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
Yes, it is a recognition of what we are \"doing\" to ourselves.
What I just understood a few minutes ago is that I am not evaluating myself by comparing myself to an ideal image, THAT is a projection! What I am really actively \"doing\" is evaluating my feelings by comparing them to \"ideal feelings\", about myself! The focus will now be on the feelings, not the imagined \"image\" to the external world. That would be a \"third person\" view, focuing on the external. Wchich I assume we get from having our parents \"observing\" us and correcting our behaviors, since our behaviors are motivated by our feelings and sensations.
The next insight is that I \"need to\", or am in the process of, developing a new language system between my \"self\" (my feelings, \"what I am feeling\". I AM what I am feeling!)and my ideal self. I don\'t understand \"the language of my feelings\" yet. Does that make sense? I have not learned how to communicate WITH my feelings yet. I\'ve avoided them and feared tham as \"not me\". In fact, like you say, the --- \"I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!...\" --- is the split-off part of the feelings I deny.I hate having those feelings about myself that are not the \"ideal\" feelings I expect myself to have. They interfere with having the expected \"Ideal Feelings\" I \"should\" have that I was told to have.
The main thing to do is to learn to start communicating with my self, my feelings, by letting myself feel them without judging and evaluating them.
Hope I didn\'t post this twice...have a good day!
TAKE RESPONSIBILITY
One of the ways I begin to love myself is to begin to take responsibility for my life exactly as it is. Whatever I see on the outside is just a reflection of what is within. I get into trouble only when I cannot accept my life as it is. Sometimes I reject certain people and situations. Sometimes I hang onto certain people and situations. Both rejection and attachment indicate lack of acceptance. My acceptance of my life does not mean that it will not change. Surely it will. Sometimes that change will be anticipated. Sometimes it wont. CHANGE WILL COME AS IT IS NEEDED. Bur right now my challenge is to be with what is! Is there pain? Ok, I must be with the pain. Is there sadness? Ok, I must be with the sadness. THERE IS NO SUPPOSED TO IN LIFE. There is just what is happening. And, that is always ENOUGH. If it seems not to be enough or is too much, it is because WE PRECEIVE IT THAT WAY! Our beliefs are just ways of seeing. They almost always require correction because we almost always see out of DESIRE OR FEAR! The most important spiritual practice is to just let things be as they are without interpretation, without embellishment, without judgment. That immediately gives the ego a coronary. Imagine telling the ego not to judge, compare, interpret? What then is it to do? It doesnt really know how to do anything else. So the practice becomes watching the ego go through its judgments and interpretations, not stopping the ego from going through them. Because as soon as one tries to stop the ego from judging, a new level of judgment begins. So we just accept the fact that the ego is doing its number and watch it. Thats the hurt child in all of us crying out for attention. It wants love, but does not know how to ask for it. And it goes on badgering forever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Its okay!!! Its okay to be in EGO, because we all are in ego. Ninety percent of the time, were coming from DESIRE OR FEAR (and as weve said desire is just another form of fear). Theres nothing to be ashamed aboutWe all do it. Acknowledging where we are allows us to witness it! Witnessing is just being present watching the mind dance around in the air. Its not going to stop dancing until we let it play itself out. Soooo watching becomes a spiritual practice, a practice of deep compassion for ourselves and others. You see, what we have, is what we have. Were not supposed to get rid of any of it. And were not supposed to add to it either. We just need to be with it till we come to understand it. The more we understand desire and fear the more we become free of their compulsions. Its not something that we doIts just something that happens naturally through our practice. We have to remember that our goal is NOT to change the world or even ourselves. Our goal is to change our perceptions about the world and about ourselves. Our goal is to see with the eyes of love instead of the eyes of fear. This involves a different way of looking, a more objective way of looking, a way of looking without being attached to what we see. That is our spiritual practice. It is one we share with many traditions. So taking responsibility means ACCEPTING MY LIFE AS IT IS. That means I DONT waste my energy trying to change the eternal form of my life. It means I dont look to others to provide the motivation for change. If change comes at all it comes from within. It comes from being with what is here and now with patience and integrity. The best way to confront a negative situation is not to run away from it but walk right through it. Its only negative because Ive forgotten my innocence and my brothers and sisters. Why let myself be put off by my fear and that of others. Nothing I see means what I think it does. Nothing I see means anything. Fear begins with interpretation, with memory of the past. Yet each moment is whole and free. In each moment, my choice is reborn. It does not matter how many mistakes I have made. I do not carry them with me, although I may believe I do. Each moment I am free to choose. I am free to take responsibility for my life. Let me go ahead with patience and faith. If I walk down a certain path, I am meant to find where it leads. Even if it come to a cul de sac, I have lost nothing. No path is the final path, yet every path brings a lesson that must be learned. When all lessons are learned, the need for a path disappears..The need for a from dissolves. It is okay, I am in ego and I create moment by moment out of desire or fear. That is the way it is. I take responsibility for it. I dont need to change anything. I just need to be AWARE of whats going on.
Excellent! Yes, just being the observer, witnessing life as it is and not judging it. I suppose the each lesson is a new opportunity in teaching ourselves not to judge.