False Ending by WiseGirlAthena
But there is more to us than our ego.
Sure our ego has a place within our lives, sometimes it pretends it is all of us and everything… but it’s not everything.
Be aware of certain things…
1 – If you tell someone a ‘secret’ be sure it’s one you don’t mind being shared, because that person you share it with, who crosses their heart and hopes to die… they’re the second person – you being the first – who probably can’t keep a secret, who feels the need to share it… for whatever reason.
2 – If someone thinks you’re stupid… and most people do because their ego tells them that they are clever… they’ll underestimate you and do something which will reveal to you who they really are under the veneer they’ve worked so hard on to make it seem real that somehow they are good.
Good people do bad things in the name of good.
Bad people sometimes do good things… because they don’t give a shit as everyone thinks they’re bad, especially those judgmental good people.
Before you decide if someone is good or bad… most people are good and bad… take a look at yourself… really look at your real self underneath the public persona.
3 – If someone does something which hurts you… ask yourself why and seek to understand and see the real why of it. If you get caught up in your pain, you won’t be able to see their pain, the one which lashed out and hurt you. Your pain will cause more pain, and so on.
When people are in pain, they lash out. They justify it when they can prove they’re lashing out because someone hurt them first. So it ends up being no one’s responsibility because somewhere along the way a magic formula is found to excuse everyone else’s behaviour…
Ground zero – someone was born evil. They caused pain. All the subsequent pain caused is all their fault, and everyone else was just reacting and is innocent. That particular ground zero is a concoction of ego.
Just some thoughts, shared spontaneously… inspired by observing someone ‘good’ do something which they would consider ‘bad’ if the ‘bad’ guy (or anyone else) in their life had done it… but since they’re the one doing the ‘bad’ thing… it’s okay and ‘good’.
Be aware… of yourself… and others.
Oh… and always pay attention to the questions people don’t ask. They’ve practiced asking the ones they ask, and prompting you to give them the answers they want to hear. Listen to what they don’t ask and say… their silence speaks volumes. Listen.
When all else fails… be prepared to self-destruct… and phoenix yourself!
Brought to you by BFFs – Best False Friends.
An Upturned Soul 
This is hitting right at home at the moment with me. Yet, another very good blog. Thanks. I have been writing (personally, as I will never blog, that’s just me though), and sifting through it all. Your words and comment in the other blog were so helpful, keep doing what you do, in this process, you help not just yourself but you give others a straying point, and sometimes, that’s all that is needed.
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Thank you 😀
I was actually considering something which goes with what you shared, and your words hit home for me. In many ways that is why I blog because I receive so much insight from those like you who share with me. The relationship flows both ways. Thank you very much, truly and deeply.
Have you noticed in your writing just how much self-wisdom you have… it’s a lesson in self trust, writing, whether private or otherwise. The private writing is the best though 🙂
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Yes I have, I have ebb started to realize some stuff in my relations with my mother as well. Maybe I will write a poem or a lyric when its all more organized for me in my crazy head of mine. I hope the best for you and all that come here and other sites on the night just trying to make sense of it all.
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Thank you 😀
Best wishes to you, you’re a beautiful and wise soul!
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“… and always pay attention to the questions people don’t ask. They’ve practiced asking the ones they ask, and prompting you to give them the answers they want to hear. Listen to what they don’t ask and say… their silence speaks volumes. Listen.”
That’s a very clever observation, I will bear that in mind. Thank you.
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You’re already good at this 😀 Trust yourself, and use your natural talents to benefit you.
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[…] Life sends us Tests, Challenges and Temptations… for our Ego… | An Upturned Soul […]
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[…] Life sends us Tests, Challenges and Temptations… for our Ego… | An Upturned Soul […]
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[…] Life sends us Tests, Challenges and Temptations… for our Ego… | An Upturned Soul […]
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[…] Life sends us Tests, Challenges and Temptations… for our Ego… | An Upturned Soul […]
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I try to think on this – wonder how it is that I inspire the ire if those who have hurt me in this last year – if I am honest I made something that was funny – that I thought was funny – it gave me some cudos within the general group and I kept referring to it for a while – in fact the abuses really started after a social situation where other parties were telling me how funny my film was… it was the next day that the narcissist had it deleted and I went on to try to defend myself feeling upset…
it was that upset and my instinct to appeal to the general group – for them to normalise things – for someone to say something like – why did you do that to Scotts video…
over the year then from the groups perspective I have been defending myself a lot telling them about this or that attack on me – I became the source – and now I am ostracised…
I think I teased him too much – I went on and on and on… and on..
being ignored by your peers is deeply powerful magic – these narcissists really do know that they are doing – he beat me hands down on that one
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Your self-honesty is the key to moving on from this and doing it in a healthy way. I’ve done it with myself, always look at myself when I get caught in an NPD scenario, because if I can find what I did, then I can solve it and not repeat it. It’s not about blame, it’s about being responsible towards yourself. Knowing and understanding how you got tangled up in the mess is very empowering.
What he did is wrong. So no excuses for him.
However if it’s all his fault then that means he has all the power, and with those with NPD, that feeds them when we think that way. So seeing your personal power and realising that perhaps you have more than you knew… it might hurt, but it’s a freeing kind of pain.
He’s only trying to beat you because he thinks you beat him. NPD is full of paradoxes and contradictions like that.
Your self-awareness is a great talent!
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There is a point where a sense that being honest and open about your own self is liberating – freeing –
If one feels unable to be open in any particular context or other then this becomes a massive red flag
I found another pilot who disclosed that he had had a similar thing happen and talked with him yesterday for an hour.
Like here with you, to come to know that there are others who understand and who are non-judgmental… to find that one is not insane as can sometimes feel to be true, knowing this or having it affirmed via sharing left me almost euphoric…
Your clarity is liberating, acting for me like a light in a dark place… your insights illuminating… so very helpful.. I come to feel better through sharing here – thank you.
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Thank you 😀
The online world is filled with the same people as the offline world, only being online tends to release certain inhibitions and people get carried away saying and doing things they’d probably never do offline. You just need to look at comments on news sites and the mind boggles. There was an interesting article I read in a magazine – can’t remember which one – about the phenomenon on the internet of ‘outrage’ and people quickly form ‘outraged’ groups and then support each other in it. It’s like a frenzy of sorts, a joint adrenalin rush.
As with life, we make mistakes, we live and learn, shit happens and wonderful things happen too, and we sometimes get things right 🙂
That’s great, your meeting with the other pilot. Those are precious moments of perspective.
Finding out you’re right when you began to wonder if you were wrong… what a blessed relief! 😀
It’s also harder to avoid people online, offline you can protect your boundaries better.
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Protecting boundaries online is almost impossible – the narcissist who obviously fancies me something rotten has an average time to post of about 10 minutes is I utter anything online… especially something with an opinion in it… he twisted my appeal for him to back off out to the group and took them all away to another forum.
When I spoke to the other pilot yesterday – he disclosed that it had been online forums that had been the crucible for his abuse – he for example insisted that we talk on the phone yesterday not wanting to try to share anything via the written word…
This is so interesting an insight – for me too – I realise although I miss so much something of the daily discourse if I am honest and self reflective I realise that I had put already a lot of effort to filter out all the nonsense and underhanded slights… what I find now is that his excluding me from that forum has been more a gift than a punishment… less emotionally exhausting…
In time I will come to terms with the lack of incidental contact and see that as a casualty of his bile… a blessed relief it certainly is…
There was some interesting comment on this phenomenon after the London bombings of 7/7 – I felt it too – a sort of camaraderie – a commonality of experience and a sense of connectedness to one another
In normal circumstances people are sub divided into defined social groups – family – friends – colleagues – in ever expanding circles
The argument is that in pre history our evolutionary predispositions were set to defend these circles with enough force for us to protect our resources and survive meaning that those outside the circle we define as ours were threats.
My feeling is that something of this exists in the communication at a remove that we experience online – the rage – the inhumanity – this is also I think true of cyclist and cars and the inhumanity there at times – its something that happens across a lot of our experience…
I think the shell persona that a narcissist projects and then vociferously protects has something of the same dehumanising affect on one level or another something of the same fight for survival underpins the behaviour that manifests if you ever happen to challenge that projected aura…
Just a thought.. but interesting to consider 🙂
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That makes a lot of sense. Most modern day behaviours do have a timeline. In fact there is a theory that as we became more civilised, our primal instincts got repressed and have found other ways of expressing themselves because the energy is there even if we ignore it because polite society needs us to. We can’t just go around bashing people with clubs to make a point 😉
Sports, especially the supporter side of it, is considered an area of interest for studying group dynamics and seeing the ties to history and ancestry.
I think a part of online interaction, the dehumanising part, is partly due to people feeling dehumanised in day to day life. It’s that temptation to pass on what causes us pain, it’s a complicated way of acknowledging our pain by making others feel it because no one is listening to us, but we can make them feel our pain.
Humans………… sigh! This human (pointing at myself) make me sigh heavily a lot!
There was an observation when Diana died that the entire country, and some other countries, used it as a group mourning, amplified, justified and openly acknowledged grief. Many people were interviewed and asked whether they were using the group mourning as a release of personal grief about other parts of their lives. Most said that it was as though the event gave them permission to admit to their grief and express it openly, whereas usually they felt they had to hide their grief and pretend to be fine for the group.
And yes, 7/7, and similarly the 2011 riots, united a lot of people in a common cause (in the riots it was on all sides of it). It was camaraderie and very active rather than passive. The active side of it creates many chemicals to rush through our body.
I’m fascinated by the chemical aspect of being human – how much of what we feel and maybe even think, is us doing it, or the chemicals in our body. I could discuss that one for hours!!! 😉
And yes, he definitely has a thing for you… you perplex him and that is driving him crazy (kind of like love).
I love the insights you’re sharing with me, very stimulating and inspiring!
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the group think is interesting in a way – how we respond to social dynamics – nudges…
I think maybe as an aspie I am less like this – maybe I dont know – I dont fully subscribe to being one..
if you accept the evolutionary pre-programming we all come with at birth – and accept that evolutionary pressures shape all of how we instinctually are, then you realise that much of what we grapple with – this NPD crap included – comes from what is really a record of our deep experience as a species..
Steven Pinker in his book – The Language Instinct – uses language as its the most obvious example of the notion of us having – pre installed software – but if you accept this premise then all our behaviours and deeper instincts, likely our chemistry too, come from those ancient answers to ancient questions..
I find that intriguing a lot –
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With dyslexia I’m always aware of what I can never be aware of – such as what it’s like not to think and experience things and people with a mind that isn’t the one I have. This is highlighted when I hear someone say something uninformed about dyslexia, but mostly when it is called a disability (I understand the practical reasons for doing that but not the psychological ones). If those with dyslexia had been in the majority when the educational system was created, then a dyslexic mind would be the norm and a non-dyslexic mind might be considered to have a disability. It’s all about perspective.
So there is no way for you to know what it is like to have a mind which isn’t the one you have. If we could do a mind swap with other people or using some futuristic machine to experience having a different mind, my guess is you’d be horrified and would want your mind back immediately. It is instinctive to want to evolve, but that sometimes makes us think that what we have is not as good as what we don’t have, but we can’t always know what it would be like to have what we don’t have, but we can fantasise about it and idealise it until we convince ourselves that what we have is somehow not good enough or something along those lines.
I wonder if I read that book… or tried to read it. I did read a book about how language was formed and evolved. I was thinking about it the other day while watching an Asian film and wondering why so many very different languages exist and how and why and then I remembered that book and couldn’t recall a thing I’d read 😉
It’s a fascinating subject… human nature and all the tangents from it… it’s one of those subjects that makes you realise how little we know about being human, and how much guesswork we do… but that guesswork is influenced by bias, which confuses things.
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I think there are about 6000 languages – or something – the interesting insightful example is of creole a language that emerges when lots of disperate people are placed quickly together and they have to make something up to communicate…
the really interesting bit is how that creole evolves and spontaneously gains grammatical structure with their children…
http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Papers/Py104/pinker.langacq.html
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Thank you for the link 😀
I remember years ago reading The Cousteau Almanac and there was this anecdote of a plane trip where a conversation was overheard but it was in pidgin English and what was heard and what was said created a hilarious interaction.
It’s already difficult to communicate when two people speak the same tongue, add a language barrier and… well sometimes it’s easier to communicate because you have to resort to a more basic approach which is usually more honest. You can’t be as glib, and really have to think about what you are saying and what the other person is saying. It increases the listening faculties.
Sort of like when you have a sore throat and limit your words to the most direct.
I went to school in a mixed nationality school, it was a wonderful experience, like the whole world in one room 🙂
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the book I read at the moment – The Secret History – Donna Tartt on of her protagonists Henry who can speak numerous languages gave some advice to one of his friends telling him that if thoughts were raging in ones mind causing distress then his advice was to think them in another language… that way slowing them down making everything feel calmer… my italian is not quite ready for that – not quite ready for much really – but I get the idea…
growing up as you describe sounds amazing – very stimulating… not boring 🙂
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I like that idea! I do something similar only different, when I’m angry I think in Italian, it is more satisfying and more expressive for anger. Italians often sound angry when they’re talking but they’re not, sometimes they’re not even having a heated discussion, they’re just chatting pleasantly 😉 and the hand gestures and stuff go well with raging thoughts.
If I want to calm the stormy sea of thought, then I think in English because it is a logical language even though some of the words are a bit illogical.
If I want to inject some humour into a serious frame of mind then I think in comedy sketch language.
Do you find that when you watch a film or show like The Bridge that you do an Ab Fab – if you saw that episode where Edina thinks she can speak Danish after watching The Killing) and can understand what is being said without understanding the language?
And I think every child has an amazing time growing up, we just forget it once we’re adults because the language of the child is full of curiosity and wonder, whereas the language of the adult is about facts and reality. Or so we think it is 😉
Your flying passion is fascinating to me, I’ve seen people doing it and it looks WOW more so because you can do it in places which are so beautiful and better appreciated from the air. I love aerial shot photography! You have some great shots on your blog! I’d probably never try flying myself because I don’t listen to instructions…. :O
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yes – it is very beautiful – and you can find yourself in very special places…
flying once with a buzzard together in a thermal was really a very beautiful moment in my life
to have the ability to fly so simply when you hang glide it feels like a real privilege – I am in this extremely lucky…
my little cafè I spend a little time in each morning is an italian one and the girls there chat together – I love to listen – I love a lot something of the feel of italian – perceive it quite wordlessly when I am there… something of a sense of friendship I think..
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I wonder what the buzzard thought of you? I love watching birds of prey, they are very inspiring, very quick too! I once saw a sparrowhawk snatch a blackbird right in front of me. I felt rather guilty because the blackbird thought it was safe because I was there, it had been hiding in a bush, but when I came out it did too, looked at me and then wandered around out in the open looking for food (I wasn’t feeding it) – I was supposed to be a scare-hawk, but the hawk was familiar with my presence and so knew I wasn’t a threat. Surprised me silly!
You have to be very skilled to glide, it looks easy and fun but you really have to be at one with the glider and the air around you like a bird.
Ah… the camaraderie of Italians… it is an illusion which has much truth to it 😉
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another way to look at that moment would be to almost fully discount your presence – I like a lot that we always look for meaning in things – a narrative – I would not feel responsible or culpable in any way… and in any event its all so natural – the discordance in that story were your morals or the discomfort at witnessing viscerally the survival of another and its costs… my existentialist sensibilities talk to you now..
we look to birds they are out best chance to see where the air might be working.. there are stories of other pilots being consciously guided by griffon vultures – seen to be struggling and then guided to the clouds by a bird… they are seen to guide and teach their young – so its not so much a romantic leap of faith to think my friend was not helped.. and even so – I enjoy the romance..
I know that there will be no one characteristic that you could meaningfully level at a people – but if I had to say one thing then it would be that.. I enjoyed to watch them together while I was there.. this is how it felt to me..
I have not flown since the end of november… its almost a distant memory now..
are you in the UK – will you walk in the rain over the weekend ? for me I like to go to the beach when its stormy – something of the sound – the sensation – all that noise – feels like.. un stretto abbraccio… mi piace tantissimo…
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Yes, that’s exactly it! It was as though I was not there which is a wonderful compliment from nature really, because you’re not intruding on it as so often is the case. There are a lot of pheasants where I live and they used to run away at the slightest whiff of a human and now they just ignore me which is great as I get to be an invisible observer of nature being natural.
And definitely for a few moments I projected my human nonsense on the scenario 😉
I heard about a story where a father and his adult children were stranded in deep water in Hawaii, they had been kayaking and things went wrong and they lost the kayaks, and they huddled together in case of sharks, then dolphins started circling them and they were scared of the dolphins until they realised they were being protected by the dolphins from sharks…
Nature is there to guide us because we are made of natural stuff, we just fight it and try to subjugate it… humans are weird.
I love your story of enjoying the cafe and the girls chatting, it’s very poetic and I like doing similar things, being there absorbing the atmosphere and letting it absorb me too. It’s lovely and there is something similar in it to observing nature, you know… you are in the moment and appreciating the elements in it and letting it be as it is and inspire you… what I meant by Italian camaraderie being an illusion with truth in it is there is a poetry to it which goes deeper than the surface. Have you ever experienced La Passeggiata?
Yes, I’m in the UK… and I got thoroughly drenched today, I love getting drenched and shouting out ‘I’m melting!’, very satisfying! I’m not near enough to the beach to get there regularly, and the beaches nearby are being reclaimed by the ocean, but the winds here are fantastically wild and since it’s very flat they tear through and it’s very invigorating. I love letting nature disintegrate my human self 🙂
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La Passeggiata – only been aware that it was happening while I passed through – my visits having been a little detatched from normality via my flying..
I did have a very strange time in Udine – in the hospital there – very strange indeed… but I would escape and enjoy to be around the movements and rhythms of the day… this is the story of that journey – the affects are still inside me now… I feel them..
http://www.stovolando.co.uk/gemona/
I feel very calm sharing like this here with you – its nice to feel this way – while the wind blows hard against my house and those who would be unkind do as they wish, I find talking and sharing thoughts and feelings to have brought some sense of self to me… I have turned a corner Ursula 🙂
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OUCH! And that is why I would never go gliding because that would be my regular type of flight. If I can find a way to hit my head doing something, I never fail 😉
I love the way you told the story, the build up and the aftermath, the poetry juxtaposing the gravity, the unreality versus reality, the pause in time, the journey after the accident, the healing experience and then getting back in the flying saddle after being thrown off by Pegasus. Very brave.
It must be so strange not being able to recall something so significant and to have to rely on others to fill in the blanks. Kind of like our early childhood before we have memory recall. But all experiences are multi-layered so there was something deeper to it.
Your blog is so beautiful to explore, you have many talents and I’m so glad you share them.
I love interacting with you, I hope that’s clear, the energy flows both ways. You were always going to turn that corner… I am honoured to share that moment with you 🙂
Thank you!
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yes – the amnesia was very odd – I have a very clear last memory quite a bit before I landed – climbing at the slovenian side of the gap in the ridge… I watched another glider lit brightly in the sunshine against the shaded trees… the very next memory I was in a CT scanner with a broken back and vague and confused thoughts a little like being alone in a massive echoing room…
I know that my mental processes have changed a little – my writing in particular – I find strange words when I re read – words that have no place in the sentence – very odd – but also quite curious..
I think that my accidents and me getting through them as I did also contributed to me then later becoming a target for the looser narc’…
Thank you to say those things about my blog – I appreciate that a lot – in years past I was a skydiver but did not record that experience well which was ironic indeed as I was a cameraman – recording everyone else… so I made a conscious decision to make this blog to capture and record my flying – I already enjoy to return to the videos – to regain the feeling of the days…
http://youtu.be/bS6CEmQuU2w – this day was particularly beautiful… starting dull and ending bright – between I was almost packed away ready to go home – but felt things improve…
A lot like this moment in time too – coping with abuse.. I have been so depressed and upset but feel the day brighten just as I did that day..
The part I almost missed was deeply beautiful.. and in that there is a lesson.
Yes – perfectly clear… 🙂
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Thanks for sharing the video, that looks like fun and so beautiful, and I checked out some of the other videos… Where does Steve go is very funny!!!
I watched an intriguing documentary a while ago about brain injuries and how they can be life-changing in ways which are positive. One woman in particular went from being left-brained to right-brained after a stroke. She said that although at first she considered it devastating because it changed who she was, she later discovered a whole new life she had never known she had inside of her. She was a businesswoman and then became an artist, explaining that she no longer had a head for business.
The human landscape is a mystery. And so are the lives we live, often having many within one lifetime.
I always wondered what it would be like to completely forget who I think I am… who would I be if I didn’t have any concept of who I thought I was?
As a cameraman you know that lighting and contrast changes how something looks… so thing like bad experiences and depression provide contrast and different lighting in our lives. If something goes on for too long we end up believing that is the only shade there is in life. Something else usually comes a long to snap us out of it and show us other hues and tones.
Different countries and landscapes have different lighting… so do people 🙂
I love how you share your flying experience, it allows people like me to fly by proxy!
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Thank you Ursula – I am glad you enjoyed the video… the Steve one sadly was instrumental in the start of my troubles – hard to believe but its true..
I like your idea of going through something like a hard reset – but in a way the interesting part would be lost and some sort of half aware merging of before and after would be needed to be conscious that something had happened.. otherwise you would be coping again as a new entity existentially an island separated from your former self.
For me I am very lucky and dont suffer much if any meaningful changes – certainly nothing that gets in the way of me functioning normally – however it does subtly free me in a strange way to act in a maybe less inhibited way.
I struggle in these days with the social isolation it is wearing on me heavily – I found myself suddenly angry the other day when confronted with this exclusion – a bounced message reminding me that I am not part of that group – it made me angry to see the words written on the page.
What can you do. I think staying calm and being patient – it takes effort not to lash out – state how I feel wishing that the group would somehow understand – but I think its all so futile a way of acting – it is the power of these narcissistic attacks that they kind of check you on the board – restrict your options – control you – its this control that is infuriating.. that makes you wish to exert yourself.. remaining mindfully above all that baiting nonsense is so very difficult…
Quite a challenge this isn’t it… something substantial to take on.. not at all boring.
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[…] Life sends us Tests, Challenges and Temptations… for our Ego… | An Upturned Soul […]
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[…] Life sends us Tests, Challenges and Temptations… for our Ego… | An Upturned Soul […]
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Thank you for writing this… I can really relate… what do we do with the wound, when we feel wounded? Cause only we can hold onto the wounding and use it to fuel resentment against a supposed aggressor, real or unreal….in my experience when I am hurt, the instinct to self protect does come up. that’s why I think we could differentiate between the healthy and unhealthy ego (even that, though, I guess is some kind of value judgement 🙂 😦 ?? cause sometimes we need to protect as we have been wronged…. but in time if we digest the pain maybe we see that the person didn’t understand how that hurt, was struggling themselves, or was too shut off in an area to be able to deal with our pain. and in any case the earlier pain that they triggered may have had nothing to do with them.. they have been a catalyst for us to feel our wound, which is ours to heal and come to terms with.. anyway that is some of my thoughts…. the ego can get a bad wrap but without a healthy one we are stuffed in my experience….. I love the books of David Richo.. especially How To Be An Adult in Relationship and The Five Things We Cannot Change.. they helped me to understand some deeper dimensions of the healthy and wounded ego….. and to explain how introverts and extroverts can fail to understand each other and be wounded by the other’s behaviour when they don’t get each other’s style of being in relationship….
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Very true 😀
Games People PLay by Eric Berne is my favourite relationship book. It’s short and to the point. It also gives a good structure to reviewing interactions. You do have to be aware of both sides, as you are. It broadens understanding.
I was reflecting on how much people cause pain when they have been wounded, and that sometimes they do it in a way which is hidden, they think they’re doing good and spreading healing (that’s what their ego has told them is going on), and they may well be doing that too, but there is an undercurrent of something else going on, of their healing being dependent on passing their wound on, as though they’re only healing because they’re getting rid of the wound, passing the responsibility of it onto someone else, rather than actually healing it. It’s that trap of trying to fix someone else, save the world, because you’re hurting and you think the problem lies outside of you, so if you fix the person who hurt you, change the world which you find uncomfortable as it is, then your problem is solved. But that attitude actually causes more problems and wounds and hurt and pain.
It’s a tricky human pickled knot.
We want others to accept and respect us, to listen to us, understand us… and what we sometimes do to get those things is not accept others,disrespect them, not listen or understand them.
Sigh-O!
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Mmmm that is very true….its important to get insight into our wounded places so we don’t pass it on. I know I have been guilty of that. I get what you are saying. Actually I was reading a blog about the narcissist somewhere and that person had a lot of anger to the narc but was using that in a toxic kind of way….even though its hard to feel that others who hurt us have been hurt too.. we need to bear it in mind and consider life from their perspective. Sometimes it takes time for the anger to die down. I still think there is a loving way you can express your upset to someone who hurt you….without lashing out or being mean… and who knows if that hurt wasn’t a lesson for us on some level….?
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You hit upon exactly what’s been troubling me of late.
The anger needs to be expressed because it’s been suppressed and repressed, so re-balancing needs to occur. The system needs a purge. And that anger holds wisdom and understanding once it has been acknowledged and expressed, and transmuted through alchemy of the soul into something useful rather than left as a ball of mess inside.
When healing from a relationship with a Narcissist there is a process similar to the grieving steps. But you do have to emerge from each phase and not get stuck there, especially in the rage, or that rage will become self-righteous activism of a potentially toxic kind, especially if you have a soap box and an audience who are egging you on because you’re expressing their still silent rage for them. It’s one of those group dynamic things which could go pear-shaped.
I read a very interesting blog post about something similar – http://feal.org/blog2/tag/victim-mentality
I considered writing about something along those lines and was doing some research. I saw myself getting sucked into something and didn’t like what I was allowing to happen, along the lines of – “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche. Luckily I caught myself, thanks to a kick in the butt and a scare of sorts. Now I have to rethink everything, and I was considering doing a Persephone (Pluto in the 1st trine Sun in 5th style). I’m still considering it, but I think it needs for me to wait until after T Mercury stops squaring my Nep (thanks for mentioning yours it made me check my chart to look at transits) and for the Merc retro to be over because this shadow phase has discombobulated me. 🙂
I love your insightfulness!!!
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Oh yeah and as your last point says sometimes we have to just remain in the centre of the ‘burning ground’ while the deeper self or outer conditions burns us up to kill off parts of us that need to become ashes and so transform… I see a process where we cry tears on the ashes and that turns up a substance that we can mould into a new shape…..like a slurry or clay….just love those images of alchemy, for that… ‘burning ground’ = calcinato….the lion in jar over a flame with a thorn in his paw.. the sun being dissolved in the ocean.. all metaphorical images for transformations the ego can go through on the transformative journey of life…
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Nice! Love alchemical processes!
Sometimes you just realise your perspective needs more than a shift, that you’ve gained understanding which requires that you let your old self fall apart so a new self can be born out of it. I’ve kind of reached a culmination point right now. I almost got sucked into a major ego trap and the thought of it has left me reeling at my own folly. But the experience showed me a threshold and asked me to make a decision. 🙂
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