others behaved.”- I had a saying in mind but couldn’t come up with the wording. I now remember the saying: “Be the Change You Want to See in the World” (Mahatma Gandhi).

anita