Dear Anita,

We made great progress yesterday.  We always do – but I think our focus on the roots of the roar, the roots of the baseline hostility, and one more thing…have me pensive.

Pensive in a good way, not bad.

There is a dichotomy present with our mothers:

Stay silent, but give me the answer to my problem (makes no sense, dichotomy)

Act how I want you to, but don’t you have your own personality?

Punish those people for me, but don’t make me look bad.

Make your mother happy, but why aren’t you happy you ungrateful child?!

This last one is key – working our whole lives (in vain) to make our mothers “happy” – and of course only finding unhappiness our own selves..

And then – getting put down for not being grateful for the life that this all sacrificing mother has given us – how dare we be anything but happy?

So much dichotomy in our brain, dissonance —> Distress!