Family Relations

How do you handle a person who is supposed to be your guide and encouragement, but instead seems to delight in unsettling your peace of mind, or making you believe that your life is all wrong?

How do you handle a parent who seems to take delight in gloating when things go wrong with you?
How do you handle it when, whenever you are happy, they seem to want to ensure that you are rocked from your secure place?

This is definately a toxic relationship. No matter who the person is, anyone who fits this pattern cannot possibly have your best interest at heart.

The attempt to put distance between myself and this person has failed many a time. I have almost reached the stage of asking this person not to come near me again. The only thing is that I fear I may be over-reacting.

Again, I am reminded that my emotions are my own. It is my own fault that I allow this person to unsettle my peace-of-mind. It is my own fault that I allow this person to control my emotions.

Trapped - again

My life seems to be going in cycles. I have a clear picture of what I want it to be, but I seem to be reliving the same issues over and over again. Somehow, I keep feeling it would be different, but keep ending up in the same emotional and mental state. Feel clipped, my mind feels restrained. And then the madness starts setting in as I desperately try to twist and turn out of anything that feels restrictive.

And you know what....
Nothing is going to work.

Nothing is going to bring the thing which will release me from these mental bonds...except me. I have to work through the mental bonds and break every one of them. This blog, is my therapy sometimes. I have dreams that do not include a management board, a Cheif Operations Officer or a Deparment team. My dreams, are of my mind, and colour and canvas. And days alone converting an abstract concept into a two dimensional image.
I have been fighting for years. Struggling with several escape routes, always hoping it would be better, and always ending up right where I am. A yearning for freedom, for release from the ties that bind. A yearning to wake up every day and only focus on things that excite me. A yearning to get up everyday and have things that excite me. Otherwise what's the point?

What's the point of working your ass off, making sacrifices, and then having freedom only when you are too old to enjoy it fully? What;s the point of waiting around for a time when the responsibilities are not nessecary any more, waiting to live your life with resentment growing and growing? What's the point?

Freedom, happiness and peace of mind is so important to me. But no one seems to see that inner pain that I scream in silence tied down with all these chains.
Imagine being a bird, chained to a dry leafless tree, watching all the other birds fly away. That's how I feel......thats how I feel.

Emotional Pavlovs

The image shows Pavlov's experiment, where the scientist conditioned a dog to drool at the sound of a bell, just by associating the sound with the arrival of food.
I remember two statements which I read concerning our conditioned response to situations. One was that we choose to respond to the same situations in the same way, (Deepak Chopra) and that our responses to situations have been conditioned into us by the expectations of society (google noospheric operating system).

If you step back from your life for a while, and look for cycles which you keep going through, you would realize that there are certain situation which you respond to the same way all the time. Ask yourself.....is this how I really want to react? Or am I reacting the way I was taught to react? What would happen if I reacted the opposite way, or a different way?

Having had the realization from my last blog that emotional residue is a real thing which can cloud your judgement, I begin to question if what is in my mind is really mine. Or am I just a bundle of programmed responses to situations?
What really fills me with passion? Do I even know? Or have I been taught what should fill me with passion because of someone elses passions? Most interesting thoughts for a woman who, at this late stage in her life is really trying to find herself.

What is me? No...not who am I. I know who I am.....my issue here is ; is who I am really me? which parts of my programming are me, and which parts need to be let go completely? This calls for meditation, quiet, and lots of reflection.

Emotional Residue

I remember an essay that I read which put forward that our experiences shape our conclusions, and not always in the correct direction of truth. We go through life, experiencing, interacting, becoming hurt, feeling joy; and sometimes, similar experiences create emotional triggers in our future experiences.

I am noting this, because as I go forward, I am experiencing what I consider triggers in my interaction with new people. I seem to analyze a situation in terms of what was experienced before, and how the individuals reacted or acted then- and in my new situation which may be similar to one from the past, I have the expectation that the same result will be played out even though the players are different.

To what degree can we "learn" from our experieneces? And to what degree shall we keep an open mind and just observe how things play out? It is important to note, especially in close relationships, that emotional residue left behind (baggage) by the interactions of the last relationship, can warp clear judgement in the new one. It is important to tune into every reaction carefully, every uneasy feeling, and really try to discern whether your conclusion is "truth" for this relationship- or whether your judgement is clouded by emotional residue.
If it is, I think they should be noted, and a banishing spell at the next dark moon is in order. It also helps to be aware that they may pop up again....but you can mentally flick that beastie thought back into the ether where it came from, and immediately forbid it to enter your mind.