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anitaParticipantDear Alessa:
You are very welcome, my friendΒ π€
No, I don’t celebrate any holiday, not because of a principle on the matter, it just so happens!
About Hanukkah, back when I grew up, part of the celebration of Hanukkah was eating jelly donuts. You got to eat them only during this one holiday and never outside the holiday. They were always fresh and homemade because there was no other kind. Fast forward, in my later 20s, I found myself in Los Angeles, and I was shocked to see jelly (and other) donuts made and sold every single day of the year! I was a faithful customer π
Thank you for offering me to make other requests and to write if I’m having a bad day- same offers to you π€
Bogart woke up very early, and so did I. I think it’s because he was very thirsty. I suppose I should offer him water before closing the bedroom door where he sleeps. I so hope that he and I will complete the 5.5 km walk today- that makes any day special for me πΆπ
And my thoughts are with you and your loved ones this holiday π¨βπ©βπ§βπ¦πππ π
Β π€π π π€Anita
anitaParticipantSorry, Q, I confused you for a moment with another member. Well, if you would like a wife, I wish you one in the new year π.
Thank you for your wishes! (I find myself smiling for the first time today π π)
Cheers back to you,
Anita
anitaParticipantDear Q: I wanted to wish you and your wife a MERRY CHRISTMAS β¨π βοΈβππππβ¨π€Άβ¨
May you have a calm holiday and a better year ahead!
π€ Anita
anitaParticipantMy goodness, Confused..? Your mother has Tourette Syndrome?
In the more than 10 years I’ve been in these forums, no one ever shared they (or their mothers) had Tourette’s.
And she confessed to you her issues with your father? So did my mother, in great detail!
Oh.. how FAR are some (too many) mothers from what mothers are supposed to be.
I so wish you’d be way, way less confused and consequently way less depressed.. or not at all.
I only read parts of your recent message of exactly.. 28 minutes ago. I will read all and reply Tues morning.
π€ Anita
anitaParticipantM E R R Y C H R I S T M A S, Thomas πβ¨π πβοΈβπ ππππβ¨π―οΈ π ππ€Άβ¨βοΈπ
May you and your family have a good year ahead!
π€ Anita
anitaParticipantM E R R Y C H R I S T M A S, Peter,
A Christmas of not seeking, but of surrender; one of no grasping, no guarded view; one of being transparent to transcendence.
A Trusting the Light Within Christmas πβ¨π πβοΈβπ ππ€ Anita
anitaParticipantDear Alessa:
You asked me what would freedom look like for me and what the opposite of shame and pain would be for me.
Good questions, Alessa π
The opposite of shame would be humility: to admit faults and mistakes humbly, as in: oh.. I was wrong, but I can do better!
The opposite of toxic shame is.. healthy, humble shame, saying to myself something like: I said/ did wrong, but I am not doomed.. I am not BAD. I can correct, I can do better.
π€ Anita
anitaParticipantDear Bea:
The little voice inside me has been telling me these very days to let go of expectations and attachment to what could have been, but wasn’t, and to stop resting what-is, which I cannot change.
A lot of what youβre feeling seems tied to expectations β the future you expected with your partner, the parent you expected your mom to be, and even the version of yourself you expected to grow into. When those expectations donβt match reality, the gap between the two becomes its own kind of grief.
Sadness often comes from attachment: to certain outcomes, to certain people, to certain roles, and even to certain emotional states. We get attached not just to what we like, but also to what we dislike, because both shape our identity. In your case, sadness and anxiety became familiar, almost like a default setting you learned early on.
Letting go is about loosening the grip on the idea that things should have been a certain way. When you release the expectation that life, people, or relationships must match a specific picture, the emotional charge around them starts to fade. Detaching from likes and dislikes means (my little, big voice says π), not letting them dictate your well-being.
Your sadness makes sense in the context of what you hoped for and what you held onto. As you step back from those expectations and see things as they are, not as they were supposed to be, the sadness has less to cling to.
So, I am sitting here this Mon evening, part of me wished I was elsewhere, socializing, thriving in real-life interactions. “Wished”, I say, because right now, this evening, I don’t wish to be anywhere else, I don’t hold a better option in my mind. I’m here. There’s peace in not wishing to be elsewhere, to not redo history.. to just rest in the here and now, just as it is.
π€ Anita
anitaParticipantDear Tom:
How kind of you! Thank you for your appreciation- I consider it a gift that you kindly placed under my Christmas tree.
I appreciate you, Tom!
M E R R Y C H R I S T M A S to you and to your wife π ππβοΈβπ ππβ¨π―οΈπ€Άβ¨βοΈπ
Anita
anitaParticipantDear Tee:
I would like to wish you a M E R R Y C H R I S T M A S πβ¨π πβοΈβπ ππππβ¨π―οΈ π ππ€Άβ¨βοΈπ
And a good year ahead!
Thank you for your gifts: your exceptional attention to details, your superior analytical skills, your empathy and passion to help others- through the years, as well as the time you invested in doing your best to help those seeking help.
Thank you πβ¨π
Anita
anitaParticipantDear Alessa:
I just submitted a post in your Parent Life thread before I became aware of your 2 posts of only a short time ago.
Bogart is indeed loving and adorable. He vomited twice on the ride to a dog park today (I wanted him to socialize with other dogs). Seeing that he was feeling sick, I remembered your advice and opened the windows so that he could get some fresh air. It may have delayed the vomiting, but he did anyway. And then, approaching the dog park, he was afraid and wouldn’t join the other dogs.
I then remembered you again today when I realized my lower back is hurting from picking him up a few times (he is so much heavier than he looks)- I remember you sharing about your back hurting when carrying your baby, and wondered if I can use what you used to carry him more safely (I forgot what it was.. some support device).
Back home, Kooper, the anxious neighbors’ beagle showed up, I let him in, and Bogart, feeling powerful in his own home, growled at Kooper!
I think that my mother didn’t really care about good vs bad people. As weak as she felt with people in general, and probably because she felt so weak, she admired and worshipped power no matter in what form it appeared.
Yes, she was my real enemy (and a few others who were children under her care, those with no one to protect them from her.
Thank you for your kind words and support, Alessa!
π€ π€ π€ Anita
anitaParticipantDear Alessa:
I imagine that by the time you read this message it’ll be one day before Christmas Eve.
I want to let you know that I consider two things you did for me as two ππ you left under my (imagined) π:
One is addressing me as “Dear Anita”, and the other is replacing red hearts emojis with blue and white.
I would like to place a gift under your Christmas tree: my sincere appreciation of your consistent empathy and kindness to me and to so many members over the years.
I wish you and the people you love a M E R R Y C H R I S T M A S β¨π βοΈβππππβ¨π€Άβ¨βοΈ
Anita
anitaParticipantDear James:
It made my day reading you congratulating me. I am humbled π
I want to keep quoting and processing- meditating on your words every day. Your consistent, unchanging and uncompromising messages and style are getting through to me these very days ππ
ππ€π Anita
anitaParticipantJames, Oct 31: “Dear Anita… Drop the Anita, who is trying to understand non duality. And see (actually not see) BE the LOVE.”
Nov 27: “Absolute freedom is only comes when physical death comes. Even mind is transcended, there is still bondage with body and mind.”
Dec 4: “Love is not being alone or isolated. Δ°t is sharing, caring and compassion.”
ππ€π Anita
anitaParticipantHello again Confused:
In your most recent post, you wrote: “I guess you mean I fell in love with the potential and not the actual person? Idk… I am a savior and I believe that being loved will fix me too.”- You are a savior who needs to be saved through saving/ fixing her?
Growing up and beyond, I wanted to save my unpredictable, explosive mother so that she will become calm and predictable, so that I could finally relax and attend to my self and my life. So, I spent decades focusing on her and her life, putting my own on hold until such time that she will be what I needed her to be. Something that never happened.
She used to explode from time to time, screaming at me, shaming me extensively, guilt-tripping me to no end, hitting me, until she exhausted herself and then she’d be calm for some time. When as a teenager I mentioned her yelling at me or whatnot, she accused me of remembering only the negative, as in not giving equal consideration for all the positive she’s done.
Thing is, when a child (or a dog, it’s physiological) experiences violence (verbal and/ or physical) from time to time, from one point on, the person (the victim) does not reach a calm baseline. Instead, the victim is hypervigilant about the next explosion. I was definitely hypervigilant and scared on an ongoing basis. If she was quiet, I got scared that it was the quiet before the storm. If she looked at me, I was afraid I saw anger in her eyes. I reacted to my war-zone of a home with intense tics (Tourette Syndrome) and OCD, performing OCD rituals so to counter danger, to find safety in.
There were no computers at the time, no computer games. What I did to mentally escape was to daydream and I day dreamed a whole lot, fantasizing being loved (romantically) and about being a famous movie star and being admired by millions across the world. Those daydreams felt so good, they felt wonderful.
I was mostly depressed, spaced out, foggy brained, inattentive to my environment (ADD), socially isolated, sad a whole lot of the time.. and daydreaming about romantic love and how fantastic (and intense) it would be. It was my desperation to feel calm and loved that made my feelings so intense when daydreaming.
I’ll stop here and share more later on, after I read back from you (please take all the time tat you need).
Β π€ Anita Β
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Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine. 