Hello October and Bludie. Thanks for your replies, much food for thought in them!
October, not sure if you want thoughts on what you said……
the way you argue yourself in circles
Um. Do people say this to you? I thought I was thinking things through (my feelings, my reactions) in a linear way to reach a better understanding of what I did (or didn’t do). I don’t really think there is such a thing as too much thinking, or over-analysing. I think people might say I over-analyse because of their own thoughts (not meaning you here, people in the real world who feel that thinking is too difficult and hard work). I think we’re conditioned and expected to conform to not-thinking – and that’s not healthy.
I have to censor what I say to my family. I do want them to learn,
I think one of the assumptions we all make is that we think other people will hear what we say in exactly the way we want them to hear it. They generally don’t because “Nothing others do is because of you.” You may want them to learn, but you can’t guarantee they will learn in the way you want them to.
but I don't want to hit them over the head with it all, and end up alienating them.
What you think is your interpretation. What I think is mine. That doesn’t mean that either of us is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’: we just see things differently. Can you see their interpretations as they see them? If you state your truth, you’re afraid that they will reject you – is that correct? The thing is,
you aren’t responsible for these people. Maybe if you could let that responsibility go, you might find it easier to state your views (censor yourself less) without risk of alienating them and in the process, value yourself more. E.g the difference between “I might feel manipulated if x happens” and “you are trying to manipulate me with x”: The first is about you and your world-view, the second is putting responsibility with them – where it doesn’t really belong.
Sometimes, though, things are personal.
What your mother does and says to you is personal to her, not you. You can choose to interpret what she does and says in whatever way you wish. You can break the habit of responding in the way you do. Like the moment in Dave Felzer’s life when he turns and smiles at the mother who is beating him almost to death for the umpteenth time. He realises that no matter how much she wants to hurt him, he has a core that can’t be touched, himself. He decides how he interprets what happens to him.
I have been so programed to look after everyone else and meet their needs before they even know they have them
This makes me so sad. This is so difficult to break. This is the huge sense of being responsible again. And there’s a flip side to being responsible for others like this – it gives us a false sense of being in control. Are you an introvert too? We have to have control to ward off the chaos, to stop things disintegrating into an unruly mess. But really we can only control ourselves, our thoughts, our views of the world. We can’t control – or be responsible – for others. They do what they do regardless of what we do. But we can test this. We can test it by acting differently (not meeting their needs) and seeing if they act differently. The world doesn’t come crashing down around us when we choose to change.
perfectionist thinking. Not always a good idea, though.
Very rarely useful. Extremely rarely. If we had perfection, how boring would it be? We wouldn’t know what it was, without life’s imperfection to compare to. Life is imperfect because we die. The trick is trying to get some meaning and fun out of life before we die.
These are just my thoughts, loaded with INFJ traits. Wanting to achieve and influence by sharing my thoughts which might help you and if they do, great. I can’t control how you interpret my words but that’s true of everything here I guess. I’ll just fling them down and see what you think.
Bludie, another INFJ?
All this is sorting, sifting and mulling is good fun!
I agree! But not everyone might. I appreciate that but I’m always willing to play with ideas until they’re shredded into fine strands that can then be put back into neat, orderly lines of thoughts – or so I think!
Please don't chide yourself
Ahh I wasn’t and I’m not, but I guess you can see that now?
self doubt can creep in when my expectations are not met.
My self-doubt can creep in before anything happens. My self-doubt is about myself, not what others do. Because “Nothing others do is because of you.” again. I wonder, like now when I post, will I upset anyone? Will I be able to handle the replies? I don’t have to wait for any replies to have doubt.
But if your expectations are not met, maybe you haven’t expressed your needs or wants as clearly as you see them? Take your resolutions thread. I didn’t respond because I don’t make resolutions. But I didn’t want to disagree with the concept of making resolutions (you didn’t ask for that), so I stayed away. If you’d have asked for views on not making resolutions, I would have been typing away! But your questions seemed to me (my interpretation) fairly narrowly-focussed, so I kept away. Maybe you assumed that everyone makes resolutions or whatever? I don’t know.
I think I see lots of assumptions happening all the time here. Half of them are mine, I see them afterwards. Like the assumptions about people who post. How many times do we think that a poster may be – ooo, let’s say….- Chinese? Okay still relatively unlikely. How about Iranian (likely)? How about 13 years old or 74 years old? How about 13 and married? Etc etc etc. We all make assumptions all the time because it makes life easier. I think it’s pretty sensible to make assumptions about the idea that the sun will still be there tomorrow, my car will start, the supermarket will still sell food, inflation won’t have risen to 50% overnight, electricity will still flow from the outlet …. but about what other people think, the fewer assumptions the better. But I find it’s darn difficult and so time-consuming! Worthwhile though. It we made fewer assumptions about people, there’d be fewer wars.
Having been religiously indoctrinated early on into my teens (12 years of parochial grade school AND high school)
I remember this from before and I despise that this still goes on. Some parts of religion are good, but it seems to me that the vast majority of human activity under the name of religion is life-harming. And I don’t like it that ALL religions (it seems) are about a life after this one. I don’t care about ‘me’ after I’m dead right now. It doesn’t concern me; what concerns me is life, not the promise or threat of what happens after life.
Thanks for getting the brain working this cold and rainy UK morning…best, P
