Inherent self worth

[Ami]

Dear Iphi,
  JUST seeing and expressing what you did means that you have  clarity on it. When you first got on the board,I don't think that you could have  EVER seen or expressed your situation as simply and clearly as you just did.
 I want to say a big ,huge BRAVO to you.                       Love   Ami


((((((((((((((((((Iphi)))))))))))))))))))))

[Ami]

Dear Amber,
  That last post was "brilliant"-WOW. You said so much and so simply and clearly. If my printer were working,I would print it out and take it in my pocketbook.
  I wanted to share a little story of "how" I am healing. I am noticing that a depression and a feeling of being "frozen" comes over me when I have one --on --one encounters with woman.(I was just thinking that I don't have it with men.iI have always had men friends and am much more comfortable and trusting of men.My  F is a decent and kind person. That must be why.)
With woman, I get "frozen". I feel like I am in "slow motion". My thinking gets frozen. Today, a lady from the bank came over for me to sign some papers. There were two ladies. I was frozen like an icicle.To top it off,I was not sure what I was signing b/c my H takes care of the 'papers". (I know this is "bad" too).
 However,I had all these emotions and feelings coming over me. However, I got quiet inside myself and tried to reach my core and just "be" there. I felt  better.I told myself that these emotions were not "real". I would get to the bottom of them, eventually, and I would be "normal". I did not just "slide" in to them. This was a victory--to see that they were not "real" I think that the "voice'(Role) was telling me that I was an idiot b/c I didn't even really know what the papers were for. The voice was telling me other things that I have to do inner child exercises to figure out.
  I get "frozen" with woman, though. I  am fine in a group,like at a party,but one--on-one,I feel myself 'shut down" inside.I feel like a character in a slow motion movie. It feels really, really bad.
 Oh---- miles to go before I sleep........ Thanks for being here, Amber and Happy Birthday   Ami
 

[Iphi]

The big TRAP of an N-relationship is the promised payoff - that they will love us IF..........(fill in the blank).

I agree with Ami, Amber what a brilliant post.  Thank you for sharing your insight and wisdom.  I so agree with the above quote.  I have cried many rivers over that one. 

I got the 'zero-sum' game issue some years ago, long before knowing about N-ism.  I could see that the game was rigged and the payoff would never come.  And that's one hideous thing.  No carrot.  But the other thing and I think it is the thing that is particularly where the wall of terror is - is the stick.  It's not the withheld reward, it's the punishment applied - the cringing and trying to ward off the rejection, the scorn, the mocking - all the emotional abuse.  Especially when you try and try and try and really reach in and pull more out of yourself and put it out there.  And I guess it has to come in combination with the brain washing that the N is Right and Good and a Saint and Blameless and your Judge and Objective and the Authority.  All that.  And me with my schizophrenic mom and no other refuge, none at all.... I cannot imagine how I would have physically survived if I had not become a cult member in the cult of personality of dad.   

Approaching this stuff really makes my chest tight and makes me feel like I could hyperventilate - though it doesn't happen.

But how can I stop having that be where I am?  I am projected a lot of stuff, not actual thoughts perhaps, but the way things 'feel.'  Ami - that is exactly it - the situation with the women today and every day.  I have that exact sort of experience too.

I'm feeling a lot of chakra 1 and 2 issues these days.  Been reading Carolyn Myss again.  Feels right - no further epiphanies.

Also, intellectual life is really important to me.  I keep trying to foreswear it but it keeps resurging for me as an issue and a demand to be included in my life.  And that's a no-go area.  It's behind the itchy wet blanket of horror.     There's no conventional way I could build an intellectual career now and I have been unable to avoid 'self-sabotaging' if I consider steering in the opposite direction to be a sabotage (but it was the direction of a feeling of refuge and safety).

Ami your post is brilliant too.  You have captured the feeling of the recurrence of the issue.  And Tolle says - and I recognize what he is saying, for me, is true - that we must strive to be awake and present (he capitalizes it - Present).  I think he means the same thing you mean about connecting with your core in the present moment.  He says we should work at being Present as our Spirits - I think what you mean as present from your Core.

I've got to go on home and may not get a chance to post again tonight but ((((((you guys))))))

[Ami]

Dear Iphi,
  To see you heal has put such a joy in to my day. I feel such a happiness to see you tentatively come out of your shell in to the sun. I want to say,"YEAHHHHH"
 Iphi-- Could you explain more some parts of your post?
  I don't understand how you want more of an intellectual life ,but you would sabotage it? What do you mean--specifically.
  As I heal,I understand Caroline Myss in a deeper way. Actually,I could not understand her before,,with my heart. Now, I can much more.
                  Love to you ,   Ami

((((((((((((((Iphi)))))))))))))))))