When you care about losing weight, you may feel better when you choose to not eat a 600 calorie slice of cake but your body does not lose weight by NOT eating that cake. You gain weight because of what you eat, not because of what you do NOT eat. Your body, when you do not eat the cake, does not give you a 600 calorie credit for the future. Everything you eat is debited by your body. All that you do not eat is NOT credited.

In a similar way of thinking, I observe people react to another’s story of childhood abuse in the following way: HER mother beat her up with a belt buckle and hard. My mother did no such thing. Did not beat me up at all. Therefore my mother was a good mother.

Your mother, or father, or older sibling, may not have beat you up with a belt buckle, broke your bones, locked you in a closet, etc. but they don’t get credit for that. Not if he or she verbally abused you, severely neglected or ignored you. The verbal attacks and/ or severe neglect have been debited by your psyche. The fact you were not beaten with a belt was NOT credited by your psyche.

In reviewing and evaluating one’s parents, look at what did happen to you, how you were injured, not at what did not happen and how you were not injured.

All childhood debits have to be dealt with if they are still “bleeding” into your psyche, your body and your life. If you came out of your childhood very anxious, passive, depressed and it never got better for long, then there is a debit to be dealt with.

anita