Here's a Little Insight
Here's a little insight as to what's going on in my codependency motivations:
Since I was threatened, or conditioned, to please my parents to be ideal instead of real in order to belong and feel safe and secure, I repeat the same mental behavior out of habit with everyone else I meet; especially after being taught, by reward, from teachers in school on how to behave and what to know. As I got older and matured, I wanted to be myself; so there was a conflict between being myself (as I was meant to be according to my own urges, needs, values, and desires) and being a "people-pleaser", an "emotional-state-of-others" controller, or a social safety & security controller/manipulator. And I began to resent the conflict, between my beliefs to conform instead of independent.
That is the set-up for the observation. In involves all the elements of "introjection", "projection", and "retroflection" ... so far. The introjection, the accepting of an idea of the self that is forced without digesting or understanding it, is the need to be pleasing in order to survive and feel secure. (WOW! It just F****-ing HIT me! My FEELINGS, my inner feelings of security, were taught to be based EXTERNALLY!!! My feelings are not external! They are INTERNAL! "I" am responsible for tying my feelings of security to the external, the external does not MAKE ME tie my feelings to it! WOW!)
Okay, sorry about that; I'll continue: So my "projection" onto everyone I interact with is that "they" EXPECT me to take care of their feelings for them, and always behave the way they need (and what they "need" I have to "mind-read" to estimate and guess at, and fear failing at doing correctly), and so I resent always having to do that for them (the bastards! "I hate having to do that for them all the time" I project). So I believe they are imposing those thoughts on me, when in fact it is me --- blaming them --- for how I feel threatened. The conflict is that I am both angry, at "having to" please when it is not necessarily what I want to do, and afraid, of my safety and security if I don't.
The retroflection is that I believe they, all the people I interact with daily (including my wife and son) are angry with me because they also believe they "have to", or are expected to, take care of me needs (mind-read me without me saying anything about what I need from them) and I am afraid they won't, and they will be as embarrassed as me for failing, and if not, SHOULD feel embarrassed, for all my confusing discomfort and excitable angry feelings I am feeling. Plus I am disappointed that they have let me down, as I apparently let my parents down, in failing to please their feelings and ideal demands.
All of this mind-reading and imagining is based on nothing in reality; it's all irrational thought, that I presume is true (and it's not, none of it. It's all imagined beliefs!); and it's an externally focused.
My suggestion is: that I stop doing this as soon as I can learn how to stop; or just stop doing it now, period. I'm certain that it would feel better for my identity, and my sensory and emotional well-being.
Ciao
Rich
Since I was threatened, or conditioned, to please my parents to be ideal instead of real in order to belong and feel safe and secure, I repeat the same mental behavior out of habit with everyone else I meet; especially after being taught, by reward, from teachers in school on how to behave and what to know. As I got older and matured, I wanted to be myself; so there was a conflict between being myself (as I was meant to be according to my own urges, needs, values, and desires) and being a "people-pleaser", an "emotional-state-of-others" controller, or a social safety & security controller/manipulator. And I began to resent the conflict, between my beliefs to conform instead of independent.
That is the set-up for the observation. In involves all the elements of "introjection", "projection", and "retroflection" ... so far. The introjection, the accepting of an idea of the self that is forced without digesting or understanding it, is the need to be pleasing in order to survive and feel secure. (WOW! It just F****-ing HIT me! My FEELINGS, my inner feelings of security, were taught to be based EXTERNALLY!!! My feelings are not external! They are INTERNAL! "I" am responsible for tying my feelings of security to the external, the external does not MAKE ME tie my feelings to it! WOW!)
Okay, sorry about that; I'll continue: So my "projection" onto everyone I interact with is that "they" EXPECT me to take care of their feelings for them, and always behave the way they need (and what they "need" I have to "mind-read" to estimate and guess at, and fear failing at doing correctly), and so I resent always having to do that for them (the bastards! "I hate having to do that for them all the time" I project). So I believe they are imposing those thoughts on me, when in fact it is me --- blaming them --- for how I feel threatened. The conflict is that I am both angry, at "having to" please when it is not necessarily what I want to do, and afraid, of my safety and security if I don't.
The retroflection is that I believe they, all the people I interact with daily (including my wife and son) are angry with me because they also believe they "have to", or are expected to, take care of me needs (mind-read me without me saying anything about what I need from them) and I am afraid they won't, and they will be as embarrassed as me for failing, and if not, SHOULD feel embarrassed, for all my confusing discomfort and excitable angry feelings I am feeling. Plus I am disappointed that they have let me down, as I apparently let my parents down, in failing to please their feelings and ideal demands.
All of this mind-reading and imagining is based on nothing in reality; it's all irrational thought, that I presume is true (and it's not, none of it. It's all imagined beliefs!); and it's an externally focused.
My suggestion is: that I stop doing this as soon as I can learn how to stop; or just stop doing it now, period. I'm certain that it would feel better for my identity, and my sensory and emotional well-being.
Ciao
Rich
Replies
I\'m going to be teaching a workshop and the theme is \"Change your story and get the Glory.\" I have had such an awareness how often I tell my \"stories\" and to whom I tell me stories....I have some tough times with my children; wanting to be acknowledged for all that I did for them over the yrs. I raised them alone and gave-up a lot of my life to do so. I really don\'t expect anything in return, but it seems as if all they can do is find the things I didn\'t do...I have apologized for the things I did not do as a Mother that they wanted me to do and apologized for my behavior....Shared with them my background: Never heard I love you, never had a hug, was abused physically and sexually. Anyway, I have worked on all of that for the last thirty yrs. and feel it is pretty much healed. As I shrared with you the other day, I will longer lend my strength to that which I choose to be free from; and. the big epiphany was \"Change your story and get the glory!\" Here\'s a letter I wrote to my children after this happened.
Good Morning Erin and Travis,
Woke-up thinking of our situation and this it what I would like to share.
Just a little food for thought. Things make look outwardly like they are not good; but remember this, Dont judge by appearances.
Things are unfolding as they should, healing is taking place and something BIGGER IS WORKING IN AND THRU ALL OF US.
I honor where you are, who you are, your feelings, your courage, your strength.
As your Mama, I love you unconditionally..and once again, I ask your forgiveness for not being who you wanted me to be.
Remember this, we are all born innocent all the rest is learned baggage that we got from our parents, teachers, friends, society in general. Now we spend (or I do) a lifetime unlearning all that we learned.
We are all trying to find our way back HOME/GOD in our own way and our own time...It can be a very humbling experience, but it is worth it.
I LOVE YOU BOTH!
HUGSZZZZ,
MAMA
My prayer for all of us:
Deliver us to our power to heal
Deliver us to YOU SWEET SPIRIT!
Amen
I am changing my story from \"all that I didn\'t do right and what is wrong\" to I am/was a very courageous woman to take on the job of raising two children when I didn\'t have any idea what I was doing. I am very forgiving, very caring, very kind, very loving, very understanding and did everything in my power I thought was right at the time..I am not looking back to what \"I didn\'t do any more.\" That, leads me to Glory.....
Same with my dis-ease of Rheumatoid Arthritis. I told my body the other day \"thank-you so much for working so hard for me!\" I am changing my story from \"no one understands, to \"I understand and appreciate everything you do for me!\" I will not support my body for all that is does; see, breathe, laugh, cry, etc....I have had a shift and can\'t quite explain it...But, I am sitting down some chains that have held me a hostage for a long time....And, unlike my Mom and Dad, I am doing it with love...This is not egotistical, but \"I am soooooo proud of me!\"
I am proud of you too...I don\'t think we give ourselves enough credit for all the work we do...You are one strong, caring, kind individual Rich; it\'s been a blessing getting to know you.
Hugs, Vicki
*I will NOW support my body
\" I am sitting down some chains\" --- is part of that \"letting go\" of one of those self-defeating co-dependency habits we blame for how we experience our inner critic isn\'t it? It\'s another way to say \"I\'m going to stop making excuses for not changing in order to feel healthier\" isn\'t it?
We are all working hard here, to understand how to take responsibility for improving our own inner health. I know from your comments that you are getting better in your way too. It\'s no accident that we all met, and are conversing here on DS at this particular time in our lives.
************
Adding to my opening entry though, I feel the focus on the externals involves that learning to not \"predict the future\" or \"not mind-read\" principle. From my feelings, I feel I am expecting that everyone I come in contact with is expecting something from me; and that expectation is for me to suppress my feelings in order to care for their feelings. I am looking, by conditioned habit, to look for signals, signs, and symbols for how I am \"supposed to act\", \"supposed to behave\", and \"supposed to feel\", in order to make life \"easier for them\". This is pure projection! No one EVER comes up to tell me how they expect me to act in order to please them! EVER!!! It is pure delusion on my part, and only in my own. I\'m making the expectation up in my own mind with my own un-questioned belief!
I need to be vigilant in recognizing that \"expectation belief\" now, whenever I am interrelating with anyone else; including and especially strangers. I want to feel that \"expectation anxiety\" before it starts to control my ability to think clearly and to deal with reality. I want to make my consciousness aware of the feeling and sensation of when I\'m falling into that same old \"what-must-I-do-here-to-be-acceptable-by-pleasing-for-survival\" pattern; and stop the pattern immediately! It is not necessary for me (or any of my friends here) to expect for me to need to protect anyone\'s feelings; in fact, it is my feelings of guilt or shame I am protecting, as a projection onto \"them\". What I am really doing is protecting myself from some \"imaginary\" pain that I have been taught to believe is insufferable, and deadly. The belief is \"I MUST protect myself from any strong feelings of excitement\", which I feel is the same as feelings of anxiety and fear. (WOW! Again! What I fear is feeling my own feelings! I\'M NOT \"SUPPOSED TO HAVE\" MY OWN FEELINGS, I\'m \"supposed to\" check with someone else first. And that someone else is always external! And \"there we go again\" with the awareness of a reference to the external environment!) I feel that the unconscious fear is that I will fail to please someone as I feel they expect me to do.
I don\'t know about you guys, but I feel like I instantly deflect away from my own internal feelings when I feel I am being evaluated; by myself or anyone else. Whenever I meet anyone in a relationship, it feels like MOST of the time I am feeling I am being evaluated. which makes sense if I am so concerned about how well I am \"people-pleasing\", and forcing my \"care-taking\" of how they are feeling about me on them.
There has to be a way to make myself aware of the connection between the belief and the reaction, so I can un-learn the pattern, and create a new one that does not influence me to just be myself without expecting that anyone else wants or demands something from me. It\'s about the mind-reading habit, connected to the expectation belief. I \"have to\" be able to deny the belief and its reward for behaving how I\'m supposed to be, which maybe isn\'t how I want to feel. I want to feel free to feel my own feelings.
Oh well, that\'s enough for now. Practice, practice, practice...being myself, feeling my feelings, speaking my feelings.
Oh! By-the-way; \"survival feelings\". Two types (so far; so that I stop confusing them): Physical threats to my body are real, and the sensations of fear of pain are real. Mental fears are creative constructs, and the fears of pain are imaginary; they are based on beliefs about my image, and comparing my real self to my ideal social self-image. It\'s good to know which image I am protecting: the fake social one I feel I am expected to have, or the real one that trusts my own needs and protection in spite of what anyone else wants me to have. The external one or the internal one.
\"Letting go\" of the fear felt by \"the expectation to perform or else\" is the next belief to change. \"I deserve to feel that it\'s okay to fail to please someone when it\'s a conflict between who is felt hurt or not. I am obligated to myself now to not hurt, or continue to abuse, myself with harmful imaginary expectatious beliefs. I am to set boundaries for my feelings when I am with others, and not project mine on them. (WOW! I am the one violating the boundaries, not the other person who I feel is expecting me to \"save\" them from harmful feelings. I\'ve been blaming THEM for my hurt feelings, when it\'s been me imposing my beliefs of service onto them, and hating them for it, that has been creating my hurt and angry feelings! Weird! Talk about understanding the principle of retroflection! WOW!)
As Pogo says: \"We have met the enemy, and it is us!\"
Hi Rich and Vicki,
Some wonderful insights from both of you. I can relate so well to what RIch is saying about projecting and being so focused on the external. It is so amazing to understand about dealing with feelings on a different level. I really did not \"get\" that for a long time. I would be saying to self, \"I am dealing, I feel anger, blah, blah\" I was in fact feeling anger, but my focus was on the thoughts that continually fed the anger. I am having some difficulty verbalizing this, but there is a difference in my approach. I am willing to feel, but also open to releasing, now. I do not have to stay stuck in negative thoughts and feelings.
My external was similar to what Rich described - expecting to have to please everyone\'s wishes externally. I don\'t think I even expected reciprocity, but my resentment came from all external controlling me. So I would be really angry at being asked to do almost anything, because I did not believe I had a choice to say no. In fact, sometimes I would just avoid a social event altogether, so that I would not be approached for something that someone wanted me to do (wow, lol).
Anyway, I also love what Vicki wrote about changing our story. That is such a positive way to frame self to self. Telling self \"I am blah, blah. blah\" and not something that I particularly want to be, but just repeating negative over and over, serves no good purpose to self. I am changing my story, too.
Keep the Faith!
Shar
THIS IS FOR ME TODAY!
LOOK IN THE MIRROR
No matter where we turn, we see our own shadow. Sometimes it looks back toward us through the faces of our brothers. Sometimes it skips before us as we run full tilt in the wind. Our shadows do not disappear. They remain with us. People who believe in ghosts are not that far off. Ghosts are shadow figures.Everything we are afraid of is personified somehow, yet it belongs to us. Everything we see on the outside of the body/mind confirms are inside reality. If you take that inner reality without outside reflection, what you have is the death state, a state empty of projection, a state in which interaction is unnecessary, because the parts of the whole are no longer separate. But in the world, there is an inside and an outside. There is an image and a reflection. There is a mind that thinks and a mind that feels. The feeling mind reflects the thinking mind, because every feeling is a reflection of a thought. Often, it is hard to separate the feeling from the thought, so closely does one follow from the other.
The whole psyche is a field or array of thought/feeling constructs intricately bound together. Each field of consciousness intersects and interacts with others, further complicating the picture. Indeed, it is impossible to grasp the component parts or the number of relationships between them. What we can grasp, however, is that at any moment in time what we see outside of us reflects our internal field of consciousness, or unique array of though/feeling constructs. As such it is a mirror for us. Looking in this mirror can be painful, but it is not nearly as painful as pretending that the mirror is not there. Every person who walks into our lives and pushes our buttons is but a personification of our own shadow. They have no objective significance in our lives. Often we return the favor, pushing their buttons too. Our interaction is totally subjective. It is the relationship of one shadow to another. Only when one person wakes up and understands that the interaction is all about him own shadow.what he hates, cannot accept, or fears about himself.does the mirroring stop. That awareness removes the hook! Destroys the projection. Interactions like this cannot continue except through the agreement (usually unconscious) of both partiesWe dont look into the mirror to learn to hate ourselves, but to recognize our repressed judgments. These judgments sabotage our ability to feel whole in ourselves or in relationship with others. Thus, the descent into the darkness of our own psyche is essential to our healing process. Without the descent, we cannot become light-bearers.
Interestingly, this descent into the darkness and subsequent ascent into the light does not happen in a linear manner. It is a cyclical journey. First I face some preciously denied fear, bring it to the light, and then another one surfaces. Sound familiar? Each victory is followed by a subsequent.
We have done ourselves a disservice by looking at our spiritual process through the eyes of the world or the ego. From the perspective of both the ego and the world, we are all miserable failures. Linear, step by step, task-oriented thinking simply cannot penetrate to the meaning of cyclical processes. Only the intuitive, feeling mind understands the concepts of polarity and change. Collectively, eastern traditions are more comfortable with the feeling mind. Indeed, the Taoist tradition, from which comes the I Ching, the Tao Te Ching and other masterpieces of spiritual understanding, offers us some of the deepest insights into the process of change. To the Taoists, everything is energy in motion. Even ideas that seem to have reached their apex or nadir recycle by moving toward the opposite pole. To the eastern mind, life is a pendulum, moving back and forth; it is not a linear journey in one direction. This perspective helps us understand that our spiritual progress is not to be measured by how many of them we learn, but by our willingness to look in the mirror when it is handed to us. A Course In Miracles says that this little willingness is enough. In that respect, every time we are willing, we move to encompass all of our lessons simultaneously. Every time we open our hearts, we have a taste of what it feels like to be truly open. So every lesson is a widening and deepening of consciousness. It is a stretching of the mind beyond its conceptual limits and a stretching of the heart beyond its emotional boundaries. It is a bringing of unconscious material into consciousness, a healing of the past wounds, and a new faith and trust. One success brings another challenge. One failure brings an opportunity to choose again. There is absolutely no judgment implied in this. Subjective processes dont have a beginning or an end in time. That is hard for us to understand and accept. But its an essential awareness if we are to look into the mirror over and over again without getting dispirited or depressed. After enough mirror gazing, we all develop our cosmic sense of humor. We no longer try to be perfect, or try to get all our work done in time. We become content with whatever life brings. Just to deal with what comes up without crucifying ourselves or others is enough of a challenge. And were smart enough, or experienced enough, to know that every once in a while we are going to blow it. I mean, were going to completely forget everything we ever learned and do the most stupid thing we can imagine. All our worst fears are going to come true. Were going to be embarrassed, outraged, and turned inside out. And, somehow, were going to survive that. And perhaps even see it as a gift! And then, we really know that the journey goes round and round. And we know that were ok, regardless of where we seem to be or what seems to be happening. And this brings us to the last step, which we must know by now, is also the first.
PS,,,,THANK-YOU SHAR! I WAS DOING DISHES THE OTHER DAY AND \"SPIRIT\" NAMED MY WORKSHOP FOR ME. ISN\'T THAT AWESOME!
I WAS TELLING MY GIRLFRIEND ABOUT IT AND I SAID \"I DON\'T KNOW WHERE THE TITLE CAME FROM\" SHE LAUGHED AND SAID, \"OH, I THINK YOU DO!\" I MUST START LAIGHING MORE! :-)
I think what Vicki just shared is ALL about changing our story, Big Time!
It highlights a useful principle of Not Avoiding The Swing, between one pole or the other, but accepting it as part of the life cycle. In order to grow, like a plant, we MUST change, and adapt to the new change, just like all plants do as they grow and change. We can\'t remain alive and still be unchanged by resisting change at the same time. It is what we do. Our story HAS changed! Denying it does not make it not true! We each move through a new \"stage-of-development\" as the pendulum swings from one present event to the next. Similar does not mean same; there is always a slight difference. I shave every day, moving through stages of being shaven and unshaven; there is not permanent shame to be the ideal shave. Our stories are the same. Our stories are our identities, except we tend to want to feel the same story and have the same identity all the time. We somehow believe we need to have the same identity in order to survive, and we don\'t. That belief started with the creation of our first story about who we were, or are. We do not have to keep the same story; that\'s the message. That we don\'t change, or don\'t, or can\'t, or are not allowed to update our story, is the denied delusion.
As far as the shadow, or our negative split-off characteristics, everyone has a shadow when they\'re in the light. The only person without a shadow is one who is in the dark. In other words, our shadows are as much a part of us as our non-shadow physical self; one cannot exist without the other. We do not need to forgive our shadow for being our shadow; we don\'t need to forgive any part of ourselves at all. We need to accept them as parts of who we are now. We can\'t change what our shadow was, nor do we have to continue having the same exact shadow.
I guess another way for me to see it is that my reflection in the mirror doesn\'t change me, I change my reflection! Blaming my shadow, my past, or my reflection is a misunderstanding of who is creating my feeling experiences. My shadow, my past, and my mirror are all external realities, reflecting what is actually going on inside of me because of me and my past beliefs about who I am.
It may be good to understand that connection, association, and principle in order to continue to heal ourselves; and myself, more specifically.
Just now I thought: It\'s like \"letting go\" is about stopping the need to resolve all my past unfinished resentments and embarrassments. Let them go, unfinished. Let them be unresolved. They don\'t need to be \"cleaned up\" or \"explained\", or \"accounted for correctly\".
\"What do I need to do today to satisfy getting my current conflicts managed\". What do I feel I want for myself today?\" Forget about the burden of trying to fix the past hurts. They\'re over. They are only scars, that have healed. They are memories, and I can change them by changing their story; of how important they are for today, or how unimportant they are to who I am today for today\'s problems. In fact they interfere with solving today\'s problems because I am still expending energy to understand them that I could be spending on what I am feeling today. It\'s time to stop remembering the old feelings and blaming them for how I feel today. In fact, the remembering habit keeps me from feeling any new feelings today. I\'m stuck feeling my old feelings from another story, that is no longer relevant to today\'s story and events. I do not have to repeat the remembered feelings. I don\'t. I only do it because I\'m not aware I have been doing it and I\'m still agreeing to do it.
Thank you both for your inspiring comments!
Big \"Thank-You\" Hugs,
for yet another step forward to freedom from my past,
Rich
I just had the awareness that our \"Story\", is just that: a story we made up. I may believe that I can\'t change the story once I wrote it, but that is not true, since I am the original author. I do not need permission to change my story from anyone but myself. Seeking permission from my \"mirror\" is a little insane, isn\'t it?
There is a lot of work left to start allowing myself to do more than just talk about how I am feeling, I need to experience my feelings. It is the one missing ingredient for change: action, real experiencing. And the one I need to express my feelings to is not my mirror, it\'s to me.
The change is in the courage to act in rebellion to the edict to not express my emotions and feelings that I learned in childhood. The rebellion is to the belief that there will be a punishment for expressing myself honestly, so that I know what I\'m feeling, and not to get attention. It is getting more and more about not watching the mirror and reacting to it. It is in knowing I am responsible for what I am reacting to. It also means to stop blaming my feelings for the feelings I feel. They are created by my denied beliefs about the reality about myself hidden by my story; compared to what I was \"forced\" to believe about myself that I accepted without questioning it.
In the end, it is an awareness of the story I\'ve written about myself that I deny writing.
Anyway, I\'m close. I like the mirror and story ideas, to continue to focus on my inner conflicts, and not blaming external events for them. The conflicts are between the beliefs of what I was told and expected to be, instead of how I felt.
Rich
STEP ONE TO HEALING: RECOGNIZE THE FEELING!
We recognize the feeling
We do not justify or condemn what we are feeling
We accept the feeling and give ourselves permission to feel it
We allow the feeling to speak to us
We honor it as an inner communication
We take responsibility for the feeling e.g. \"I feel hurt, angry, sad, etc.\"
We refuse any inclination to make any one else responsible for what we feel.
We stay with the feeling.
We refuse to intellectualize the feeling. It is not important to know \"why\" we feel the way we do
As we stay with the feeling, we become aware that we are not being very loving right now, toward ourselves or others
We allow this message to sink in, staying with the feeling until it begins to shift
It is important to realize that:
Every negative feeling stems from the perception of a lack of love.
Ultimately, that love must be supplied from within. That is why we don\'t want to move outside of ourselves.
We don\'t want to move away from our feeling, but into it......
We want to face the fact that we want love and we don\'t feel loved or loving...
We want to be with that emptiness, that apparent lack.
Being with that emptiness helps us get behind it. It helps us understand or stand under it.
We can\' embrace love until we learn to be with our fear and our feelings of separation. We have to come to terms with where we are emotionally.
To pretend not to be upset whe we are upset is baldersnatch. Yet, we do it all the tme.Why is it os hard for me to admit to myself or to you that I am upset, that in this oment I am overwhelmed by fear? Do I think that I am the only one who has such an experience. Apparently I do. Apparently you do. Apparently we are both trying to impress each other, when what we really need is a good hug. One of us just has to have the guts to say: \"i feel really scared right now\" And the other one will probably say \"me too.\" So, it\'s always hard to release each other from the denial. ILLLUSION IS BUILT OUT OF DENIAL...Its a foundation poured on quicksand. It starts with a simple misperception and ends with a complex one . So, we agree to feel the fear, because the denial of our own fear is where illusion get its foothold.All the inequities of the world stem from the denial in our minds. Feeling our fear and acknowlledging it is our moment of supreme equality with all our brothers and sisters. It is the moment when we are all INNOCENT, ALL FREE TO CHOOSE, ALL ROOTING FOR EACH OTHER.
The moment is brought to us continually. We understand that every choice is a choice between love and fear, but we can\'t begin to ACCESS OUR LOVE UNTIL WE ACKNOWLEDGE OUR FEAR...In this step, we remove the first barrier to love\'s presence...NOT, THT BARRIER IS NOT FEAR. IT IS DENIAL OF FEAR...The first step to forgiveness is to give ourselves permission to be afraid and to feel all of our feelings. We cannot move through our fear if we are afraid to experience it!!!!!
That is the moment that we take up the cross and walk up the hill, as our elder brother did....Feeling the fear, we walk through it, with love calling us, a gentle promise in the skies of early morning!
Thank-you for being you...I bow to you and all your willingness to heal!
This is a long thread and has a lot of good information. By \"accident\" I was reminded of the Dependent Personality Disorder from the discussion group and feel it is a reminder of where to focus my healing. When I wrote:
--- \"I don\'t know about you guys, but I feel like I instantly deflect away from my own internal feelings when I feel I am being evaluated; by myself or anyone else. Whenever I meet anyone in a relationship, it feels like MOST of the time I am feeling I am being evaluated. which makes sense if I am so concerned about how well I am \"people-pleasing\", and forcing my \"care-taking\" of how they are feeling about me on them.\" ---
I feel like it defines my dependency pretty well. It is I who I am evaluating myself, from a third person view, instead of experiencing my feelings my self. (Does that even make sense?) I deflect what I am feeling by trying to determine, or \"remember\", how I am \"supposed to feel\" correctly instead of just feeling what I am feeling; and feeling safe to express it. I deny what I am feeling and instead look to my environment to ... NO! I DEPEND ON MY ENVIRONMENT to tell me what to do or feel! For some reason, it feels like I am afraid to have my own feelings, or express them.
So, \"Changing My Story\" is really a softer way to say \"Be Aware Of and Change My Beliefs About Myself and Who I Am\". In order to be aware of my beliefs about myself, I must be aware of my feelings; which causes a conflict, since I am denying I have my own feelings. (This may take a moment, but I\'m going to get this out so I can understand it.) I don\'t want to feel my feelings about myself because I don\'t accept myself as I am; perhaps I was taught not to? I am wrong, so I must perform right? I must not be myself? I am to evaluate myself to be pleasing to my external environment? I must deny what I am feeling and feel something else? Some ideal feeling about myself? I can\'t be me? Hummm...
The whole dysfunction involves the story and the mirror, and my belief that others are expecting something from me when it is really me expecting it. More important now is the income dysfunction, which illuminates the problem more: I am so concerned with my identity and incorrectness of myself that I do not consider what I can give or want to give. By disallowing my feelings, I deny sharing what I want to give, or understanding what I can give. Whatever it is that I have to give, isn\'t good enough, since I know I struggle with my evaluations of how well I try to people-please, which is a behavior that I am imposing on myself, and is impossible to do without denying myself.
One thing for sure: the conflict is inside, not outside. There is a severe conflict in feelings, and they are based on conflicting beliefs I have about myself; and the two beliefs are in opposition. They can\'t both be done at the same time.
Okay; so the people-pleasing is really about pleasing myself, right? It\'s a projection. And pleasing myself is wrong, correct? And my resentment to pleasing others, my anger, is in that I must resent pleasing myself. Pleasing others is more important than pleasing myself (and is what I want for myself); BUT pleasing others pleases me, and pleasing myself is wrong! So the story to change is it is okay and permissible to care for my own needs and my feelings.
The next thing does involve interrelationships with others. How to not fear it. Without a doubt, I am having relationship issues, and I bet it is due to the focus on my feelings that I deny having or expressing.
That\'s enough confusion for now. My task today is to become more aware of what I am feeling when I\'m feeling it; and not evaluate it ... YES! That\'s it! Realizing when I am evaluating my feelings! Stopping the judging! It may not be me that I feel is being evaluated, it is my feelings. It goes back to \"What am I feeling? Is it the correct feeling for this situation? Instead of just feeling the feeling and expressing it. the dysfunctional belief, story, is that I must HIDE my feelings!
Okay, THAT\'s the lesson for today: be more aware of when I feel I am evaluating my own feelings, and just let them out instead without evaluating them.
Ciao,
Rich
WOW! I just re-read my comment on Shar\'s entry yesterday and the above comment I just wrote is a re-hash of what I said there. It must be an important breakthrough idea since I am repeating it (until I assimilate it). Good stuff Unfortunately it is where I am stuck at the moment.
Fortunately...you are AWARE! :-)
Thanks again Vicki, for your comments. They are right on target.
The part where you say: \"We refuse to intellectualize the feeling. It is not important to know \"why\" we feel the way we do \" --- is what I do here all the time to avoid feeling my feelings. And you have visible evidence based on the length of my comments.
We are all saying the same thing, and yet I am not changing yet, except my defenses are beginning to thaw as I visualize the \"system\" of denial and repression and suppression. No wonder I want \"freedom-to-be-myself\" so much, the problem is I want freedom from my denial; of fear, anger, hurt, fun, love, etc.
What I am doing is still projecting: The love I feel I am not getting, and expecting, from others is actually the love I am not giving myself, but expecting it from others! I am the one withholding. The feelings of separation are not created by others separating from me, it is me separating my self and my feelings, and NOT ONLY FROM THEM, THESE ARE THE FEELINGS I AM SEPARATING FROM MYSELF when I deny I am having them; just like you stated.
This is where I become awake! Building the courage to feel what I feel, without evaluating it to determine whether I \"should\" deny what I\'m feeling or not. This is the addictive \"reaction\" to become aware of and stop \"doing\". It is learning and teaching myself to be aware of when I am avoiding my feelings.
More Good work. Now to practice being more aware, until it becomes a habit. I am still resisting, it\'s just now I have a good idea of WHAT I am resisting: changing the habit of \"denying what I am actually feeling\".
And what I am feeling now is scared, and happy, and excited, and confused; that I will be able to \"DO\" the change of habit. It\'s time to get angry again, and demand what I want from myself, and not evaluate myself while I\'m changing. I\'m going to change, because it\'s what I want for myself. It\'s not how well or not well I am changing; I\'m going to stop \"doing\" that. It is an action to take and practice experiencing.
Big Hug, and HUGZ to all my friends here,
Rich
Get RID of the feelings; let them out!!!! Let them go, on their own. I do not have to protect them. I do not to hold on to them so no one sees them anymore. They are NOW feelings, and they will change their effect on me as I let them go on their way to make way for new feelings. I need to start communicating with myself!!!
I think one of the most difficult things I ever had to do in my life was go to a mirror and say, \"i hate you! I hate you! I hate you! ... over and over and over...for me, I had feelings of such a strong self-hatred (I still tear up saying it) but it finally took me a place where my healing could begin. I think it was the beginning of finally telling how I really felt about myself. Today, I get pieces of self-acceptance for myself; but, I do believe, for me, the day I could feel my self-hatred and loathing, the healings began....
One thing I asked myself over the yrs. and still do when feelings arise, is \"how old are you?\" When I get a glimpse of the little girl, allow her to feel, then I can love her and support her....It\'s been tough \"raising me\" but I think I am finally growing up....You are a very courageous person to enter into this healing experience...