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Cali ChicaParticipant
My gosh Anita. We must celebrate our 3 year communicating friend anniversary!!!
Cali ChicaParticipantDear Anita,
Funny thing is I already have something to report back. Because my tendency is also to analyze. I know it is your tendency to analyze as well, I know this because we have been talking for over a year now, and this is the beauty of our interaction. But I do believe that it also hinders the both of us from having relaxation at times.
Anyway,
left work and took a walk. I sat down outside somewhere to have a cup of tea, as it is finally nice weather here. I did not rush home like I usually do. I wanted some time to myself, not peace and quiet per se as it is a beautiful bustling afternoon in Soho, but time to my own thoughts without anyone else.
Here is what I observed this far, and of course I analyzed, I am not going to judge myself for analyzing right now. I am also not going to judge you for it, because that is the beauty of our emotional intelligence, and perhaps I can work on that one time, so, right now I am grateful that I even took the time to observe.
I noticed that I am kind. I noticed that I am friendly. I noticed that I like to interact with others. I noticed that if someone is sitting next to me and something about them sparked my interest I want to say something. I don’t want to keep this thought to myself, it is natural for me to share my thoughts. This has been a great / appreciated quality of mine over the years, it has allowed me to interact with many people, form great relationships, show compassion, and be more relatable to a wide variety of people than almost anyone I know.In short, I can get along with, relate to, and converse with almost anyone. But, today I am noticing how that keeps me from sitting with myself. Often, instead of listening to my own thoughts I choose to speak. Let’s say I am starting to think about what stresses me out during the day, if someone next to me with a beautiful dress Walks by, I may want to, and say wow I really like your dress I was going to get something like that last week. The girl may exclaim that’s amazing, and maybe we would start conversing for a few minutes. Nice talk with a nice stranger.
What perhaps the couple sitting next to me are tourists from Europe, they are chatting about where to go for dinner, I overhear. I might interrupt and give them a recommendation kindly, they will be very pleased and say thank you, thank you for being such a kind New Yorker and helping us out.
None of this is negative. But do you see. How this takes away from me… and focuses on them../
Cali ChicaParticipantDear Anita,
Thank you for this excellent point. What I will do, if I am successful at non-escaping. I will try to journal or jot down what my mental chatter is, what that noise is. I know it will take practice. I know it is not a perfect exercise in which you stop and your thoughts come to your head and you are able to analyze them. I also know that it is quite confusing. We play mind games with ourselves, we might think that we are OK just sitting with ourselves but our mind is still trying to escape, like a puppy in a cage- playful at times and seemingly at ease, and also a the same time anxious and frustrated. Regardless – I will do some observations this weekend, and report back.
Cali ChicaParticipantDear Anita,
I absolutely agree, it feels very good to go back to a point that was touched on before, and that made sense but in a superficial sense. As in, it made sense in “theory” but did not sink and savor.
Now, I feel that it makes much more sense.
Seeking feels like doing and being productive, but in fact it is running away – it is an escape a solace
But here’s the thing, this isn’t a restorative escape, because this “escape” involves doing.
What would be in fact a true solace is to allow myself to disengage, and wind down – to press the snooze button (so to speak)
Cali ChicaParticipantDear Anita,
Thank you for explaining this well, we have touched on it before.
The seeking is running away…
running away from discomfort, distress..yes it is.
Cali ChicaParticipantDear Anita,
Super is replaced with Special. I like that
I am thinking a lot about what Super means
Super seemingly means great! trying, ambitious, willing
But today, nowadays, super doesn’t sound so super at all
it sounds exhausting, and frankly a little foolish
I visualize a person running around circles, and getting no where – aimless, trying, seeking, but why?
no real answer as to why…it does take wisdom and humility to not now, and be able to sit with that…
Cali ChicaParticipantDear Anita,
What I thought about today, was the concept of saying I don’t know.
See Super Cali Chica always needs to have an answer – a decision, something to DO, something to find out, a way to go.
But I am noticing that so often the answer is – to not know. Or at least for now.
The concept of I don’t have an answer, and that’s okay – to say I don’t know – and that’s it.
To sit with that, to maybe perhaps know the answer in the future, or let it come in time – let it be
i don’t control everything, and so therefore, jumping to an answer is a delusion, an illusion that I can do something to change everything and fix everything.
to sit back and say I don’t know – I feel I can do that better now, and I will continue to this weekend.
Cali ChicaParticipantDear Anita great points, I think of this in my own words as having an identity, the identity for me was given by my mother. As much as I am very proud of a lot of it, I don’t realize what parts I just took on as my own without thinking and what parts I actually chose. I will think about this tonight as homework
Cali ChicaParticipantDear Anita,
Yes it was. It wasn’t a lie because I am not special. It was a lie because she did not mean it.
She spewed out words that were convenient to her at the time, to decrease her suffering, to escape from the critical voice as you say.
If I say to my sister for example, make more friends, mom is right – at this age you should be out socializing more
my mom may then say, look how mature and wise you are daughter
if as a kid I say to mom, god that friend is so annoying and jealous of us, we shouldn’t talk to her..
my mom might say, look how astute you are in seeing this, see how smart!
she may say anything – but if it fits the “non-critical” agenda in her head – yes
the moment it doesn’t — I am garbage, I am nothing
Cali ChicaParticipantdear Anita,
How well put, this is exactly what it is.
She wanted to escape from this self-critical voice. If she saw it in others, her own self critical voice, her own reality, she would want to push those people far away. She could not handle the “truth” – truth being the self-critical voice.
She did make up things in order to sooth herself, convince herself things to drown out the self critical voice. She then fed my sister and I these “values” these made up delusions.
So as an adult, I navigate this world with these delusions. Unlike her, I am functional, and I don’t consistently run away from self criticism — but on the contrary living a life of delusion. Not knowing the true definition, of love, support, morality, or meaning of life. Not knowing the true definition of what it is to be a good person, partner, and content human being.
Her abuse in many parts was this pushing away of this self-criticism. But as a result she also changed the idea of what my sister and I thought was right and wrong. It became normal to approach life in this way, and not face issues with any sort of coping. It became normal to live in fear, and believe anything and everything – as we were taught only lies to begin with.
Cali ChicaParticipantDear Anita,
It sure was. In fact, some of which I only realized during our recent exercise. Here are some of the things I observed during this exercise (in addition to all that I have written recently)
- my mother’s voice to me in private, the true mother-daughter talk is forgotten. because it was not important. it was not important to her to speak to me, her daughter in a certain way – in order for my development to be appropriate or positive.
- all of the mother-daughter talk that is remembered is her talking AT me, about life, and tragedy, and woe is me, and “lessons” about the bad world, and what I should and should not do.
- I see now, as an adult, that the talk between an adult and child also “should” include aspects of self development, and identity development. or if not promoting that out right – at least not inhibiting it.
- her voice to the public about me was not congruent with her voice to me
- in fact she was unpredictable all around – and so this not develop trust in a child, and it surely does not build..self trust
Cali ChicaParticipantDear Anita,
Let’s continue today (if you are able) to continue as the “adult” me. I smile while I type that, because the adult me often does not feel adult. So much of the mother voice keeps me as a child, a doting child, a child not allowed to grow, a child that was GIVEN an identity by another…and not allowed to develop her own.
A child who has been programmed NOT to follow her intuition or sit with her feelings, but instead FLEE, ESCAPE, AND DO.
Cali ChicaParticipantDear Anita,
I thought about your last post a lot, MORE than I ever have thought about any post between us up to date.
Why?
Because I was able to receive this post fully, as I am in the appropriate mindset and stage in my healing journey.
Therefore, when I read your words, they made perfect sense, they sunk in, and I was able to sink and savor.
It gives me respect for time, we can not force it, and if I am unable to process a concept fully – it perhaps is not the right time, perhaps my mind is not ready yet – and that is okay. Slow and steady goes the process.
You wrote:
To be happy in your life you have to feel that sad feeling, have to let it be, for a while. Let it be. When Cali Chica rushes and rushes, trying to not feel this sad feeling, it is not good for her, for Cali Chica, she gets stressed that way, rushing, running away from this sad feeling. You are strong enough, I know. You will be okay if you stay with this sadness for a while.
Anita, in my life, for as long as I recall, I never have sat with my feelings. First of all, I rushed to do the next thing because I simply told myself the delusion that there “wasn’t time to waste.” Second, from our work in the exercise thus far, it was a coping mechanism to not feel the bad feelings of sadness, empathy, and despair. From a young age I was given those feelings from my mother, and my role in her life, so it only makes sense that my mind protected me from this as I got older.
Yet, this protective mechanism comes with a cost. The cost of frenzy.
The cost of rushing and zipping here and there. Of not sitting with myself.
Of feeling sad, but having a coffee and jumping to the next. Seemingly “moving forward” but never processing at all.
So as time goes on, coping mechanisms don’t develop, sadness/pain is not processed, and what we have here is a life of “progress” and driving forward, but no actual “progress” or development of the soul.
The soul suffers, stagnant and full of unprocessed emotions and traumas. The mind is forced to continue until adulthood, but suffering and struggling, drowning in all that was pushed behind.
So you question – who am I? Why am I not happy? Why am I always rushing and feeling stressed? Why is that OFF switch broken?
I have never ever allowed myself the peace and quiet of sitting with my own self and my feelings.
And yes, there is that fear that if I allow the sadness to be truly felt, I may not be okay – so I must ACT FAST and seek. Why sit still, when you can do? What is the point of sitting around sulking, when you could jump up and find a solution.
But solutions are not found this way, and not processing emotions does not EVER lead to any true growth, solution, or positive change.
Do not be afraid to sit, to feel.
Do not fear it. Allow it. Let it be.
Cali ChicaParticipantDear Anita,
If I feel this…I will feed sad, tired, heavy. I will cry a lot – I will not be happy in my life
Cali ChicaParticipantdear Anita,
I don’t think I do this, but i do not know —
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