When I was 22 I went to visit Bulgaria, where I was born, with my boyfriend at the time. We traveled to Sofia, stayed at a hostel, went to the black sea where we got an awful digestive infection and then made it home to Gabrovo, the city of my parents' birth and where much of mu childhood took place.
We stayed with my paternal grandmother who raised me when my parents emigrated and I was left behind. I have a special connection with this grandmother. In a sense she rescued me and she was also capable of giving me a quality of love and nurturing and understanding that I never quite could get from my parents.
My boyfriend of those years was my second ever love but he was somewhat mentally ill, depressive and abusing marijuana.
When it was time for our flight back about a week later, I wasn't ready to leave but I was very conflicted because he was putting a lot of pressure on me to go back with him, taking it personally that I wanted to stay (he felt he needed to go back for the start of his school trimester) and pulling his manipulative withdrawal tricks when I mentioned it.
But my grandmother was in her 70s. She lived with my parents in the USA and she was only very rarely in Bulgaria. It felt like if I didn't take this chance to be with her and revisit some very special moments in my favorite city Gabrovo, the home of my entire blood line, then I may never get the chance.
Thus conflicted, my boyfriend and I left for Sofia to catch the scheduled flight back to London where we would stay with a friend for a few days before flying on to New York. I felt responsible about having made these arrangements for us to drop in on her and didn't want to change them now or back out or make my boyfriend half to change his flights or have him stay with strangers. I prayed for a sign that I would do the right thing, that I would know what to do. Looking back now it seems it was a matter for the heart versus a matter of the mind but at the time it seemed a very hard decision to make and I felt if I left my boyfriend and went back, he might break up with me. But while we were in Sofia walking around foraging for breakfast in the capital that morning, I stepped away from my boyfriend to go to a store and I ran into my mother's best friend from child hood, right there on the street. And I was alone. I thought she was an angel. I knew she must be the sign I had been praying for. In our greeting hellos - she hadn't seen me since I was a child - I described my situation. Her response was that having the freedom to travel as we please was one of the reasons herself and my parents had worked so hard to leave communist Bulgaria. So that the children would have a better life and the freedom to do what they want.
I knew that was my answer. We said goodbye and I went with my boyfriend to the airport. In line I was so tense I actually had an orgasm when I told him that I will accompany him to London and stay there with him at my friend's house but four days later when it was his flight for New York, I would return to Bulgaria.
He sulked but I did just that. Returning was a life-changing decision. Not only did I get to enjoy some deep and special alone time with my beloved grandmother in her home and the home of my refuge when my parents, as I thought then, had abandoned me, but I also got to spend time with some friends from childhood and make a very special friend who to this day guides loves and supports me on my artistic and personal journey as I do her.
All in all it was a miracle and I am very grateful.
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
Friday, October 17, 2014
Magic Report 2014
Last week I woke up with rage. I think it was a Wednesday. I went to my usual yoga class and I felt it. Two young girls were chattering loudly in our studio of about 15 silent people. Imagining a less-than tranquil shavassana I grumbleb furiously to myself. After waiting a few minutes for them to settle in and they continued, I took a few deep breaths I walked to the door, opened it and said audibly but calmly, “there is a sign here that says, ‘thank you for not talking.’” One of the girls stared at me in disbelief and the other one said. “Oh, OK.” They were quiet the rest of class and left me to a peaceful shavassana.
Throughout the yoga class I had mind chatter about this. Was I too mean? Nah, I was in the right. When did I get my backbone back? I used to be stand –up-in-your-face confrontational for many years and then I turned into a pushover. I would try to “be Ok with it” when something bothered me to “stay calm” when it gnawed at me inside for days. But today, this seemed a truly assertive move, while being polite. I hate that word assertive. It has ass in it. Anything with ass in it can’t be good, makes one feel foolish. Assertive can mean self-confident or forceful or aggressive. I would much rather the word imply the inherent nobility and courage required to honor self and others rather than the insinuation of being pushy and that respecting and protecting your own needs and those of others in a pre-agreed upon space is somehow undesirable.
—Beau Christopher Taplin #TodaysMantra
Wednesday, October 8, 2014
Blessings and Grapefruits
Today I wobble between
inspiration and despair but at least I am writing. Mostly inspiration. There
are so many business ideas, so many ways to make a difference, so many ways to
get busy saving the world.
From my mojo blog to my dating
book, to revolutionizing the mortgage industry, a miracle blog, I am full of
creative ideas.
Jonathan Fields talks about
building a revolution, not just a business. What his work has shown me is that,
for there to be deep fulfillment, there
must be a greater cause beyond just the traditional business model and making
money. There must be a greater cause for greater contribution in order to
gather the momentum to rally people against a common injustice or outdated no-longer
useful practice, towards a more useful and productive way of consumerism.
Today I got a taste of being of
service when my neighbor Davis and I spoke about the car I lent him for months
and then let him buy with non-interest payments. He repeated once again how he
didn’t know how he could thank me, that he was praying for me every day. I told
him that in an exchange such as this, both are blessed, the one receiving and the
one having the capacity to give.
I remember the car sitting for
months parked across the street. It was my first car I ever owned, a wonderful
car I drove for years and paid off. I loved that car and often spoke to it.
Once I got my new Lexus I didn’t need it
anymore and it looked sad and downtrodden hanging out by itself.
I tried posting several ads but
the people who came to test drive it didn’t come back. I felt the pressure to
sell it but in reality there wasn’t really a financial reason to do so.
Thankfully. One day I posted for-sale signs on it and waited another month. I
kept getting this little feeling to wait. So I waited.
One day I was yet again coming
back from a walk with my new baby and saw the car parked there. I thought to
myself that I am ready to let it go and that I would post another ad but I didn’t
because that little voice told me to wait.
In the meantime my neighbor Davis
from Uganda living across the street had a grapefruit tree in his yard which I
would eye, desiring fresh grapefruits for my morning juices. One day I knocked
on his door and said hello. We made acquaintances and I asked him if I may pick
his grapefruits and he said of course. Several weeks passed and I was happily
picking grapefruits and on occasion would see him and wave.
When he called for the car, I
knew exactly who he was. He asked to test drive it and I just gave him the
keys, busy with our new baby girl. Something told me to just let him drive it.
My heart went out to him when he explained that it took him two hours to get to
and from work by bus and that he was looking for a new job and he needed a car
desperately.
So I let him drive it. And I didn’t
worry about it. I figured when he was ready he would pay me for it. He changed
the battery and kept driving it. He said he wanted to buy it and could we meet.
So we met and he asked for a payment plan because he had spent his savings on
one of his three daughters in Uganda who needed heart surgery. I was already
prepared to let him just drive it and I told him he could drive it until he
could pay and he can just pay the insurance $35 a month for now. He faithfully left
the money under my front door mat every month and eventually after some months
he got a steady job and was ready to start making payments.
The business woman in me wanted
to charge him interest but a little voice told me not to. So I offered him a
fair price of $3500 and 13 payments of $250 a month plus the insurance so a
total of $285 which he said he could easily do.
So he has made two payments so
far and before that he drove the car for two or three months. Whenever we speak
he expresses his heartfelt gratitude but what I feel is blessed to have been
able to be in a position to really truly help someone who needed it and
appreciated it.
I feel so blessed by this miracle
I want to continue operating my life this way. I would like to focus on service
and contribution and get compensated for my creativity and special gifts of
sensitivity, listening to Spirit and musicality. I would like to share these
gifts with the world.
I am shifting my focus from
production to meaning. Wayne Dyer calls this the afternoon of life. But I am 36
and am I already in the afternoon of my life?
I know I am on the right path
because I feel the fire in my belly again. I am creating again, I feel powerful
and unique again, I trust in the Universe and my gifts again.
I am still confused about many
things such as why it was so difficult for my mother to allow me to
differentiate and I also have compassion for the people who raised me. They had
to craft coping mechanisms in order to survive communism and the humiliation,
shame and abuse that was prevalent and widely accepted as normal. They had to
create grandiose personas. My mother is the know-it-all fail and mistake proof
always right academic version of narcissism, my father is similar in his
refusal to admit or apologize for mistakes, but he also has millionaire
proclivities. Ha!
And where does that leave me, my
friend Ana once asked when we were discussing the inability of our narcissistic
parents to see us, relate to us, or allow us our individuality and separateness.
Well, it leaves us without Fathers. And Mothers. Or at least with leopard-print
white and dark bullet-whole type paper- thin mannequins of them, hollow, physically
there but mentally and emotionally checkered and scrappy. And it leaves us
working harder to find community, support, self-esteem and self love. But we
can get there, with a little help from our friends here in this world and our
Guides and Angels and God in the world beyond.
Thank you Spirit for the
opportunity to be creative, to have friends, an enjoyable life and may it be a
life of deep contribution and service. May I be what I truly am. May I find the
courage, the support, and the self-compassion to be the artist that I truly am.
Amen.
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Satisfaction
Aaah the satisfaction of a blank page What shall I write? I like the idea of the art of revolution, don't start a business, start a revolution. I would like to start revolutionizing corporate America. Seems like a lot to take on.
Anyway, that's a post for another time. Today I sit here sort of terrified because I want to write a letter to my mother. I mean I don't really want to write it, but tonight is the first time I think I have a beginning, a point and an ending. So here goes.
Dear Mom,
I am so tired of the cold silence between us. There are layers and layers of misunderstandings and I don't even know where to start. But I am going to try one last time because I love you and I want a relationship with you and I desperately need you in my life and I think if you are suffering as much as I am at not having a relationship that at least somewhat works then I must try again.
I know it;s been hard because you have been getting negative feedback from me for a long time. It's true that there are many things I am angry about but I think there are a few roots. I hope.
First, when we last spoke I asked you for 4 things, one of them was a way to ask for space that works for you and you didn't provide this, you just stopped calling and decided I didn't want you to call but that wasn't what I was asking. That was a misunderstanding and just robbed us of the opportunity to work together on a need I have.
After our 3 hour conversation before I got pregnant and before our trip to BG, I truly thought we had taken a turn to better understanding each other. That time I felt we hashed out a lot of things and I was so happy. One of the things that has remained with me after that conversation is that you said I had someone over at Christmas one year and didn't want to see you. At the time we spoke I didn't think I had but then I remembered that there was a Christmas I had a cold and didn't want to see anyone, including you and Grandma. But I felt lonely so Dragan came over to watch a movie.
I didn't mean to tell you an untruth, I had just forgotten but the underlying question is why does it matter what I do with my time in my house? How I choose to spend my time is my business since I became an adult. If I chose to stay home and watch movies on Christmas then that's what I did, You may not like it, but part of having a good relationship with anyone is respecting their choices.
I am basically mad about a few things. First the many times you humiliated and shamed me in Canada. The many times you criticized me. The viciousness with which you would yell at me so that you were literally foaming white at the mouth.
Once you told me that you felt like your leg was cut off because we didn't have a relationship that suited you. Well how do you think I felt, not to have a mother?
Now, as a mother myself and spending 6 long lonely months at home and feeling isolated, the reality of my motherless predicament is even more excruciatingly painful.
Yes I describe my pain with such vivid detail and I know it's hard to hear. Yesterday in my writing class a girl wrote that in her darkest of tsunami during her mental illness breakdown, Jesus knelt down beside her and wept.That to me just spoke of the deepest compassion one can have for another - to kneel beside them and weep with them.
Nah, I can't even believe I am attempting the gargantuan task of writing this letter. Ok. Deep breath. Stay with the process.
You were such a great mom. I remember going to plays and puppet shows, I remember you drawing me math puzzles, and painting my doll's nails when we had to rehabilitate old dolls at the kindergarten. I remember one play where they made water by waving blue pieces of cloth. It was so magical. You really did an amazing job of fostering my artistic side as a child and my sense of wander. You also really fostered my language skills and my intelligence. I remember you sewing the "e" on my dress, I remember holding you I remember your sweet smell and loving you.
When we were separated in BG I dreamt about being with you every day. I couldn't wait to hold you and to tell you how much I missed you and I loved you and I told myself it would all be OK once we were together again.
But my hopes slowly faded. The first sign of your state of mental health was that when we were delayed for our flight in NY, Looking back now, maybe you had a nervous breakdown. I could not understand why you were so worried but it made me so uneasy, after all I was traveling with my only parent to a new country. I tried to console you and comfort you. But who was consoling and comforting me?
When we arrived in Bloomington, many things were a blur because I was so traumatized. Recently more memories are surfaceing like the fact that you bought me barbies, made me chicken soup and put it in my pink "my little pony" thermos for lunch in my babrbie lunchbox. I remember the ham sandwitches you made me enrolled me in art class, swimming lessons and tried to teach me to drive. But what also stands out from that time was that when we had to buy a car, you wanted me, a 10 yr old to help you make a decision and that felt very unsettling and scary. But that's not the part that was hard, what was so hard was getting yelled at by you, being told I was "spoiled" when I was traumatized and also I remember you yelling at me because I was washing the dishes with cold water but I didn't know how to wash dishes, I had never washed dishes before. I just wish you had found it in yourself to be a little more kind to me but I recognize now that you were in a very poor state of mental health due to your separation and also your hernia surgery,
When we lived in Boulder I remember being forced to go on walks when I didn't want to and I remember the scary story you told me about the girl that got a beer bottle kicked up her vagina after she got abducted by a man and a woman and I was only 11. I was so traumatized by this. Also, as I reflect back now I realize you were pretty depressed and you were not really emotionally available. That is when I started to lose hope that we would ever reconnect as mother and daughter.
When we all reconnected in Toronto, your mental health must have suffered further because of your constant stress with Dad maybe. Those were hard years for all of us but also some of the most stable we have had as a family. In those years I remember you yelling at me because you asked me to clean something and I didn't clean it to your approval. Our relationship became more and more strained as you used helping me with homework as an excuse to flaunt your superiority. You used these opportunities to humiliate and shame me and I only now understand that that's how you must have been taught in Bulgaria but it sure hurt and destroyed any sense of closeness I felt with you.
Later, in San Diego once Dad moved out you made fun of me for being an "artist". You taunted me with that word because I wore a white skirt sewn inside out with ruffles. I remember Arnut was there and he told you to leave me alone. But at that time you also stood by me when Melanie came to visit which was brave and loving and meant the world to me and you also helped me buy my first car. You also let me use your Neon to get a job and you were very kind to share your car with me.
When I moved out to my apartment in Hillcrest you sometimes, well no often pressured and guilted me to get together with you and you especially wanted me to comply with this when Gramma was here. You resorted to guilt and what felt to me like an enormous amount of forcefulness and you frequently violated my boundaries.
'
I have recently been researching narcissism and I am not saying you are one but you definitely often seemed a very focused on your desires, ignoring mine and my needs. If you had just left me alone, and given me some space I would have come of my own free will. I felt that you didn't care about me or what I wanted and you wanted everything to look prefect to grandma and like we were a happy mother-daughter pair when I felt that you had abandoned me emotionally long ago by not being interested in my true feelings.
That left me not wanting to spend time with you because I began to realize you were not really interested in a real relationship where two people exchange needs. You seemed interested only in getting your needs met, regardless of the cost to me and how things felt on the inside. When I refused to comply with a phony relationship based on not only pretenses but what seemed like a one-way street, you blamed me and refused to take responsibility for your part in it until your sister had a talk with you.
Only then did your behavior towards me start to change, I think also it was around the time that you got to know Mario which I think helped you see the artist in me.
Over the last few years you have backed off a lot. You helped me financially when I was in Spain which I appreciate tremendously and you also helped a great amount when Alessandra was born and I appreciated so much all the little ways you wanted to let me know you cared; by buying hose handles and the slow cooker and the racks for the pot lids and little things for Ale. I want you to know that these things have not gone unappreciated but it's all bittersweet because while you are so physically generous, you still need to be right, to point out my part in an upset and to be defensive even while I was completely sleep deprived and in excruciating pain. I wish you would have just let some things go, epsecially then when I was incapable of coherent emotions. Sometimes you have a really hard time seeing beyond your need to be right.
I have never said you were a horrible mother. You did some things very well, especially when I was young. I have only two bad memories all of my other memories are wonderful dn sweet.
I forgive you for my teenage years because I know that you had a lot of depression and anxiety.
I forgive you for your constant force on me to comply with your wishes in my 20s because I realize you were still depressed and anxious from the divorce.
All I am asking you to do is stop insisting that you are always right. Try to take responsibility for your mistakes and try not to make them again. Try not to use guilt to get what you want.
I know an over focus on yourselves you and Dad both have as an overcompensation to survive the shame and humiliation and being constantly pushed down by communism. To survive one creates a removed sense of self-importance and superiority.
I understand this and I understand it was a psychological survival mechanism you and Dad had to fashion to survive. But using it in your personal relationships, you will always be trying to prove your superiority instead of fostering connection and it will most likely leave you feeling alone and alienated from those you want to be close with the most - like me.
I think you have realized that by now. We all make mistakes. We are all human. No one was born a mother. We all have to learn and keep learning. We all all swimming in this life of beauty and brutality, naked. We are all vulnerable and imperfect and we all struggle.
What makes the struggle harder is alienation. You say I alienate you but by always needing to be right and superior you alienate yourself. Your defense mechanism is to say, "I don't agree with you."
It doesn't matter if you agree or disagree with my feelings and ideas. You are entitled to your opinion and you are entitled to disagree. But how many disagreements have led to the connection we both seek?
None. What if we choose choose to see and understand instead?
You did a lot of things amazingly well. And you also made mistakes. So does everyone. Take note, apologize, move on and try not to make the same mistake again. If you do, apologize again and keep going.
Love Emi
Wow that wasn't so bad, took about 30 mins and I feel much better
Anyway, that's a post for another time. Today I sit here sort of terrified because I want to write a letter to my mother. I mean I don't really want to write it, but tonight is the first time I think I have a beginning, a point and an ending. So here goes.
Dear Mom,
I am so tired of the cold silence between us. There are layers and layers of misunderstandings and I don't even know where to start. But I am going to try one last time because I love you and I want a relationship with you and I desperately need you in my life and I think if you are suffering as much as I am at not having a relationship that at least somewhat works then I must try again.
I know it;s been hard because you have been getting negative feedback from me for a long time. It's true that there are many things I am angry about but I think there are a few roots. I hope.
First, when we last spoke I asked you for 4 things, one of them was a way to ask for space that works for you and you didn't provide this, you just stopped calling and decided I didn't want you to call but that wasn't what I was asking. That was a misunderstanding and just robbed us of the opportunity to work together on a need I have.
After our 3 hour conversation before I got pregnant and before our trip to BG, I truly thought we had taken a turn to better understanding each other. That time I felt we hashed out a lot of things and I was so happy. One of the things that has remained with me after that conversation is that you said I had someone over at Christmas one year and didn't want to see you. At the time we spoke I didn't think I had but then I remembered that there was a Christmas I had a cold and didn't want to see anyone, including you and Grandma. But I felt lonely so Dragan came over to watch a movie.
I didn't mean to tell you an untruth, I had just forgotten but the underlying question is why does it matter what I do with my time in my house? How I choose to spend my time is my business since I became an adult. If I chose to stay home and watch movies on Christmas then that's what I did, You may not like it, but part of having a good relationship with anyone is respecting their choices.
I am basically mad about a few things. First the many times you humiliated and shamed me in Canada. The many times you criticized me. The viciousness with which you would yell at me so that you were literally foaming white at the mouth.
Once you told me that you felt like your leg was cut off because we didn't have a relationship that suited you. Well how do you think I felt, not to have a mother?
Now, as a mother myself and spending 6 long lonely months at home and feeling isolated, the reality of my motherless predicament is even more excruciatingly painful.
Yes I describe my pain with such vivid detail and I know it's hard to hear. Yesterday in my writing class a girl wrote that in her darkest of tsunami during her mental illness breakdown, Jesus knelt down beside her and wept.That to me just spoke of the deepest compassion one can have for another - to kneel beside them and weep with them.
Nah, I can't even believe I am attempting the gargantuan task of writing this letter. Ok. Deep breath. Stay with the process.
You were such a great mom. I remember going to plays and puppet shows, I remember you drawing me math puzzles, and painting my doll's nails when we had to rehabilitate old dolls at the kindergarten. I remember one play where they made water by waving blue pieces of cloth. It was so magical. You really did an amazing job of fostering my artistic side as a child and my sense of wander. You also really fostered my language skills and my intelligence. I remember you sewing the "e" on my dress, I remember holding you I remember your sweet smell and loving you.
When we were separated in BG I dreamt about being with you every day. I couldn't wait to hold you and to tell you how much I missed you and I loved you and I told myself it would all be OK once we were together again.
But my hopes slowly faded. The first sign of your state of mental health was that when we were delayed for our flight in NY, Looking back now, maybe you had a nervous breakdown. I could not understand why you were so worried but it made me so uneasy, after all I was traveling with my only parent to a new country. I tried to console you and comfort you. But who was consoling and comforting me?
When we arrived in Bloomington, many things were a blur because I was so traumatized. Recently more memories are surfaceing like the fact that you bought me barbies, made me chicken soup and put it in my pink "my little pony" thermos for lunch in my babrbie lunchbox. I remember the ham sandwitches you made me enrolled me in art class, swimming lessons and tried to teach me to drive. But what also stands out from that time was that when we had to buy a car, you wanted me, a 10 yr old to help you make a decision and that felt very unsettling and scary. But that's not the part that was hard, what was so hard was getting yelled at by you, being told I was "spoiled" when I was traumatized and also I remember you yelling at me because I was washing the dishes with cold water but I didn't know how to wash dishes, I had never washed dishes before. I just wish you had found it in yourself to be a little more kind to me but I recognize now that you were in a very poor state of mental health due to your separation and also your hernia surgery,
When we lived in Boulder I remember being forced to go on walks when I didn't want to and I remember the scary story you told me about the girl that got a beer bottle kicked up her vagina after she got abducted by a man and a woman and I was only 11. I was so traumatized by this. Also, as I reflect back now I realize you were pretty depressed and you were not really emotionally available. That is when I started to lose hope that we would ever reconnect as mother and daughter.
When we all reconnected in Toronto, your mental health must have suffered further because of your constant stress with Dad maybe. Those were hard years for all of us but also some of the most stable we have had as a family. In those years I remember you yelling at me because you asked me to clean something and I didn't clean it to your approval. Our relationship became more and more strained as you used helping me with homework as an excuse to flaunt your superiority. You used these opportunities to humiliate and shame me and I only now understand that that's how you must have been taught in Bulgaria but it sure hurt and destroyed any sense of closeness I felt with you.
Later, in San Diego once Dad moved out you made fun of me for being an "artist". You taunted me with that word because I wore a white skirt sewn inside out with ruffles. I remember Arnut was there and he told you to leave me alone. But at that time you also stood by me when Melanie came to visit which was brave and loving and meant the world to me and you also helped me buy my first car. You also let me use your Neon to get a job and you were very kind to share your car with me.
When I moved out to my apartment in Hillcrest you sometimes, well no often pressured and guilted me to get together with you and you especially wanted me to comply with this when Gramma was here. You resorted to guilt and what felt to me like an enormous amount of forcefulness and you frequently violated my boundaries.
'
I have recently been researching narcissism and I am not saying you are one but you definitely often seemed a very focused on your desires, ignoring mine and my needs. If you had just left me alone, and given me some space I would have come of my own free will. I felt that you didn't care about me or what I wanted and you wanted everything to look prefect to grandma and like we were a happy mother-daughter pair when I felt that you had abandoned me emotionally long ago by not being interested in my true feelings.
That left me not wanting to spend time with you because I began to realize you were not really interested in a real relationship where two people exchange needs. You seemed interested only in getting your needs met, regardless of the cost to me and how things felt on the inside. When I refused to comply with a phony relationship based on not only pretenses but what seemed like a one-way street, you blamed me and refused to take responsibility for your part in it until your sister had a talk with you.
Only then did your behavior towards me start to change, I think also it was around the time that you got to know Mario which I think helped you see the artist in me.
Over the last few years you have backed off a lot. You helped me financially when I was in Spain which I appreciate tremendously and you also helped a great amount when Alessandra was born and I appreciated so much all the little ways you wanted to let me know you cared; by buying hose handles and the slow cooker and the racks for the pot lids and little things for Ale. I want you to know that these things have not gone unappreciated but it's all bittersweet because while you are so physically generous, you still need to be right, to point out my part in an upset and to be defensive even while I was completely sleep deprived and in excruciating pain. I wish you would have just let some things go, epsecially then when I was incapable of coherent emotions. Sometimes you have a really hard time seeing beyond your need to be right.
I have never said you were a horrible mother. You did some things very well, especially when I was young. I have only two bad memories all of my other memories are wonderful dn sweet.
I forgive you for my teenage years because I know that you had a lot of depression and anxiety.
I forgive you for your constant force on me to comply with your wishes in my 20s because I realize you were still depressed and anxious from the divorce.
All I am asking you to do is stop insisting that you are always right. Try to take responsibility for your mistakes and try not to make them again. Try not to use guilt to get what you want.
I know an over focus on yourselves you and Dad both have as an overcompensation to survive the shame and humiliation and being constantly pushed down by communism. To survive one creates a removed sense of self-importance and superiority.
I understand this and I understand it was a psychological survival mechanism you and Dad had to fashion to survive. But using it in your personal relationships, you will always be trying to prove your superiority instead of fostering connection and it will most likely leave you feeling alone and alienated from those you want to be close with the most - like me.
I think you have realized that by now. We all make mistakes. We are all human. No one was born a mother. We all have to learn and keep learning. We all all swimming in this life of beauty and brutality, naked. We are all vulnerable and imperfect and we all struggle.
What makes the struggle harder is alienation. You say I alienate you but by always needing to be right and superior you alienate yourself. Your defense mechanism is to say, "I don't agree with you."
It doesn't matter if you agree or disagree with my feelings and ideas. You are entitled to your opinion and you are entitled to disagree. But how many disagreements have led to the connection we both seek?
None. What if we choose choose to see and understand instead?
You did a lot of things amazingly well. And you also made mistakes. So does everyone. Take note, apologize, move on and try not to make the same mistake again. If you do, apologize again and keep going.
Love Emi
Wow that wasn't so bad, took about 30 mins and I feel much better
Saturday, September 27, 2014
Narcissists, Communists and Artists
There are days the sky moves just so. It is beautiful to watch the clouds glide past the horizon of my balcony window. Something is coming alive in me, little by little. It's a small seed. The cracking of the shell is hurting. I thought you only go through growing pains once in your life.
Thirty six years of grief are enough. How does it stop? The happiest I have been in my life is when I was as far away from my parents as possible. And when I was doing art as a regular practice, in community.
Never make the mistake of taking a narcissist on. You will be attacked for your very being and end up feeling small, incapable and impotent in your life. The narcissistic parent will take this opportunity to offer help using it as a way to infantize, manipulate and guilt you. You will end up enraged, confused and feeling crazy in your own reality.
I think Communism made my parents narcissistic. They grew up there until their 30s. It wasn't communism by itself, but the particular flavor that played out in Bulgaria. The humiliation, degradation and shaming, I think for most people, created a split personality to survive it. The humiliated and downtrodden diminished self and the aggrandizement of the self in an attempt to compensate for the degradation. We can see this in Hung Moo's biography. In modern psychology we call this split personality bipolar disorder and narcissism is a particular type. It doesn't mean you cannot function in the "real world". In fact most narcissist function extremely well because they attach their sense of self to achievement and power as a way to compensate for what they lack in self-esteem.
What does all this terminology do for you and for me, where does it leave us? Without parents....but also with validation.
Thirty six years of grief are enough. How does it stop? The happiest I have been in my life is when I was as far away from my parents as possible. And when I was doing art as a regular practice, in community.
Never make the mistake of taking a narcissist on. You will be attacked for your very being and end up feeling small, incapable and impotent in your life. The narcissistic parent will take this opportunity to offer help using it as a way to infantize, manipulate and guilt you. You will end up enraged, confused and feeling crazy in your own reality.
I think Communism made my parents narcissistic. They grew up there until their 30s. It wasn't communism by itself, but the particular flavor that played out in Bulgaria. The humiliation, degradation and shaming, I think for most people, created a split personality to survive it. The humiliated and downtrodden diminished self and the aggrandizement of the self in an attempt to compensate for the degradation. We can see this in Hung Moo's biography. In modern psychology we call this split personality bipolar disorder and narcissism is a particular type. It doesn't mean you cannot function in the "real world". In fact most narcissist function extremely well because they attach their sense of self to achievement and power as a way to compensate for what they lack in self-esteem.
What does all this terminology do for you and for me, where does it leave us? Without parents....but also with validation.
Saturday, September 20, 2014
Get busy living or get busy dying
If I was 65 now, or 70, I would tell myself, GO FOR IT! Jump into life with all you have. Don't hesitate. Jump in with both feet and live your dreams. The only way you can receive God's gifts is to show up for them and where they swim is in the river of life.
I had a practical demonstration of this when one day at the end of a workshop everyone circled up for a hug. I desperately had to pee so I told the girl next to me to please take my hug for me and hug back, once the circle-in got to me.
But then I realized that was a ridiculous request so I stayed put holding my pee.
I had a practical demonstration of this when one day at the end of a workshop everyone circled up for a hug. I desperately had to pee so I told the girl next to me to please take my hug for me and hug back, once the circle-in got to me.
But then I realized that was a ridiculous request so I stayed put holding my pee.
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