Thank you, Honesty, for your Honest answer: I appreciate and respect it.. and I appreciate and respect you!

You are welcome, and anytime you want to talk, I am here.

Anita

Hi again, Honesty-

You’re very welcome. I was thinking that it might be helpful for you to create a Safe Container for your sharing—a space where your story can be expressed without judgment or distortion. Somewhere you can write or type freely, without holding back or second-guessing yourself.

I do this in my threads, especially the recent one titled “Life Worth Living – What Is It Like?” I call these entries SOCJ, which stands for Stream Of Consciousness Journaling. It’s where I type whatever comes to mind, just let it flow.

Yesterday, I added this to the SOCJ of the day: “Note to Readers: Kindly refrain from responding to this or any future SOCJ (Stream of Consciousness Journal) entries. Thank you for respecting this request—I will continue to include it in upcoming SOCJs.”- I added this so to protect my space.

What do you think?

Anita

Hi Honesty: I will read and reply tomorrow. Take care!

Anita

Hi Peter:

I wasn’t aware of your post before I submitted my latest SOCJ earlier this morning, half an hour before I came across your post. These are the parallels I see:

“a butterfly emerged, the cocoon breaking open…”—that is what I experienced in the last day or two: separating from my mother mentally and emotionally, undoing a decades-long enmeshment.

In my SOCJ, I wrote: “It feels like I extricated my mother from the parts of my brain where she does not belong… There is Me, and then, there is She, separate entities… The enmeshment is gone (what a relief!).”-

So yes—the cocoon splitting open, the emergence—that’s me.

You also wrote: “If you’re like me, the challenge becomes how to turn insight into being.”- That’s another parallel. What I shared in my SOCJ wasn’t just a realization—it was a felt shift. Insight finally becoming embodiment. Finally, the internal separation happened, and I am feeling like a teenager forming her own sense of self, excited, joyful.

“A voice beneath the Silence spoke “You asked how to become your insight, ”You are invited to sit in the tension, not solve it. You are invited to feel the disorientation, not flee it.”-

I did try to solve the tension and the disorientation for a long, long time, but I didn’t sit with it.. until I did. Your post puts words and imagery to what’s just happened inside me.

Thank you, Peter! And again, I didn’t see your post until half an hour after submitting my own. The timing feels sacred.

Warmly, Anita

Dear John:

I’ve read through your 25 threads from May 2013 to June 2014, and honestly, I feel like I got to know you—and to like you 🙂

Among all your reflections, this line stayed with me the most:

“All of my material possessions could be lost in a fire, my family could be whisked away by a tornado, I could lose my job, my money, and become homeless, I could even contract a terminal disease, and to be honest, all of these things pale in comparison to my fear of not being liked or having someone be upset with me.”-

It says so much. About your deep sensitivity, about how connection—and potential rejection—cuts deeper than anything material.

What struck me even more was that one of your past threads from October 21, 2013 shares the exact same title as your post today—”Walking on eggshells”—now written nearly 11 years and 9 months later. Back then, you said:

“I recognize that the way I behave is largely influenced by experiences from my past – parents, teachers, bosses, lovers, all of whom brought into my life their neurosis, stresses, and anxieties. I can see how their unhealthy minds shaped the way I see the world and respond to it. Namely, walking on eggshells – avoiding their wrath and seeking approval. To this day, I’m still driven by fear of what might happen if they explode in anger…”

And you asked: “Does anyone have any advice on how to be truly free of these fears and be able to speak and act with conviction? How do you become fearless?”-

What you shared today echoes that same vulnerability—only now in the context of your marriage. And that resonance across time tells me that these are not isolated struggles, but patterns rooted in early wounds. Wounds that deserve tending. You’ve been walking carefully for decades. Maybe now, it’s time to walk freely.

Your story parallels mine. I lived with fear, self-doubt, and constant overthinking—walking on eggshells. Growing up, my mother’s volatility meant that if she was calm, I could breathe a bit; if she was angry, I braced myself. I learned early to shrink, to censor my thoughts and even facial expressions. I tried to become invisible so as not to provoke another storm.

Like you, I became hyper-attuned to others’ moods. Safety meant being able to read every tone, gesture, pause. You described it this way: “I’ve always had this acute awareness when others are anxious or stressed out. It’s almost as if when they’re experiencing anxiety or stress, I can either sense it or experience it myself… just an acute sensitivity to body language, tone of voice, expression on someone’s face, or just the silent void that’s created in those situations.”-

If a caregiver was emotionally explosive, dismissive, or withdrawn, the body learns to detect subtle shifts in tone, posture, or silence as warning signs. The nervous system becomes hypervigilant—ready to act, appease, or disappear in response to emotional signals. Over time, the person becomes attuned to others’ feelings more than one’s own, scanning for signs of tension or danger before it escalates. This leads to blurred boundaries with others.. to enmeshment.

This adaptation is not weakness—it’s survival. A child’s nervous system is exquisitely wired for connection and safety. When safety feels conditional, adaptation becomes second nature and it can persist into adulthood: sensitivity to conflict, people-pleasing, difficulty asserting boundaries, or waking with dread like you described.

You asked about that moment between sleep and waking:

“The space between waking up and getting out of bed seems to be the most difficult of the day… I wake up with negative memories and feelings of guilt, shame, inadequacy, trepidation, angst, and almost a child-like regression… what’s happening in that semi-conscious state?”-

This space in-between—called hypnopompia—is when your mental defenses are not yet re-activated, and stored emotional patterns rise to the surface. The feelings you described don’t come from nowhere. They are emotional imprints—felt memories—from times when you were young and scared, when survival depended on staying small, appeasing, anticipating others’ reactions.

There’s a chemistry behind it too. In early morning hours, cortisol (your body’s stress hormone) spikes to help you wake. But for someone with trauma sensitivity, that surge often fuels dread instead of alertness. Your amygdala—the brain’s threat sensor—is still scanning, not for lions, but for the memory of emotional danger. So before reason kicks in, you’re already in the storm.

I used to think my overactive inner critic was my enemy, but now I see it as a part of me that tried to protect me—from emotional harm, from rejection. It stepped in whenever I expressed myself, asking, “Was that dangerous?” Its goal was safety, even if it cost me truth.

My healing journey has been about moving from self-denial to self-acknowledgment—what my therapist called self-actualization. Like gently filling a deflated balloon, I’ve been learning to expand into who I really am, without apology.

And today? I feel more confident in my worth and truth than ever before.

The nervous system adaptation in childhood isn’t destiny. The same nervous system that learned fear can learn regulation, safety, and self-trust through healing relationships, boundaries, self-awareness (neuroplasticity).

I hope this reply offers you something. I’d really love to continue the conversation with you, John.

Warmly, Anita

Good morning, Peter:

Discomfort → Grace → Transformation.

You talked about transformation through grace many times.

A little while ago, you mentioned Lewis B. Smedes’s book “Shame and Grace: Healing the Shame We Don’t Deserve”.

He presents Grace as a Healing Presence that meets us in our Brokenness.

Grace, in this context, is a quiet companion that sits with us when we feel most unworthy and says, “You are still beloved.”

Grace doesn’t rush us to change—it stays with us as we are.

It doesn’t bypass pain—it enters it.

It doesn’t erase shame—it re-narrates it.

Lewis Smedes writes: “Grace is the one word for all that God does for us that we do not deserve.” And also: “The grace of God accepts us even though we are unacceptable.”-

Grace doesn’t wait for us to become acceptable—it makes us whole by loving us as we are.

Many associate worth with achievement: “I must earn love.” Grace says, “You are already loved.”

Pride resists surrender. Fear resists trust. Control resists vulnerability. Grace asks us to lay those down, even momentarily. But even momentarily, laying down these defenses can feel disorienting, like standing unarmored in the middle of a battlefield and hoping not to be struck.

When people have been harmed by those who were supposed to be safe, gentleness starts to resemble danger: a calm tone might mask manipulation, kindness may turn cruel at any time, vulnerability might lead to punishment. And so, grace—the quiet, unconditional offering of love or presence—can feel suspect. The nervous system doesn’t trust it yet.

Sometimes, rejecting grace becomes habitual—like pushing away warmth because cold feels familiar. People turn away from it not because they don’t want it, but because they don’t believe it’s really for them.

Grace isn’t just a spiritual concept. It’s relational. Emotional. Neural. Do I accept it this morning? I just felt a bit suspicious of it.. as if I don’t deserve it.. yet (but working on it)-

But then Grace says: “Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it” (Clint Eastwood’s words in Unforgiven).

So perhaps that’s the point. I neither deserve nor don’t deserve Grace. It’s not about earning or failing—it’s about needing it.

And Grace, generous as it is, responds not to merit, but to need. Not because I’m good enough. Not because I’ve suffered enough. But because I am.

Anita