The right way to act or wishful thinking?

[Mililea]

Finally I can take a moment to write. I have been working on this text in my head for some time now, or rather on the topic that is running through my mind. I mentioned briefly in my introduction that my life has been quite eventful and has given me many big tasks. In order to ask my question, I have to expand a little.

I will start in 2004 with my daughter's accident, she fell into a hot bathtub in our flat when she was 2.5 years old. I had separated from her father and we lived in a small, cheap old flat with a boiler in the bathroom and the toilet in the hallway. She was playing in her room and I ran her bath water... because of the boiler and the old faucet, the hot one first... then I went to the toilet and just leaned the bathroom door... then I heard her screams... she had fallen in... the rest is history.... 50% body surface was injured with II and III degree burns. She was flown by rescue helicopter to a special hospital in Mannheim.

There she was in an artificial coma for a fortnight, a total of 5 weeks in intensive care, was transplanted with split skin three times and we were then in the normal ward for an additional 4 weeks. So 9 weeks in total. She almost died during that time. I don't know in retrospect how I was able to do that, but I did... I would even say I learned a lot during that time. I also talked a lot with other mothers about the possible death of our children during the time in the intensive care unit, which somehow seems unreal to me today. I also reconciled with her father and set up my own scar treatment unit in the rooms of a plastic surgeon. Everything looked good for now. Then, four weeks after opening the business, I found out that my daughter's father loves another woman. So it was back to square one... I think I managed to keep the business going for about two years with several side jobs, then I had to file for private bankruptcy.

There are a few things I have to leave out, otherwise it will be a book

In 2012 I met a man who, as a fun-loving, strong and self-confident woman, brought me to my knees. I have already written briefly about this time here in the forum. He was everything my daughter and I had imagined in a family and everything we had wished for. We did everything together and it was wonderful. But unfortunately only 6 months... during which I overlooked or didn't want to see the first signs. Not even when my best friend warned me. I fell into the trap. Because it turned out that he was not only an alcoholic and a psychopath, but also used Chrystal, marijuana and his mother's psychiatric drugs to get down. They were episodes that usually lasted about 5 days, then, if I was lucky, there was peace for a week. During the bad 5 days he was mostly just psychologically violent, but after a while he would also push me, spit in my face or choke me. And I stayed because I thought I could help him. Which of course didn't work. After three years, he pushed my daughter against the wall by her neck on her birthday and then it clicked with me and we fled to my friends house together with our rabbit, some documents and clothes. Without her help I would not have made the jump.

Since 2015, I have been working to restore myself. I think I have succeeded quite well. However, with a few obstacles that have pulled the rug out from under me again, but at the same time have also allowed me to grow.

In 2016, my father died of cancer at the age of 60 (I was a daddy's girl , I have to say). Perhaps because of this, my congenital heart defect suddenly worsened during this time and I had to have the hole in my heart, which had grown to 2 cm in size, closed in a catheter operation. Half a year later, my mother also got cancer (60 years old) ... At first everything looked quite good, she had a wonderful summer 2017 but in winter she got brain metastases. She lived in a small village alone in a house with only her dog and since I am the only daughter, I decided to move in with her and take care of her. We had a very problematic relationship when I was young and as she is very perfectionistic, I have worked all my life to meet her expectations. Accompanying her when she was dying and the conversations and situations we experienced together during that time healed a lot in both of us. Unfortunately, she did not want anyone else to help us except the mobile palliative team, which could be called if needed. After four months, the cancer took over and she was allowed to fall asleep peacefully at home.

In 2020, my grandmother finally died in a nursing home at the age of 91. Thanks to Corona with very few visitors, which in my opinion brought about her death more quickly, as she too was a very sociable, fun-loving and culturally educated woman at her age. She was a very important person in my life.

These have all been the most profound times in my life and I often think about how I was able to do it all, but I have done it and on the contrary, I feel I have come out of it stronger. With a focus on the essentials. And since I've been studying the material here on the site in depth and thinking about myself and life, I'm increasingly asking myself if I'm normal.

How can someone endure all this and still go through life with cheerfulness and positive thinking? I ask myself, have I encapsulated all the emotions inside me? I am a little afraid of that. It's not that I've closed myself off to emotions either. On the contrary, it's as if I feel a lot more of them, especially since my mother died. And I sit here thinking about our last months and I am filled with gratitude for that. Of course, during all the experiences I also shed many tears, but afterwards, or even during, I got up and did what was necessary.

I don't know if you understand my question. I'm very sorry if I can't express it properly. Was I just lucky with my parents who showed me that you look at a situation first and then react and do what is necessary or do I close off my feelings and then work through what is necessary so that nothing bothers me? Have I learned my previous lessons through this or is it a kind of wishful thinking? All these experiences have led to the conclusion in my mind that (apart from a comet shower of course ) nothing bad can happen to me and if it does it can be sorted out somehow.

I am no longer afraid of death because I have seen it, looked straight in his face and I am no longer afraid of not having money because I know what it is like not to have any. But I don't sit back, maybe now I have the opportunity to bring things together for myself. The past experiences, with the knowledge learned today. I always try to check if my alignment is going in the right direction and I already think I have mastered my 3D lessons quite well so far, but I am afraid that this is wishful thinking. I hope you understand my question... Maybe someone can think of something or read between the lines who has made it to this point with reading....

(If it is better to take this post to another place, so please do so )

 

[T.C.]

I can relate to some of what you’ve written, especially the fact that you’re questioning it all. It’s easy to feel like we’ve learned something important from a difficult experience simply from the fact that we’re able to carry on afterwards feeling like we’re at peace with it.

Unfortunately, Gurdjieff was totally correct when he talked about the human ability to create ‘buffers’ inside ourselves in order to continue on without being broken by inner struggles or plagued by terrible memories and the emotions that they produce.

If we seem able to continue on without being messed up by what has happened to us, feeing like we’ve processed them correctly and learned from them, how are we to really know if that’s the case or if we’ve actually just constructed these mental and emotional buffers against what we’ve been through?

The universe is always the best teacher, and I think all we can do to find out is what you have done here: To ask. If you ask a question, your life always becomes the answer, the universe always responds.

All I can say is from what you’ve written, it doesn’t seem like you’ve run away from or buried what you’ve been through. But the only real way to know is to observe your life as it is now, and what happens to you in the future, to see what situations the universe puts you in to give you the answer to your question.

 

[Mililea]

Thank you very much @T.C. for this answer, I have not yet looked at it from that point of view, or I have overlooked it, because I actually know the way of looking at it. But when it comes to yourself, I think you sometimes have a board in front of your head.
I think for a long time I didn't have my life in my own hands, now that I'm much more aware, I feel like I do now.
At the moment I have a really nice life, as far as that is possible in COVID times. I have a great husband, I have a daughter who is confidently going her way with all her scars and I have a job that I enjoy. The only thing I would like to have is more time to read, write, EE and all that stuff. But I do this whenever there is time and take what I can get

 

[Persephone]

Hi Mililea I completely agree with what T.C. said. I can certainly not answer your question but what I felt in reading your story is a great strenght which you probably have. This doesn't mean that all your expériences have completely processed and integrated but the simple fact that you question yourself about it is a sign that deep inside you there is not an intention to avoid distressing feeling and hard life lessons.
I can relate to your questioning too as it has occured in my life quite often. Well, as far as I'm concerned I'm surely a "fragmented" type person which can partly explain why sometimes I was able to cope with events which would have brought down someone else, but maybe the psychic configuration we chose to incarnate is the best suited to cope with the kind of lessons we're here for (not quite sure of the last sentence). The last three years have been the best of my life in terms of external situation and conditions and it's in this period that a lot of partially or completely unresolved/processed experiences have resurfaced giving me the opportunity to deepen the work on myself, even (or should I say especially) what I had erroneusly thought I had integrated.
And as T.C. said " If you ask a question, your life always becomes the answer, the universe always responds."

 

[zak]

Those who live are those who struggle; they are
Those with a firm purpose fill the soul and the forehead,
Those of high destiny climb the bitter summit,
Those who walk pensively, enamored of a sublime goal,
Having in front of eyes incessantly, night and day,
Or some holy labor or some great love.
(...)
Victor Hugo

But I don't sit back, maybe now I have the opportunity to bring things together for myself. The past experiences, with the knowledge learned today. I always try to check if my alignment is going in the right direction and I already think I have mastered my 3D lessons quite well so far, but I am afraid that this is wishful thinking.

From time to time, when we are lost in the sense that we are not certain, or even that we do not know, it is always gratifying and illuminating to have a sign to guide us.
There are things like knowing how to make for oneself a knot that would withstand a fall during an ascent, another to make the same knot for someone other than oneself, and another to teach this same knot to a third party, which will be able to secure himself, and by his knowledge and experience could share it with others. Knowledge, then the experience of knowledge, that one becomes an example capable of making knots of confidence, reliable, as easy to do as to undo and above all which does his job.
To come back to your post, among the children playing on the beach, you must be one of those who choose to laugh at the wave that threw them on the sand, it would be wishful thinking if these children think that all the waves in the sea sea would make them laugh all the time.
Enjoy your simple and karmic lessons with your daughter and husband, Mililea !

 

[Mililea]

Those who live are those who struggle; they are
Those with a firm purpose fill the soul and the forehead,
Those of high destiny climb the bitter summit,
Those who walk pensively, enamored of a sublime goal,
Having in front of eyes incessantly, night and day,
Or some holy labor or some great love.
(...)
Victor Hugo

Wooow, what a message... I really had to shed a few tears when I read this. It touched me deeply.Thank you for that...

And yes, at the moment I am really able to enjoy my life. It's fun to play and learn with the smaller waves that hit me more at work at the moment, but it's an interesting playing field. As I work in an open-plan office, I have many different people around me to check my behaviour or reactions with. I feel like I can finally be myself again since a long time, without worrying about what someone thinks of me and that feels really good.