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TeeParticipantDear Felix,
I have a need to share something else with you, it’s about the kidney pain. It might be related to the fear you’re feeling at the moment, regarding everything you’re going through – existential fear related to your job, fear because of your dog’s illness, fear because you don’t feel supported by your parents (“my parents are monsters”).
It’s okay to feel fear. You’re not weak or less worthy because of that.
I am checking out of feeling sorry for myself and trying to figure things out.
You don’t need to feel sorry for yourself. However, it would help if you could feel compassion for yourself.
I think the difference between pity and compassion is that in pity, you look at your misery and see no way out, and you dig yourself even deeper. With compassion, you look at your misery, you see how you’re suffering, you feel empathy for yourself, but also, you know there’s a way out. With compassion, there’s always a way out. There’s hope. With pity, you stay in your pit (no pun intended…).
I wonder if you can sense the difference between self-pity and self-compassion? If so, do you think you can feel compassion for yourself right now? Just sit with your pain and feel compassion for yourself?
TeeParticipantDear Javier,
so sorry to hear about that! Have they given you some treatment for the rash? Did they say what might have been the cause?
Whenever I have a physical symptom, I try to think what might be its “spiritual” cause, i.e. psychological cause, like in psychosomatic diseases. A sudden rash on your skin might mean that you can’t bear to be in your own skin, or something like that? Perhaps as you started to soothe yourself with putting your hand on your heart, there’s another layer of pain and discomfort that “got unleashed”, because you can now better “tolerate it”, so to speak. It might have been something that needed to come out, and this is a form of cleansing.
I do hope it gets better soon. Keep doing the soothing exercise (hand on heart and belly), if it helps you.
TeeParticipantDear Felix,
you’re welcome, I am glad if my perspective could help you even a bit. I am very sorry to hear about the unexpected turns in your job search and your dog’s illness. If your kidney pain persist, you may want to have a medical check, but as I said, it could be just “energy” pain, signalling you’re in the fight-or-flight mode and that your body is producing a lot of stress hormones.
Take good care of yourself in the time ahead. I wish you good luck with your job search and everything else. Hope to read from you again, and take care!
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This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by
Tee.
May 16, 2021 at 11:30 pm in reply to: I do not know if I just want to be heard or need some feedback/advice #379954TeeParticipantDear Kibou,
sure, take your time, and next time I won’t shoot another post before you reply to me.
TeeParticipantDear Javier,
it just occurred to me, perhaps you can listen to lullabies too as a way to soothe yourself. There’s a beautiful lullaby by composer Brahms. Both the original version is good, but there’s also a guitar version on youtube (search for Brahms lullaby guitar), which is even more soothing and calm.
TeeParticipantDear Felix,
thanks for your reply, it was good to read from you again.
it’s always like that, the topic is always about them but not me (even with my close friends)… but right now im starting to learn to be more assertive.
Due to he never talks about his emotions, i think it affected me that i have a very weak communications skills and im introverted…i have a very weak communications skills and im introverted…
Regarding your lack of assertiveness and good communication skills, I think it’s mostly because you’re shy and you fear embarrassment (i.e. you have low self-esteem), that’s why you are reluctant to talk to people. A part of it is due to your mother, who sees you as weak and “a reason to worry”, which is pretty bad for your self-confidence. And a part of it due to your father, who is strict and probably you fear his judgment. If he doesn’t have a sense of humor, if he’s a little like a soldier – very disciplined but never shows emotions and vulnerability – then no wonder you would fear him and afraid to be yourself around him.
Around your mother you feel more free to be yourself, to show your weaknesses, but around your father, you need to be on guard. You can’t be spontaneous, you have to pretend. All that contributes to your feeling that you’re judged when in company of others, and you can’t relax and be yourself even with your close friends. Is that the case?
But he can do business successfully without being communicative because he has a leadership trait and high sense of responsibility… making most people respected him.
He’s probably good at giving commands and telling people what to do. Again, like a soldier, or a commander. His employees respect him because he’s probably a just employer, he gives them fair pay and they don’t feel exploited. However, I don’t think they like him too much. I believe they rather fear him. It’s fear and respect combined.
Yes my mom has made me feel weak and unconfident, she even said that when i get married later on i’ll have a room in our new house (the new house is going to built soon). I dont really mind living with them, as i dont have to think about the foods and chores later on…. and also i think if i live alone with my wife later on… with only the two of us, isnt the house going to be so lonely? Do u think with my mother’s personality, could it cause a conflict with my future wife later on? (idk if i’m thinking too far regarding this, as i havent even find myself a girlfriend).
If you want to have a successful relationship, you’d need to first develop self-confidence and self-esteem. That means you’d need to learn to love yourself and have trust in yourself and your own abilities. Your mother has raised you to be weak and dependent on her, to believe that you’re incapable to take care of yourself. She treats you like a baby. You’d first need to separate from that kind of thinking, which you also adopted. You cannot see yourself as weak and incapable if you want to have a healthy relationship.
One way to feel more confident about yourself is to take on some duties in your home – perhaps some chores, or work in the garden – something where you can feel useful and which can give you a sense of accomplishment. You’re not a lazy, incompetent kid – you’re a capable and resourceful smart young man. Try to see yourself like that, and do accordingly.
Make yourself useful in some small way, so you can feel that sense of success and accomplishment. Never mind if you’re not perfect immediately – allow yourself to make mistakes. But try it, keep doing it, and with time, you’ll get better at it. It will give you a tremendous boost to your self-confidence.
I think this is the first step and a precondition for thinking about marriage and starting a family. When you feel more self-confident and stronger, you’ll be in a different space mentally and will be able to make a decision whether to live in your parents’ house or somewhere else. But for now, do everything you can to boost your self-confidence and a sense of accomplishment. This will make you less dependent on your parents too and capable of making your own decisions.
TeeParticipantDear Javier,
you’re welcome, I am so happy that it helped you and that you can feel hope again!
TeeParticipantDear Nar,
good to hear from you again! I am very glad your intrusive images have stopped. First there was a change of image, which was a good sign, and now it’s gone completely. Fantastic! It has to be related to your healing and better understanding of your childhood and how you were hurt without even being aware of it. You embraced that little girl, and I believe it resulted in those intrusive images to stop.
Although we all acknowledge our parents were hurt in one way or another by their own parents and that’s why they were hurting us, I think we are still playing the blaming game. I realised this problem is so deep and goes so far back, that healing through loving an inner child and cutting out a parent that hurt that child is only a partial healing ….because our parents are not to blame, we are all to blame. We as humanity.
When we truly heal, it doesn’t mean we necessarily cut out the parent that hurt us. Rather, we can relate to them differently, having compassion and open heart, but also protecting our boundaries. We heal our side of the relationship, we’re ready and open for a more sincere contact, but if the parent is stuck in their own wounds, blaming us, then we can’t really establish a deeper contact. But it depends on the parent, not on us.
The goal of the inner child healing is not to blame the parents, but to forgive them. We are all wounded children, with the difference that some of us decide to work on it, heal it and take responsibility for our lives, while many others take the easier route of blaming others. Misery propagates because people who refuse to work on themselves keep blaming others for their misery. Entire nations and ethnic groups blame each other. That’s what brings tragedy and war. But those who decide to stop blaming and take responsibility for their lives are the ones who bring humanity forward, who contribute to peace and healing.
I wish you too a nice, hopefully less restricted summer, and lots of positive emotions too!
TeeParticipantP.S. You can try that exercise (breathing deeply and slowly while having one hand on your heart, the other on your belly) even throughout the day, perhaps while you’re listening to a sermon by you favorite pastor. Maybe that would help to connect the soothing, calming effect with a soothing figure – if you believe you’re not strong enough to give that soothing to yourself.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by Tee.
TeeParticipantDear Javier,
it might be related to your fear of dying when you were a small child, living in an abusive home. We hyperventilate when we’re in shock. I remember hyperventilating after a car accident, which thankfully ended up well, but it was terrifying. When that happens to you, put one hand on your heart and the other on your belly, and try to breathe slowly, telling yourself soothing things like “it’s ok, it will pass”, or even soothing sounds that you would tell to a baby when they are upset, like “sshhh, it’s okay, you’re safe”.
Try to comfort yourself like a caring parent would comfort a baby. Do you think you can do that?
TeeParticipantDear Felix,
And in regards to my parents, they weren’t looking at the world like it’s a bad dark place, they just didn’t care about me.
Right – and because they didn’t care about you, your outlook on the world is that it’s a cruel, cold and unforgiving place. But since you did receive love from your grandparents, you’re now not depressed and suicidal, you haven’t collapsed, but are keeping on keeping on… Still, due to your worldview it’s very difficult for you, you feel exhausted, you feel like an overstressed engine that might break at any moment.
And emotionally, you feel lonely, you “crave intimacy and closeness like drug addicts and alcoholics crave their vices.” You feel on the verge in every aspect, saying things like “I might die”, because you feel that your current condition is not really sustainable. You hope it will be better, but at the same time, you say:
“I don’t know how [to love myself], considering I hate my self quite a bit, but I will learn.”
Do you really want to learn how to love yourself?
There is a filter that is skewing my perception of the world and my parents had some part to play in it because they ignored me and didn’t show love, and didn’t help me to build my future, but I’m not a little boy anymore. I want to stand up on my own. I am being my own parent right now, I am trying to look past the filter, I am trying to be a little bit more open minded.
The little boy is still inside of you. When you say “I’m not a little boy anymore, I want to stand up on my own”, you’re disregarding his needs and going into the Protector mode, which tells you that you can heal and thrive without tending to that little boy. Without tending to his pain. Without being a loving, compassionate parent to him – rather than a strict boot-camp coach that is pushing him to achieve and “keep fighting until you die.”
You’ve been a boot-camp coach to yourself, you’ve been pushing yourself to the limits, you’ve been “struggling, but not giving up”. It does seem you’re being a little gentler with yourself recently, such as what you mentioned in your points 1-3. That’s a good development – keep that up.
However, true healing will require some deeper work, the kind of work where you can be a compassionate, not a boot-camp parent to yourself. Where you can meet that boy, comfort him and tell him that he isn’t alone. That’s when you’ll start truly loving yourself…
I’ve been telling you all this before, don’t know if it will reach you now. But that’s the only path to self-love that I know works, and it works long-term. It’s a deep, transformational healing.
TeeParticipantDear lk09,
I am glad you didn’t actually need my “rescue” and can filter things that you don’t think apply to you. I wasn’t sure, so I thought I better chip in… well, it ended how it ended.
I don’t really feel guilty, but I was and am willing to consider how I might have still hurt Anita unintentionally. You say you don’t see it – glad about that. If Anita feels like talking about it, I am very open to it – better to talk things through if possible…
I care about you too, lk09, you’re an amazing young woman and you deserve all the happiness in the world. Take care and keep us posted!
TeeParticipantOh okay, get it. Yeah the punctuation can be a tricky thing 🙂
TeeParticipantDear lk09,
I am so glad you’re feeling better and have opened up more to your friends, being vulnerable, sharing your insecurities. Also, that you’re writing inspiring stories. I’ll be happy to read your blog once you upload it.
I saw the posts, you both left each other.
How do you believe I “left” Anita? Can you please share your view, because I don’t see what I did wrong in either addressing the issue of histrionic behavior, or treating her. I don’t see how I should have posted in a way not to offend her.
I believe Anita’s contribution here is incredibly valuable, and this forum wouldn’t be the same without her. It’s like 99,99% of her contributions are super helpful, only this one might not have been so much. That’s why I reacted. But she took it personally, she felt bad about it, and wished me farewell soon after. I truly don’t see my mistake here, but please tell me how you see it.
I enjoyed communicating with you too, lk09, and hope to hear more from you, not only when you’re “so utterly lost that I can comprehend my own thoughts” but otherwise too 🙂
Wish you well too!
TeeParticipantDear Felix,
good to read from you!
I know there are decent companies out there and I will NEVER work for another evil company again. No amount of money will make me do that.
It’s good to hear you’re not compromising your core values. For a moment, when reading your previous post, I thought you decided to accept a high-paying job in some company you despise. But you haven’t – you stick to your principles. That’s great.
I do like technology and I enjoy studying so I can take these exams. I am not studying and hating every second of it. Not at all.
This is also good. You’re not hating the field you’re in, in fact you like it. So there’s no need to look for something else. IT is a huge field and everyone needs IT services, so I believe you should be able settle in a decent company (or even a school or a public institution – are you eligible for that being a foreign citizen?) and earn decent money, to have a decent living.
Every company cares about profit, but there’s a difference between a company that also cares about its employees and one which exploits its employees for a bottom line. I hope you can find a company or institution where you’ll earn decent money and feel respected rather than exploited.
If I don’t take care of myself, if I don’t get paid enough money, if I don’t study my a%% off, I’ll be in trouble. That’s the world we live in and not my perception of the world. … The world is unforgiving.
It’s true to a point – America is pretty hard-core capitalism and it’s probably harder to make it there than in Sweden or some more socially sensitive Western country. And it’s not socialism like the former USSR, which was in my opinion not a good system at all. In fact, it was a much worse system than free initiative and entrepreneurship that you get in capitalism. However, it could be that workers’ conditions are harder in the USA (I know there’s almost no paid maternity leave for example), so perhaps that’s one of the reasons you’re experiencing more of the “unforgiving world” than you would in some other country. I can’t really tell because I don’t live in the USA.
I get it and I appreciate your breakdown of the personality thing. I am not sure I fully understand it, but I get it. And you’re probably right. But I live in this terrible reality (terrible in a sense of the reality of capitalism, competition, greed, etc.) and I don’t know what else to do.
Try to understand that there are decent companies, who do care abut their employees. That America is not just soulless, greedy, cut-throat capitalism. Open yourself up to that possibility. I know it’s hard for you because you base your conclusions on your so-far experiences, and your negative experiences go far back into your childhood and youth, where you didn’t get help from your parents and were left to tend for yourself.
Your experience of the world started forming very early when you were a young child, when you experienced your parents as cold, brutal and lacking compassion for you. This was a base for later experiencing the world exactly the same: cold, brutal and unforgiving. The way you experienced your parents defined how you later experienced the world. Can you accept that notion?
Your experience of the world is colored by your experience of your parents. It’s as if you’re looking everything through a filter that distorts and skews the image, because it magnifies certain (negative) experiences, and leaves out other (positive) experiences. You get a distorted image, because of that filter. If you’d remove the filter, the image of the world would change.
I know the Universe doesn’t conspire against anyone, even though it feels like it sometimes, but what the hell is this? Why am going through all this? When does it end?
This is the result of the filter. It skews your perception. It feels horrible. You’re only experiencing negative things. It feels like the universe is conspiring against you, it feels like the universe is cold, harsh and lacks compassion (like your parents). It doesn’t give you any good news, it doesn’t give you a break. If you’d remove the filter, it would give you a different image.
I have pain in the kidneys. I am sure it’s nothing serious, but it’s still bothering me.
It’s most probably nothing physical. The adrenal glands are above the kidneys, and they produce adrenaline and cortisol – hormones of stress. They’re produced when we’re in the fight-or-flight, i.e. survival mode. You’ve been operating in this mode for quite a while…
I am struggling, but I am not giving up. I will never give up. I just wish that there was some, just a little tiny bit, of good news. Just anything that’s positive would help me. But it’s mostly been the other way around.
What I’ve been trying to say is that you’re struggling against the skewed image of the world. If you’d remove the filter, you wouldn’t need to struggle that much.
What do you think? Can you accept that you might need to remove the filter, so you can experience a better, more positive reality?
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This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by
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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. 