Dear Javier,

sermons and audiobooks probably serve a double purpose for you – they calm your nervous system down, and they also give you guidance and inspiration. You had neither during your childhood – neither peace and calm, nor a good role model to give you guidance.

At one moment, I feel there is hope and I can heal myself and relieve the pain. But the very next moment, everything looks grim and literally the end of the road.

Right. You might be able to help yourself to a point, by soothing and comforting yourself, but it’s probably not enough. Probably you’d need a therapist, and best would be somatic therapy, which Katie suggested earlier.

You said you had a bad experience with therapy. Could it be because the therapist didn’t help you calm down your nervous system? If if twas CBT, it would have been quite rational, working with the mind, but not on the body level, which you very much need. If you’d work with a somatic therapist, you could avoid this trap.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by Tee.

Dear Ishita,

I am fine, thanks.

I have always been an emotionally sensitive person, so it might have something to do with my relations with everybody around me in my childhood

Would you like to expand on that? As emotionally sensitive, did you feel different than your sisters and in need of special attention or special treatment?

Dear Javier,

you’re welcome, and I’m glad you liked Ave Maria and added it to your iPod. It seems listening to sermons and audiobooks was your way to soothe yourself in this past year, since having been hit with illness and unemployment. These new, unwanted life circumstances probably pushed you back to your childhood and activated the old survival trauma,  that you experienced as a child. Covid was a trigger but it could be that the symptoms persist because of that trauma, which is stored in your nervous system.

I’ve found a text about children who witnessed domestic violence. It says “when children witness violence, it heightens their arousal system while causing their soothing systems to be underdeveloped.” You as a baby witnessed violence that your father inflicted upon your mother, and later you were a victim of your father’s abuse yourself.

Your autonomic nervous system is in a constant state of arousal and hyper-vigilance. That’s because its sympathetic branch (the one responsible for action and fight-or-flight responses) works non-stop, in overdrive. While the parasympathetic branch (which is responsible for resting and digesting) is underused and underdeveloped.

In that same article, music is suggested as a soothing activity, so I think listening to soothing music and lullabies should help.  Sermons and audiobooks probably have a similar effect on you – it’s almost like an adult reading a good-night story to a child, with a calm, comforting voice. Do you feel this could be why you like it so much?

So it seems you’ve already being soothing yourself to the best of your ability, and now you just need to expand it and do it more consciously and intentionally. This is your inner child that you’re soothing and helping him develop the parasympathetic branch of the nervous system. I believe it would also help to visualize a safe, calm atmosphere, like being held in mother’s arms (if not your own mother’s arms, then in Divine Mother’s arms). Do you think you would be up for such a visualization?

And lastly, you’re right – comparing yourself with others is a recipe for disaster. We all have a unique life story and a unique task in this world. It’s completely fruitless to compare ourselves with others. Our goal is to focus on ourselves and our own growth and healing, and living more and more from our true self.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by Tee.

Dear Javier,

how’s your sleeping nowadays? Can you fall asleep and stay asleep at night? Because that might contribute to your feeling depressed in the morning. In order to fall asleep better, you can try listening to lullabies (I suggested one in an earlier post), or similar soothing music. With better sleep, you should have more energy and be in a better mood in the morning…

Dear Javier,

so sorry to hear about that! Have they given you some treatment for the rash? Did they say what might have been the cause?

Whenever I have a physical symptom, I try to think what might be its “spiritual” cause, i.e. psychological cause, like in psychosomatic diseases. A sudden rash on your skin might mean that you can’t bear to be in your own skin, or something like that? Perhaps as you started to soothe yourself with putting your hand on your heart, there’s another layer of pain and discomfort that “got unleashed”, because you can now better “tolerate it”,  so to speak. It might have been something that needed to come out, and this is a form of cleansing.

I do hope it gets better soon. Keep doing the soothing exercise (hand on heart and belly), if it helps you.

Dear Kibou,

sure, take your time, and next time I won’t shoot another post before you reply to me.

Dear Felix,

thanks for your reply, it was good to read from you again.

it’s always like that, the topic is always about them but not me (even with my close friends)… but right now im starting to learn to be more assertive.

Due to he never talks about his emotions, i think it affected me that i have a very weak communications skills and im introverted…i have a very weak communications skills and im introverted…

Regarding your lack of assertiveness and good communication skills, I think it’s mostly because you’re shy and you fear embarrassment (i.e. you have low self-esteem), that’s why you are reluctant to talk to people. A part of it is due to your mother, who sees you as weak and “a reason to worry”, which is pretty bad for your self-confidence. And a part of it due to your father, who is strict and probably you fear his judgment. If he doesn’t have a sense of humor, if he’s a little like a soldier – very disciplined but never shows emotions and vulnerability – then no wonder you would fear him and afraid to be yourself around him.

Around your mother you feel more free to be yourself, to show your weaknesses, but around your father, you need to be on guard. You can’t be spontaneous, you have to pretend. All that contributes to your feeling that you’re judged when in company of others, and you can’t relax and be yourself even with your close friends. Is that the case?

But he can do business successfully without being communicative because he has a leadership trait and high sense of responsibility… making most people respected him.

He’s probably good at giving commands and telling people what to do. Again, like a soldier, or a commander. His employees respect him because he’s probably a just employer, he gives them fair pay and they don’t feel exploited. However, I don’t think they like him too much. I believe they rather fear him. It’s fear and respect combined.

Yes my mom has made me feel weak and unconfident, she even said that when i get married later on i’ll have a room in our new house (the new house is going to built soon). I dont really mind living with them, as i dont have to think about the foods and chores later on…. and also i think if i live alone with my wife later on… with only the two of us, isnt the house going to be so lonely? Do u think with my mother’s personality, could it cause a conflict with my future wife later on? (idk if i’m thinking too far regarding this, as i havent even find myself a girlfriend).

If you want to have a successful relationship, you’d need to first develop self-confidence and self-esteem. That means you’d need to learn to love yourself and have trust in yourself and your own abilities. Your mother has raised you to be weak and dependent on her, to believe that you’re incapable to take care of yourself. She treats you like a baby. You’d first need to separate from that kind of thinking, which you also adopted.  You cannot see yourself as weak and incapable if you want to have a healthy relationship.

One way to feel more confident about yourself is to take on some duties in your home – perhaps some chores, or work in the garden – something where you can feel useful and which can give you a sense of accomplishment. You’re not a lazy, incompetent kid –  you’re a capable and resourceful smart young man. Try to see yourself like that, and do accordingly.

Make  yourself useful in some small way, so you can feel that sense of success and accomplishment. Never mind if you’re not perfect immediately – allow yourself to make mistakes. But try it, keep doing it, and with time, you’ll get better at it. It will give you a tremendous boost to your self-confidence.

I think this is the first step and a precondition for thinking about marriage and starting a family. When you feel more self-confident and stronger, you’ll be in a different space mentally and will be able to make a decision whether to live in your parents’ house or somewhere else. But for now, do everything you can to boost your self-confidence and a sense of accomplishment. This will make you less dependent on your parents too and capable of making your own decisions.

Dear Nar,

good to hear from you again! I am very glad your intrusive images have stopped. First there was a change of image, which was a good sign, and now it’s gone completely. Fantastic! It has to be related to your healing and better understanding of your childhood and how you were hurt without even being aware of it. You embraced that little girl, and I believe it resulted in those intrusive images to stop.

Although we all acknowledge our parents were hurt in one way or another by their own parents and that’s why they were hurting us, I think we are still playing the blaming game. I realised this problem is so deep and goes so far back, that healing through loving an inner child and cutting out a parent that hurt that child is only a partial healing ….because our parents are not to blame, we are all to blame. We as humanity.

When we truly heal, it doesn’t mean we necessarily cut out the parent that hurt us. Rather, we can relate to them differently, having compassion and open heart, but also protecting our boundaries. We heal our side of the relationship, we’re ready and  open for a more sincere contact, but if the parent is stuck in their own wounds, blaming us, then we can’t really establish a deeper contact. But it depends on the parent, not on us.

The goal of the inner child healing is not to blame the parents, but to forgive them. We are all wounded children, with the difference that some of us decide to work on it, heal it and take responsibility for our lives, while many others take the easier route of blaming others. Misery propagates because people who refuse to work on themselves keep blaming others for their misery. Entire nations and ethnic groups blame each other. That’s what brings tragedy and war. But those who decide to stop blaming and take responsibility for their lives are the ones who bring humanity forward, who contribute to peace and healing.

I wish you too a nice, hopefully less restricted summer, and lots of positive emotions too!