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Dear Anita,
In your childhood, it was you, not your mother, who was the fragile puppy. When your empathy is with the real fragile puppy in the context of your mother- yourself, that empathy, redirected, will empower your individual voice of reason
I read your post, both of them, twice. And this quote above sticks out the most.
I do not have empathy for the fragile puppy – myself. I may/may not see my mother as fragile anymore. But what is more important – is that I do NOT see myself as fragile.
In a way, because I have become “hardened” and lack some of that softness we speak about – I don’t see myself as fragile at all – but instead, hard, harsh, angry, stern, severe – to name a few terms. none of these terms allow for patience for a fragile wounded puppy – do they?
I am not sure if I have empathy for her anymore to be quite honest, I know I did for a very long time of course. I don’t feel this way actively, but perhaps because I have been ingrained this way it remains somewhere. What I do know is that whether I do or don’t, as above, that empathy is definitely not for myself.
I notice how I often berate my own self, and notice that – like our previous thread, there is often the blame game.
The blame game does not exist in a place where you have kindness and empathy. As I spoke in that conversation, the goal of that game is to create hate, to assign guilt and blame. If I truly had empathy for myself, I wouldn’t so quickly seek a way to berate and “punish” myself/thought processes.
I see that these concepts are related, and I am piecing it together. I am human, I am allowed to err, and grow, to be fragile (especially after being beaten down by a vicious wolf my whole life).
I notice also that because I have been cruel and attacking to my husband – that is a MAJOR reason why I do not see myself as a fragile puppy – or have empathy for myself. This is a key point, perhaps we can speak more about this after you reply.
Dear Anita,
Thank you for explaining to me the concept of habit and your terms. And also bringing up my mental habit of glorifying others. I have thought about this day in and day out since we brought it up, noticing any time where I may feel that I am glorifying someone else or that by reflex I feel that I am inferior to that person or their life. In fact, in my yoga class yesterday, the teacher spoke about the concept of the grass is not greener on the other side, the grass is green on both sides. He stated that it is human nature to think that if someone else has something different than us —by definition what we have is not good enough. I thought that it was interesting that he brought this up, to a public class. Because there are times where I forget that what I think in my head May not be unique to me, although I may do it to a more extreme extent. I do forget that many people to suffer with the idea that they by nature think that the circumstance that others have is better than their own even -without knowing much about the other persons circumstance. I have spent a good amount of time beating myself up over the fact that I do this, but not realizing that it is human nature to an extent. But only an extent. The pathology lies that although it is human nature to an extent, many of these people do not have the upbringing that I do, the Disney world example, and so it is not to them the suffering I have from this sort of mentality. For others it may be a transient Thought or idea. However I noticed that for me it is much more than that it is a root cause of suffering, many roots of suffering I do have based on the mother voice, and this is one of them. Anyway regardless of what is human nature to others or not. This yoga teachers passage did get me to think, do I in fact believe that my life is inferior to others. Do I in fact believe that I am inferior to others? What a question, how absurd sounding. Well to an untrained ear. How could I think that way look at my life, great career successful husband living in an amazing city bounty of friends and family galore. And this is the exact thing that kept me from seeing that The mother voice always kept me back.
So, the thesis of what I am trying to say is the following. Nothing I do in life, no where I go in life ever matters. Because I am fed to believe that nothing is good enough -everything that I am not is worth seeking. Everything that I am not doing at this exact moment is worth seeking. Everywhere that I am not is worth being at. Everything that I do not like is worth exploring. I cannot sit with myself as I am, because the way I am as a baseline is flawed. By definition. Always. We as a family are flawed, we are born into unfortunate circumstance, what a tragedy. Our life on this or earth by definition can never lead to contentment
Dear Anita,
I responded again perhaps before or after your post. Yes, you are right. Exiting the blame game, the game with no useful outcome.
how are you? how is your leg?
I thought about what I value a lot all weekend. I will brainstorm more here, today.
Dear Anita,
Absolutely right, I was not even introduced to three, I did not realize it existed, nor did I believe it (lets say last year as an adult) would be a feasible option. An “allowed” one.
It is exactly this, suffering, or inflicting. It had to be this way – this was “resolution.”
Without realizing my “resolving” and coping mechanism had to do with coming to either one of these 2 choices.
so to answer your question, blame is not the goal – the goal is the following, I’ll give you an anecdote from my weekend:
I had a friend visiting from LA, he is a good friend from my training, and we are all apart of a larger group of friends from this time. However, he and I have remained close over the years since, in a more personal way. He often comes to me with advice, given that he is in his mid 30s, but quite a “late bloomer.” He is just beginning to date and explore parts of life that many of us started in college, and thus, he is in a different mental place than most of our group.
Anyway, he stayed over Thursday evening, my husband has also become friends with him. I went off to work Friday and we all convened Friday night, a large group dinner and hangout.
Saturday morning I was very tired, I felt cranky, irritable, etc. I thought about how my friend is childish. He is akin to a 12 year old who shows up, stays over, leaves a mess and is off on his day. You can’t blame the child, because you say he is a child, he doesn’t know better – but an adult? I started to think about this, and the more I thought the more I got agitated. My goal of this anecdote isn’t to explain his behavior or exactly why – it is the following:
I wanted to blame him…but then I thought about it – I blamed myself. CC you knew you may get annoyed, you didn’t have to be so involved. Why did you sign up for that.
Then I took a moment, I thought to myself, blame him: annoying immature. blame me: foolish, over-extender.
Neither is fact, neither is 100% true or relevant. So before I wrote this passage to you I thought about the goal – the goal is to decrease suffering, to come to a conclusion that does not promote blame or hatred, but sees the situation for what it really is. It is not the goal to find the “winner” the blame carrier. There is no productivity in this, there is no learning, there is no growth, it is wasted suffering.
So I analyzed again. I said, he has some qualities that irk me, and I am sure I have qualities that irk him. We are different people – we do not have to be the same. We enjoy each others friendship, and that is fine. It doesn’t have to be one extreme or another, love everything about someone or hate everything about them. I don’t have to hate the evening we had, I don’t have to hate myself for attending our outing. Did I have fun? Yes. So what is the problem.
See people for what they are, take ownership of what your expectations are, and where the person stands in reality. Blaming them, causes suffering for me. Blaming me, causes suffering for me.
You said to me a short while back, it is important for me to be a good person to my husband, not just for him, but for myself.
I asked why?
You answered, because in order for me to heal, I must believe I am a good person.
Similar, I must not create negativity – by blaming/hating the other person or myself. There is no use in this, there is no gain from it.
So the goal is, option 3, reasonable analysis of the reality of the situation, and a reasonable view of yourself and the other party. It is maintaining myself as a good, calm person. Not a hateful one.
Dear Anita,
I hope you had a great week. I took some time to reply to your last message as wanted to work on my homework, the homework that was assigned. I wanted to take some time to think about it thoroughly and not just respond with the first things that come to mind. As value is beyond that.
>In fact me even explaining this is quite telling- and ironically the basis of my entry today. I thought about how I feel a lot of duty and responsibility to be very responsive, and often deep down inside my wishes have a lot to do with the fact that I wish I didn’t have such a tendency or underlying guilt to perform this way. In fact just a second ago I wrote to you an explanation of why I took longer than my 1-2 days normally to respond to you, without you even asking. I explain to you why I took normal human brain power to think about a question you asked. Why did I feel the need to explain something like this, especially since you did not interrogate?I have done this often, not that it’s over explaining, but that monologue inside myself to have to explain why. Why. If At any given moment I am not performing to the extreme maximum that I “should be always performing. Whether that be at work or socially. I noticed that this is self-inflicted. I noticed that also sometimes when not realizing it is self-inflicted, the annoyance or frustration can be directed outwards being- annoyed at the other party, “gosh why do I always have to be so responsive to this person.” Well I don’t. Sure there are circumstances in which this is true, for example my mother. But that is not the reality of most people in life. Perhaps I am so programmed to have a knee-jerk over responsiveness because of course my mother trained me this way anything longer than a second to respond her wall was not even an option I wasn’t a responder I was actually an extension of her! Or so that was the role. most people are not bloodsucking for our time and energy, and if we give it away like that without then asking without a true need to… Well that is only a conversation we are having with our own self. That is only something that I can redirect in my own self
I talk and think a lot about ”needing to do” and guilt, however I don’t believe guilt is the right term for me nor is it responsibility nor is it duty, its a combination of all of this, over doing perhaps. which you actually understand without me trying to explain it in a concise word or phrase. Which is a breath of fresh air!I used to think that the concept of me putting this on myself was equal to self blaming. As in feeling that it was myself that was responsible for feeling guilty over these actions, because in reality there was no need for me to feel guilty it was self-inflicted. This felt like a self claim it felt like I was taking all of the responsibility and the outside world was taking none, and of course they should!
I used to think that it was equal to self shaming, or taking too much responsibility and not giving any to others. I can see this perspective I can see how this concept may seem like we only have ourselves to blame and not others. But now I see it as something different.
I now see it as that it’s not a blame game at all.
I have been raised to always have everything be a blame game. I didn’t think about this prior to this moment I didn’t think about this prior to this moment.
Who’s fault is it? My mom would always say, always finding a fault in either herself or the other person.
It was either do I hate myself for this or do I hate the other person?
So from a young age I always look for fault, I always look for blame. I thought to myself is it me or is it her? Wow who is to blame, who should feel bad. Because of course in any given situation someone must feel bad!
Am I angry at myself for this or am I angry at the other person?
Never was it, will that person was kind of annoying, but I also didn’t need to do XY or Z. Recognizing a molecule of flaw in the other party and also a molecule of flaw in yourself in that moment. It’s not inflicting for hatred on that person nor is it inflicting for hatred on yourself. It is not typecasting that person or their behavior as a certain thing nor is it on yourself. No one is to blame. Blame is not the goal, hate is not the goal<
Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine. 