“When you love someone, the best thing you can offer is your presence. How can you love if you are not there?” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Dear Anita,

I read a lot yesterday, I felt – glimmers – more than usual.  Yes, indeed, the hormonal “feeling” is of benefit, and yes, I’ll take it.

This quote above – it is everything. Absolutely everything.

How can I love if I am not there? I have not been there.  I was with my mother, when in her womb, when outside her womb, when living in her home, when living outside her home, when single, when married. I was with HER. So how, oh how can I love.

But NOW I am working on being here, just here, with me, and with my husband.

Dear Anita,

 Seems like we humans cannot be happy unless we are soft. That softness makes it possible for us to engage in life so much that we forget to (over) think and resist emotions, we let them be, come and go, no longer resisting, no longer tense, no longer afraid of the experience of emotions.

Yes, happiness = softness.  Which = reality.

We must feel reality, for what it is.  The good, the bad, the ugly.  Feel it for what it is – the real stuff.

If and when we feel, we can find joy, and happiness.

Dear Anita,

I feel for you when I read that you decided to “undo” and not feel this softness.

For me, I did not know i did that, but of course I did, but it was subconscious.

Regardless I did too – and I felt a glimmer of sadness for both of us, that we undid this, how sad for us – us wonderful beings.

I am glad to hear that you feeling this “stirring of life” sensation.  What is that like? It is new to me – I don’t think I have ever felt a true awakening like this.  Well, I don’t expect it – I am focused right now on feeling anything at ALL, (such as my PMS induced emotions last night!).

your concept of the leg falling asleep, there is a medical term for it, the pain after the blood flow comes back.  What an excellent analogy.  How intuitive and intelligent you are.  As you have seen, I do love a good analogy, it is quite satisfying.

Have to start somewhere right?

Dear Anita,

Yes, ironically this time there is a benefit to the “unease” – it led to some feeling. Well whether distressed or not, to feel something is more important – and I’ll take it!

We rejected softness early on didn’t we. Yes

Tell me, Anita – what was one of your first ways to start uncovering that softness – or moving through the hardness?

Dear Anita,

I mentioned to you a few months back, feeling extra distressed – being aware that the week before that “time of the month” I felt especially emotionally up and down and suffered.

Well that time has arrived again. And this time around, as much as it is not pleasant – I found something.

I felt a lot yesterday. Sure, some of it is the “hormones” feeling extra emotional – but I felt it – didn’t I? It was me who felt it, not someone else.

I felt a tenderness for my husband yesterday – let me tell you the story:

My friend S,  a very good friend, I have mentioned her before.  Sweet, kind, straightforward.  Not very emotionally “deep” in the sense of she hasn’t experienced much in her life to bring her there – nor does she approach life this way.  Regardless – great friend from college, and an optimist.

She is dating someone seriously now after a very long time, and as such, really really appreciates it, and him.  It is nice to see this. And I often think about how I never felt this way when first meeting my husband.  Happy yes, but not the sense of respect, admiration and appreciation – because of course the mother voice.

Well they are going on a vacation to Italy this week, and I was asking her if she is excited.  She mentioned she is, but she may have to do some of the activities alone. I asked why? As this was odd to me, their first big vacation together!

She said, “he’s the type to need his rest, and so maybe won’t be up to so much back to back.”

I thought to myself – interesting.  I would never be okay with that.  I would have pushed my poor husband out of bed and said, here drink some coffee time to go! But he also baseline isn’t the type to sit back and not engage or do just like me – when it comes to travel etc.

I mention to my friend that it is good of her to be so understanding.

To which she replies: Yeah, well I do prefer him to be happy and well rested.  What’s the point of pushing and creating a fight anyway.

I was taken aback.  I was surprised at this: she prefers him to be in the baseline state that is comfortable for him.  She accepts him, she doesn’t push and prod.

Of course I am taking this small conversation to a larger extent

but I felt tenderness for my dear husband.  never allowing him to rest and be, always pulling and pushing,  a visual of poking him over and over when he’s resting, a visual of pulling his hair and slapping hima round.  and when he rests yelling and saying get up.  if he tries to do his best to go up the mountain, my screaming faster! don’t you know what I like!!

This visual of me as a NOT understanding person, unlike the example above.  This understanding that I am not understanding.  And that mother voice or not, I did treat him this way. I thought about how much suffering and trauma that makes a person go through.  And I felt the first glimpse of it.  Not much Anita, but something.

I felt tenderness, that wow, how and why would I do such a thing to him.  And also – that I do hope I never do anymore.

Dear Anita,

I love your analogy about the cake and the slap. This pretty much sums up the last year that I spent speaking with my mother. Actually much longer than that, but as you know in the last year I was more aware of this reality or analogy.

I remember two years ago being at my aunts house, my mother had flooded there, and wouldn’t pick up the phone, this is aunt of mine lives locally next to my parents. We had gotten into some huge fight, and I was heading home close to my parents for an engagement party for my friend, the plan was for me to come to my parents house before the party to get ready although it was majorly inconvenienced for myself. Of course, everything was always on based on how much time I could spend with my parents because of course my sweet dear parents want to see their daughter, how could you not make that a priority.  Well long story short, we had gotten into a terrible fight and this was around the time where my mother was going to extremes this was no longer screaming matches but extremes and extremes. So like a mature adult, when I called her all morning she wouldn’t pick up. My father, no better, said to me he’s not sure where my mother is, but just keep trying. Idiots. Knowing that my mother cannot outsmart me and she has the emotional capacity of a two-year-old, I drove home to my parents house, the house was empty, my dad was at work, my mother was in Asylum so to speak giving me the silent treatment. I drive a few minutes away to my aunts house. Lo and behold my mother is there seeking asylum, healing and licking her wounds. I walk in, my aunts mother-in-law’s there, an elderly lady of course in her 80s, and my mother. Everyone else is at work. My mother is there sitting there looking like she had just gone through labor or something, distraught, dark circles under her eyes, hardly able to walk. Putting on this big show of her suffering. She looks at the old lady in a way saying, look at my daughter and what she did to me, I had to run away here to you, who else will take care of me.  Elderly lady looks at me with concern, and says something along the lines of, be good to your mother.

The whole thing is a circus. It was one of those moments where I looked at it and said wow is this literally real life, am I the only sane one here? And I realize the answer was yes. But I wasn’t there yet where I was unwilling to reason with this insane person, I was still at that point where I was giving it a few of my last shots.  I recall reasoning her to the point that I began to feel as crazy as her. As a victim mise does hurt. As frail and tortured as her. Pretty soon I too felt like I wanted to crawl into this couch, and lay there under a blanket waiting for my Savior as well.

Interesting isn’t it? When we spend time with these kinds of people, they can bring us down to their level. Not just in the obvious way of a motional vampirism. But in the way that they can bring you down to their mental level, infecting your brain, brainwashing you to a primitive way of thinking to an evil way of being even.  I look back at this now and I have a visual, my mother sitting on one couch with a blanket meekly over her body staring out into the world looking like she was hit by a tornado. Myself and another couch, and slightly better condition, but terrible nonetheless. My husband walks in and first looks at my mother and then at me. And he sees that it is one and in the same.

and it is.

Doesn’t matter who got their first does it? It doesn’t matter that this was not my condition before I arrived at that house – and was beaten down to this level.

I’ve seen many times in my life where the only way I know how to cope with some thing is to fight and be angry, and then with her away into a meek damaged being. Not unlike the scenario above, but hardly ever this dramatic. I see myself now, and talking about the idea of being good and loving, and how in so many ways it seems so simple. But look above, how much more effort and how much more difficult does it seem to outside or to act like the way it is above. Doesn’t it seem so much more simple to be loving. But of course life doesn’t work like that. I have only seen dysfunction. I have only seen a human adult, a mother nonetheless, Cope in the way as seen above.

On another note but related as well. Yesterday I was at a get together, we threw a going away party for my good friend who is moving. It was a very pleasant day, with many different friends from different parts of life. I woke up today thinking about how I was so relaxed at the entire event. I was there, it was mostly my friends, my husband arrive later, it was good in all aspects. I thought about how I didn’t have anyone there that was extremely close to me, not my sister, no best girlfriend, nothing of that sort. I had two very close colleagues of mine, and besides that many of the people were more like acquaintances. I thought about how This was relaxing to me. I am easily distracted when someone close to me somewhere, quite fixated on what they are doing or what they want. Especially if it is my sister. But this wasn’t the case. Oh by the way the friend that is moving is the one that is moving to Florida, I have brought up this couple before. He is an amazing person and and I was glad to be able to celebrate one of his last days in NYC. I was there for many hours, and I began to observe at some point, I thought about the concept of glitter. I also thought about the concept of everything that is good is over there, if it is here it is by nature not good. The Disney world example. I thought about how slowly I am learning to undo that. I observed some people who were there, and I noticed positive things about their life whatever they were. But I also noticed things about their life that were different than mine. I wasn’t doing this to compare I was simply observing. I didn’t find it any point that I was seeing anyone of their lives are circumstances asBetter or more positive. On the other hand I didn’t observe as anyone circumstances her life as inferior or more negative. I just let it be. I noticed that my mothers entire life was to observe and judge other people. If she was at this party her entire goal would be to sit there and judge and make it known how everyone there was a worse than her and she was better. Or if anyone of them had eight an objectively betterI’m stance, she would make it a point to talk all night how their life is not as good as it seemed. I noticed how exhausting this is, and how it has been very difficult for me to enjoy so many events as this mother voice carries with me. Instead of enjoying the company of others or being in the moment, his mother voice does not allow me to stop seeing things beyond the surface.  I didn’t think that this was something that was controllable, and of course I didn’t realize that the mother voice is not actually my voice per se.  So yesterday was one of the first times at a public event that I was able to engage with other people without getting sucked in. I was able to engage with other people without being out ward the whole night. This is important. I will also say that it was nice that I was not really there with anyone that close to me outside of my husband. This helped, my energy was not distracted and focused on everyone else but me, or my bhsband,it was just a simple good time.

Another thing that I noticed which I have known in my head for a very long time, but have not really acted on it in real life is that  I am very sensitive to the energy of other people. I know this, and it is obvious. I can be like a sponge for the energy around me, making it difficult to protect my own spirit. But I noticed a few different examples yesterday in which a simple conversation would say one or another person left me feeling a little strange for a microsecond. I remembered to check in with myself and I ask myself why. One of the examples is that I was talking to a girl that was dating our friend, she is at least 10 years younger than him, so the conversation was a bit odd. I reminded myself that I am not talking to a peer, I’m talking to almost an adolescent, and so what I am sensing has nothing to do with me.

I observed this again today. The wife of one of my husbands friends, who I am pretty friendly with over the years, sent me a text message to ask me a question. She’s not someone I conversed with regularly, only at events or get-togethers. But she asked me a question about a wedding that is coming up in our front circle. I found myself wanting to extend the conversation more, out of the normal habit of mine. But I didn’t, I answered your question I asked her how she was and back-and-forth. And that was it. I didn’t have to become something it wasn’t. It is OK to just keep things as they are, I don’t know if I want to use the term on the surface, but this is the term that is working for me right now so I will say it. I know it doesn’t actually mean the surface but you get my gist. It is OK to keep things on the surface, to go with the flow, to let it be easy. Everything doesn’t have to be a deep diving emotional journey, doesn’t have to be deeply engaged always, it could just be whatever it is. My mother always explain to us that those people who keep things at the service, are often fake. They don’t actually care about your life and so they don’t get deeper into questioning. I now see as an adult with more social tact that this is untrue. There is a time and place for deep conversations with certain people but you don’t have to extend a friendly ear an open heart to those who haven’t even asked for it!

Anyway, all in all I noticed that first of all, it is not necessary to get too involved with people. It is not necessary to get to involved with people. There may be times in which we are asked to go out and golf with people when there are specific scenarios. But on a regular basis, it is a nice way to be. This leaves much more energy to be involved with your own self and your own family.

Dear Anita,

This is what it means being good, being a loving person. Once again something that it was read at any other point in my life would have been easily glazed over passed over over, seemingly obvious but not understood it all by myself.

Every single time I see my dog his entire body shakes from wagging his tail so much, because his loving nature overcome the time. This is very similar to infants or toddlers, children. Sometimes we are conditioned to feel that those that are not grown-up, intelligent, or aware are able to be so loving, but when we become sense ENT, sensible, and aware of the reality of the world, we lose this innocence.  In a way, this to me sounds like I am saying, that to be loving is to be naïve, and perhaps foolish. As I spoke about in one of my previous posts, the mother of boys would want us to avoid teamwork at all costs, it was always a win-win situation. And in fact, to be loving without getting anything in return, and her eyes would be foolish and a loser situation. Perhaps through all these years of seeing this behavior and being taught such, I have learned that to be loving for just the sake of being loving, to be a good person, isn’t actually good, it is foolish.

Those of us that are intelligent, and aware of the realities of the world are foolish to have such puppy love. As I think about this right now, and throughout the day, somethings come to mind intuitively. Here they are:

What’s the point of being loving? What do you get out of being loving? If people are smart and see what the reality of others are, and they have been hurt many times, maybe they are loving because they are being fake. Those that are loving without issue probably haven’t really experienced much in life, they are naïve, or haven’t really had much bad happen to them. Perhaps they are not very emotionally intelligent and so the world is a happy go lucky face, perhaps developmentally like a child. Of course it is easy for them to be loving, why wouldn’t it be? It is much harder to be loving when you know the truth about people And the world and become disappointed.