finding partners...

[Lindy444]

That is wonderful, if a single man /or woman has a certain psychologisce maturing, or has engaged in a lot. I would be surprised, if such a person can not find a partner for life.
If you will not get the ideal "on salver", then perhaps you feel like the protagonist in "Die Liebe deines Lebens, by Cecelia Ahern" (google says, that the english version of that book is called "How to Fall in Love"http://www.buecher.de/shop/romane--erzaehlungen/how-to-fall-in-love/ahern-cecelia/products_products/detail/prod_id/37218936/ ),
who do as a life-saver and hobby-psychotherapist. The author also use a warm comedy, that brighten up (auflockern) the serious topic in this novel.

We are all somehow traumatized, so it's a big job to work on a deep love relationship (Sto-way).
If I would not be forced by the adverse circumstances to learn to focus on the essential, then I would have committed more mistakes and would easily/lazy, would have fled always. I would not be togehter with my husband.
True love is for most people actually trauma work.

If that is the case, then it was not true love for 21 years, but a lot of very hard work.. I am learning to love self, children and grand children in a new and different way. A rewiring of sorts from a long predictable process.. No better place to do so, now presently. Thank you for your input..


Mod edit: Fixed quote box

 

[Alada]

But it sounds like you may be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I think isolating ourselves from pathologicals is certainly warranted. But that doesn't mean we need to isolate ourselves from everyone who shows even a hint of being ponerized.

[...]

I'm not sure what the right answer is to how you should deal with the situation, but cutting everyone out of your life who shows STS motivations will leave you completely alone - we're all STS here on this planet, after all. Perhaps you need to work on setting up safe boundaries in how you interact with people.

I was thinking along similar lines reading through. If we try to cut off everyone who isn’t on the same page, we’ll end up in a club of one. It’s getting that balance between being in the world, but not of it. And as is said in terms of 4th Way ideas, much of the Work needs to be carried out in the world, not in isolation.

Sometimes it is a good idea to cut off certain individuals who are clearly unhelpful or draining influences. But we also have to monitor ourselves to try and discern where that is a good line to follow and where it might us trying to hide from some of our own programming instead of facing it and learning how to deal with it.

The thought: ‘Person ‘x’ always makes me feel {insert emotion here}, therefore I cut them off’, avoids having to look at and work on whatever it is we find upsetting. It takes time to observe, think about it and work out what is for the best. But better that way I think than to see everything in black and white terms and instantly throw anyone who ever troubles us onto the ‘bad’ pile.

We have to remember too that very few people choose to try and work on themselves, the overwhelming majority of people we will ever meet have absolutely no interest. That is the world, is what IS. So I think we have to learn how to work effectively there in forming relationships in general, learning how to get along with all sorts of people without getting our feathers ruffled and losing energy in the process.

As for the unfaithful friend, I’d be watchful not to get tangled up in anything there if it were me. I don’t know that it means the friend ought to be ostracized, but there’s too little data to comment on really.

 

[luke wilson]

Redfox, can I be honest? The feeling of discomfort is overbearing. I'm driven to dispel it, not live with it. However, dispelling it means, as far as I can see, trying my hardest, out of desperation, out of a position of wounding, to find a partner, if for anything, to get rid of the emotional discomfort. Basically to make me feel ok!

The reason for the discomfort as far as I can feel, is a lack of a partner, therefore, a partner is surely the solution?

Its bad I know but don't see how else the feeling will go away. No amount of self acceptance so far has dispelled it. I can occupy my mind with other stuff e.g. work, hobbies etc but this proves only temporary, only coping mechanisms.

Catch 22.

On the one hand: Have to set yourself right before getting a partner.
On the other hand: Can't set yourself right without a partner.

Solve!

 

[Lindy444]

I'm not sure what the right answer is to how you should deal with the situation, but cutting everyone out of your life who shows STS motivations will leave you completely alone - we're all STS here on this planet, after all. Perhaps you need to work on setting up safe boundaries in how you interact with people.

Alada,

Thank you.. I am looking at this.. Some acquaintance's were so draining at times, exhausting, but had good intentions.. I have hit a bottom of despair, financially and emotionally.. When many "mugels", for lack of a better word, start complaining about superficial problems when I see they have so much, it hits a chord in myself that I need to address I imagine.. Having been in food lines and surrounding myself with people that have no idea what it's like to be hungry or betrayed, is frustrating.. Listening to many who have so much and are not aware is difficult... It's like I have to store energy to speak with them.. I am looking at self and do have a sounding board to discuss with, gratefully..

 

[lilyalic]

Self-compassion versus self-esteem
Although self-compassion may seem similar to self-esteem, they are different in many ways. Self-esteem refers to our sense of self-worth, perceived value, or how much we like ourselves. While there is little doubt that low self-esteem is problematic and often leads to depression and lack of motivation, trying to have higher self-esteem can also be problematic. In modern Western culture, self-esteem is often based on how much we are different from others, how much we stand out or are special. It is not okay to be average, we have to feel above average to feel good about ourselves. This means that attempts to raise self-esteem may result in narcissistic, self-absorbed behavior, or lead us to put others down in order to feel better about ourselves. We also tend to get angry and aggressive towards those who have said or done anything that potentially makes us feel bad about ourselves. The need for high self-esteem may encourage us to ignore, distort or hide personal shortcomings so that we can’t see ourselves clearly and accurately. Finally, our self-esteem is often contingent on our latest success or failure, meaning that our self-esteem fluctuates depending on ever-changing circumstances.

In contrast to self-esteem, self-compassion is not based on self-evaluations. People feel compassion for themselves because all human beings deserve compassion and understanding, not because they possess some particular set of traits (pretty, smart, talented, and so on). This means that with self-compassion, you don’t have to feel better than others to feel good about yourself. Self-compassion also allows for greater self-clarity, because personal failings can be acknowledged with kindness and do not need to be hidden. Moreover, self-compassion isn’t dependent on external circumstances, it’s always available – especially when you fall flat on your face! Research indicates that in comparison to self-esteem, self-compassion is associated with greater emotional resilience, more accurate self-concepts, more caring relationship behavior, as well as less narcissism and reactive anger.

This was a really insightful read, and gave clarification onto the difference between self-esteem and self-compassion. It's as if self-esteem is mostly created by the external environment, and self-compassion is from within, but they both have elements of nature and nurture.
We very much depend on the 'love' from others to make us feel good about ourselves, and I genuinely believe a well done is deserved to those who haven't stumbled into various amounts of relationships and encounters with the opposite sex. The self-esteem and self-compassion info that RF inserted here gives us more indepth reasoning to why we feel a need to find a partner, along with the social conditioning of "marriage, children, spending the rest of your life with someone"... We really have been fooled into thinking life isn't worth living unless you're sharing it with ONE other person..

Love is, what remains, when you subtract all from a relationship, what you can buy for money; Sex, the massage, cooking, all die small services of everyday life, for that external experts could be available. Love is the last major anarchist, love is the last great adventure.
[...]

It really does feel like the ideas of a traditional relationship are dying the more I learn, the more knowledge I attire. "Knowledge is light, light is love" so, knowledge is love yes? and then this would mean that our ideas of loving someone are completely distorted to the core of our actual minds. When reading Gabor Mate's addiction book before, it said that we tend to jump from relationship to relationship to resist "Facing ourselves", and we have sexual interactions to feel a sense of love (anything that gets the dopamine and endorphins running) but this was specifically outlined for extremely sexual females. He also stated that being in a long-term relationship forces you to look at yourself, and helps with the forces of letting those 'demons' out.

Personally, my partner and I had these dealings just this weekend, and jeez it was a lesson, his "initiation" phase and the realisation that we were in a co-dependent relationship, me feeding his predator, he feeding my emotional dependence.

Guys, whether you get into a relationship or not, you should still expect attacks. I've been in a relationship with someone who's "on the same path" for just a year now, and it's just as hard, it's like having a constant mirror when the chemicals and dissociation that come with them go away. Only now have we started learning the hard lessons that "love" is really not what it is in the movies ;) Instead of finding love, we need to find someone to fulfill the instinctual needs at the same time as living along side them doing the 'work' necessary, if knowledge is love, then how wonderful is the idea of the more knowledge you obtain, the more your love disperses, not only through that other individual, but in yourself and into everything around you.

Empathy and the ability to see more objectively is the greatest lesson I have learnt from this kind of a relationship SO FAR, but it still hurts just as much as being alone, yet this is the path I have chosen, and I see why now.

 

[archangelbob]

Guys, whether you get into a relationship or not, you should still expect attacks. I've been in a relationship with someone who's "on the same path" for just a year now, and it's just as hard, it's like having a constant mirror when the chemicals and dissociation that come with them go away. Only now have we started learning the hard lessons that "love" is really not what it is in the movies ;) Instead of finding love, we need to find someone to fulfill the instinctual needs at the same time as living along side them doing the 'work' necessary, if knowledge is love, then how wonderful is the idea of the more knowledge you obtain, the more your love disperses, not only through that other individual, but in yourself and into everything around you.

Empathy and the ability to see more objectively is the greatest lesson I have learnt from this kind of a relationship SO FAR, but it still hurts just as much as being alone, yet this is the path I have chosen, and I see why now.

It's all so tricky. I really appreciate what you say here lilyalic. At this point I am soo grateful for making the decision to study music, and for the teachers I have to teach me music. I had been in my current relationship about 2 1/2 yrs when I started with music. I had always thought I was a good listener before. But, because of the experience and practice playing music, I really never listened well at all. I had a good memory in a conversation, which made me think I was smarter. But it wasn't true.

Because I did not listen well, I understood poorly. Because I remembered well, I could build an argument without building understanding. At some point in the process of thinking musically, (or rather, practicing), I realized basic things about my partner. I had always misunderstood why she said the things she said. I didn't realize my own passive-agressiveness, my own selfish intent in those moments when I thought I was being smart with my responses to her. Smarmy would have been a better adjective.

I guess when I say smarmy, I mean that kind of 'spiritual gotcha!' game people who know the same stuff (and also misunderstand the same stuff) get into.

My own opinions are what get me riled up. Know what I mean? I decide - 'I know this because of what you said' and away I go with my prognostications based upon this 'knowledge'. Then the wheels start falling off. Falling off of the conversation, and if left to ferment, falling off the relationship in general.

I've been attacked. In and out of relationships. With my partner now, if it seems like she is attacking me, I can pretty much bet on the fact that she is scared and does not feel supported. If I am committed to her spiritual growth as I described in my previous post, I must defuse this perception. And most of the time, when it gets like that, I am the cause of the original threat.

With relationships, it's like evolution on speed. What you imagine and then do creates immediate feedback. From that perspective that it is all lessons, you can learn so much. But if you are practicing service to others the level of focus required in a relationship can seem daunting.

So I've learned to understand discipline now in a way I did not before. Because in the broader perspective - we practice, 24/7, 7 days a week.

The question, if a person is completely honest with themselves, is what am I practicing when I do 'x', when I say 'y', or when I respond with 'z'? What am I practicing?

What am I practicing???
Whatever it is, it is what I am going to get good at.

As far as 'waking up' goes - this question was the most humbling one I've ever asked myself. Because I have to look at the reality of what I have been practicing.

 

[Lizziespreparetogovegan]

Redfox, can I be honest? The feeling of discomfort is overbearing. I'm driven to dispel it, not live with it. However, dispelling it means, as far as I can see, trying my hardest, out of desperation, out of a position of wounding, to find a partner, if for anything, to get rid of the emotional discomfort. Basically to make me feel ok!

The reason for the discomfort as far as I can feel, is a lack of a partner, therefore, a partner is surely the solution?

Its bad I know but don't see how else the feeling will go away. No amount of self acceptance so far has dispelled it. I can occupy my mind with other stuff e.g. work, hobbies etc but this proves only temporary, only coping mechanisms.

Catch 22.

On the one hand: Have to set yourself right before getting a partner.
On the other hand: Can't set yourself right without a partner.

Solve!

I'd seriously question the second statement at the end there LW. It seems to me that what you're really seeking is validation on multiple levels and you believe that finding a partner/love in your life will at once dispel this 'overbearing discomfort' internally whilst also validating your worth in the eyes of others.

I've been collating some thoughts on my own relationship history recently and whilst your situation is not the same, I'll just digress a little as perhaps there is some overlap here. Like many who have experienced narcissistic wounding, I never really had a solid sense of self. For most of my life I didn't really know who I was and I had a profound sense of worthlessness. Indeed, this was so deep seated and I was so out of touch with my emotions that I didn't consciously recognise this for a long time. (perhaps there's a difference here already as you seem to be in recognition of your pain, which for me didn't come till much later).

Being so discombobulated in my early life and teens, I can now see that one of the primary issues for me was that I didn't trust myself. Again, I simply didn't know who I was and with so many I's fighting amongst each other for dominance and the lack of any kind of core 'self', one of the subsequent fears stemming from this was that others would never trust me either. In short, I was terrified of people not liking or trusting me as a 'real' person. And so I sought this in relationships and with women.

It's funny because in terms of the trust issue, I had an experience with my first proper girlfriend that was at the time profoundly healing in many ways. She let me read her personal diary/journal, which was incredibly deep and rich in terms of her inner world and shortly after we lost our virginities to each other. At the time this was like a magical combination, the perfect gift and validation of my being as a real person to be trusted. And yet being someone so completely un-integrated at the time, this partially set the stage (along with other life experiences) for me to chase this over and over (essentially having sex or any kind of physical intimacy) to be able to feel complete.

The problem was that I ended up putting on any number of masks (most of them quite unconsciously) to try and attain this validation through another person. I mention this because you highlight in your other thread the stress and strain of wearing different masks and indeed, unless one is a psychopath, this is extremely taxing on the personality and the potential essence, at least in the long run. For me, just like a drug, I found temporary solace in woman and relationships, and whilst there was certainly some growth and healing involved, though to a significant degree it sent me much further into entropy and the false personality.

I guess the pencil point is that ultimately I never found the validation I was looking for in a woman or a relationship. My wounds are still very much my own and very much present, despite all the love, care, attention and physical intimacy I've had over the years. I'm not saying that that's going to be the case for everyone as healing does occur within relationships but I suspect that for people who are actively seeking redemption of this kind, specifically from a relationship, we're to a large degree looking in the wrong place. I know also that I'm still running the same programs in this area: I'm overly flirtatious with certain women if I think they may give me their trust and treat them differently to men I'd meet in the same environment. I've also likely cut myself off from forming decent and wholesome friendships with the opposite sex if I haven't seen the possibility of getting the 'fix' I'm after. It goes on.....

Also, if you are as pained as you say in regards to this 'need', imagine what kinds of masks you may possibly need to wear in order to bring this about. Obviously it's quite common for people to put their 'best face forward' in the embryonic stages of a relationship but it means that we often only bring parts of ourselves to a relationship. In fact, if you think about it from a work perspective, I'd say most relationships are founded on significant dishonesty. And of course the wounded and perceived 'ugly' part of us that we leave at the door whilst beginning a relationship doesn't simply 'go away' as we wish to believe it will, but rather we have to spend huge energy ignoring its knocking and banging, until eventually it breaks through the window later on in the relationship. It's really no surprise that so many marriages/relationships end in divorce/separation these days.

I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't be seeking a relationship and on balance I'd say that it may well be very healthy for you. But I guess we all need to be extremely wary of this idea that we can be 'completed' or fixed by a relationship. Isn't this really a sub-theme of being 'saved' by an external force? In terms of an antidote to this situation I do think that Redfox's insights regarding self compassion/self esteem are really worthwhile pursuing to start with. In my experience, consciously witnessing and honouring that wounded part of ourselves does help things to shift or at least help to somewhat avoid the 'spiralling energy drain' which Redfox refers to. Perhaps you may even find that some growth and personal integration in this area helps to begin to attract the right kind of person?

 

[luke wilson]

Thanks Zenith and RF.

Ok, cool! Time to rein in these rampaging feelings and stop indulging in them. Time to up the ante...

New strategy... whenever these feelings arise (they have been doing much of these of late), I'll feel them acceptingly without waging a war against them. I'll try and refrain my mind from churning stories about "woe be me". Maybe there is some truth to acceptance and self-compassion.

What I know.... not all the feelings are actually to do with finding a partner, rather they are a mix of unprocessed emotions from all over the place. It boils down to validation and acceptance - true that. I can work at it by building up self-esteem, by trying to win external approval by building all sorts of masks, or I can work at it by allowing my body to process the unprocessed emotions and accept them as part of my experience.

Good news! I'm working on forming intimate relationships with people who are not toxic and who are compatible... not physically intimate but emotionally so. I'll concentrate on this arena. I actually have gifts in this arena... I need to work on them and let them develop with care and nurture.

Risks to take: I'll take baby steps on the physical intimacy front. I've got a game plan. Just test out the waters...little steps.

Red flag: Toxic vampires - to my aim. There is 1 or 2 of these dotted around in my life. These people can cause all sorts of mayhem on the emotional domain and it can bring up all sorts of junk to the surface. Ok, so need to find a way to shield my sense of self-worth from these. Example of a toxic vampire I have to contend with... those who in your environment flaunt the ways of the general law and act like its agent of enforcement... when they are in your environment or you theirs, they mess you up... big time! Can't run away from them all... so need to figure out how to deal with them. I just need to accept who I am and who I am not... God, that'll be interesting in practice. I know who/what they are... pretty much all of them have the same pattern of acting, so I'll on guide around them and watch out for all the internal stuff that arises... Separate that (feelings of failure, worthlessness, harshness towards oneself etc i.e. shortcomings on the fake human front) from what arises when dealing with genuine people (listening skills, ability to empathise, ability to show compassion etc i.e. shortcomings on the real human front).

Anyways, ok... systems go, got the green lights. See you guys on the other side.... the self-compassionate side!

PS: You see me back on this side of the fence.... remind me of this post.

 

[Alchemie]

If I were to put 100% value on co-linearity with my husband, I would not be together with him. He was often lagged behind of the trauma work compared to me (we kow us for about 17-18 years).
He had held really for too long time on parental pathology. An unhealthy Stockholm Syndrome that has hampered his life. And now he has to win back his power, so that he can live his life. We do it together, because we had a similiar trauma.
I would have still egositic and narcissistic reasons, why I could escape out of the partnership. That's probably for him too, because I'm already strong stuff (trauma things, triggers, etc.) xD
You can meet the right person, but that takes not the work off, which is pending in the partnership.

Risks to take: I'll take baby steps on the physical intimacy front. I've got a game plan. Just test out the waters...little steps.

You got a game plan?
I will start also from free will to approach intimate to my partner.
The author Clarissa Pinkola Estés writes, that a relationship is difficult to develop, when the sex is a relationship-start. The emotional and psychological part is better to be the basis.
Well, I think, to overcome the physical blockade are also heavy -if it counts to both partners. My husband and I are like children in the body of late 20s and early 30th.
That was very private, but ok.

If that is the case, then it was not true love for 21 years, but a lot of very hard work.. I am learning to love self, children and grand children in a new and different way. A rewiring of sorts from a long predictable process.. No better place to do so, now presently. Thank you for your input..

Mod edit: Fixed quote box

Sorry for your Trauma-experiences. I am learning, too, how to love myself, my daughter and other children, and my real family.

 

[RedFox]

Redfox, can I be honest? The feeling of discomfort is overbearing. I'm driven to dispel it, not live with it. However, dispelling it means, as far as I can see, trying my hardest, out of desperation, out of a position of wounding, to find a partner, if for anything, to get rid of the emotional discomfort. Basically to make me feel ok!

The reason for the discomfort as far as I can feel, is a lack of a partner, therefore, a partner is surely the solution?

Its bad I know but don't see how else the feeling will go away. No amount of self acceptance so far has dispelled it. I can occupy my mind with other stuff e.g. work, hobbies etc but this proves only temporary, only coping mechanisms.

Catch 22.

On the one hand: Have to set yourself right before getting a partner.
On the other hand: Can't set yourself right without a partner.

Solve!

fwiw luke I felt the same at your age. I don't know how intensely you can feel it but sometimes it would be all consuming pain that I just couldn't get rid of! Not only was I hypersensitive to rejection (that is someone saying no for healthy reasons would feel mortally wounding), I would perceive rejection where none existed (and thus the pain again), and would also self indulge in imagining how much of a failure/monster I was for receiving all this pain! I must have done something so terrible, be such a terrible person to have other inflict this level of pain on me.
Well it turns out that no I wasn't, I was hypersensitive. The irony is most of the pain came from myself - the pain caused me to think of me as myself as a terrible person, this my brain registered as social rejection (of myself BY myself) and would cause More pain, and would cause me to think I was More terrible, which caused More pain etc
When you're in pain or have been, you become hypersensitive to things, and if you're hypersensitive to things to feel pain more easily. Right here is the catch 22.

The core issue is not so much relationships, but how you self regulate your feelings. Specifically what beliefs you hold about yourself and others (I'm a terrible person, only others can fix me) and How these beliefs then set your emotional sensitivity/danger level. They are false beliefs based on perception and past personal history - perception is influenced by past experience/current belief (another catch 22). Genetics/epigenetics plays a part in how sensitive you can be (how much it hurts), along with diet etc but as we've seen all these things can be changed, or at least worked with! :)
The flip side is positive but misguided beliefs (such as new age style positive thinking) have just as much of a negative effect, but for some this is a numbing to reality rather than a hypersensitivity to it. Ironically it can also stem from avoidance of emotional pain/(perceived) rejection.

When you are in hypersensitive mode everything becomes black and white, your logical thinking is shut down and self observation/objective reasoning and even proper emotional evaluation becomes extremely hard unless you can learn about and develop some skills for catching yourself in that state.

Ok, so need to find a way to shield my sense of self-worth from these.

The trick is to feel the emotion but not let it rule you. If you are in hypersensitive mode, emotions rule your thinking. Part of that is being ok with the discomfort/intensity/pain of the emotions, part is understanding that you are a sovereign being and have a right to defend yourself/not be a victim, part of it is remembering to take an objective view of the entire situation, and part of it is remembering that you have a bias towards hypersensitivity.
If you catch yourself, you say 'oh this part of me again' - this can be done with hostility/anger at the self (thus self rejection/amplification of pain) or self compassion and acceptance (cooling of the pain). You try and catch that and use it as an alarm for engaging tools to self regulate your emotional sensitivity levels.

That make sense? :)

Here's a few videos that may help.

Firstly, what is proper/healthy validation? i.e. how can you understand your own self invalidation/validation (what thoughts are invalidating and turn up the pain volume, which are validating and objective, which are numbing/placating rather than objective etc) and then see validation/invalidation between people.

Perhaps think of examples of how you invalidate yourself, and how others invalidate you along side listening to the examples of the interpersonal dynamics described:

https://youtu.be/EDSIYTQX_dk

More on how emotional regulation/trauma etc works. Perhaps consider yourself when listening to the mechanics of how these things work

https://youtu.be/N2NTADxDuhA

Lastly on child development. The reason I bring this up is that the brain (especially for men) is still developing until 25+. The pre-frontal cortex is the executive part of the brain, it assesses danger and complex decision making, especially when it comes to relationships/human interaction!
For me, mine would get easily 'overheated' - everything would become too overwhelming. So if you are so inclined have a watch of this and listen to his description of parents needing to be the pre-frontal cortex of there children.
That is - everything you've learned (or not learned) about executive decision making, emotional sensitivity/regulation, interpersonal relationships is based on what has been learnt from parents/family/society. If you can understand how that works, you can un-learn/re-learn/fill in the missing pieces yourself! :)

https://youtu.be/UlMkWJY5T_w

Good news! I'm working on forming intimate relationships with people who are not toxic and who are compatible... not physically intimate but emotionally so. I'll concentrate on this arena. I actually have gifts in this arena... I need to work on them and let them develop with care and nurture.

I think that sounds really healthy and I say go for it :)
The best way to divest ourselves of our own illusions is to engage with others on many levels, if you take that attitude (and remember that other people will hurt you mechanically too, so not to make it all about you) you'll do fine.
What social situations do you enjoy? Have you ever thought of volunteering at a soup kitchen or similar?

*edit*
To be specific, if this is something that you want to research or get external help with have a look into Dialectical Behavior Therapy.

https://youtu.be/OW9BdPHFUCo

 

[luke wilson]

Thanks RF! I have to say you sure have done the rounds on this subject based on the material you posted.

I liked the video on validation/invalidation. It made a lot of sense. Not only in terms of family dynamics, friendship dynamics but also in terms of internal dynamics. It's something I have to watch/re-watch in order to understand more fully.

I also liked the video on attachment which I have to say made lots of sense though I also have to say some parts were counter-intuitive. For example, and I know he touches on this in the very end, he says that those who attach to peers may appear blessed at first but this is not ultimately the case. Going by my own personal experience based on my own attachments when I was growing up, I felt not being more strongly attached to peers has played havoc on me later on down the line. My judgement is based on the fact that now, I get my sense of self-worth from those very same peers and since I didn't take the time to get adequate relational patterns, I now encounter obstacles in deriving that sense of fulfilment from interactions with them. (Does that make sense?)

Thinking about it though, maybe no amount of relational fulfilment can come out of interaction with peers if one is not fully developed/mature! Maybe that's the answer?

This is not to say that in my case I didn't attach to the adults around me. I did, more-so to their authority. Their was no room to really feel or be vulnerable. There was no sense of "they got my back" if that makes sense.

So all in all.... screwed.


HOWEVER, found a nifty trick that I am putting into use and I swear it's working. All to do with

so I'll be on guide around them and watch out for all the internal stuff that arises... Separate that (feelings of failure, worthlessness, harshness towards oneself etc i.e. shortcomings on the fake human front) from what arises when dealing with genuine people (listening skills, ability to empathise, ability to show compassion etc i.e. shortcomings on the real human front).

Sooooo, one of this toxic vampires got in touch out of the blue and asked to meet up with another acquaintance... the usual patterning around my mind started to spin and before I know, the feelings were coming up... anger, hatred, anxiety, tension etc.. the stories started to weave... stories of personal inadequacies, failure, torment etc... All this, just from visions of the meet up and having to interact with this person. The judgement, point taking etc etc..

You know what I did, I simply told myself all this is coming from him and I accepted it internally. It came from my experience with this person and to use the language in the first video, the constant invalidations that mounted up over a long period of time. Any ways, accepting my body's reaction as normal greatly helped.

Another thing I've also been doing whenever these feelings are triggered is to ask myself if it's normal to feel them under whatever situation they were triggered. Surprise surprise, most of the time, it is! And guess what, that realisation somehow makes them bearable, makes them part of me, part of my experience as opposed to an invading entity. I can feel them subside.

In fact, over the last week or so, I have had some really good experiences in terms of dealing with overbearing emotions. Not sure how, but accepting them, not just by the thought, but by really accepting them, mind, body and spirit somehow takes the power away. It's in the knowing the trigger and accessing the trigger... is it normal? Is this a normal human response... is anything wrong with me or malfunctioning?? The answer more than often comes back as nope.

Helloooo progress...

 

[Hesper]

In fact, over the last week or so, I have had some really good experiences in terms of dealing with overbearing emotions. Not sure how, but accepting them, not just by the thought, but by really accepting them, mind, body and spirit somehow takes the power away. It's in the knowing the trigger and accessing the trigger... is it normal? Is this a normal human response... is anything wrong with me or malfunctioning?? The answer more than often comes back as nope.

Helloooo progress...

This is fantastic news luke. Your progress reminds me of the following:

Today we have nothing but the illusion of what we are. We think too highly of ourselves. We do not respect ourselves. In order to respect myself, I have to recognize a part in myself which is above the other parts, and my attitude toward this part should bear witness to the respect that I have for it. In this way I shall respect myself. And my relations with others will be governed by the same respect.

You must understand that all the other measures—talent, education, culture, genius—are changing measures, measures of detail. The only exact measure, the only unchanging, objective real measure is the measure of inner vision. I see—I see myself—by this, you have measured. With one higher real part, you have measured another lower part, also real. And this measure, defining by itself the role of each part, will lead you to respect for yourself.

 

[lainey]

In fact, over the last week or so, I have had some really good experiences in terms of dealing with overbearing emotions. Not sure how, but accepting them, not just by the thought, but by really accepting them, mind, body and spirit somehow takes the power away. It's in the knowing the trigger and accessing the trigger... is it normal? Is this a normal human response... is anything wrong with me or malfunctioning?? The answer more than often comes back as nope.

Helloooo progress...

This is fantastic news luke. Your progress reminds me of the following:

Today we have nothing but the illusion of what we are. We think too highly of ourselves. We do not respect ourselves. In order to respect myself, I have to recognize a part in myself which is above the other parts, and my attitude toward this part should bear witness to the respect that I have for it. In this way I shall respect myself. And my relations with others will be governed by the same respect.

You must understand that all the other measures—talent, education, culture, genius—are changing measures, measures of detail. The only exact measure, the only unchanging, objective real measure is the measure of inner vision. I see—I see myself—by this, you have measured. With one higher real part, you have measured another lower part, also real. And this measure, defining by itself the role of each part, will lead you to respect for yourself.

This is very thought provoking. Thanks for the post.
To have respect for our higher selves is to make the efforts with diet and health also. We respect that higher self by doing a service to them by respecting our bodies and minds. And in turn respecting others and their higher selves. Yes I like this line of thought very much.

 

[RedFox]

That's fantastic to hear luke! :)

 

[Jono]

That's fantastic to hear luke! :)

Yes Luke, it's nice to hear! :)