Dear Anita,

“our mothers become our brain neuroactivity and chemistry: our thoughts, our feelings, our actions and reactions. Until and if we separate from her, until we develop our own thoughts, feeling our own feelings, thoughtfully choosing our own actions and reactions as the individuals that we become.”

The separation is an interesting subject, the way we chose to do it has a lot of impact on who we become.

My mother has tried to build as the opposite of her mother (or so she says), but she wasn’t really successful. She kept the humiliations patterns, materialistic patterns. The main difference would be she shows us affection, unlike her mother did to her, and didn’t throw us out (even if there were threats for the sake of manipulation, so… it was just different. Her mother used her while she had to keep her then threw her away when she didn’t have to keep her anymore, my mother used me and tried to keep me around so she could keep using me.)

Personally, I believe purposefully trying to become the opposite isn’t necessarily the best choice, not for me at least. It wouldn’t be a choice at all, it would just being built in comparison to her, it isn’t thoughtful enough. I need other people to understand the extent of possibilities this world has to offer. I like to have others, healthier references to think about.

I like to observe, in healthier people, traits my mother has used in a harmful way, and see how these traits can exist in a positive form. Like being dramatic, she’s using it in a serious inappropriate way to the point it becomes harmful.  While it can be used as humor, in a way that actually dedramatizes things we want to be light-hearted about. It’s all about the context and the intent. I do not dislike all real-life actors, I can appreciate those who are doing it self-awarely, for entertainment, to bring joy and fun, unlike those who dramatize in a harmful way. It is part of my process of growing my own thoughts, figuring out what is harmful and what isn’t.

“me too, but no pressure. Maybe you will, maybe you won’t. Hopefully it will be interesting either way. When you become  interested in the life that is available to you right now, it gets to be an interesting process of learning vs. life being a good or bad final product.”

Thank you for not adding pressure. I have been pressuring myself enough during the past years, and even if it didn’t turn out all bad, I would be more peaceful if my healing came with less pressure.

“I will not turn against you. If I did, I would lose my most important value: to be worthy of sincere, innocent trust. Losing that, I would be losing everything.”

It is a good, reassuring value. I trust you. I am not exactly clear on my own personal values, but I know one things : as much as I can, I like to avoid unnecessary harm/hurt for both others and myself.

Unnecessary hurt is: attacking someone on something that is just part of their individuality and isn’t objectively harmful to anyone, etc.

Necessary hurt: requiring our boundaries to be respected, and respecting others’ even when we are going through difficulties, being able to listen and consider unpleasant truths, being able to stand up against harm…  etc

Noting that the necessary hurt is the one that is unavoidable, and is usually the one that allows healthy, safe, and sincere relationships, while the unnecessary hurt is just destructive. Unfortunately, things I consider like unnecessary hurt are deemed necessary for some people who find nuisance in a lot of things I judge unharmful…  There would be less pain in this world if people weren’t turning against each other for so many things.

I think for us, either way, even if we came across some kind of disagreement with each other, we wouldn’t do it the harmful way, because we care about communicating in a peaceful way and not causing harm to each other.

” But still, I don’t expect it in the future- for you to attend to me like this. It is important to you to not burden or exhaust me, and it is equally important to me that you are not burdened or exhausted by me. I have such a good feeling about our communication!”

I didn’t feel burdened or exhausted as I attended to these 3 points, I did it because I felt like doing it. I appreciate your wish of not burdening me, and for your peace of mind, I will be careful to pay attention to my own emotions so I don’t exhaust myself during our conversation. Because I also have a lot of good feelings about our communication and I want to preserve them for both of us.

Some attending from my part is likely to happen again in the future though, I really like to attend to people I care about when I don’t feel burdened about it. It just makes sense to do it when I feel like it.

Linarra