Dear Cali Chica:

In the child’s brain, the child and mother are one mental unit, connected. So the child believes her happiness= the mother’s happiness. In your reality, as it has been in mine, your happiness did not equal to her happiness, neither did she imagine that it will.

She wanted you to dance in those weddings not because it made her happy that you were happy. It made her happy to be entertained by your dancing, observe others being entertained and imagining the good thoughts others had about her as the mother of this beautiful, talented child.

Notice this: she saw your beauty (ex., eyes) and talent in an objective kind of way, that is, she didn’t feel connected to you as she watched you dance. It was you being a Thing that she enjoyed watching dance and a thing that made others think well of her.

No, she didn’t live vicariously through you- this is you, the child, thinking erroneously that you are .. that important to her. No, she was just entertained and felt good showing off the Thing dancing.

anita