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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
David Richo
Read between
November 17, 2023 - January 1, 2024
Affirmation following this guilt-work takes two forms: First, use any of the affirmations at the end of this book that resonate for you personally. Designing your own affirmations is even more useful. Second, affirm (congratulate) yourself for the adult choice and the follow-through that made the guilt process ultimately empowering.
You then hold yourself accountable but not to blame. Blame leads to an emotionally-charged self-repudiation.
“Judgment and closure are the greatest dangers to one who wants to retain the psychic mobility of an explorer,” John Lilly once wrote.
To act out of the fear of guilt or of looking bad or of punishment means that our values have not had the chance to achieve their full primacy in our lives. We consequently feel “unworthy.” Our self-esteem diminishes because our actions
Having values, however, does not mean that our actions and motives are pure.
Awakening Values To awaken values that are undeveloped or have become dormant, we can follow these guidelines: 1. Trust intuitions, the inner messages that tell us what is to be honored and what is to be avoided. 2. Notice how many choices you make to feel good and make more choices to feel good about yourself. 3. Check out motivations and choices with a person or community or program whose integrity you trust. Then make your own decisions, now more objectively informed. 4. Notice which values you admire strongly in others. Act in accord with the values you admire while acknowledging that
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In a functional ego investment, we will give power without thereby being personally diminished. We are vulnerable as lovers not as victims. In other words, our commitment does not mean losing our boundaries.
In a neurotic ego investment, we lose our ability to protect ourselves. The actions of our partner then determine our state of mind, rather than simply affect it temporarily. We live by reacting, rather than by taking action.
I know I have lost my boundaries and become co-dependent* when: “I don’t let go of what doesn’t work” and it feels like
“I can’t let go of what could work.” Co-dependency is unconditional love for someone else that has turned against oneself.
When you give up your boundaries in a relationship you: When your boundaries are intact in a relationship you: 1. Are unclear about your preferences 1. Have clear preferences and act on them 2. Do not notice unhappiness since enduring is your concern 2. Recognize when you are happy/unhappy 3. Alter your behavior, plans, or opinions to fit the current moods or circumstances of another (live reactively) 3. Acknowledge moods and circumstances around you while remaining centered (live actively) 4. Do more and more for less and less 4. Do more when that gets results 5. Take as truth the most recent
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The ability to give and to receive. “I get past my fears long enough to disclose my feelings and receive yours, to show affection—both sexually and non-sexually—and to receive yours.”
Without insisting on parity. Yes, one may hope for parity and one needs to discern, acknowledge, and appreciate that hope because if ignored it hardens into an expectation which when not met precisely turns minimally into resentment (more at resentirment as it will become a rumination and a stumbling block. Yogically this would be the seed of a samskara or granthis depending on how hardened)
A commitment to maintain the relationship during periods when one’s needs are not being met, since the other is valued for one’s inherent worth, not just for need fulfillment.
The reason for not demanding parity
A commitment to an essential bond—an enduring “given” of mutuality—that weathers the stresses and crises of change. This bond is unconditional. If “someone else has come along” who is more attractive, more fun, “just right,” it will be taken only as information about the charms of the new person or the deficits of the present relationship. It will not cause a break-up or lead to a new involvement.
Adult relating is in the capacity to commit ourselves without being immobilized by the fear of abandonment if someone pulls too far away, or by the fear of engulfment if someone gets too close.
Actually, an adult cannot be abandoned, only left, cannot be engulfed, only crowded!
Fear of Abandonment Fear of Engulfment Fear of independence so that one: Fear of dependency so that one: Has trouble letting go when the other needs space Has trouble making a commitment Seeks maximum contact (clings) Seeks more space (distances) Is enmeshed or obsessive about the other’s story Takes the other for granted or is indifferent Is caretaking of the other and not of oneself Feels entitled to need fulfillment by the other Always wants to give more (sense of never giving enough) Construes giving as obligating or receiving as smothering Goes along with others’ ideas, plans, or timing
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To fear engulfment is to believe that closeness takes something away from you. Deal with this fear of losing yourself paradoxically by freely giving yourself. Make a self-disclosure, admit a vulnerability, or show a feeling. Thus you stop losing by letting go. To fear abandonment is to dread being left alone. This is a fear not of loss of self but of gain of self-confrontation. Setting time aside for yourself daily means choosing the very thing you fear. This paradoxical reversal leads gradually to your enjoying your aloneness.
Express every feeling but act on none.
No adult deserves to be blamed, but anyone can be called to account.
Give your partner the gift of being right. This applies to emotions and to your partner’s perceptions of you.
It does not apply to finances, life/death, or abuse issues, nor to addictions or opinions that lead to dangerous consequences. Paradoxically, a person becomes more open to you when you acknowledge his intuitions as making sense. In the bargain, you let go of your own competitiveness, polarizing opposition, and adversarial distancing.
When we operate from a strong functional ego, our integrity makes us act fairly toward others. When we have integrated ego with spiritual wisdom, integrity engages a compassion that transcends fairness while always including it.
DECIDING In matters of the heart, thinking (ironically) leads only to more confusion. What works best is simply noticing: —what your body feels; —what your actions are; —what your intuition keeps coming back to.
Noticing leads to knowing. You can trust this to happen automatically.
Effort may only c...
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The decision with wisdom usually finds a way not to exclude one side totally, not either…or but both…and. Such a decision embraces risk rather than avoids it.
Separation leads to self-doubt.
containment,
I would say "integration" rather than containment
The negative Shadow is composed of our own unacceptable and disowned defects that we strongly condemn in others. What we are unconscious of in ourselves, we become emphatically conscious of in others.
The positive Shadow is composed of the good qualities hidden in us that we strongly admire or envy in others. We consciously respect in them what we inwardly disavow in ourselves. “In every work of genius, we can recognize our own rejected thoughts. They come back to us with a certain alienated majesty” (Emerson).
The Shadow turns some of our “I” (what is really ourselves) into “It” (which seems to exist only in others).
To integrate the positive Shadow is to acknowledge our own untapped potential behind the awe we have of others.
acknowledge and to release from within ourselves the very talents and qualities we admired in others.
PROJECTED UNOWNED If you are strongly upset by others’: Then you have but may not be using your own: Addictiveness Steadfastness Anxiety Excitement Approval seeking Openness to appreciation Arrogance Self-confidence Bias Discernment Bitterness, grudge-holding Refusal to overlook injustice Caretaking Compassion Clinging Loyalty Compromise Negotiability Compulsive orderliness Organization, efficiency Conning Teaching, encouraging Connivance Intelligent strategizing Control, manipulativeness Leadership, efficiency, coordinating ability Cowardice Caution Cruelty Anger Cunning Forethought
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I am strongly upset when others are controlling. I acknowledge that I am controlling, though I may not see it right now.
I have efficiency and leadership skills that I have not fully used. I choose to act as if I had a high level of leadership ability without being controlling.
Controlling behavior by others will become simply an object of observation. You will be informed, but not affected by it. You will be a witness, not an antagonist. 2. Your own subtly controlling ways will vanish. 3. Your coordinating and leadership skills will emerge automatically and with ease.
Recurrent Dreams Most people have dreams that recur throughout life or for periods of life. Such dreams may have the following purposes: 1, To compensate for a deficiency in conscious life. 2. To anticipate a change, transition, or spiritual transformation. 3. To assimilate a physical or psychological trauma (since shock is best absorbed by repetition). 4. To demonstrate normal anxiety about unpreparedness, lateness, loss of control, world disaster, immobility, or rescue fantasies.
❓Is 3 part of the genesis of PTSD?
Recurrent dreams are not so much to be interpreted as to be exhausted. They are played repeatedly like dramas, until integration and closure happen naturally.
An Active Imagination format: I. Use meditation to empty your mind of thoughts. (See the next chapter for an example of a meditation technique.) II. Affirm an attitude of listening to your unconscious, not dictating to it. “I open myself to inner messages.” “I am ready to know what I need to know.” “I acknowledge my imagination as a faculty of healing.” III. Dialogue with the image in writing, drawing, or movement without interpreting it. This dialogue develops from a felt sense of. • the image as I receive it, not as I prefer it, • what it says with no prompting from me, • my response without
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Jung identified image with psyche. In a transpersonal context, a dream image does not stand for something else. It is irreducible, and refers to itself. It is independent of mental constructs, neither pointing to another reality nor determined by one. A dream image is not a product of the imagination; it is a mirror of the self.
Psychological work is a linear chronology leading us from problem to solution, from inadequacy to competence, from dysfunction to high level functioning.
Spiritual work is a journey from the compelling attachments of the neurotic ego to a Here-and-Now centered Self. This journey has no goal, as in the ego’s effort-oriented work.
The ego’s ultimate work is to create enough sane ground so that the Self can grow its single imperishable Rose that lives by light.
Cf 13 petal rose of Torah and Karla McLaren's work
An example of the congruence of psychological and spiritual work is in dealing with the hurts of childhood.
Psychologically, we work through the emotions by grieving the past and by self-parenting. Spiritually, we work with the past experiences as present healing images.
At one time, our main motive may be to seek out and respond to challenges, to take hold and become deeply involved in projects and relationships. This is functional ego work and takes rightful precedence over letting go. At another time, what will work best for us are choices that lead to fewer encumbrances, to lightening up, and letting go. This is spiritual unfolding and takes precedence over ego goals.
Psychological work ultimately leads us to closure and to the goal of change: healthier self-esteem and more productive relationships.
Steps in Psychological Work Leading to Change 1. Letting go of neurotic ego attachments, control, and entitlement NOT: “This has to come out my way.” BUT: “I let go of having to have this come out my way.” 2. Unconditional Yes to what is occurring in events, feelings, circumstances: “I allow this fully. I trust it without having to know why.
