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On Discovering the SELF..

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rosencrantz:

--- Quote ---I intend to create a plan so fullproof that j can burn down the house to focus me back on him and test my "loyalty" still there will be doable activities i will maintian - I'll go do sit up on the lawn while the embers smolder!
--- End quote ---


Echo - I love that.  With that kind of determination and awareness, you'll surely succeed!  Way to go!

Hi Anna - you just cut and paste what you want to highlight then (still highlighted) click on the 'quote' button up there above the message body (you'll find it next to the bold, italics and underline buttons).   :)

R

signalfire:
I got a book this week called Writing the Mind Alive. It describes what I think is a perfect exercise for people who grew up with an N parent.  Its a sort of journaling exercise that the book describes. Even if you don't care about being a better writer, I urge you to get the book and start the practice as a way of locating and appreciating your self.

CC:
Thank you friends, for your inspiring responses.  You have given me some great ideas. I am glad I am not alone in restlessness.

Echo, interestingly, my therapist  asked me "what did you dream about as a child" and "what did you like as a child" also.  This was equally difficult for me to answer because as a child I was not allowed to explore my dreams.  My activities were fullfillment of my parents (mother's) dreams.  Classical piano, ballet,  "play in the back yard with dirt and entertain yourself" instead of sleepover at a friends house and play barbies (see my post about Barbie in 'absence, distancing and withheld love'.  I was not allowed to watch the Brady Bunch, or other "normal" childhood stuff - they were "Mindless".  Only public television and a few other rare treats  (my mother would circle educational programs I would be allowed to watch on the TV guide).  

As I go back through my childhood desires, it is difficult for me to identify if they were things that I truly wanted , or things that my friends did, and maybe I just wanted the same things so I could feel like a "normal" kid.  I was told by my Nmother that to participate in those things I would be "common" like my friends, and didn't I wanted to aspire to greater things? (Grandiosity, entitlement)

As an adult, I seek out friendships with people that my mother considered "common".  Good, down to earth people.  When my husband isn't home, I watch nickelodeon and catch the shows that I loved but were forbidden - Brady Bunch, Bewitched, and I dream of Jeannie - and I am thinking about getting a piano so I can play "pop" songs on it - these were forbidden, I was only allowed to play classical because my father was a professional musician and "pop" wasn't 'real' music.

I find that many of the activities and interests I have as an adult are a reflection of my mother.  In my new found health, I almost feel as though I should reject them.  But I truly enjoy some of the things (I think?) and this is what I am going to reflect on.

It was poignient when you asked about why I abandoned my business.  I really need to examine that.  I can't honestly answer, but I think you are correct in addressing that there is a key clue here if I figure it out.  It is a common thing for me to do - through myself into an activity 110% and then ditch it with no interest later.  I did this in my professional life for years.  Its almost as if I am afraid to complete a project in its entirety.  Why?  Could it be that this was my false self, when I start to be successful and grandiose, that I want to go back to being "common" and "like everybody else"? an adult form of rebellion, or what I truly desire???

My last employer was a brilliant sales exec and extremely intuitive.  When I gave him my notice two years ago,  he looked me in the eye, saying  "C, you are so talented and have given so much to this office.  What are you running from?  Whatever it is, it will follow you, until you figure it out.."  This haunts me to this day.  Whenever I think of this, it brings me to tears.  I don't know, but I need to know.

I'm off to get some books at the library.  I need to do some more work, and this forum had finally kicked me in the butt to get me out of a plateau I had reached.  Thank you for everything.

Anna:

--- Quote from: CC ---
I need to do some more work, and this forum had finally kicked me in the butt to get me out of a plateau I had reached.
--- End quote ---


Congratulations for getting your motivation back.  Isn't it a paradox that through pain we grow and heal....  your boss's words sound insightful and he obviously touched a softspot in your heart.

I agree with you CC, this forum has been wonderful for my heart as well. I found support and love and understanding here that could never come from books.  

Acappella:
thank you Anna & Rosencrantz for the "how to" on quotes.  i was wondering too.

thank you Rosencrantz for the acknowledgement and for sharing your enthusiasm with me.  (now i need to solidify my plan and sustain my determination and awareness - eee gads! :shock:  )

CC:  congradulations! in your last post i love the way you are reclaiming your experiences.  you aren't tossing the baby out with the bath water by just rebelling against everything you grew up with but feeling it out and being it out (weird phrase but that is what i mean) one experience at a time instead.  can you send a wav file of your really loud pop music?  :wink:

 
--- Quote ---you are so talented, you have so much to give to this office  
--- End quote ---
 said the
--- Quote ---brilliant man.  
--- End quote ---


just because our n - associates (that is my term for friends, parents, spouses etc.) are adept at making the world revolve around them (their imagined self) doesn't mean it is wrong to ask WHAT IS IN IT FOR YOU/ME?  Great that you have so much to give! AND that isn't reason alone for doing something.  clearly he cares about you, you are talented AND perhaps you were running from something there that you really didn't want.  leaving isn't bad and doesn't mean you are running just away.  are running towards some place?

I wonder what pain (soft part in your heart that anna noted?) in particular you were feeling?  greiving not serving a brilliant man, that man and/or shame for leaving when you are needed? or grieving that you were leaving something you felt good about as you are doing it, in the moment?  Did you leave because you felt inadequate?  I know I have had a heck of a time learning to feel the specificness of my experiences.  I can feel disconnected because i enjoy what i am doing but am frightened of that process or disconnected because i feel i should enjoy what i am doing but i don't really.  

you started this “search for self” thread.  you gave and you are getting.  how does THAT exchange feel?  I am certainly appreciative that you did AND i understand you would need to be getting something out of this, some benefit, energy from it to keep giving it even and especially if you are good at giving.  Isn’t it is all about win-win instead of win-lose; about balance not right or wrong, give and get not give or get.  Yes, i am rereading this to myself as i forget it often and hopefully in the process relearn it at a new level of intricacy, a new relevancy, another facet in the gem.  

Signalfire, i am learning that writing is an excellent way to focus.  It is like a butterfly net in which i can catch emotions, epiphanies, contradictions, etc. and then examine them, marvel and admire and disect them and then set them and myself free again, at least free-er. (is that a word?  :roll: )

Neko, I liked your technique of turning towards your self the empathy/humanistic view you extend to others – when you asked what you value others for and discovered it wasn’t just their job.  I feel that what you said about seeing a weakness as a strength relates here too.  Having n parents may require a child to pay close attention outward and in fact that can be a vital ingredient for empathy and/or less productive qualities too.  It can also be a weakness.  You turned your ability to see others into a means of also seeing your self.  

And, at the moment my interests don’t get me anywhere monetarily either and that is my latest focus in my search for self-discovery.  

By the way, I fully support anyone out there in taking time from work if they can and need to in order to facilitate self-discovery.  A little voice in my head reads that when applied to myself and judges "How flaky!"  Yet, I don’t know how I would have worked through what I have needed to work through to get to my current level of inspiration about work if not for taking breaks. Breaks like any tool can be used as a means to many ends of course,  including hiding too long.  Yet, i worked since i was 11, full time when i turned 15.  i took an exit exam for high school - i hadn't attended in years anyway and worked illegally and loved the freedom i had as a result of a paycheck.  i ultimately put myself through a very rigerous university (one the top in the US) working all the way through until the last summer.  (my spelling and writing sometimes reveals my lack of early schooling.  I took mostly science classes in college.  also, my focus on this site is to spend time communicating content not perfection.   :D  though if i am too confusing to read please let me know  :oops: )  it took a major depression many years later for me to not work for a while in my late 20s.  i felt too ashamed to enjoy the time "off".  when i worked again it was a 70 hour a week job.  i worked out of fear not motivated by desire or passion.  anyway, many more years later and i am now looking at and for work from a new perspective, one that i am not intimately familiar with and yet am on the way to being so, namely from win-win, work from which i both derive and expend energy.  

To get to know (& feel!) better the experience of self discovery and work, and to exchange and seek support when i loose my awareness and determination (i don't think i will but i know better! what a quote, eh :roll: ) i am going to post a topic to see if there are others in this forum who want to exchange support and updates regarding the quest for & discovery of self in work/employment.

read ya later....

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