I do not want to be so afraid anymore.

pasajes4

Well-Known Member
I am reading the book Me Before You. It describes the total loss of control of a young man who became a quad. after an accident. I know that feeling. I had that feeling at the hands of another human being. The fear, uncertainty, and wishing to just die rather than live like that ever again.
 

Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
It is not the kind of face we have, whether tentative, correct, aloof, it is what we do when it does not "work" when there is the inevitable seepage of self into the frame.

Each of those feeling states Copa, would be defenses. The question for us if we feel there would be value in pursuing it is to determine whose voice is speaking. There will be a negative tape running. Something so familiar to us that it feels like it is us.

It is not.

That is what the phrase "Without expectation" means. I think this is what it means.

If seeing ourselves in these ways were not something very human, phrases like this one would not exist. The phrase would not resonate as it does.

To accept ourselves without expectation would be to be free. Imagine what that would be, to utterly accept ourselves, without filters or defense. The wonder in that phrase for me is that if we can conceive of such a reality, we can expect and encourage and bring it real for ourselves.

There will be so many people in the world who will never have had to negate their own self images. Those of us committed to redefining ourselves are fortunate that we can negate ours.

Fortunate to the point of being well and truly blessed, Copa.

Cedar
 

Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
I have been described as silent but deadly.

A condition to which I aspire, pasa.

Seriously.

I was very animated and loving with my students and because I was not that way around staff, I was accused of being a phony. I did not have a problem in standing up to teachers when their actions were unkind towards my students

That is as apt a description of integrity as I have ever heard.

This made me very unpopular.

They shunned you, pasa. The dynamic of the shun is a moving energy always in effect in those families or organizations so structured as to support it.

Cedar

I love that you shared this with us. I hadn't thought about the Shunning dynamic as something that occurs in the work environment. But you know what. Of courses it does. And it ruins the working environment, every time.

You are very strong, to be able to do that, pasa.
 

Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
I am reading the book Me Before You. It describes the total loss of control of a young man who became a quad. after an accident. I know that feeling. I had that feeling at the hands of another human being. The fear, uncertainty, and wishing to just die rather than live like that ever again.

I will share this with my daughter, pasa.

She awakened in the hospital with no memory of the beating. She still has no memory of the beating. He is in prison. She has read the paperwork, seen the pictures. Intellectually, she understands what happened. Emotionally, she is who she was before the beating occurred.

A volatile, and precarious, bridge to walk from that life to this one.

Thank you, pasa.

Cedar
 

Copabanana

Well-Known Member
A volatile, and precarious, bridge to walk from that life to this one.
This is not a joke, what follows: I am wondering if your daughter might be interested in studying Judaism.

This is why I ask: I am re-reading a book called The Sabbath. Written, it was, in 1951 by Abraham Heschel, about the foremost scholar of our time in Judaic studies. He calls the sabbath, a castle in time, and describes the Jewish faith about time, not space. He calls the sabbath a time to experience eternity. Almost as if to stop time, to almost die within time.

I am drawn to this way of thinking for many reasons, one of which is because I am afraid of death, so I want to make friends with it.

What happened to your daughter, Cedar, among other things, is that she lost control of her story in time. This control can regained, but I believe it will require her to begin to think differently about life, in order to conquer time.

In our time we think of the weekend as a means to relax and prepare again "to work." To Heschel we live, the Jews lived for the Sabbath. It is our palace in time, when we return to G-d. Everything else does not matter.

I believe now that each one of us can decide to construct that palace now, apart from every other thing that we feel is important. That place is "eternity" and we need not one thing to build it. Not beauty or youth or a good back (my spine is shot.)
Each of those feeling states Copa, would be defenses.
When I read this Cedar, at first I did not grasp it. Because I am so conditioned to believe that how I appear, is me. But of course they are defenses. In my case: I defanged myself, say about 60 years ago as a defense against my own capacity and power--in my family.

You see, Cedar, I believe that I chose that defense. It was adaptive. It is my own voice that speaks it. It was the road open to me--at that time. Children are brilliantly intuitive. Their very identities depend upon it. I was going to write "essences." But know it is the wrong word. Still, it beckons to me. I will look now what the difference is, there is a subtle one, which I believe I will need to know.

I look forward to more of this discussion but today is my last day off before I return to work tomorrow. M and I will be out and about doing errands.
 

Copabanana

Well-Known Member
essence: the intrinsic nature or indispensable quality of something, especially something abstract, that determines its character

identity: the distinguishing character or personality of an individual.

So identity would be the aspects of the person that makes him appear different to others.

Essence is the intrinsic nature of somebody that determines her character.

How interesting. What we are doing here is finding our essence, and strengthening it, so that that becomes the us we both act from, and that which we acknowledge as us, as opposed to qualities that give us thing-ness to others.
 

RN0441

100% better than I was but not at 100% yet
Copa

You certainly do not appear vulnerable and fragile to me based on your writing. You seem like a VERY strong woman who works very hard to have a good sense of self awareness.

I am sure you'll do fantastic at that job!
 
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