Dear Al:

“What is the first step of an emotional learning journey?”- what hurts you now, what dissatisfies you now is the place to begin an emotional learning journey.

People who are content and feeling good don’t need to go on an emotional learning journey. After all what motivates all of us animals is to feel good.

You started your thread with expressing dissatisfaction with your current project and relationship even though that project was your dream  project and the relationship is nothing to complain about, if I understand correctly. You mentioned depression, too many thoughts, and a soul that is getting lost, so there it is- the beginning of your journey, the first step being expressing the dissatisfaction and distress.

The reason I focus on people’s early life relationships with their parents is that those relationships are most powerful, more than any relationship later in life. Young children can’t see themselves as separate from the parent or parents in their young lives. The way a child views himself is according to what he sees in the mirror aka the parent. What he sees in the mirror is a combination of who the parent is and who he/ she is, the two images being inseparable, at first.

If the child and later on, the adult child does not see his parent accurately, he can’t see himself accurately (he keeps seeing a fused and confused image of himself and his parent)

Viewing one’s parents accurately, when that viewing is of a lesser perfect parent, causes a fear, a sense of danger, this is why adult children resist this part of the journey.

When you brought up the emotional learning journey earlier, I suggested that you lead the way. So.. take the lead today, or tomorrow, whenever you feel like it, start wherever you want to start, and we’ll take it from there.

anita

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