Dear Anita,

I love your posts on the other thread: Tee calling it like it is! Tee will not be told to be quiet and obey!

Thanks, Anita. To be honest, I don’t like conflict, I’m not looking forward to it at all. But I felt something needed to be said, because the style of communication was not respectful, but was putting people down. And so I felt the need to address it… but as I said, I don’t like situations like this at all 😕

Since I haven’t been in any contact with her for about 12 years, and I’ve been significantly healing recently, I am no longer dissociated, so the FEAR of her- I FEEL it. It’s real and intense.

I’m sorry your fear is still pretty intense.

Even in the most physically weak state, she WILL divide me and turn me against.. me, weakening me in this way, which is her life legacy in my life (self-division, disintegration, dissociation, chronic shame and guilt)

I understand your trepidation, and it will take gradual healing. But the bottom line is that your mother can only be a threat if there is a part of you that still believes her lies. If there is a “hook” in you, by which she can catch you.

It’s good that you’ve become aware of the various lies that she conditioned you to accept (lies about yourself, her, other people and the world). If you believe any of those lies, she will have a “weapon” against you.

The problem is that those lies run deeper than our conscious mind – they are in our subconscious. Our inner child believes them. Which means that in order to stop believing them, we’ll need to heal our inner child.

So the goal would be to become a parent for our inner child, who will tell positive, affirming things to our inner child (to counter your mother’s lies), and also who will protect LGA from your mother’s attacks. Because even if you haven’t spoken to your mother for 12 years, your inner child is still living in the same old dynamic: feeling terrified of your mother, perhaps even feeling sorry for her and believing that she is the victim, etc.

You have been working with LGA on rewriting some of those old programs, e.g. the program that your mother is a victim whom you need to protect. So perhaps that “program” is not so strongly active any more?

But another program, in which you’re afraid of her ruining your sense of self and breaking you down psychologically (“she WILL divide me and turn me against.. me, weakening me in this way”) is probably still pretty strong…

The goal would be to work on strengthening your sense of self. Whenever there is doubt and the inner critic (your mother’s internalized voice) starts shaming you, to stop that voice and give yourself compassion.

The adult Anita – the good parent – should stop the harmful messages of the inner critic, and counter them with a loving, supportive message. That’s how you can protect LGA from your mother’s attacks.

So whenever you hear the voice of the inner critic, you should counter it with self-compassion. I think that’s how you should be able to strengthen LGA and in turn achieve that she is less afraid of your mother.

What do you say?

About that LOVE ME longing post from yesterday, similar to other such posts in the past (and more to come), it’s the undoing of dissociation work as part of my healing; going back in time and having the dissociated, silent inner child SPEAK.

It’s okay as long as you also let the inner child know that she is not alone, that the adult Anita is there for her.

Because if you keep repeating your longing and telling yourself that it will never be satiated (The DESIRE to be loved by her: endless.. And futile. A never to be satisfied DESIRE. It’s a thirst that can never be quenched.), it might actually strengthen the old belief that there is no way out, and that you’ll be stuck in that hopeless longing forever.

So if you let the LGA speak and express her pain, but not offer to soothe her and comfort her, it might actually reaffirm the trauma.

But if you take her in your arms and soothe her, telling her that you love her and cherish her, it will actually start changing that old imprint. It will be healing for LGA (rewriting the old script and healing the old trauma). At least that’s how I view it…

I hope you’re slowly getting out of the cold/flu… How is Bogart doing? Have you found the way to protect the computer cables and other important items from being chewed on?

🤍 🫶 🙏 🫶 🤍

Dear Anita,

I am sorry you were feeling poorly yesterday.. how is it today? Hope you’re feeling better… I’m glad that breathing helped you not panic 🙏

I’ll reply to the rest of your post a bit later, probably only tomorrow.

Good to hear that you can use the computer again – that’s one piece of good news! 😊

Take care, and till later!

🤍 🫶 🤍

Hi James,

Of course, your love in this forum is not true (most of the people here). Because, if I say something bad or tough (I talked like that to show you guys what separate self is), you guys just get angry and protective. Love doesn’t depend on circumstances or situation, love is the moment. Therefore, your love is a game of ego.

Excellent, James, for protecting your ego even more from the onslaughts of truth 😉

BTW, Jesus reacted differently to scribes and Pharisees and money changers, and differently to people in real need… his love wasn’t always the same either…

Hi James,

My son is good. Doctor’s said that many child can have tycacardia with birth, but it will pass when he gets older.

I’m glad your son is well. I’ve asked because when you presented it, your sounded like it was a big concern. You mentioned it in the same sentence with the fact that you had an open heart surgery and have a mechanical valve and a pacemaker. Here is the full paragraph:

i had an open heart surgery, right now having a mechanical valve and pacemaker (therefore lost my entire modelling career) and my son diagnosed with tycacardia. So, Life and body have it’s own will. Realization of Truth came with lots of suffering.

It sounded like this is causing you a lot of suffering: both your own condition and your son’s condition.

You also said elsewhere: Life is suffering.

So I felt compassion for you because I thought your life is hard, that you have a debilitating condition which is limiting you in many ways, which may be specially hard for a young person like yourself. And so I thought that your physical condition and the difficulties that ensue from it are the reasons why you have strange views about life, body, death, etc.

You were saying things like why care about your body when you can get killed in a car accident anytime:

The core of stress is expectations. For instance, you eat healthy, work out and did exactly what is main media says about “living healthy” and you have car accident and get paralyzed. Won’t it be more suffering for you, because you did everything right, yet everything turned out to be unexpected way?

Or:

No matter how much self-help you get, one piece of bad news can shatter your whole world.

So I thought that something like that happened to you: that you were living a healthy lifestyle, taking care of your body and all that, and then one day, your heart gave up. And that out of the blue, your entire life collapsed. And that it was a huge shock for you, and you feel bitter and disappointed. And that you concluded that all is in vain – all care, striving, doing your
best, etc.

Sure, all of those were my assumptions, based on what you have been sharing here. However, during the course of our conversation, I’ve realized that you hadn’t been actually living a healthy lifestyle, and that your heart problem didn’t come out of the blue, but as a result of heavy drug use.

So your remark that “why make any effort when you can lose everything in a moment” doesn’t actually refer to you, because nothing like that happened to you.

Anyway, what’s quite surprising to me is how you reacted after having a brush with death – after having a heart surgery that saved your life. You said it was a wake-up call, which compelled you to search for the truth. And I totally understand your sentiment.

However, the way you went about this quest for truth is quite peculiar: max dosages of hallucinogenic drugs, and then putting yourself through a torture of 365 days living in isolation and darkness. Which I don’t think is a smart decision for someone with a heart condition. (BTW I’ve never asked you how come you actually chose that route, and why you thought that you can only find the truth that way: by basically separating yourself from the life on this planet for a full year?)

After a year spent in isolation and darkness, you’ve emerged on the other side with a set of peculiar beliefs, which sound like dissociation:

Body doesn’t belong to me.

Any given name or experience or feelings belongs to body and mind. Mind and body is not me.

The one who had surgery wasn’t me, it was the body.

Body feels pain yet there is no one to suffer.

Not only do you feel separated from your body and mind – you also believe that this condition is called love:

About experience of meditation that, when recognition happened that any experience belongs to body and mind, therefore no one to there to claim. James is dead. Therefore, Body feels pain yet there is no one to suffer. And that’s what Love is.

According to you, love is a dissociated state, where showing any care for anything in this world (be it for your own body or your own feelings or other people’s feelings) is considered the sign of the ego:

To do something try to protect to heart is more stress to heart.

Try to take care your body and cause more stress. You have no idea how free and beauty it is without you.

Health life, more laugh, going to gym etc… Purpose of all these stuff underlines one thing. Survival. And in %99 of these people are extremely afraid of death

Many of you here to say kind words or saying ah darling you are so good stuff or heart emojis stiff… But all is a lie.

So any kind of caring, according to you, is an expression of the ego. If we here on Tiny Buddha express care and kindness towards each other, we’re in the ego and we’re lying to ourselves.

Those are the beliefs that you’ve been propagating on this forum, James. But I don’t think they are a sign of enlightenment.

No spiritual tradition teaches that love is expressed by detachment and not caring. Unhealthy attachment is of the ego, healthy caring and compassion (including self-care and self-compassion) are divine.

You are putting so much stress on you. I can see from your questionings.

Yes, I wanted to understand you, James. I did care about you and your physical condition, as well as your son. But I see that you’re not in so much physical pain and suffering. Which is good, and I’m glad about that.

So I’ll quit trying to understand your story and your pain.

As for your beliefs, you might find them helpful and they might be working for you (at least for the time being), but I don’t think they’re helpful in general, or reflect a deeper truth about life.

Anyway, I wish you and your son all the best, including good health!

* you view care as an expression of the ego.

Hi James,

isolation and meditation retreats are the best for surrendering the self and body.

Yes, but it wasn’t just a mere spiritual retreat, James. It was living in darkness for an entire year. Here’s what AI says about living in darkness for a prolonged period of time:

Living in prolonged darkness severely disrupts your internal body clock (circadian rhythm), leading to sleep problems, fatigue, and mental health issues like depression, while causing physical problems such as Vitamin D deficiency, weak bones, heart trouble, and altered hormone levels, potentially causing hallucinations and vision changes due to sensory deprivation.

It’s putting yourself through extreme sensory deprivation. Which affects both your physical health (apparently isn’t good for your heart either) and messes up with your mind too. No one does such “retreats”, simply because they are harmful.

Krishnamurti has a say, to die every moment is the only way to live without fear.

You’re mixing two things: there is the fear of the ego, and there is the legitimate care for our body, which stops us from putting ourselves into reckless, dangerous situations, which might kill us or disable us.

Extensive drug use or exposing our body to extreme deprivation (such as living in darkness for an entire year) are examples of reckless behavior that puts our body into unnecessary jeopardy.

Self-care (if it’s reasonable and not self-obsessed) is not a feature of the ego. It belongs to healthy self-love, which is what Jesus was talking about too: to love ourselves. Hurting and depriving our body on purpose isn’t love.

People who reasonably care about their body aren’t stuck in their ego. They just follow common sense and even what’s written in the Scripture, if you will.

In short, there are many forms of ego fear, but reasonable self-care isn’t one of them…

Dear Anita,

it could be that dogs (puppies) come with a temperament, and that even though they are treated the same by the breeder, they behave and react differently? But I hope that with enough love and patience, his anxiety will lessen and that he’d become more curious, open and playful 🤞 🙏

My mother’s MO was to create divisions between people. Thing is, when I tried to be on her side against someone she was against, she didn’t let me in (so that she and I were a team against whomever she was against), so it wasn’t ““us vs. them”, as in me and her vs them. She just wouldn’t allow me to be an “us” with her.

Yeah, “us vs. them” would be more in a work setting, where there are inevitably groups of people. The narcissist thrives on diving people against each other and imposing themselves as the leader of one group.

At home, the narcissist divides family members against each other (e.g. one sibling against the other), and I think the goal is to weaken others and make themselves stronger and superior.

And ultimately, if only 2 people remain: you and your mother, she needs to feel superior to you. So the context might be different, but the need to dominate and put down others remains the same…

But good point, Tee, I need to add something, some daily visualization.. the hug you suggested I give myself.

Yes, I think giving yourself love is really important. A self-hug is good, or when you feel the craving for love that you wrote 2 days ago, to give your inner child that love. To communicate with her and tell her “I’m here for you, sweetie, I love you, I’ll protect you”, or whatever words you prefer to use.

So if LGA starts feeling that emptiness and craving again, to be there to soothe that craving. I think that might be at least as powerful as affirmations. To figuratively pick up your inner child, take her into your arms and soothe her, letting her know you’ll never leave her…

I’m sorry to hear about your cold. I hope it will ease up soon… perhaps stay inside (specially if it’s rainy and no sunshine), to help you recover more quickly 🤞

Take good care of yourself!

🤍 🫶 🙏 🤍