I noticed that I did not reply to this part.

Thank you, Beni. I know it’s hard to love ourselves, if we are made to believe that we are unlovable and unworthy. That we’re not good enough. I know because it was the same for me. I actually received that first “jolt” of love by meditating on Jesus. Yeah. I didn’t receive it from any person around me (although I did and still do have a good and loving husband). But somehow I always felt a hole in my heart, I felt unlovable for a long time. And then in a meditation on Jesus (whom I imagined as unconditionally loving and non-judgmental), I asked him to fill my heart with love. And it happened. That’s the first time I really felt lovable.

Well, that was my experience. You don’t have to do it like that, of course. But sometimes, when there is no one to give us that first jolt of love, we can call for a higher power, if we believe in one. Alternatively, surrounding yourself with loving, compassionate people, and seeking support in therapy are the best ways to feel that love. To accept that we are lovable and worthy.

Thank you for sharing your experience and I’m glad there are several way’s to have this experience.

Alright, I think I get it: you used to hide your sadness, you didn’t want people to know that you’re in pain (I’ve have the always smile poker face. It’s hard to know how I feel for others and also for myself.)

But last year you started opening a little and admitting when you’re sad (I learned last year to say that I’m poor). You don’t do that to get people’s sympathy and “extract” love from them, but simply to share your feelings, to not hide your feelings any more, right? (More in a : ”oh, look I feel really poor and it’s real but you don’t need to worry. I’m glad you listen to me” way)

Yes, that’s exactly why I do it. Thanks for helping me making it present.

Definitely, that can be wholesome. I am glad you’re opening more, even if it’s still hard for you to show vulnerability. For example, it’s still hard for you to ask people for help when you have physical injury.

You say you don’t want to complain to people because you’re afraid they won’t like you (I don’t complain in front of other people because I’m afraid they don’t like me). But you want to change that attitude and be more open about your feelings. You don’t want to pretend that you’re fine when you’re not necessarily.

That’s all great, Beni. You’re trying to be more authentic and not be afraid to show weakness or vulnerability. You are not less lovable because sometimes you need help or you are sad or frightened. You mother might have taught you you shouldn’t have needs, or that you are selfish if you have needs. But that’s not true.

So it’s okay to show vulnerability. In fact, vulnerability is our secret strength, because it enables us to be authentic, to be ourselves. And being authentic is I think super powerful.

Yeah, that’s where I’m at.

Perhaps when you share that you’re sad and show some vulnerability, you start feeling uncomfortable and you panic? Maybe you fear that people with reject you, and then you quickly try to downplay what you said, like “oh but it’s not such a big deal, I am not that bad actually, I am fine”?

Hmm, yes. I’d like to have control on how I’m perceived because I don’t know what I’m doing is happening. I mostly don’t downplay anymore because it creates more confusion.

That’s nice of you. I think you showed empathy for her. Not pity in a negative sense.

Yes, I felt the same.

Do you say to people what you believe they want to hear? Do you do favors for them because you’re afraid they’ll reject you if you set boundaries? I am just curious: how do you think you people please?

I observed the following. When I’m with people with different dialect I adopt it. I can easily be with a group and agree to every activity. I might loose my autonomy with time.
Yes, I tend to tell people what they want to hear. I feel disconnected when I set boundaries. It’s like one or the other extreme only you or only me.

Oh so she is looking at you with self-pity, but then asks you how you are, right? And so you refused to answer, because you know her intention. Good for you! Yeah, it’s good you don’t allow yourself to be manipulated but could actually see through her and refuse to take part in her little game. What did she tell you in response? Did she get offended?

I think she felt rejected. I do not have space for her pain in this situations because of my own pain.

Good afternoon Tee,

yes, I had a difficult upbringing, with an emotionally cold, strict and very criticizing mother. And it left many scars on me, which lasted for many years. But with the help of therapy and increasing self-awareness, I’ve managed to heal gradually, basically to heal my inner child. I swear by this method of healing, because it helped me the most, after some other modalities didn’t help.

Wow, I feel proud that you did/do this work with you Tee. It needs a lot of strength and courage. I also feel grateful that to meet someone who did overcome it and is able to share it in the way you do.

Oh I see… so you’re kind of pitying yourself, telling yourself and other people “I am so poor”. Or “poor me, nobody loves me”. And then people might feel guilty if they reject you, right? And they start resenting you and the tension starts building. Is that what’s happening?

I do feel that way and I would say it in an unconscious way. Like when someone gives me a compliment I’d say. Ah it’s not so good. I’d down rate it. Because I’d get reminded that I don’t feel good enough.
This might be how tension builds up yes. I don’t see trough it yet.
Right now I try to get some distance from that. I say. Oh, I feel so poor. I must be the poorest person on the planet. Like I try to not take it serious.

If so, that’s your inner child crying and whining, because he really feels unloved. He really didn’t receive the proper love and nurturance from his mother (or father), and he is lacking. He is still trying to receive it, only not from your mother or father, but from the people around you. So you feeling pity for yourself is actually your inner child feeling pity for himself, because he indeed didn’t have his basic emotional needs met.

Okay, I observed that treating little Beni in a pity way does strengthen the belief that he’s poor. I try to tell him in the way I mentioned above: “Don’t be silly my love, you know this is not true anymore”.  It feels like this can help.

The way to heal is to heal your inner child, to give him the love and care he craves. To be a good parent to him. That’s how you’ll stop pitying yourself and “manipulating” people to give you love. Because you’ll have it in you, your heart will be full and nourished.

It is really difficult to give it to myself. I met some people this year who could make me feel that I’m good enough. A very wholesome experience. I belief you also do it.

Yes, there is a way to be in harmony with your inner child. You would need to first acknowledge and validate his needs. Tell him that he is lovable and precious and special. And that you’ll be there for him.

I do that, it does resonate a little. I think the best I can do atm is to not put pressure on him. I think I need to give him space that he can trust me again.
Also I work on making other people feeling good enough. I belief that the mind does not differentiate and by strengthening the trait, I’ll be able to give it to myself later on.

Perhaps experiment with that a little bit and see if you can give yourself some self-soothing. If not, it’s not a big deal, there are therapists for that. They provide a safe environment and the unconditional positive regard, so that we can start feeling seen and accepted and appreciated. They give us the first “boost” of acceptance and validation, and from then on, we learn to love ourselves (and our inner child) more and more.

I will. Thanks for the input.

Oh I see. So she maybe used you to meet her emotional needs, because her husband was emotionally unavailable? (Perhaps she complained to you about your father or other problems in her life?) That can put a big stress on the child, because the roles are reversed, and instead of meeting our emotional needs, the parent expects us to meet their emotional needs, which we as a child are totally unable to.

Yes, I belief this is it. I met her a week ago and I saw it in her eyes.

Hi Tee,

I’m glad you’re better. I wanted to say is that I hear you’d had a difficult upbringing too and it was not easy to get your needs met with your mom struggle taking care of her own needs in a healthy way.  Thank you for letting me know the circumstances.

Right, you’re afraid to appear too demanding. Perhaps you believe that expressing needs is selfish – that you are selfish if you do that?

Maybe that’s the whole, I do not understand it. I now that I feel guilty after or afraid before. The way I do it makes it more difficult for some people to say no and in the long therm creates tension. It’s difficult to say no to me but I really need to fully trust on that so I can learn what’s nourishing in a relationship and what’s not.

Actually this seems that you do believe that expressing needs is selfish. You are reprimanding yourself for having needs. You believe that even your purest, selfless love could be interpreted as manipulation and dishonest.

Yes, I that’s true. That’s my conditioning.

I see. Yes, a martyr mother doesn’t really meet our emotional needs. Perhaps she meets our physical needs (she cooks for us, works hard so we can have nice things, etc), but she does that not with sincere love, but with “oh poor me, I am sacrificing so much for you, and you’re so ungrateful” type of attitude. She makes us feel guilty for being a child and having needs. She makes herself a martyr and we’re almost the “villain” for wanting anything from her. Perhaps you experienced something like that?

Yes, that resonates. I think this is a disconnected way to love or connect. I think this is why I do many things. There is this hole which cry’s out: “I’m soo poor”. I started addressing it in other people. I started rubbing their heads and saying “ooh, you so poor”. That’s propably why it’s harder to say no to someone like that. When someone has that look.

Right, she isn’t really interested in knowing how you are, but actually wants to talk about herself, and how hard her life is, right? She doesn’t have interest and cannot truly meet your emotional needs, because she is so needy herself.

Yes! It feels like she takes it and turns it against me.

I can see how with such a mother, you felt that your needs are selfish. That everything you did to connect emotionally – even expressing the purest, the most selfless love – would be deemed selfish.

Yes, I want to learn how I can give more effortless.

When I was a child, my own mother would often reject my kisses and hugs (i.e. my sincere expression of love and affection), telling me that it’s stupidity, that it’s unnecessary, that such displays of affection are dishonest, or that it will spoil the child etc.

I am mentioning this, because my mother conditioned me to believe that needing physical affection is stupid and weakness. That my legitimate needs as a child were somehow “illegitimate”.

Perhaps your mother too conditioned you to believe that your basic emotional needs were illegitimate, and that needing love was selfish and manipulative?

It must have been very painful to get rejected this way. We’re so vulnerable as childs. Did you learn to overcome this?
I belief for me it was the other way around. I’d reject my mothers kisses and hugs. I think my dad wasn’t very available for her.

I see. You were more prone to dissociation then. It’s a defense mechanism. It happens because when we are a child, it’s too painful to stay present with such an emotionally (or even physically) unresponsive mother. The pain of feeling unloved is too much. And so we freeze and dissociate. That’s how we escape that immense pain of not being soothed, of no one coming to our rescue when we are in distress.

It could very easily be that your freeze and dissociation today is actually the same defense mechanism that you used as a child to escape the emotional deprivation you felt around your mother, and in your household in general (because you said your father was involved with his business, and the only emotionally available person was your grandmother.)

I belief it is how you say and this is where it’s coming from.

It’s hard to grow up like that, Beni. I totally feel your pain and your terror, actually, of not having anyone to emotionally regulate you, to be there for you in distress. But what’s amazing is that you are very aware of your needs: you know that what you need when you freeze is that someone put a hand on your shoulder and tell you “it’s going to be okay”.

That’s such a great observation, Beni. And so true. Because in fact, it’s your inner child who needs soothing and reassurance that everything’s going to be fine.

Over time, as you heal and develop emotional strength, you the adult Beni will be able to soothe the little Beni. You’ll be able to soothe yourself by putting one hand on your shoulder, and telling yourself “don’t worry, it’s going to be fine”. Right now, you still might need others to tell you this, and it’s completely okay. But with time, you’ll be able to tell it to yourself.

Wow, Tee. It’s amazing how you put things together and your sence of timing. It’s so nourishing to read these lines. I read this and then I had to sleep for 2h and now I’m finishing the reply.
I belief this is the struggle.. I’ve given up on telling little Beni what to do because he does not listen. Not doing seems to be harder than doing. It’s good to know for both of us that there is a way to be in harmony together.

Hi Tee,

I hope my remarks didn’t cause you too much distress? I hope some things resonated, but not to the point of being overwhelming?

Thanks for asking. It touched me. I didn’t get lost. You did hear what I said and put it in your words in a loving way. Like the two below. I still think about them.

I see – you feel dishonest if you first give something (e.g. organize a garden party) in order to receive. You would like to receive love and attention, without having to do something for people first, right? You would like to receive without “bribing” them, so to speak?

You know, you actually have the right to express your needs clearly, without beating around the bush too much. I mean, you can say “I would like this” instead of “I want this”. And you can learn to say it in a calm but decisive manner (i.e. assertively). So you can learn to modify your request to sound more polite and mature, however, you have the right to express your needs. You’re not bad or faulty for having needs, or for expressing them.

I’m glad I mentioned it. I do it that way because it’s scary and in the moment I’m overwhelmed.  I’d like to express my needs in a gentle, assertively way so they can be received easy.

Let me just check if I got it well: so you are afraid that even your selfless love would be rejected?

Yes, it makes it more difficult to love. When I do, I can have thought patterns which tell me: “You do it to be liked”, “your manipulating people to like you”.

When I put these 2 pieces of information together, one possibility occurs to me: that perhaps your mother was in a martyr role, where she served everybody, but was resentful about it, and yet she kept doing it? You wanted her to be happy, not to suffer, but no matter what you did and how much you helped her, it was never good enough?

Yes, the word martyr fits in well. You know, I don’t really remember what I did and what she did I can’t find much in my memory. I see her now and in sometimes I see myself. She also struggles with connection, I don’t think she has a best friend besides my dad.
I’m not sure if I tried to help her. I’m more prone to the freeze or self destructive behavior. I belief she couldn’t give me space, maybe I was part of meeting her needs. Like when you ask “how are you” but actually you create space to tell how you feel.
I think the person which was emotional available the most, was my grandma. My dad was busy with his business.

Another reason why I think it would be beneficial for you to work with someone is that you should learn to accept that you are worthy of help, and that you don’t need to do everything on your own.

Everytime I do it, it gets a bit easier. Thanks for the kind words.

Is there a specific situation in which you feel insecure, and then you freeze and don’t know what to do?

I think there are a few factors. “Do I know the thing I do by heart?”, “How shure am I about myself now?”, “What is the mood in the group” and the main factor, “is there somebody seeing what I’m doing”.

I had a massage workshop last year and we would be shown a sequence and then my memory would not work when I’d have to repeat. It was a very secure and loving environment.

The good bad thing is in my new job is that I’m seen. I can’t hide well, they know when I’m in zombie mode. I think I’m afaid to loose the job and the people in the job. I lost my last job and it felt like a breakup.

Hi Peter,

Thank’s for the introduction to taoism. I needed to chew on this for a while. I feels peacefull when I  look on beeing and doing as one state. This is the place I want to be. More then less I am doing or beeing. Maybe this is why doing often feels wrong.

I talked about this with a friend and she told met that instead of thinking what she wants to do she writes down how she would like to feel.
It does not work doing it with imagination what I do or thinking what I want to do and find good reasons for it.
I want to find practices which keep me out of my head.

I was acutally on a similar point last year. I then switched to a labor job to be better able to stay out of my head. I realize now, that there is an opportunity.

I have two ideas for now. I can test if I’m able to work with feelings rather than thoughts.
Maybe with this insight praying or chanting can work for me.

Are there other practices which I do not have on my radar yet?

with love,
Beni

Thanks, Hellcat

[quote quote=420168]I learned that it’s okay for some chores to wait.
[/quote]

I’m good at accepting this. The world does not fall apart. I don’t want to cook. I can order food. I can live with more chaos in the house. For shure it feels different inside the house with and without order. The time will come where I want to do it, if I really want to. If I don’t want to there is wrong intention or lack of clarity.

[quote quote=420168]
The most important things can be handled first. It’s good that you’ve identified that you have a strong desire for connection with people. It’s really important to incorporate your favourite things from your pre-pain lifestyle but perhaps in a modified sustainable way. Do you think there’s a reason why you make more of an effort to do chores around other people?
[/quote]

I naturaly take care of everyone around me. Boundaries and my business, not my business are things I reflect upon a lot. I have to be very careful to only give with harmony to myself.

I think it’s not about the chores. It’ might be something like:

I want connection, I need to do something for it to deserve it. Like, I have a Garden where I can invite people too. Actually I just want to invite people. I deep down I know that. It’s like my core motivation is crooked. Actually I just want to be connected. This should go first. For shure I like to be in nature, to create things. To have a clean house.

A simile might be: He is hungry so he goes and plants potatoes. It’s no joy to do that because actually in your heart you know it will not feed you.

[quote quote=420168]
I like chatGPTs advice about a lack of clarity about why you want to do chores. I had to learn to really focus on motivation to do chores with pain issues. Sometimes this was celebrating small wins by taking before and after photos. Sometimes it acknowledging that I was cleaning because I have allergies and it helped me to breathe.
[/quote]

It makes me happy to read that you found this ways. I want to try out taking picture before and after. Also I wan’t to be more clear why I’m doing things. Non Violent Communication has beautiful aspects about this. “I want to do it because I…”

[quote quote=420168]
Hmm how to stay connected? Do you feel like you aren’t spending as much time with people because of your health issues? Do you find it harder to leave the house? Are people less willing to visit you? What are the challenges there?[/quote]

The health issue is not so important, it actually makes me spend more time with people because else I can’t take it. I think it’s bigger. It’s more difficult to leave the house than to not leave it. I feel more vulnerable.
Usually I visit people. I think it really is about that I do not have a strong social web. I tend to have a lot of friends and know a lot of people but no best or close friend. I have some people in mind which can be that and I think I could have the strengh now to make it happen.
I have the strengh because this conversation helped me realize that actually it’s one of my biggest needs.

I have an update on the topic:

The Titel of the Post is: “How can I do what I want with joy” – the negative would be: I know what I wan’t to do but I don’t want to do it.
I ask this Guru ChatGPT and it told me a few things one of them was a lack of clarity why I’m doing it. Right know I belief that  what I actually want is deep connection with people.

I got to this belief based on the following:
– I have a trapped nerve atm and have a lot of pain. Painkillers don’t work. But what works is, when I’m with people and have meaningful connections. I still have pain but I can take it.

– I haven’t done much cleaning and I stopped cooking because of this. I observed that when I was with people or am with people I do it again. I somehow can’t force myself to do things anymore. I rather don’t do it.

I want to try this out with putting connecting/socializing on top of my bucket list.

Can you relate to this and have tip’s on how to stay connected? Maybe it doesn’t make sense to you, then please challenge it.