Home→Forums→Spirituality→Surrender, Accessing Shakti by clearing samskaras, eliminating false selves
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May 10, 2024 at 11:24 am #432550seaturtleParticipant
Dear lovely Anita,
I am responding to your two most recent posts here.
“I didn’t know until you shared today that you spent so much time with your grandmother: how did she treat you?”
I have very fond memories of my grandmother. Although not one for emotional support, but I don’t recall asking that of her. My relationship with her was being treated like her little girl. She brought me everywhere she went. We gardened together, she took me to Winco to recycle cans and camping to volunteer with our church. My uncles however, I have various memories with. Her youngest son, now one of my best friends, teased me and quite obviously because his mom was more lenient with me than him. He would try to tattle on me but she never blamed me for anything.. Him and I also got along on and off. The other uncles, some of them took it upon themselves to “teach me” things. If I didn’t say “please” or “thank you”, I would be pinched, hard. If I didn’t say “uncle” before their name I would be tickled to tears, void of breathe and bruises. The older ones taught me chess and took me to movies! One of them was in to Taekwondo and taught me, I enjoyed that. Sometimes I was ignored by them, other times doted on. My grandpa was never home. When he was home he was stingy and rude, but also a social butterfly and philosophical when he was in a good mood. My mom was the elusive older sister that they all loved cause she brought them food and took them to the pool with us. And my dad, the elusive brother they respected. What an era of my life that was! Thank you for asking me this 🙂
“the part of me that is disturbed by my mother’s shaming, judgmental and accusatory voice (a voice regenerated and expanded by my brain), is the part of me that believes that what her voice is telling me- is objectively true.”
I read your post yesterday because I was too curious, but was too tired to give the response what it deserved. This is something I thought a lot about in the past 24 hours. I think this is why we help eachother understand ourselves, because we have a very similar voice in our heads. What do you think?
“Instead, it’s about transcending it, meaning, to no longer Fight it, Flight it (run away), or Freeze.”
In moments of fight/flight/freeze I have always been such a fighter.
“But that’s not what I heard when I first read it (and for some time later). What I heard was you saying to me something like this: anita, you suck, I have no regard for you and what you want to say to me, you are of no importance; this is why I would love valuable, important people to reply to me.”
You are so humble, self reflective, and amazing for admitting this here. I know you know the truth, so I won’t spend too much time defending it, because I think it is probably more powerful for you to realize yourself, that this is so far from the truth behind my words. Me telling you is just a bandaid, right? This is another part of your post I thought a lot about in the past 24 hours, perhaps the hardest part for me not to single out and respond to right away. On one hand I find this old interpretation validating… (might be the wrong word) because I don’t feel like I am the only one who does this, as someone trying to heal and be better I still slip and knowing you do too makes me feel… not alone. On the other hand, it is disheartening, because as someone I look up to, someone I see as farther in her healing than I am, the fact you still experience and give energy to this voice… that means that voice still tries to attack even later in my healing journey as well. I want to rid it for good!!
“You believed your father’s voice when he accused you of not caring about him, of being selfish, unloving…and when you didn’t otherwise make yourself perfectly available and attentive to him when he was home…Believing his accusations caused you lots of distress. Fast forward, living with a boyfriend, your father’s voice was interpreting your life situations for you…Maybe, having taken in (internalizing) your father’s accusations, you proceeded to project them into your boyfriend. So, when projecting those, you were temporarily free of them, free of the distress that accompany believing that you are selfish and uncaring, a bad person, that is. And this became a kind of an addiction, an addiction that exhausted you. Maybe. ”
I think maybe=yes. I feel like I even saw this in myself, as in my last forum we spoke a lot about how I was projecting my dad into the relationship, onto him, then when it wasn’t on him it was on me, and I was my father. The bad guy was always my dad. If he did something I didn’t like, I saw him through my dads perspective of me, “you are not attentive enough.” If I did not make him feel heard, I was what my dad said I was, “you are not attentive enough.” Take out “attentive” … “you are not enough.” The voice within me is “nothing is enough.” … Hence my fear of being disappointed! So to heal I need to believe, everything is enough the way it is.. ? I wonder where “nothing is enough” comes from.. perhaps “I am not worthy of enough.” Seeing life through the perspective of my dad is a miserable and exhausting lens. I wonder if having compassion for his undeniable misery and exhaustion, can be helpful to me in some way..
The addiction exhausted me and my third eye.
“right here, it reads like you have a core belief (a belief formed early in life) that you are a bad person who hurts other people, who needs validation that you are not hurting people, a core belief that your father instilled in you by constantly calling you selfish and ungrateful: two adjectives that amount to being a bad daughter=> a bad person. … but my authentic self is allegedly bad, so how can I be okay being my authentically bad self?”
Exactly. I have had many people in my life tell me my authentic self was selfish. My dad, my ex, my sisters, and now a childhood friend, P. When I spoke with P she said I lacked empathy for her ADHD that caused her to talk over me. And that I lacked empathy for her relationship situation.. which I do because I cannot understand why she entered into such a terrible situation with someone I knew was not a good vibration the first time I met him. First time I met him I knew and then she stopped telling me how he treated her because she knew what I would say, then she proceeded to sign a year lease with him, now wants my empathy for her being stuck living with him… very hard for me. But she accused my authentic self of being un-empathetic because of this. Something both my ex and my dad have told me at some point too. Am I just suppose to not believe them?
” at 25, still trying to get your father to say that you are a good daughter, a good person.”
At 25 I want all the people who said my authentic self is bad to see that it is not and to tell me that it is not.
” his legacy in your life has been the formation of a false core belief, which is that you are a bad person.”
This makes me angry and confused. My soul is so beautiful but he put this huge scar on it that makes it hard for me to fully express myself.
“I am guessing that behind his email is that you being so careful to replace the food in his frig, etc., made him appear- in his mind- like a stingy person, a scrooge who does not allow his own daughter to eat his food, so he reacted to that image of himself”
I think so too.
“We still want to believe that we are good people, and we want others to believe it too.
Let’s believe it about ourselves and about each other..? “
This is why I do believe I have a beautiful soul, and so do you! I think we both know it and want to see it so badly, it is just hard to see with this scar on us. We will never see ourselves as good if we look through their lens. But you can look through mine if you want 🙂 I see a deep bright purple light so full of wisdom and strength I am in awe 💜
As I searched the purple heart to copy and paste online, there was an option to see what the purple heart means! My curiosity clicked and it read “It is commonly used to represent love, support, close bonds, and admiration for things that have some relation to the color purple.” 🙂
With love,
Seaturtle
May 10, 2024 at 12:12 pm #432556seaturtleParticipantDear Helcat,
” It is a parent’s job to learn to manage the situation and their own emotions properly instead of blaming the child.”
I am a nanny to a 20 month year old girl right now. I have been a nanny to 5 other families in the past, it was my job of choice through highschool and college. After college I thought I needed a “real” job so I worked for Verizon, a place that I did grow so I know was meant to happen, but overall not the world I belonged in. I know nannying is not the same as mothering, I get to be off the clock and don’t have to take worries home with me. But, I know what you are talking about here! There are moments I just clean something and she spills again, throws food or doesn’t show gratitude for all I do, infact the opposite of gratitude. In these moments I try to find laughter in myself haha, do I expect this child to walk around properly and express gratitude?? that is a ridiculous image haha. But in these moments I am also reminded that my dad did, he blamed me for being a child. It is hard to imagine a father treating his daughter this way :/ it makes me very sad. I would like to believe that treating this little girl with love through child behavior, can be healing for me in some way?
“You deserved to feel safe, happy and loved in your own home. Such difficult circumstances that you had to grow up in.”
I have heard that having understanding for an abuser can be harmful for us.. I wonder if this is true? Because although I agree, it was a grim childhood in relation to him. I also think of the time he raised me, 2008 starting his own business, 4 kids to provide for while he made no profits for a year while his new business was sinking. Somehow still able to afford the expensive soccer team I was on, have food on the table and have cars for him and my mom. We never lost our house, like many of my friends did. I always had my own room! Is it damaging for me to have sympathy for him? It doesn’t justify his behavior once he got home, but I can understand his lack of energy. And his why he was annoyed at child behavior, we did not thank him when he got home every night, because we were children and didn’t know what he was dealing with at all just to keep us safe in a home with food.
However, and at the risk of sounding incredibly ungrateful and ignorant, I think i would have preferred losing our house and living with less if it meant I got to have a more joyful dad…
“My instincts are pessimistic and say that your instincts are correct about the gaslighting.”
I feel like the answer is both of what you are saying and what Anita said. He is changing the rules on me, and gaslighting me because he is uncomfortable with the image of himself as, Anita put it, a stingy scrooge.
“Has your father ever behaved like that at all before?”
Not in my childhood no. He would always find something wrong. But the thing is, that might be making him change the rules… is that I have become more articulate with my words. I have never typed in words my hyper-vigilance, perhaps seeing it on paper held up a mirror to himself. In my relationship with him, I see a seaturtle with tape over her mouth, tape she saw but didn’t know how to remove. Tape that gave him all the opportunity to speak and not have to hear any opposition, so he just kept criticizing because I just took it.
“I don’t know if you knew she had ADHD before this conversation or if you know much about ADHD as a condition?”
This is very interesting for me to reflect on lately. Because I have been friends with her for so long, and to her credit she has always been this way, so why am I only now bothered by it? I think it is similar to what I wrote above about my dad. She has been critical of me to a small degree, she just “speaks her mind” as she puts it, but she will be rude like ask me why I still have clothes from 8th grade, “what are you wearing?” or just make fun of me and my style. But I think, because of how extremely critical my dad was, it was not only comforting for me to be criticized, but hers was such a superficial degree that I didn’t see it as a problem. Like I said above, there was tape over my mouth for alot of my childhood, I did not know how to express myself and I thought I couldn’t see myself..cause my dad convinced me I couldn’t. Now that I see myself better, there are things I am now noticing she says that I want to say “no that is false.” But she is unfamiliar with me being assertive, self aware and confident. She talked over me with her ADHD all the time growing up, but I didn’t think I had valid things to say so her filling the air was just comfortable. Now I want to speak more, I have things to say that I feel like are over-due and this is making me realize how much she talks because it is hard for me to get a word out.
“I think a difficulty for you may be that as you have said you try really hard to work on yourself. It isn’t easy the work you are doing but you are doing amazingly and should be proud of yourself. Understandably, you feel like she should try to and see her as an equal in this way…I also think that her being triggered and her comments about her feelings could be hurtful to you? Do you feel hurt by her?”
Yes, and what bothers me is as I am trying to work on myself, like I have told her, she says she is too. But I see the situations she puts herself in and I just don’t know if I believe her. But like it says in the bible, it is easier to see a splinter in someone else’s eye, when there is a log in your own. I know this judgemental view of her is not helpful, but it is hard for me to get rid of when I see contradictions in real time. Her comment that I lacked empathy as a person, hurt me. Because I know I am an empathic person, and the fact she doesn’t see that, hurts me. But it also makes sense that she can’t see it because I don’t have alot for her situation because, to me, it is so obviously an abusive relationship she entered into. Also what contributes to my lack of empathy for her situation is I removed myself from the relationship that was harmful to me, but she complains and yet remains with him…
“The problem isn’t really the ADHD, it is the depression.”
I do empathize with her depression, and I told her this. Because no matter how it got there, being in it is not easy and I understand that part. That is what makes the excessive talking so negative, which highlights the amount of talking because it is heavier.
“For both of you right now, it can be difficult to show someone empathy when you are feeling defensive. What do you think?”
Yes agreed. When you said she didn’t show empathy for my situation, I didn’t think of that, but it’s true. She didn’t see how my position, of being on the receiving end of her negativity, is heavy. Something she kept saying that hurt me too was “ok well I guess I just have to walk on egg shells with you now which is fine but it hurts cause you are my best-friend and one of the only people I confide in.” What she doesn’t understand is how much negativity it is, because I am willing to be there for a friend but she is cannot acknowledge that she very heavy with negativity right now given the volume of her words. Also she is unaware if she thinks I am one of the only people she confides in, when I introduce her to people she talks about all the same stuff she tells me. My roommate, when introduced even pointed this out to me, how much she complained. I wanted to tell this to P when she said no one else has told her this but me, but my roommate asked me not to.
I am feeling self conscious about this thread being all about me and my problems… I am growing so much from all the feedback, but my fear of my authentic self being selfish is kicking in and I don’t know how to resolve it.
Seaturtle
May 10, 2024 at 1:02 pm #432557anitaParticipantDear Seaturtle (a purple heart emoji or two):
I am so tired, exceptionally exhausted and it’s early afternoon, sunny outside and I want to sleep, only I rarely sleep during the day. I read some of your post, not focused enough, but I don’t need to be very focused to detect you being a good person..!!! And yes, the voice in our minds is similar.
And better not underestimate the persistence of the habits of the mind. The voice, by now, is a mental habit. It takes Noticing the voice speaking to us, Pausing and Addressing the situation objectively, then correcting the distorted thoughts delivered by the Voice. I’ll write more Sat morning. Have a good rest of the day, lovely Seaturtle!
anita
May 10, 2024 at 2:17 pm #432561HelcatParticipantHi Seaturtle
Congratulations on the new job! A nanny is very similar to mothering. We are actually thinking of getting a nanny. It’s a shame that we can’t hire you as a nanny as we are on the other side of the world. You sound like a really good nanny. I’m glad to hear that the job doesn’t stress you out.
It does sound healing taking care of this girl the way that you should have been taken care of. It makes me angry for you that you were blamed for being a child and treat like that. I wish that someone would have stood up to your father for you growing up and stopped him from behaving like that.
I probably have a controversial opinion on understanding abusers. I think it’s a good thing that you understand his circumstances and appreciate the resources he was able to provide.
For a long time, I couldn’t understand the idea of forgiving abusers. It took a lot of work to get to the point of where I could. To me, it is important because it isn’t really about them. It is about making peace within ourselves. I don’t think forgiving them takes away anything that they did, or erases that pain. But understanding that they are broken fallible people that probably shouldn’t have had children was helpful to me. I can’t help but in a way be thankful for existing. Not thankful to my abuser. But if she hadn’t had a child I wouldn’t be alive. And if my adopted mother hadn’t taken me in I wouldn’t be alive either. If I hadn’t been through what I’d been through I wouldn’t be the person that I am today. But yes, I think understanding abusers is a part of forgiving them.
As a mother, I can say that being a parent is a lot harder for me than not being a parent. Initially, it was very difficult. But it is getting easier. I think how busy I am is rather self imposed and my choice. Not an easy choice, but the alternative is giving things up.
For me, both of my mothers were severely abused. My biological mother came from generation abuse. Her father raped her amongst other things. She was a single mother at a very young age, because of a man 10 years older than her was irresponsible and got off on siring children then abandoning them. She had very severe mental health problems and she asked for help at one point and was turned away by an idiot doctor.
My adopted mother came from an abusive home too. She also had multiple abusive husbands who were violent and sexually abused her. She also has mental health issues.
Help for people with trauma is a relatively new thing. A lot of older people have had very little or no help with the trauma they experienced. Birth control was also not really a thing for a while.
On the other hand. Your father’s financial situation improved and he still abused you, so I don’t think his financial situation can be used to excuse his behaviour. But you did mention that he had a difficult childhood himself. Perhaps this is the real reason that he did what he did. That being said, everyone makes a conscious decision to either continue the cycle of abuse or stop it. You chose to stop it. Your father chose to continue it and he has to live with that choice. He chose to feel powerful, re-enact his abuse this time in the role of abuser and traumatise his own children.
Perhaps part of the reason he asks for constant praise is because he suffers internally. Abusers often live in denial of what they have done with pain buried deep inside eating away at them,
It sounds like to me you are in the process of removing the tape from your mouth and learning to protect yourself and find your voice.
Ah I see, there is a lot going on with the relationship with your friend. It can certainly be difficult with people who aren’t used to you being assertive. They will need time to get used to how things are now. It is a good thing that you are standing up for yourself.
Not only, does she not acknowledge your feelings about the situation. She is also imagining that she is the only one who is hurt.
I think that you should definitely speak up when she is critical. Like saying that you lack empathy when you are an empathetic person. It is just hard when she immediately started blaming you.
So she’s still in an abusive relationship add is complaining about it. That is a shame. To me that means she wants to be depressed.
As someone who grew up with abuse I don’t understand the people who are adults that choose to be in abusive relationships. It is a relatively self-imposed problem.
Sometimes as you get healthier you start to notice more and more unhealthy behaviours around you. Do you think this could be happening here?
Please do not feel self-conscious for discussing your thoughts and feelings. I think that your authentic self is pretty amazing and utterly disagree with the people calling you selfish. Ultimately, we all have a responsibility to take care of ourselves. If everyone did that, there would be a lot less pain in the world.
Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏
May 10, 2024 at 2:23 pm #432562HelcatParticipant*and
May 11, 2024 at 11:31 am #432579anitaParticipant* This post may appear messy with excess print. If that happens, ignore this post and I will submit a cleaned copy next.Dear Seaturtle:“The other uncles, some of them took it upon themselves to ‘teach me’ things. If I didn’t say ‘please’ or ‘thank you’, I would be pinched, hard. If I didn’t say ‘uncle’ before their name I would be tickled to tears, void of breath and bruises… My grandpa was never home. When he was home, he was stingy and rude, but also a social butterfly and philosophical when he was in a good mood“- this gives me a bit of a look into the home in which your father grew up. Seems like he took on his father’s stingy attitude and social butterfly persona.I imagine that if your father didn’t say “please” or “thank you”, he too was strongly disapproved of, punished in some way. So, he said please and thank you and all other social-butterfly expressions, but didn’t mean any of them, forming a superficial persona, saying all the right things but not meaning them, remaining on the surface, avoiding depth.But angry within for not saying what he meant, for not being allowed to speak genuinely.When you lived in his home, as a teenager, he was angry that you allowed yourself what he wasn’t allowed: to leave traces of yourself around the house, while he, growing up, had to hide genuine traces of himself.The first time you shared about him was on Oct 11 last year (I will add my comments to what you share in parentheses, boldfaced): “My dad is highly superficial (highly superficial)… When my car was stolen… he took all the insurance money and justified not giving any of it to me (stingy)… when I lived with him alone from 16-20… he would make fun of me if I was sitting at home watching tv mid-day I would not hear the end of it, judging me, saying.. ‘you are lazy’ (growing up, he wasn’t allowed to relax in front of the TV, told he was lazy)… He was very critical (growing up, his genuine self was strongly criticized), I left a dish in his sink at his house, or left my backpack downstairs, basically left any trace of myself in ‘his’ house, he would get upset (growing up, his genuine self was not allowed visibility, he had to hide it)… Every 3 months… he would list all the ways I had exemplified being ‘ungrateful’ at his house… My dad would accuse me of planning my showers around avoiding talking to him, or if I was upstairs when he got home, I was expected to come had conversation with him (“he demanded visibility, wanting you to see him when he was home, not to be ignored)”.The email he sent you recently, following you staying in one of his houses: “I am so happy you had such a wonderful time. Makes me feel good about the investment I made into our family’s future!… Love you and feel so proud, blessed, fortunate to be able to offer that luxury to one of my favorite people in the world. Miss you! (red heart emoji) ”-– I imagine that when he typed this email, his face was expressionless, not at all congruent with the so happy, makes me feel good, !! and red heart emoji. I think that his elated, optimistic, excited expressions are not genuine. They lack depth. He is doing his social lubrication/ public relations kind of communication with you.Back to your yesterday’s posts:“I think this is why we help each other understand ourselves, because we have a very similar voice in our heads. What do you think?“- I agree. The following didn’t occur to me until this very morning: your father and my mother have this in common: growing up invisible and angrily, demanded excessive visibility from their daughters, your father, during his “house cleaning” sessions; my mother, during her poor-me, histrionic sessions.In my mother’s excessive demands that I see her caused me to set my eyes on her, to not see me or anyone, but her.“In moments of fight/flight/freeze I have always been such a fighter“- a fighting sea turtle (sea turtles chase, bite, hit with their shells, butt heads, literally.. so I read).“You are so humble, self-reflective, and amazing for admitting this here“- thank you.“On one hand I find this old interpretation validating… because I don’t feel like I am the only one who does this… On the other hand, it is disheartening, because as someone I look up to, someone I see as farther in her healing than I am, the fact you still experience and give energy to this voice… that means that voice still tries to attack even later in my healing journey as well. I want to rid it for good!!“- patience, young grasshopper.. I mean, young sea turtle, lol. (and patience, anita). The voice does get weaker. It’s not loud, and it doesn’t take center stage like it used to.“I saw him through my dad’s perspective of me, ‘you are not attentive enough.’ If I did not make him feel heard, I was what my dad said… ‘you are not enough.‘“- growing up, he felt invisible, unheard, unseen. Fast forward, as an adult, he demanded that you see him. But his core emotional unseen experience was cemented within him before you were born. It was not, and is not in your power to dissolve his cement.Interesting, how by demanding that you see him, he created your core emotional unseen experience, about which we talked in the past, an experience that’s in the process of being dissolved, good job, Seaturtle!“The voice within me is ‘nothing is enough.’ … Hence my fear of being disappointed! So to heal I need to believe, everything is enough the way it is.. ?… I wonder if having compassion for his undeniable misery and exhaustion, can be helpful to me in some way..“- having compassion for yourself and seeing you will be helpful. As well as seeing him the way he is underneath his social lubrication/ public relationship presentation. See him wit your third eye.“I have had many people in my life tell me my authentic self was selfish. My dad, my ex, my sisters, and now a childhood friend, P. When I spoke with P she said I lacked empathy for her ADHD that caused her to talk over me. And that I lacked empathy for her relationship situation.. Am I just supposed to not believe them?”- for anyone who (1) knows how sensitive you are about being told that you are selfish, and (2) is willing to exploit your sensitivity and use it as a weapon against you.. will accuse you for being selfish and hold you captive.Therefore, if 1 & 2 is true to P, then, yes, don’t believe her. (By the way, talking excessively and over another person, as P does, is by definition a selfish behavior).Your father created this sensitivity in you and I’m guessing that your sisters became aware of this sensitivity over the years, willing to use it against you..?“At 25 I want all the people who said my authentic self is bad to see that it is not and to tell me that it is not“- it serves some people’s selfish interest to say that you are bad, people who want to feel better at your expense.“My soul is so beautiful but he put this huge scar on it that makes it hard for me to fully express myself… This is why I do believe I have a beautiful soul, and so do you!… We will never see ourselves as good if we look through their lens. But you can look through mine if you want“- I am envisioning a sea turtle deep in the ocean, silently swimming toward me, it’s very quiet deep in the water. I see your eyes as you approach, kind, brown sea turtle eyes.I say to the sea turtle: sea turtle, when you are close enough to a shark, and you look into the shark’s eyes, you will not see your authentic self. You will see a predator approaching his/ her meal.I will close my imagery with a dolphin-anita swimming side by side with a sea turtle in a blue-purple deep sea.anitaMay 11, 2024 at 11:34 am #432580anitaParticipantDear Seaturtle:“The other uncles, some of them took it upon themselves to ‘teach me’ things. If I didn’t say ‘please’ or ‘thank you’, I would be pinched, hard. If I didn’t say ‘uncle’ before their name I would be tickled to tears, void of breath and bruises… My grandpa was never home. When he was home, he was stingy and rude, but also a social butterfly and philosophical when he was in a good mood“- this gives me a bit of a look into the home in which your father grew up. Seems like he took on his father’s stingy attitude and social butterfly persona.I imagine that if your father didn’t say “please” or “thank you”, he too was strongly disapproved of, punished in some way. So, he said please and thank you and all other social-butterfly expressions, but didn’t mean any of them, forming a superficial persona, saying all the right things but not meaning them, remaining on the surface, avoiding depth.But angry within for not saying what he meant, for not being allowed to speak genuinely.When you lived in his home, as a teenager, he was angry that you allowed yourself what he wasn’t allowed: to leave traces of yourself around the house, while he, growing up, had to hide genuine traces of himself.The first time you shared about him was on Oct 11 last year (I will add my comments to what you share in parentheses, boldfaced): “My dad is highly superficial (highly superficial)… When my car was stolen… he took all the insurance money and justified not giving any of it to me (stingy)… when I lived with him alone from 16-20… he would make fun of me if I was sitting at home watching tv mid-day I would not hear the end of it, judging me, saying.. ‘you are lazy’ (growing up, he wasn’t allowed to relax in front of the TV, told he was lazy)… He was very critical (growing up, his genuine self was strongly criticized), I left a dish in his sink at his house, or left my backpack downstairs, basically left any trace of myself in ‘his’ house, he would get upset (growing up, his genuine self was not allowed visibility, he had to hide it)… Every 3 months… he would list all the ways I had exemplified being ‘ungrateful’ at his house… My dad would accuse me of planning my showers around avoiding talking to him, or if I was upstairs when he got home, I was expected to come had conversation with him (“he demanded visibility, wanting you to see him when he was home, not to be ignored)”.The email he sent you recently, following you staying in one of his houses: “I am so happy you had such a wonderful time. Makes me feel good about the investment I made into our family’s future!… Love you and feel so proud, blessed, fortunate to be able to offer that luxury to one of my favorite people in the world. Miss you! (red heart emoji) ”-– I imagine that when he typed this email, his face was expressionless, not at all congruent with the so happy, makes me feel good, !! and red heart emoji. I think that his elated, optimistic, excited expressions are not genuine. They lack depth. He is doing his social lubrication/ public relations kind of communication with you.Back to your yesterday’s posts:“I think this is why we help each other understand ourselves, because we have a very similar voice in our heads. What do you think?“- I agree. The following didn’t occur to me until this very morning: your father and my mother have this in common: growing up invisible and angrily, demanded excessive visibility from their daughters, your father, during his “house cleaning” sessions; my mother, during her poor-me, histrionic sessions.In my mother’s excessive demands that I see her caused me to set my eyes on her, to not see me or anyone, but her.“In moments of fight/flight/freeze I have always been such a fighter“- a fighting sea turtle (sea turtles chase, bite, hit with their shells, butt heads, literally.. so I read).“You are so humble, self-reflective, and amazing for admitting this here“- thank you.“On one hand I find this old interpretation validating… because I don’t feel like I am the only one who does this… On the other hand, it is disheartening, because as someone I look up to, someone I see as farther in her healing than I am, the fact you still experience and give energy to this voice… that means that voice still tries to attack even later in my healing journey as well. I want to rid it for good!!“- patience, young grasshopper.. I mean, young sea turtle, lol. (and patience, anita). The voice does get weaker. It’s not loud, and it doesn’t take center stage like it used to.“I saw him through my dad’s perspective of me, ‘you are not attentive enough.’ If I did not make him feel heard, I was what my dad said… ‘you are not enough.‘“- growing up, he felt invisible, unheard, unseen. Fast forward, as an adult, he demanded that you see him. But his core emotional unseen experience was cemented within him before you were born. It was not, and is not in your power to dissolve his cement.Interesting, how by demanding that you see him, he created your core emotional unseen experience, about which we talked in the past, an experience that’s in the process of being dissolved, good job, Seaturtle!“The voice within me is ‘nothing is enough.’ … Hence my fear of being disappointed! So to heal I need to believe, everything is enough the way it is.. ?… I wonder if having compassion for his undeniable misery and exhaustion, can be helpful to me in some way..“- having compassion for yourself and seeing you will be helpful. As well as seeing him the way he is underneath his social lubrication/ public relationship presentation. See him wit your third eye.“I have had many people in my life tell me my authentic self was selfish. My dad, my ex, my sisters, and now a childhood friend, P. When I spoke with P she said I lacked empathy for her ADHD that caused her to talk over me. And that I lacked empathy for her relationship situation.. Am I just supposed to not believe them?”- for anyone who (1) knows how sensitive you are about being told that you are selfish, and (2) is willing to exploit your sensitivity and use it as a weapon against you.. will accuse you for being selfish and hold you captive.Therefore, if 1 & 2 is true to P, then, yes, don’t believe her. (By the way, talking excessively and over another person, as P does, is by definition a selfish behavior).Your father created this sensitivity in you and I’m guessing that your sisters became aware of this sensitivity over the years, willing to use it against you..?“At 25 I want all the people who said my authentic self is bad to see that it is not and to tell me that it is not“- it serves some people’s selfish interest to say that you are bad, people who want to feel better at your expense.“My soul is so beautiful but he put this huge scar on it that makes it hard for me to fully express myself… This is why I do believe I have a beautiful soul, and so do you!… We will never see ourselves as good if we look through their lens. But you can look through mine if you want“- I am envisioning a sea turtle deep in the ocean, silently swimming toward me, it’s very quiet deep in the water. I see your eyes as you approach, kind, brown sea turtle eyes.I say to the sea turtle: sea turtle, when you are close enough to a shark, and you look into the shark’s eyes, you will not see your authentic self. You will see a predator approaching his/ her meal.I will close my imagery with a dolphin-anita swimming side by side with a sea turtle in a blue-purple deep sea.anitaMay 11, 2024 at 11:37 am #432581anitaParticipantDear Seaturtle:“The other uncles, some of them took it upon themselves to ‘teach me’ things. If I didn’t say ‘please’ or ‘thank you’, I would be pinched, hard. If I didn’t say ‘uncle’ before their name I would be tickled to tears, void of breath and bruises… My grandpa was never home. When he was home, he was stingy and rude, but also a social butterfly and philosophical when he was in a good mood“- this gives me a bit of a look into the home in which your father grew up. Seems like he took on his father’s stingy attitude and social butterfly persona.I imagine that if your father didn’t say “please” or “thank you”, he too was strongly disapproved of, punished in some way. So, he said please and thank you and all other social-butterfly expressions, but didn’t mean any of them, forming a superficial persona, saying all the right things but not meaning them, remaining on the surface, avoiding depth.But angry within for not saying what he meant, for not being allowed to speak genuinely.When you lived in his home, as a teenager, he was angry that you allowed yourself what he wasn’t allowed: to leave traces of yourself around the house, while he, growing up, had to hide genuine traces of himself.The first time you shared about him was on Oct 11 last year (I will add my comments to what you share in parentheses, boldfaced): “My dad is highly superficial (highly superficial)… When my car was stolen… he took all the insurance money and justified not giving any of it to me (stingy)… when I lived with him alone from 16-20… he would make fun of me if I was sitting at home watching tv mid-day I would not hear the end of it, judging me, saying.. ‘you are lazy’ (growing up, he wasn’t allowed to relax in front of the TV, told he was lazy)… He was very critical (growing up, his genuine self was strongly criticized), I left a dish in his sink at his house, or left my backpack downstairs, basically left any trace of myself in ‘his’ house, he would get upset (growing up, his genuine self was not allowed visibility, he had to hide it)… Every 3 months… he would list all the ways I had exemplified being ‘ungrateful’ at his house… My dad would accuse me of planning my showers around avoiding talking to him, or if I was upstairs when he got home, I was expected to come had conversation with him (“he demanded visibility, wanting you to see him when he was home, not to be ignored)”.The email he sent you recently, following you staying in one of his houses: “I am so happy you had such a wonderful time. Makes me feel good about the investment I made into our family’s future!… Love you and feel so proud, blessed, fortunate to be able to offer that luxury to one of my favorite people in the world. Miss you! (red heart emoji) ”-– I imagine that when he typed this email, his face was expressionless, not at all congruent with the so happy, makes me feel good, !! and red heart emoji. I think that his elated, optimistic, excited expressions are not genuine. They lack depth. He is doing his social lubrication/ public relations kind of communication with you.Back to your yesterday’s posts:“I think this is why we help each other understand ourselves, because we have a very similar voice in our heads. What do you think?“- I agree. The following didn’t occur to me until this very morning: your father and my mother have this in common: growing up invisible and angrily, demanded excessive visibility from their daughters, your father, during his “house cleaning” sessions; my mother, during her poor-me, histrionic sessions.In my mother’s excessive demands that I see her caused me to set my eyes on her, to not see me or anyone, but her.“In moments of fight/flight/freeze I have always been such a fighter“- a fighting sea turtle (sea turtles chase, bite, hit with their shells, butt heads, literally.. so I read).“You are so humble, self-reflective, and amazing for admitting this here“- thank you.“On one hand I find this old interpretation validating… because I don’t feel like I am the only one who does this… On the other hand, it is disheartening, because as someone I look up to, someone I see as farther in her healing than I am, the fact you still experience and give energy to this voice… that means that voice still tries to attack even later in my healing journey as well. I want to rid it for good!!“- patience, young grasshopper.. I mean, young sea turtle, lol. (and patience, anita). The voice does get weaker. It’s not loud, and it doesn’t take center stage like it used to.“I saw him through my dad’s perspective of me, ‘you are not attentive enough.’ If I did not make him feel heard, I was what my dad said… ‘you are not enough.‘“- growing up, he felt invisible, unheard, unseen. Fast forward, as an adult, he demanded that you see him. But his core emotional unseen experience was cemented within him before you were born. It was not, and is not in your power to dissolve his cement.Interesting, how by demanding that you see him, he created your core emotional unseen experience, about which we talked in the past, an experience that’s in the process of being dissolved, good job, Seaturtle!“The voice within me is ‘nothing is enough.’ … Hence my fear of being disappointed! So to heal I need to believe, everything is enough the way it is.. ?… I wonder if having compassion for his undeniable misery and exhaustion, can be helpful to me in some way..“- having compassion for yourself and seeing you will be helpful. As well as seeing him the way he is underneath his social lubrication/ public relationship presentation. See him wit your third eye.“I have had many people in my life tell me my authentic self was selfish. My dad, my ex, my sisters, and now a childhood friend, P. When I spoke with P she said I lacked empathy for her ADHD that caused her to talk over me. And that I lacked empathy for her relationship situation.. Am I just supposed to not believe them?”- for anyone who (1) knows how sensitive you are about being told that you are selfish, and (2) is willing to exploit your sensitivity and use it as a weapon against you.. will accuse you for being selfish and hold you captive.Therefore, if 1 & 2 is true to P, then, yes, don’t believe her. (By the way, talking excessively and over another person, as P does, is by definition a selfish behavior).Your father created this sensitivity in you and I’m guessing that your sisters became aware of this sensitivity over the years, willing to use it against you..?“At 25 I want all the people who said my authentic self is bad to see that it is not and to tell me that it is not“- it serves some people’s selfish interest to say that you are bad, people who want to feel better at your expense.“My soul is so beautiful but he put this huge scar on it that makes it hard for me to fully express myself… This is why I do believe I have a beautiful soul, and so do you!… We will never see ourselves as good if we look through their lens. But you can look through mine if you want“- I am envisioning a sea turtle deep in the ocean, silently swimming toward me, it’s very quiet deep in the water. I see your eyes as you approach, kind, brown sea turtle eyes.I say to the sea turtle: sea turtle, when you are close enough to a shark, and you look into the shark’s eyes, you will not see your authentic self. You will see a predator approaching his/ her meal.I will close my imagery with a dolphin-anita swimming side by side with a sea turtle in a blue-purple deep sea.anitaMay 11, 2024 at 11:38 am #432582anitaParticipant(I give up… that’s what happens when you type under water, lol)
May 11, 2024 at 12:54 pm #432584anitaParticipantDear Seaturtle:
Continuing the imagery: when a sea turtle encounters a shark in deep-sea-reality, the shark attacks (Wins), the sea turtle dies (Loses), Game Over. In human society, people snap at each other every day, sometimes resulting in death, but more often, people get emotionally hurt, carrying injuries from one day to the next, continuing both: to hurt others and to get hurt. This is the complex human society reality. We get to be shark in the morning, sea turtle the in the evening.
In every day of my life, I want to not hurt others (to do-no-harm), and I want to not get harmed by others. I am not a saint (I am not here to absorb others’ aggression, turning the other cheek), but I am not a tit-for-tat person either. I’ll remove myself from harm and focus on what is good and helpful, best I can, morning, noon and night.
anita
July 9, 2024 at 11:58 am #434844seaturtleParticipantGood morning,
I have been reading “the Seat of the Soul” by Gary Zukav
“All the energy of the soul does not incarnate. To incarnate, the soul creates a personality from those parts of itself that it wants to heal in the physical environment, and from those parts of itself that it lends to the process of healing in that lifetime.”
“So powerful is the energy of the soul that it could not advance into a physical form without, literally, exploding that form. In the creation of personality, the soul calibrates parts of itself, reduces parts of itself, to take on the human experience. Your higher self is that aspect of your soul that is in you, but is not the fullness of your soul. It is a smaller soul self. Therefore, “higher self” is another term for “soul,” yet the soul is more than the higher self.”
“Intuition is a walkie-talkie, so to speak, between the personality and the soul. This happens through the higher self.”
It is making me ask myself, “what is my soul here to heal?” “does the personality have its own set of wounds it needs to heal? wounds that were accumulated in this life? or was I born with my wounds.”
I’ve spent a long time, practicing self awareness and healing wounds of my personality. When he says the soul creates a personality, does he mean we were born into this world with our personality?
Are/have any of you reading this become familiar with the process of healing your soul? I wonder if what needs to heal becomes clearer, and what is the light at the end of the tunnel like, after you have healed an aspect of your soul?
Seaturtle
July 9, 2024 at 2:10 pm #434845HelcatParticipantHi Seaturtle
Some parts of our personality are shaped by our environment and the people around us.
The soul creates a personality… The only thing that I can think of here is inherent personality traits. Not necessarily from our surroundings, or the people around us.
I noticed that my experience growing up was different from a lot of other people who have been abused. I could tell my mother was lying. I was severely abused and told that I was loved, but I knew that I was not loved. This trait was something that I inherently had and it helped to protect me from some issues that others struggled with. I had a bizarre level of hope for an abused child that I would escape the abuse and I finally did at 15 years old when the opportunity came along. I genuinely believed that I could find a way to change my situation.
I guess that my soul traits would be truth seeking, hope, and belief in change. Have you noticed any soul personality traits about yourself that don’t necessarily come from your family, but are uniquely yours?
In Buddhism, everyone is on a soul journey over many lifetimes to finally achieve enlightenment and end the cycle of rebirth. During this process I imagine that the soul is refined. In my mind, we are put on this earth to learn. Everything that we experience, we are to learn from.
In Tibetan Buddhism there is a belief in a process when we die, that we get to choose which realm we are reincarnated to next. All options other than the human realm are considered bad. There are practices to avoid the soul from being confused after death, to help to make a good choice of the realm that you are reborn in.
I don’t know about the process of healing the soul, but I do know the process of healing from abuse. Initially, there is backlog of all of the pain that is built up which must be processed. When that is mostly cleared and you can deal with the present more clearly. And it is more a process of deciding who you want to become and working hard to achieve that. There is a process of learning to love yourself. A process of forgiving. And learning to be happy. My therapist said that the pain doesn’t go away entirely, but it does get easier. This much is true. I have a ridiculous hope that for me one day the pain will go away entirely. Who knows?
I’m curious to hear your thoughts. 😊
Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏
July 9, 2024 at 2:23 pm #434846HelcatParticipantI think you’re doing a wonderful job on your healing journey by the way!
July 10, 2024 at 10:58 am #434874seaturtleParticipantHelcat,
I am so happy your soul had a bizarre level of hope, certainly not a trait of a soul’s first time around the block!
I like your question about my soul’s personality. I came up with this, my soul has always sought understanding of others and of myself, I have always sought self improvement, and connection, at times at whatever cost.
There were some personality traits like wisdom and an optimism that I can creatively make it in this world, not necessarily a cut and dry path my parents tried to get me to follow. But then it occurred to me, my sister has those similar traits. Which makes me wonder if they are environmental personality traits. Are there any concepts in Buddhism that speak on souls and siblings?
Tibetan Buddhism sounds so interesting I will have to read up on it. To choose the realm we reincarnate to next, sounds great. But then I read “all options other than the human realm are considered bad,” I am curious about this. I am surprised because this would mean the most enlightened souls are here on our earth in human form? Or perhaps they go to “bad” realms to make them better?
“I have a ridiculous hope that for me one day the pain will go away entirely.”
This is not ridiculous, sounds like your inner child soul speaking 😉
Seaturtle
July 10, 2024 at 11:37 am #434876seaturtleParticipantDear Anita,
I apologize for the late reply to your thorough and thoughtful response.
“he said please and thank you and all other social-butterfly expressions, but didn’t mean any of them, forming a superficial persona, saying all the right things but not meaning them, remaining on the surface, avoiding depth.”
“I think that his elated, optimistic, excited expressions are not genuine. They lack depth. He is doing his social lubrication/ public relations kind of communication with you.”
My whole life, and perhaps a personality of my soul is that I am, sensitive to people being fake. When someone is fake with me, it makes me feel cold inside, and void of my desire to connect, in fact I would rather leave. But I learned this “superficial persona,” and I learned it well enough to get through highschool, somewhat ok. Outside of my experience being bullied on my school soccer team. I think my mom had a superficial persona as well, but my dad’s is/was a lot more successful in social situations. My mom has an “extroverted persona” but when she is not in public it goes away. I learned this as well. I learned both of my parents superficial personas, making me appear socially equipped. But I learned this persona wasn’t attracting authentic people, so I have been learning to undo it, and in fact stop caring how I come across to every single person. I have gotten much better, but still have moments with the people closer to me, where I wonder what they are thinking of me. But I do my best to consciously refuse to act a certain way to get some perceived approval from them. I am proud of this 🙂
“your father and my mother have this in common: growing up invisible and angrily, demanded excessive visibility from their daughters, your father, during his “house cleaning” sessions; my mother, during her poor-me, histrionic sessions.In my mother’s excessive demands that I see her caused me to set my eyes on her, to not see me or anyone, but her. “As I read this I realized more about myself. My mom also has/had these poor-me sessions, demanding I see her, and I am now realizing, consequently not seeing myself. Until I was in 8th grade, 13 and becoming a woman, I didn’t receive too much attention from my dad. Pre-13 my dad played with us like kids, but was emotionally and at times physically absent. He would play with us but not be present. It was in this time I believe my mom used me as an emotional venting place. I would escape her by playing with my siblings. After 13 my dad became more strict on places I could go, things I would wear and all this. Then 16 when I moved in with him, is when he began to demand this excessive visibility from me.“a fighting sea turtle (sea turtles chase, bite, hit with their shells, butt heads, literally.. so I read).”hahaha, made me laugh out loud in this cafe!“patience, young grasshopper.. I mean, young sea turtle, lol. (and patience, anita). The voice does get weaker. It’s not loud, and it doesn’t take center stage like it used to.”🙂“But his core emotional unseen experience was cemented within him before you were born. It was not, and is not in your power to dissolve his cement.Interesting, how by demanding that you see him, he created your core emotional unseen experience, about which we talked in the past, an experience that’s in the process of being dissolved, good job, Seaturtle!”I’d never thought of my dad as feeling unseen, until reading this. But you are so right. When I was home, just recently I had lunch with him where he randomly started to defend himself, about things that I had never said. He was defending himself from a politically correct sort of stand, as if he was being judged by others, and that his (very real) hard work was not understood or appreciated. It was in this moment I realized his defensiveness had nothing to do with me, I had just gotten home! It was not mine to solve, but I still tried, and his facial expression made me believe he could see what I was saying was true. I told him what those people thought, as far as how hard he worked, simply did not matter. I was afraid he would just vent more to me, but instead he silenced and we began a new topic of conversation. 🙂 It was a moment I feel like he could see me. These moments have been occurring in the past year, since I moved states away from home. He didn’t see me for most of my life, but as I heal from this core experience, I believe he also wants to heal and I think we may be able to help eachother!“Your father created this sensitivity in you (of being selfish) and I’m guessing that your sisters became aware of this sensitivity over the years, willing to use it against you..?”Yes, especially one of my sisters who has a talent for poking peoples buttons and insecurities.I say to the sea turtle: sea turtle, when you are close enough to a shark, and you look into the shark’s eyes, you will not see your authentic self. You will see a predator approaching his/ her meal.I will close my imagery with a dolphin-anita swimming side by side with a sea turtle in a blue-purple deep sea.Dear wise dolphin-anita, I appreciate and understand the imagerythank you and please stay swimming close <3I truly feel bad about your thoughtful message getting left without a response, please forgive me.Seaturtle -
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