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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Scent of Cedar *" data-source="post: 659809" data-attributes="member: 17461">I had to edit that post quickly.  I think D H was waiting or someone came to the door or whatever it was.  What I meant was...a feeling state.  We learn how to feel from our families of origin.  We learn whether depression or anger or loud laughing or slinking around hiding or taking the limelight is the way we should respond to our ~ well, to our emotional flashbacks, say.  To whatever that thing is that sets us (me) to trying to set things right.  That is the feeling, the set of underlying emotional conclusions that had value for me in my family of origin.  How else could I happily get up early as a teen to make everyone breakfast every day, tossing in fresh sweet rolls once or twice weekly?  (This was before those sweet rolls that come in the pop open can.)  And I made pancakes and french toast and eggs and oatmeal (not in the same meal).  And I made every dinner, too.  And I cleaned immaculately and did laundry and ironed for six people.How that happened, how I acclimated to that, what that means for me now, who else, what other feeling tone I might have come to feel familiar with ~ that is the kind of thing I am thinking about, wondering about.It must have taken self discipline to do that, but I did it ~ and cheerfully so.  I imagine I was helping my mother to be happy, I suppose.  Sort of taking the burden away and helping things run smoothly...but I wonder who else I might have been.  What would it have meant to have devoted those energies to my own interests?What I know as compassion, that sort of scenting the air to learn what is really happening ~ I learned that, there.  I see other people who are centered in themselves.  They unabashedly recenter on themselves, feel themselves to be at the center of the circle, never really consider how the other person is ~ how the whole person, every one of the people in the room, are feeling, like I do.I do that automatically.I wonder what it is like to be centered in my own center rather than striving to create whatever ambiance there is to be created out of whatever situation I am in.Though I will say that letting go of those things has resulted in some pretty crummy dinners and a house not immaculately clean and dirty windows, even.  And where I once was so centered on the house and the yard and whether everything was clean and whether the flowers needed dead-heading and etc, I haven't been doing that, this year.I haven't been doing it at the other house, either.I have been like, some eternally cheerful nutcase, keeping everything spotless and feeling like it isn't quite perfect enough for all of my life.  The last thing I do before Happy Hour is dress and put on makeup.Sometimes lately?I haven't even put on makeup for Happy Hour.And sometimes?I have even been late for Happy Hour, which D H doesn't like.  But I am not particularly fond of that whole Happy Hour idea.Shhh!That is a secret.Cedar</blockquote>

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