Holding on to Hope

[Hopalong]

Dear GS,

It does not take special powers, mystical abilities, or an unusual ability to love, in order to experience you as worthwhile and loveable.

I have red flags flapping in my head like sails at this:

Open your  heart to me and I will fill you with love. This
will not cost you anything, and will not prevent you from following any path you
choose. I will not demand that you see me exclusively or love only me.

"I will not demand" is a shadow demand. To me, dear GS, this is an unhealthy signal of a personality that is speaking to you, consiciously or not, from a stance of power over. Despite the fulminating assurances, this is not the voice of your equal.

It is the voice of someone playing the role of a "master", someone who perceives themself as having special  knowledge that you do not have. This role is very attractive to some people. Some cultivate it, having confused some spiritual readings with insight into their "special" nature and "special" ability to know what others need.

Please do NOT open your heart to someone who says to you, Open your heart. Please do NOT take instruction from someone who finds it appropriate even to say, to wit: Oh I won't be controlling. Not me.

That's a red flag of projection.

Someone who likes to play this particular role, consciously or not, is often very very attracted to another person who has low self-esteem, struggles with shame, and is desperate for external validation of their worth.

For a time their attention can be extremely sweet. But it can be like lily pads over quicksand. You yearn after the fragrance and before you quite realize it, you're stuck in something that is very hard to climb out of. 

Opening your heart is something that comes voluntarily as a gift from one healthy, balanced person to another, if it is going to lead to happiness. It does NOT come from a student-master, or pupil-teacher, or broken-person/"realized" person.

I am not saying this person is bad. I am saying that you are very vulnerable, desperate to get away from the sense of failure that haunts you. And blandishments like that can seem nearly irresistible. Taking your validation from someone who offers such sweets... it could be another way of procrastination. About continuing the hard hard work of learning to validate yourself.

So be careful of this kind of attention, please GS. The attention you need most is your own.

love,
Hops

[Overcomer]

Hey GS:  Take it from me......I did this with my husband.  I wanted the fantasy.  I wanted a way out of my job with nmom.  I knew if I got married, I would have a live in babysitter for my kids while I was away at training for my new job.  It backfired on me during the honeymoon when Mr. Hyde came out!!  Be careful!

I have heard this......go out to eat with your new man.  Watch how he responds to the waiter.  Drive down the road with him.  See if his life is full of road rage.  Go into a convenience store and see how he responds to the clerk (or what he says about him when you leave.)  These true colors are significant and will reveal his true colors.

Now, if he is nice to these people then you can breath a little bit easier.  But especially if he is put out by food servers this is truly a red flag.....or at least it SHOULD have been mine!

[Hopalong]

Hey, Kell:

What if you pondered this for a bit?
What would happen if you stopped trying to be right?

Just let it go?

What would happen if you said Mom, I don't agree but I don't think I can be right. It's just too much hard work trying to get you to believe I'm right. I have a lot of living to do and I will go find another job where I can be given full responsibility. I'm sure you're right about what's right for you. I don't want to fight about things any more. You can be right, Mom. It's really okay with me. I don't need to be right any more, I just need to be peaceful.

What would happen?

Hops

[WRITE]

I opened my bible at random earlier: 1 Corinthions 9:10

he that ploweth should plow in hope

my hope for me is that no on notices as I tiptoe from the battleground having given up on ploughing around the emotional carnage! But I was always hopeful, always.Still am, just not for the same things.

The outcome isn't in my gift...

Hope is really special though, like this Emily Dickinson poem:

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

I used to question the last line, I thought hope had asked a lot from me, now i see it was my hope for something in particular, where what I am left with is hope in general...

[Overcomer]

Hops:  That is kind of what I said to her.  I said, "I will not do this anymore."  "I cannot live my life fighting with you."  It IS true we both consider our perspectives as "right."  But I will never ever agree that she is right and it is a foregone conclusion that she doesn't think I am right.  And another thing.  If I have friendships and kinships with anyone other than her, she considers it a betrayal.  So my friendship and great working relationship with our bookkeeper is so threatening to her.  She will never EVER understand why I just cannot do what she says and be done with it............but I cannot live my life in her shadow and run a business flushing it down the toilet by allowing her to do what she thinks is right.  I have taken several days off and will do so next week as it is Spring Break and I cannot leave my 12 year old home all day long alone.  So, she can continue to try to run the business without me.  She will see that I am serious about leaving and she can taste how it feels without my stabilization there....

[Margo]

Dear GS,

It does not take special powers, mystical abilities, or an unusual ability to love, in order to experience you as worthwhile and loveable.

I have red flags flapping in my head like sails at this:

Open your  heart to me and I will fill you with love. This
will not cost you anything, and will not prevent you from following any path you
choose. I will not demand that you see me exclusively or love only me.

"I will not demand" is a shadow demand. To me, dear GS, this is an unhealthy signal of a personality that is speaking to you, consiciously or not, from a stance of power over. Despite the fulminating assurances, this is not the voice of your equal.

It is the voice of someone playing the role of a "master", someone who perceives themself as having special  knowledge that you do not have. This role is very attractive to some people. Some cultivate it, having confused some spiritual readings with insight into their "special" nature and "special" ability to know what others need.

Please do NOT open your heart to someone who says to you, Open your heart. Please do NOT take instruction from someone who finds it appropriate even to say, to wit: Oh I won't be controlling. Not me.

That's a red flag of projection.

Someone who likes to play this particular role, consciously or not, is often very very attracted to another person who has low self-esteem, struggles with shame, and is desperate for external validation of their worth.

For a time their attention can be extremely sweet. But it can be like lily pads over quicksand. You yearn after the fragrance and before you quite realize it, you're stuck in something that is very hard to climb out of. 

Opening your heart is something that comes voluntarily as a gift from one healthy, balanced person to another, if it is going to lead to happiness. It does NOT come from a student-master, or pupil-teacher, or broken-person/"realized" person.

I am not saying this person is bad. I am saying that you are very vulnerable, desperate to get away from the sense of failure that haunts you. And blandishments like that can seem nearly irresistible. Taking your validation from someone who offers such sweets... it could be another way of procrastination. About continuing the hard hard work of learning to validate yourself.

So be careful of this kind of attention, please GS. The attention you need most is your own.

love,
Hops

Ummmmmm, ya.  What Hops said, lol. 

[gratitude28]

(((((((((((((((GS))))))))))))))

You can plan the action, but you can't plan the result

You are doing great and it is so nice to hear your (much stronger) voice.
Love, Beth

[Hopalong]

Kell,
I know, I understand that you cannot ever agree with her that she's "right". You don't have to.

I was just messing with the thought about letting her be "right" (in quotes)...because you let go of the battle.

IOW, letting go and letting her think whatever she will think. (Like, she could go through the day thinking, saying, emailing, I'm right I'm right I'm right...)

And what if you said (to yourself): What would happen if I just tried this out?

Mom, I will let you be "right". I won't make myself wrong, but you can be "right" because I am letting go of the family business idea. It's hard to let go of trying to get you to let me run things the way I think is "right." But I want to let go of that now. I going to go work somewhere else.

I just wondered what it would be like if you could get to that thought without pain.

love,
Hops

[Overcomer]

Well being humble and biting my tongue will be difficult but I will try it.  But part of the thing is in order for her to think she is right would make me stay there to endure her rightness!

[Hopalong]

Ooo. Well, maybe you won't have to do THAT. You can let go of trying to control her thinking she is "right" and proceed with building your own better life anyway.

IOW, even if it doesn't make "sense" to her, because it's not "right", you can stop fighting and go work somewhere else anyway. But maybe without all the pain.

I hope that for you, hon. It is so hard to set boundaries with a person who doesn't see, who refuses to see, who drives us crazy with their not seeing how wrong they are, and whom we love.

Hops

PS--forgive me if I'm not being very helpful...brain's so drained I am not thinking too sharply ((((OC)))

[sea storm]

Dear GS,

I think it is wonderful that you are going in the direction of focusing on those who care for you rather than focusing on those who reject you. There is so much validation for you from your friends here.

In the literature on Ns it often says if someone sounds to good to be true, then they are too good to be true. That one person was sounding a bit too good to be true and going overboard on promises. Could be a good time to check your N detector, non?

Love
Sea storm

[axa]

GS

Major red flags here for me.  It sounded like XN to me.  I know my N dectector is very alert right now but I heard such similiar stuff from XN.  i dont know how long you know this man but it seems very emotional and weighted.  You are doing soooooooooooooooooo well and working so hard.  BE CAREFUL.  For many of us here who are very vulnerable being offered such "respect" sounds so attractive.  I am concerned for you.  Maybe he is ok, and if he is take it so slowly.  You have a precious soft heart you need to treat it with kid gloves.  Nobody else can take care of it only you. 

I admire and respect you and want what is good for you.

axa

[Overcomer]

GS:  I hope you are hearing us all.  Maybe this guy is ok but don't get into that "I am so in love that I don't see clearly for a year" syndrome.  Because in a year if he isn't cool, you will hate yourself.

Hops:  Believe me it has all been said.  That doesn't stop these invisible strings that are between my mom and I.  If I leave she will rush in when I am at my new job and try to take care of my 12 year old daughter.  She did that when I left before.  While I was at training she came over many times and said things like, "Well, SOMEBODY has to take care of her.........."  Even though my husband and older daughters were there.

It's interesting.  I know she hates me.  It is such irony that she hates me so much but will not release me from the job without some kind of "fight."  I have to think it is the fear of running it without me but having to be right and in charge keeps her from giving it up.  She told me last week to take some time off so I am.  I hope she feels a huge void without me.  Maybe she will get a taste of how it will be without me.

Well, I did it again.  I applied AGAIN for that job I have been wanting.  I am so stupid.  If they call me it will be a miracle.  They are all probably having a good laugh at my expense........poor girl, she must be desperate.  But it would be poetic justice if I got a call from the new job I applied for and they both wanted me and I chose the new one and said something like "Well, I cannot work for a company who cannot get their act together!!"

Anyway, remember I am dealing with an extremely narcissistic mother so so me to expect anything but contempt from her is ludacris.  If I get another job, she will never let me go without a fight of sorts.

[Hopalong]

I admire you for applying again, who cares what they think?
If they are thinking right they'll be very impressed by your persistence!

I hear you, I know what it's like to feel nearly stalked by your parent. (And I've put my D through that when I was panicking over her.)

Sounds like what drives your mother is also fear...likely, of losing control. Which she will. Inevitably, through the march of time if not the business.

I think the more grounded you feel in your own self, the more deserving of simple respect and a decent life, the less you'll tolerate things but the more comfortably you'll say No, so it might not be so anguishing.

One thing my mininster said yesterday was that the reason people go to anger so much is that it's too hard to feel the pain.

Do you feel you've ever been able to grieve the pain of having your mother be so unloving to you?

hugs,
Hops

[Overcomer]

Hops:  It is actually a lot less anguishing than it used to be.  Whenever I used to be in a room alone with my mom, I would end up crying.  Now I have such a resolve that I don't have much emotion at all.  Sometimes I actually laugh because my mom's reactions to me are so predictable.....it has become laughable.  Plus someone told me to imagine her dressed as Minnie Mouse and talking like her, too.  Especially when she is talking down her nose at me and throwing insults.  It works!!

I also figured out the SILENCE thing with me.  Not only are the people who I have applied to not calling.......but no one is calling.  My mom used to call me all the time.  I would get so put out by her because she could never distinguish between work and personal conversations, they were always work.  So I have been trying to set these FIRM boundaries.  Well, she is hearing me because she doesn't call me anymore.  I girl that used to work for us was in town this last weekend and I knew it but forgot.  In the past, she would have called me and expected me to be with them all weekend long.  She never called.  She probably thinks I am self centered..............and I would have gone if someone would have called and reminded me.  So am I speaking out of both sides of my mouth???  Don't call, but call???  Well, what I want is to be called for personal things but not business.