Dear Mr. Ritz:

Maybe this Christmas  season is  time for some figuring/ learning (“I just  can’t figure  myself out”). I just re-read some of the  posts in your previous threads,my goodness, what an educational experience! Why don’t you re-read it? It  has been a while.

You can re-read, take notes and come back to your current thread with thoughts, if you want. I will be glad to communicate further with you.

anita

Mr. Ritz:

On my re-reading earlier this morning, a few hours ago, I remember the painful arthritis, which stands in my mind as a concern, I wonder what is the status on that. I noticed anger, a long time anger, years of anger at co workers who have it  better, others having  a better life than you. I noticed maybe a tendency to put other people down.

You asked if I noticed anything that may be a solution to your boredom when not working even though you looked  forward to time off from work: no, I didn’t, not more than anything I already suggested. But maybe there is something in what I mentioned in the first  paragraph above that should be  looked at and maybe there will be  some solution later.

anita

Dear Mr. Ritz:

I hope you will do whatever is  medically sound to feel better having arthritis, whatever is recommended to practice daily so to minimize further damage, discomfort and  pain.

Congratulations for not having that annoying, disrupting and  disturbing co worker!

So it is  your father’s voice raining on your vacation parade,  I understand. It  is  amazing, no matter   our age, really doesn’t matter, that  voice  is still there. But  as amazing it is, it really is understandable. We shed our skin, not our brain, so the neurons that  recorded his voice keep replaying  that  voice.

There is a way  to turn down the volume  of that  voice, eventually silence it. It is a very  long process but you do have time now, being  on your vacation, to practice turning  down its  volume. First step to  do it  is to notice it when it starts speaking. Distractions are helpful, give  you breaks from that voice, but it  doesn’t  go away without attention and  intent, noticing it, then lowering its  volume, again and again.

It also takes believing that  really, you are not  lazy, that he was  wrong. That takes time, changing  core beliefs that were  never  true to begin with. I was  told by  my mother  that I was lazy. It was a surprise to me when I finally figured,  in my fifties (!) that  I am not lazy,  and  that it was never true!

anita