Oops, I wasn’t finished. No, you didn’t make me feel worse. If you did, would it be that others make me feel better sharing their abusive childhood? No. About mindfulness to which I was seriously introduced for the first time only in 2011. Mindfulness is about recognizing that you are feeling this or that. Thenit is about not feeling a SECONDARY feeling on top of the primary feeling. For example, if I did feel bad about reading that you had good parents, that envy, let’s say, would be the primary feeling in my example. Then if I felt shame about feeling envy, saying to myself: I should be ashamed of myself for feeling envious that Jim/Jamie had good parents, then shame would be the secondary feeling. So, accepting and embracing the envy would mean that i wouldn’t be feeling ashamed over feeling envious.

If you feel fear and then say to yourself: I am a sissy for feeling fearful, then you would be feeling shame (shame sticks to other feelings like hair on soap!) on top of fear, fear being the primary; shame the secondary.

Every feeling carries a message and if you get to the real message you will find out none of your feelings is a condemnation of who you are and all of them are valid and understandable. They are about self protection and seeking to love and be loved… nothing to be ashamed of.

Mindfulness is about changing your RELATIONSHIP with your feelings: first instead of being scared of them and automatically resisting, making a fist figuratively (I often did literally as well)- you relax your muscles, or neurons (over time) and recognize what you feel, then getting posiively curious about what message the feeling has in it, exploring. It is about removing shame from this or that feeling, staying with the original feeling of the moment, removing the “hair” from the soap, so to speak…

I am finding things out every day. It is amazing. I wish I could eradicate all my discomforts, what Matt calls “agitations.” Today I figured I cannot talk myself out of an agitation, applying reason does not work for the repeating agitations i have. I already tried. The neurons spitting the agitating juices in response to triggers have nothing to do with the neurons activated via intellectual, rational thinking. Better recognize an agitation and let it go again and again and again, so those neural connections weaken over time. I suspect if you stay with mindfulness, you will SEE more and more and more. There is no end to seeing…

Good reading your posts and I appreciate your empathy and kindness to me.
anita