Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: Ami on January 12, 2010, 03:23:57 PM
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I think that so many problems come from projection of our inner qualities outward. I am the last one who wants to look at myself.
I want myself to be pure and I am not.
The hardest part is seeing my own egocentricity and selfishness and being OK with it .Of course, I can add the other qualities like jealousy, pride etc.
If you can't accept the worst in yourself, you will project it outward . You will keep wondering WHY life is not working.
I think once you can accept the worst parts of yourself, you can have a sweetness borne of reality.
Can anyone relate?
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I think that so many problems come from projection of our inner qualities outward. I am the last one who wants to look at myself.
I want myself to be pure and I am not.
The hardest part is seeing my own egocentricity and selfishness and being OK with it .Of course, I can add the other qualities like jealousy, pride etc.
If you can't accept the worst in yourself, you will project it outward . You will keep wondering WHY life is not working.
I think once you can accept the worst parts of yourself, you can have a sweetness borne of reality.
Can anyone relate?
How beautiful.
Looking at ourselves takes courage. The voice of pride says "you need not look in but only out," the voice of fear seems to drive the force of pride saying "don't look it will hurt, it will be too much."
Something like that.
Pride seems to want to push truth of myself down, not facing what wants to come up, the good the bad and the ugly.
Pride blinds us to seeing ourselves as we really are.
A priest once pointed out to me that Jesus cured many many case of physical blindness in His healing work, perhaps more than any other illness. Almost as if to make a point that we are blind in this life, spiritually blind and it is our spiritual blindness that needs to be cured.
There is another saying from a theologian who says that when we stand in the Light of Christ, we are not less aware of our sins but more aware. When we come to Christ, His light illuminates our souls, gives us the light to see ourselves as He sees us, yet still loves us, all of us, our sin, our weakness and our failings, wrongs to others - our greed, lust, envy, sloth, pride, anger and gluttony.
We don't need to clean ourselves up to be loved by Christ, He is the one that cleans us up, purifies us, we need to go to Him in our thoughts, hearts and minds, turning to him like a child to a parent in need, in order to see so that He can clean us up and then we see how much we need Him, like little children.
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Hi Ami, yeah, I can relate, I'm grappling with some of it right now...really human, down in the dirt stuff. In fact I'm stuffing my mouth with dirt to enjoy the feeling. Mmmmph! Boy that's good.
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Hi Ami,
When I first found and posted to this board, you welcomed me and mentioned you thought I could offer to the board - thank you again. Words don’t come easy for me, but I’ve been learning. Well, one of the things that happened right after my NH husband died, was, me taking a good hard look at myself.
It was incredibly hard and scary.
It was incredibly rewarding.
I don’t pretend to do that continually to the best of my ability ever since, but knowing I’ve done it to some degree…. I realized that everyone had faults, made mistakes. How could really expect myself to not? By admitting to myself my flaws, and problems, and etc, and etc, I could then work on them, making me more comfortable with myself. More available to my children. Not repeating what I did the day before. Trying again, but better, by not repeating the same mistake. Not anywhere near perfect mind you - that impossible, and problems arise when people think they can be.
Watching yourself improve and get better is good for you. You can’t do that if you can’t accept what needs work.
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What GREAT responses (((Portia ,Lise, Kat))
You got just what I meant!
If you don't face, you will repeat . xxxooo Ami
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I think that so many problems come from projection of our inner qualities outward. I am the last one who wants to look at myself.
I want myself to be pure and I am not.
The hardest part is seeing my own egocentricity and selfishness and being OK with it .Of course, I can add the other qualities like jealousy, pride etc.
If you can't accept the worst in yourself, you will project it outward . You will keep wondering WHY life is not working.
I think once you can accept the worst parts of yourself, you can have a sweetness borne of reality.
Can anyone relate?
How beautiful.
Looking at ourselves takes courage. The voice of pride says "you need not look in but only out," the voice of fear seems to drive the force of pride saying "don't look it will hurt, it will be too much."
Something like that.
Pride seems to want to push truth of myself down, not facing what wants to come up, the good the bad and the ugly.
Pride blinds us to seeing ourselves as we really are.
A priest once pointed out to me that Jesus cured many many case of physical blindness in His healing work, perhaps more than any other illness. Almost as if to make a point that we are blind in this life, spiritually blind and it is our spiritual blindness that needs to be cured.
There is another saying from a theologian who says that when we stand in the Light of Christ, we are not less aware of our sins but more aware. When we come to Christ, His light illuminates our souls, gives us the light to see ourselves as He sees us, yet still loves us, all of us, our sin, our weakness and our failings, wrongs to others - our greed, lust, envy, sloth, pride, anger and gluttony.
We don't need to clean ourselves up to be loved by Christ, He is the one that cleans us up, purifies us, we need to go to Him in our thoughts, hearts and minds, turning to him like a child to a parent in need, in order to see so that He can clean us up and then we see how much we need Him, like little children.
This is SO where I am ,Lise. Thank you so much. If I can flip in to how God views me and away from how my NM viewed me or even what the world calls a winner or a good life, I am OK.
You said it all here((( Lise))). Thank you x x o o Ami
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I am trying to be a fearless astronaut in to "me". I have been so afraid of myself. Today, a friend wrote me a text that something was "only human". She is right. *I* had to be super human to stay away from my NM's abuse. I was always afraid of what she would do next. If I was perfect,maybe she would not hurt me as much.
I want to be free to be just human. Does anyone know what I mean?
Ami
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*I* had to be super human to stay away from my NM's abuse.
Yes. I know exactly what you are talking about, for me that superhuman looked like and felt like as if I had to just stand, silently in the face of her insults, rages, name calling, abandonment, slaps, hair pulls, not being fed, thrown in jail, taken to a mental hospital and dropped off, left there etc., ALL IN SILENCE, if I spoke, talked back, tried to stand up for myself, HAVE A VOICE, it all just made it worse, the abuse would be heaped, and shoveled and pushed on me. Even when I tried to appease her it could push her to worse, I never knew which way to turn.
Now that sounds like a superhuman being, does it not, that YOU and I could stand the abuse we took and are even alive?
I was always afraid of what she would do next. If I was perfect,maybe she would not hurt me as much.
That fear of waiting and being on constant edge I know all too well. I went to high school in terror, wondering if my mom would show up there to humiliate me, as she had done so many times before. It is called psychological terrorism, we lived on the edge when no kid should have lived on the edge.
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Sometimes I wonder how much better I can ever get.you know? Ami
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Ami,
One day, you may awaken & feel a new door open. Please never give up. One day, we wake up & we just feel better. Please never lose faith in yourself nor Gd's love for you.
xoxo,
ann
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Sometimes I wonder how much better I can ever get.you know? Ami
Yes, I know. I have often wondered this myself, especially after falling and feeling really down and disgraced. But it does get better, it does. You have told me that yourself.
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Sometimes I wonder how much better I can ever get.you know? Ami
Yes, I know. I have often wondered this myself, especially after falling and feeling really down and disgraced. But it does get better, it does. You have told me that yourself.
I got to take my own advice,I guess :lol: :lol: :lol:.
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Sometimes I wonder how much better I can ever get.you know? Ami
Yes, I know. I have often wondered this myself, especially after falling and feeling really down and disgraced. But it does get better, it does. You have told me that yourself.
I got to take my own advice,I guess :lol: :lol: :lol:.
I know :D How often do I find myself saying the same thing, "Lise -you really should take your own wisdom and advice."
Love you.
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This is the answer tp our dilemmas, I think.We could not see ourselves cuz we were not mirrored OR we were mirrored a BAD self, the spit off one of the NM.
So, we spend our lives looking, looking for someone or something to mirror our true self to us.
We are searching for our OWN face! Ami
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This is the answer tp our dilemmas, I think.We could not see ourselves cuz we were not mirrored OR we were mirrored a BAD self, the spit off one of the NM.
Exactly. It is a huge part of our dilemma. If we were mirrored a "bad self" as well as NO self, then that is partly why we had to invent a self (self deception) and since our *I* did not get the chance to fully separate from our mom as a *private I* we can still be enmeshed with her beliefs and mirroring taking them on as our own and ourselves.
If our mom was not there then we felt we were not there; we wanted to be in the presence of our mom, even if her love was tainted, just like we want to now be in the presence of someone we love or feel an attraction to, to see their face that loves us.
If our mom was not there then we felt we were not there, we felt not seen, we go through life seeking to be seen and with the world as our compass - seeking faces of affirmation and validation. Because the world is a faulty compass, a "Broken or fallen world" we so easily buy into what we think we have to be or have to be really SEEN, such as celebrity stardom shine - scholarly and talent achievements, expensive possessions that prove our worth, the worlds view of worth, not God's view.
If our worth as a child was mirrored as bad or nothing, as we came to believe our emotional needs of love and validation were bad or nothing, we then OVER inflat our achievements or possessions, we tend make them us as we came to identify our emotional needs, or lack of, as ourselves OR us. We make our adult achievements who we are, we make things or talents who we are rather than just there, as gifts from God.
So, we spend our lives looking, looking for someone or something to mirror our true self to us.
We are searching for our OWN face! Ami
Exactly. As I said above, we become super performers or achievers, we want to shine to get what we never got, the look of shine and spark of love that we were supposed to be to our parents, the apple of their eye or spark of gleam that we wanted them to mirror back to us, rather than that we were bad, our feelings, thoughts, needs, etc.
Ami, we were made for God, designed for love, His love that shines through others who are also vessels of the spirit, vessels of pure and genuine love, that can love us not disordered as our parents did but just LOVE us as we are, even when we are needy, broken and disordered.
That face that I know we are all looking for is not just a face in THIS world but a face of heaven, the next world. What we really seek deep down, is the face of God, for He will look at us in a way that we cannot comprehend, especially us from wounded histories, we, the walking wounded have to return to God to heal us so that we can even begin to comprehend His love.
We crave true and real love, the pure and real love that only God can give. It is why they in the spiritual life call it the mountain climb, like Moses, recall after he went up to the mountain and returned his face was gleaming with light, too much light for this world, for he had seen God, even if it was only the Back of God.
It is a very hard journey back into our souls, our past, like salmon swimming up stream to return home to mate. It is hard, but we are seeking to mate with God, to return to His love.
If we allow ourselves to get lost, to buy into the world then we may forever be lost.
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I think I am at the bottom of denial . Maybe, now I can accept myself --all the parts! I hope so. All the parts are there whether or not you accept them lol so you may as well accept reality. Then ,you can live "real". Ami
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I just wanted to make a comment about getting to know myself. I have had no contact with my NM for about 3 years, and yet she lives in the same town as myself. On New Year's Eve, my husband and my son and I made reservations at a nice restaurant and who do you think showed up? NM and her new boyfriend (I think that is who is was, anyway), along with my aunt and her ex boyfriend. They came and sat at the table right next to us! It was awkward since we dont speak to each other but what started out awkward turned into her trying to be as mean as possible. She started (in a voive as loud as she could make it) started saying things like "My REAL daughter that doesn't live out here" and going on and on about how miserable she is living here. I could feel my anger grow and I tried to stay calm and think only happy thoughts .... but she was trying everything to get my attention and hurt me. I knew at the end of the dinner, she was going to come over to the table, ignore my husband and I an wish my son a happy New Year. She works hard to seperate my son and I. THANK GOD, he seems to see through it. I simply told her "This is my family and if you are going to speak to one of us, you need to address all of us". She is such a coward, she didn't even turn around, she just kept walking really fast toward the door. I don't know I keep thinking of this event except to say that I felt NOTHING. I felt anger but no love. Do you think that is the first step in healing?
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I just wanted to make a comment about getting to know myself. I have had no contact with my NM for about 3 years, and yet she lives in the same town as myself. On New Year's Eve, my husband and my son and I made reservations at a nice restaurant and who do you think showed up? NM and her new boyfriend (I think that is who is was, anyway), along with my aunt and her ex boyfriend. They came and sat at the table right next to us! It was awkward since we dont speak to each other but what started out awkward turned into her trying to be as mean as possible. She started (in a voive as loud as she could make it) started saying things like "My REAL daughter that doesn't live out here" and going on and on about how miserable she is living here. I could feel my anger grow and I tried to stay calm and think only happy thoughts .... but she was trying everything to get my attention and hurt me. I knew at the end of the dinner, she was going to come over to the table, ignore my husband and I an wish my son a happy New Year. She works hard to seperate my son and I. THANK GOD, he seems to see through it. I simply told her "This is my family and if you are going to speak to one of us, you need to address all of us". She is such a coward, she didn't even turn around, she just kept walking really fast toward the door. I don't know I keep thinking of this event except to say that I felt NOTHING. I felt anger but no love. Do you think that is the first step in healing?
newfoundchildhood:
Your NM's behavior is hurtful, she is intentional in her hurt to you. You can see that and not react or hurt her back, that is more than I can do at times in my life. The anger you feel is really important, important because it is key to helping you know yourself more and getting to know yourself better.
When I have been angry, resentful, bitter, etc.., I have to ask myself the question what is it that I want, what am I seeking and am I seeing the person who offended me as a spiritually sick person, praying for them so that my heart does not stay in hurt which can and will turn into bitterness for us if we do not reach beyond our own selves to see the other person, as you see your NM, but see ourselves also, as separate and able to be different, even the bigger person by loving them with prayer or if you are not a prayer person then just wishing and wanting goodness for the people that offend us, like our NM's.
Under my anger is usually hurt, real tears at loss as well as sadness, I want to be able to love my NM, like you, but her behavior can be so hurtful and drama stirring for me that I have to just cut her off, or keep contact to her to a minimum.
Hope some of this helps,
Gabben