[Vino]

So…since you seem to be more forgiving towards men in general, are you willing to forgive the women who behave in a harmful way as well?

No, no, No, Heidi! I am NOT More forgiving towards men! IF there’s a man who has sexually abused his child and a woman who has sexually abused her child, i see them BOTH THE SAME WAY! there’s no way, i’m going to forgive EITHER of them! but the way things are in society, the woman’s abuse is minimized because she’s a woman! And if the child she abused is a boy, people are not even going to believe he was abused! Of those who DO believe him, many will wonder why he didn’t enjoy it! And THIS is what i’m against! The crimes committed by women are being minimized! The crimes committed by minorities are being minimized! This is TOTALLY WRONG!

i HATE people who abuse others, take advantage of others, or use others in any. I don’t care WHO they are! Those who are victims, HAVE to be protected and defended, even if they are rich, white men! Do you remember how Johnny Depp was falsly accused of abusing his partner? And it turned out that SHE was the one who was abusing him?! Why was everyone so quick to tear him up without proof?! IF he’d accused her, nobody would’ve believed him without proof. The same ‘innocent-till-guilty’ mindset isn’t extended towards men! Men are being treated as if they are guilty till proven innocent and woman are being treating as if they are innocent till proven guilty. I’m saying EVERYONE Should be treated as innocent till proven guitlty, becuase once you’ve messed up someone’s reputation, you cannot rebuild it. Why are people SO Quick to destroy someone’s life and livelihood and reputation, without taking the time to know the whole story?

In truth, i am NOT giving men the benefit of the doubt as it appears to be I’m just more interested (than most women) to hear a man out, to fully get his side of the story! The reason i speak against indians and ethiopians is because i see in them, more of this energy that takes advantage of others. The idea that ‘all men are created equal’ is not a universal belief. and that automatically lends itself to whole groups of people being viewed as less than others. Like the genocide of the Tutsi people Rwanda in 1994.

You are pigeonholing both men and women by making these generalized sweeping statements. We ALL have both male and female energy in us, right? So the male energy that is about performance and precision can easily exist in a woman. And the female energy that is about relationships can exist in a man. There are industry leaders, both male and female, that coach about business/performance as well as dating/relationships. Do you see something different?

Am i really pigeonholing when i use generalized statements? everything you’ve stated – of women being incredible leaders and men being really good at relationships are the exception, not the rule. When i make a generalized statement, i’m not at all ruling out the exceptions.

Just FYI, when a relationship goes belly up, science shows that men are mostly the ones responsible.

Is this really true? i would need every nitty gritty detail on this before i give it any weight. Your primary connection with another human is your mother, from birth. A mother continues to have a greater influence on a child’s emotional development than the dad does. It’s a mother who usually takes care of the children when they are sick, and in other vulnerable states. So the bulk of what a child learns about relationships is from the mother! And in General (lol 🙂 ) — it takes boys longer to become confident in relationships than girls. In high school – i’m sure boys around the world are at least 2 yrs behind girls in figuring out how to communicate. I think everyone is the same in elementary school and early middle school. Then puberty hits and totally derails everyone, but girls regain their balance in relationships sooner. (If they have the right kind of support from their mothers.) or maybe there’s generally more support available for girls anyway, because puberty is more messy for girls and there’s more stuff we need help with. Boys are just left to figure it out on their own and because they don’t bleed, they don’t get any attention at all. But, all that crazy shift in hormones MUST really throw them off too, right? you know – i’ve never, ever actually thought about the effect of puberty on a boy, until just now!

So beautifully said! You are such a great teacher! Me, being a trainer, I appreciate this analogy a lot! I love it!

Thank you. i got that picture when i was going through massage therapy school! in the anatomy book, the muscular system was right after the skeletal, and as i went through the summary of functions, i thought there was a typo in the textbook because they were both the same, so i went back and looked at both lists closer and i was blown away by the beauty of it! how Most of the functions are identical, and yet, both systems are opposites in texture. It immediately made me think of men and women! this connects back with relationships and performance. Relationships require the softness and flexibility of a muscle, and Performance requires the strength and inflexibility of bones.

BTW – the most successful men are the ones who’ve learned how to harness BOTH their male and female energies too! But their male energy leads.

I met with one of the coaches – to help me write up my story. He got me to talk with a few good questions and as i talked, he wrote down the things that created structure out of my chaos! i was just blown away! In 45 minutes, he created a 2 min summary of my story that is SO FREAKY accurate that i’m totally in love with it! He still forced me to think of a specific person – and he said to just pick one for now and go for it, so i just described myself. Then he asked me if i’d be my own best client. At first i said yes, because i saw all my best qualities first. the next day, i realized that i’d be my own worst client, 12 yrs ago – because of my incredible lack of trust, especially towards women. So, i would never have learned from myself. lol 🙂

So, my homework is to share my story with 10 friends and get their feedback. I called my first friend today and she said it was inspiring! And then she asked how she can learn more. And asked if she’d have to buy my course to learn more. I told her she’d be one of my beta testers. I wasn’t expecting that at all! how do you inspire someone with a 2 minute story?! He didn’t even tell me i had to be inspiring! he just wrote down the key things in what i was saying, and he organized it. I edited it so it sounded like me talking, but kept the length of it, and didn’t add any extra details. Before our call, i was sincerely overwhelmed and i was actually just going to tell him that i’d bitten off more than i could chew and i was going to just cut my losses and quit. And by the end of our talk, which was far too easy and relaxed, i was feeling like i can actually do this! And he hadn’t done anything specific to pump me up!! HOW?! I just can’t get over it!

Here’s the story he helped me write:

Pit:
12 years ago, i hit rock bottom. I had been spiraling down gradually till i couldn’t get out of bed anymore. To force myself out of bed, I had to write down 3 things that i had no choice about getting done each day.

Search:
I found a good Psychiatrist. Medicines and therapy provided some support, but didn’t build up my inner strength.
So i kept searching for answers in EVERYTHING around me, fitness experts, songs, games, shows and movies, people, animals, books, articles, even the weather and the local news!
All the information i gathered, inspired SO MANY ideas in me, and I experimented with as many of them as i could.
I wanted to learn to support my body and mind and not work against it.
I stopped suppressing the emotions that i thought were weak. And gave myself permission to feel things deeply, and express them freely – mostly in private and usually in writing. This relieved a lot of pressure, but it still wasn’t enough.

Breakthrough:
I finally made the decision to trust one friend’s perception of me – that i was worth being a friend to, even if i couldn’t understand why. This changed everything. I put aside all negative perceptions of myself and simply observed how others treated me. I was sincerely surprised that 99% of the people i met were friendly and kind towards me! This opened me up to receive the goodness around me, and find my path to joy.

Since that time, I have continued to grow and get stronger and i have never gone below that place where i thought i wasn’t worth being a friend to. I want to share my story, in hopes that i can help others also find value in their own lives and discover their own path to joy.

I’m sure a female couch could’ve helped me just as well as he could. I think the reason he was able to help me is because his female energy is well activated and exercised. He never once made me feel like i wasn’t being truly heard and it showed in the notes he took that he truly DID hear me. But he never lost focus. And he was able to bring me into focus gently, and i never felt like i was being forced into a model. Even though he was using a model! lol 🙂 Before i met with him, i’d already watched the entire first module and all the video calls relating to it, and all of that made me feel like it was too soon for me to share my story. it’s incredible what a huge difference some focused time with a real PERSON makes!

i’m starting to sound like a lot of successful people who keep saying they couldn’t have gotten to where they’re at without a coach! lol 🙂

~~ vino

[Vino]

Interesting! How come? Where is there ANY evidence of such a thing existing for humanity that would make you believe this? If anything, I have found quite the opposite. The deeper I explore, the more variations to perspectives and “truths” show up. The more I learn, the more I realize I know nothing. I have not yet come across a single thing, on the face of this planet, that 100% of people can agree upon.

Whether people agree with it or not, there ARE things that are 100% TRUE! For example – for the last two days, i’ve fallen back into the pit of worthlessness. Wouldn’t you say that my beliefs and perspectives of worthlessness are NOT TRUE?! However, i can point to ALL of the things in my life that prove that i AM worthless, and you cannot point to a single thing that proves to me that i DO have worth. Why is it that something that IS FULLY true for me, in every experience that i’ve had, STILL NOT BE THE TRUTH?!

People form the beliefs that they have based on their experiences, right? All of these experiences are 100% true, right? And yet, the thoughts that form in the mind, can either be true, or not true. Why is it true if i say I have worth, and not true if i say i do NOT have worth?

In the end, it was the very thing that destroyed me, that saved me. I had lost utter and total sense of worth because i believed everything i saw and heard and it all pointed to my worthlessness. So, when i made the decision to marry, i COMPLETELY ignored my OWN TRUTH (which was still completely honest and true – but i couldn’t trust it, because of how much i had devalued it) – and i relied on what OTHERS thought about him, to make my decision. By the time i made friends with his best friend (what are the chances that i’d be saved by HIS best friend! lol 😀 ) — my self-worth had eroded to such an extent that i couldn’t believe that i was good enough to be anyone’s friend. SO — i had to Close my eyes to MY TRUTH — and completely and fully trust Fr M’s TRUTH – which was, that i was worth being a friend to – and simply accept it, even though i couldn’t feel it or see it, or believe it. I took a leap of faith and chose to trust HIS TRUTH, because he was being good to me.

For every lie that people are trapped in — there HAS to be an ABSOLUTE TRUTH that rescues them from it! Nothing destroys a lie like the WHOLE TRUTH!! in my case, even if i don’t have proof of the Truth according to my perceptions, just the fact that i accept that there is an ABSOLUTE TRUTH that i can TRUST – prevents me from falling as deep in the Pit of Worthlessness that I used to. I don’t look for ‘proof’ that i am worthy, because i know that whether there is visible proof or not, I am worthy. So the feelings pass, without crippling me. They DO slow me down. They DO hurt. Sometimes i try to find out why i’m feeling it again. Most times, i’m too tired, and i just cry.

Maybe to you, you feel exactly the same, no matter which sentence you say.

Yes – to me – “she was not emotionally strong enough to support me” is just a definition of WEAK. I suppose WEAK has negative connotations attached to it. To me, they both carry the same degree of negativity or neutrality. Weak simply means not strong enough. The reasons for her weakness could be many, but they are irrelevant. I was wrong to despise her for not being strong enough for me, because she is who she is, she cannot be stronger. I was most likely a heavier burden to bear than she was trained for. I know i’ve always felt like i was too heavy – even physically – and couldn’t lean on anyone else. I used to watch a cousin of mine sit on her dad’s lap. She was older than me. I never sat on my dad’s lap because i felt i was too big. He never invited me either. But my sister sat on his lap – but she was smaller than me. My cousin was thinner than me too, so — it all added up in my mind. I’m heavy physically. I’m heavy emotionally. I’m just too much of a burden, so no one is truly strong enough to support me and my baggage. (there’s no emotional charge in any of these things right now – but there used to be. It might come around again too. lol 🙂 )

But we could go to the other perspective here as well that exists everywhere…men created this. Men have abused/used/raped/manipulated women for decades. Men are running this country and have suppressed women over and over and over again, through various forms of power. So if this perspective exists, would you not say that it’s pretty reasonable for women to stand up together?

No. No perspective exists in absoluteness. For women to band together and destroy what men have built is the same as the French revolution. The poor were so blind with their hate for the rich that they couldn’t tell the difference between a GOOD rich man and a bad one. If they had been ANY better than the Rich, they would’ve been able to see the good in the rich. No matter how much freedom and power you give the poor, the honest truth is they do NOT have the skills to rule or organize or even THINK in the ways that the Rich do, that increases the prosperity and the value of the things they own. Isn’t that what this whole idea is of changing your mindset? IF you want to be rich, you have to know how the rich think and how they prioritize, how the use their time, etc etc. Some of these things that they know are intrinsic, and you can only learn from them by living with them.

SO – i don’t support women standing together against men. That’s totally stupid and blind and lopsided. IF women stood for what is TRUE – then they have the support of all men who also see that Truth. And there ARE absolute truths! For example – unequal pay – that’s a total farse. It has nothing to do with the skills of a woman not being equal to the skills of a man. When you look at it from a purely business standpoint – isn’t it a greater risk to hire a woman who has children or who will go on to have children later? A healthy woman, WILL be divided in her priorities, and she WILL choose her children over her work in times of trouble. So, when a company hires a woman, they also need to have a back up plan for the times that woman cannot be at work. That back up plan may not be as good as her, so the quality of work at the company will suffer. Or the back up plan might cost more, because they are freelancing their services. IDK. I don’t run a business, but i’d think about such things if i did! I’m also not in support of being paid when you’re not working, so i’m not in support of extended maternity leave benefits. A woman on maternity leave is costing the company twice the amount and not contributing Anything to the company during that time. I don’t care what other countries do, it’s irrelevant. I think, in order to get money, you need to give something in return. It’s just weird to me to take money and not give anything back.

Anyway. i know that’s a wormhole. BTW – i saw a woman giving advice to other women on how to make more money from the system. She explained how she gets a certain amount of money per child. However if both children are from the same father, the amount of money doesn’t double, because his income remains the same. So – she came up with a brilliant plan — she has a each child with a different man. She has a total of 6 children. And at the end of her video she says: “How come y’all don’t have different baby daddies?” This is not the mindset of a rich person. I Don’t know WHAT to call this kind of mindset! It’s so bloody brilliant, but it also keeps her forever in a situation of collecting handouts. I guess it works for her, so it’s all good, right?

I wonder if we will ever be lead by both men and women.

WE ARE! You even agreed to my last statement. lol 😀

Beautifully said! I believe that whether in a male or female or whatever form you claim to be, if you lead with the heart and support your love/passion/kindness for others with high standards, productivity, precision etc. then the system would be unstoppable! In my circles, it’s always supported and claimed to “…..ask for the highest good of all.”

Men and women lead in different ways and in different areas. RELATIONSHIPS are where women lead. So when relationships go belly up, the woman is most responsible. Because women KNOW stuff! Men lead in the world that requires performance and precision and focused goals. That’s the part that the current culture is trying to destroy by labelling it all as toxic patriarchy. it is NOT toxic. Without that strength and rigidity, society will be weak. Patriarchy is like the skeletal system of the society. Matriarchy is like the muscular system. They both provide form and movement AND protection for vital organs (the children and the elderly and the sick and the weak). We need strong bones AND strong muscles for a health body. When the bones get soft and the muscles get hard, you do NOT have a healthy body! Movement is no longer possible and the vital organs are in danger. Also, i think it’s interesting that when people work on strengthening their muscles (not hardening them, but strengthening them) – the bones also get stronger! Such a perfect relationship between bones and muscles. That’s how men and women should work together.

~~ vino

[Vino]

It’s more educated than most, therefore I will poke holes in your beliefs because I know you can take it and I know you are interested. You will reject or accept the holes I attempt to poke in it and move on….which is exactly what an internally strong person should do. So hopefully this explains my perspective a bit better.

Ah, ok! I’m good with poking holes. lol 🙂 if something isn’t poked from every direction, it hasn’t been tested fully, and the untested parts might be weak. So, it’s a good thing to poke things AND for hardcore people like Jordan Peterson – beat it to a pulp and see if it still stands…!

it still is just my POV therefore it’s true only for me.
i don’t fully agree with this, but it explains our foundational outlook. I believe that when things are beaten down to their core, we WILL find a foundation that is true for everyone, because it is as real as the sunrise and the sunset. (isn’t it interesting that even though we all know that the sun ISN’T rising or setting, we are ok with saying that it does because that’s how it looks to ALL of us?) i also believe that a person who HAS walked around the vase, they can’t help but have a more balanced view of things. They may tend to lean more to one side than other, but they are closer to the truth than someone who refuses to even acknowledge that there’s a different way to look at things.

It’s interesting to me that you seem to think a protective energy is a wounded energy. is that really true? If i saw someone being bullied, and i step in to stop it, what kind of wound in me is causing me to intervene?

Calling her WEAK has a wounded flavor to it and how you say it (as well as how you have mentioned this word in the past), there is a flavor of hatred here – not FULL hatred, but just a flavor – from my perspective of course. I could be wrong too. I will say that it’s incredibly hard to really get a sense about things through technology and only writing.

I lost a friend over this, because she was so sure i hated my mother! lol 🙂 But, i think, with you, the issue is the fact that you can’t hear my voice. I can understand the ‘flavor of hate’. It’s the words i’m using. How else can i state that she was emotionally not strong enough to support me?

Say i was in an accident and lost a few limbs. If someone asks me what happened, i’d tell them how i lost my limbs. It would be the same words that i use, at the time of the accident and 20 yrs later. However, when i share my accident after 20 years, my wounds have healed — there won’t be any physical pain in my voice. If i’ve done the work and dealt with the loss – there won’t be any emotional pain in my voice either. BUT – i’d still be using the exact same words, and i’d still be limbless.

I think ’emotional limbs’, unlike physical ones, DO Grow back – but it’s very slow. And there has to be a good reason for it. I can have conversations with you because you do not have the ‘flavors’ of my mother. But if we met face to face, you might have something in you that is a flavor of my mother, and i might react to it. Then, i’d have to go back to the drawing board and work on that, because that’s a raw wound still.

This is what happened with JB. He forced me to work through my pain with something basic – the name of the ex. But i so, so, so strongly wanted to connect with JB, that it was worth the pain of processing my trigger to the name. I haven’t met anyone with the flavors of my mother that i am desperate to create a connection with. I’m not desperate to connect with her either. I’ve learned to live without my limbs and even see the good they’ve brought into my life.

So, i don’t hate her for destroying my ‘limbs’. They haven’t prevented me from making meaningful connections with people. And that’s all that matters to me. I don’t need to connect with a 100 people. I only needed to connect with my kids, and with JB. In all honesty, the degree to which i get annoyed and irritated by people has almost vanished, because of how content i am with my ‘primary connections’. And since they don’t annoy me as much as they used to, i have a much better relationship with everyone i run into. I just don’t see the need to get worked up about anything anymore. So, my relationship with my mom might actually grow back because of the healing i’m finding through being motivated to connect with JB! lol 😀

Although I have traveled deeper into myself than most even know exists, I also know there are places in me I still have yet to discover. I know I am limitless in my depth, therefore I will never reach an “end.”

This is true. I used to get upset at myself whenever i found myself getting my emotions stirred about a matter i’d already worked through. One day, i realized that i’m NOT in the same place as when i worked with that wound before. BUT – i had just encountered the same wound at a deeper level. it’s like a root. Some are wide and shallow, others are extremely deep and you’ll keep running into the deeper parts of it the lower down you go. I wonder if there are some wounds that are SO EXTREMELY deep that you cannot pull them out without killing the person? Like severely addicted people who cannot be detoxed without killing them?

The fact that you are defending only one side, comes from wounded energy. This perspective is true for ALL HUMANS. There are very ugly perspectives for men AND women, but you only make it true for men.

Only because men aren’t allowed to defend themselves anymore. Have you noticed that when a woman cries out, other women gather around her, and support her and scream with her? When a wounded man cries out, nobody comes to his defense, especially if his fight is with a woman. Men are in a lose-lose situation more often than not.

All the people in this forum are women voicing their pain about men, right? IS there one for men to voice their pain about women? If there IS one, will men use it? None of the men that i know would! Men are like dogs – they’ll go hide someplace and lick their wounds and hope they heal. But it’s also not socially acceptable for men to spill their guts.

Here’s what i’m noticing — there’s some kind of weird double standard in play that is separating people into who is allowed to freely voice injustices done to them and who isn’t allowed. There’s a gender divide – it’s more acceptable for women to complain and tear down men, and blame men for all their issues. There’s a race divide — it is more acceptable for minorities and non-white folks to ‘speak their truth’ and blame the whites for their own failures. There’s a socio-economic divide – it is more acceptable to blame the rich for their own success than blame the poor for their own choices. Why is there this stupid thought floating around that the rich are rich because they are taking advantage of the poor?! omg! SO ANNOYING! there’s a sexuality divide – it is acceptable to mock a ‘cis’ person to your heart’s content – and you can’t even accidentally misgender your own child, or you’re in danger of being jailed.

I’m sure there’s a few more. But, i tend to speak in support of whoever isn’t being listened to. At this time, it’s going to mostly be white folks, men, and maybe any rich person who is being vilified for no reason. i look for the good in those who are being beaten up. And i speak up for that good. I don’t see women being beaten up by men. (in social media, or in my personal interactions.) People are quick to throw the baby out with the bath water.

I had some thoughts about patriarchy, since you mentioned it in your older post. I was thinking about that for a while and i thought of something i hadn’t thought of before. (my instant reaction, btw, was to defend patriarchy, but i couldn’t think of how to it in less than 1000 words. lol 🙂 ) Anyway, my subconscious worked on it, and condensed it very nicely, and it looked good to me. SO, what i see is — Patriarchy and Matriarchy COEXIST. Patriarchy can only succeed with Matriarchy by it’s side. The way they complement each other is in their functions – the Patriarchy sets the standards for performance and the Matriarchy sets the standards for behavior. This is why they need each other. In the arena of work – performance is extremely important – because the lives of people could depend on it. So precision and skill is necessary. In the area of relationships, behavior is extremely important and the way you treat people determines your social belonging.

Anyway – those are my thoughts. 🙂

~~ vino

[Vino]

Hi Heidi!

Wow! SO MUCH stuff in here! i’m just going to focus on the things that stuck out to me the most.

The majority of women on this forum are in so much pain from all the men ghosting them, playing games, cheating etc.

I’ve been learning that we create our own realities. is this only applicable to me? Or is it also applicable to these women? IF i am responsible for my own pain, are they not also responsible for their own? Why are there so many women being ghosted and being treated disrespectfully by men? What kind of mindset are these women operating from that they are all attracting these kind of men?

Every single person has a different view of the flowers and therefore always has only a PIECE of the truth. So doesn’t that make every person’s perspective valuable? Of course you can see and recognize patterns and you are incredibly good at it…but they are still patterns that you can see from your perspective, therefore it doesn’t make those patterns true or not true for everyone…it makes it true for only you because you are the only one viewing it in your very unique way – and that is what makes it valuable TO YOU. Does this make sense?

I’ve known this all my life. I made many enemies in nursing school, because the girls couldn’t figure out ‘whose side’ i was on. I was able to see many sides, because i wasn’t attached to any side. i DO have a few attachments, but i am aware of what they are. That is why i am able to set aside my views to listen closely to another person’s. It is because of this ability to set aside my beliefs and views that i went from being protestant to Orthodox to Catholic. I can examine facts without getting tangled up in emotions. I can examine my own beliefs just as i examine someone else’s. And i do so continuously, which is why i grow and my perspectives change at a much faster rate than most others.

When i started writing to you, i was in the same place as those other women, who are in pain from men ghosting them, and confusing them, etc etc etc. I’ve chosen to use the pain that i experience to explore myself, and understand the nature of my wounds and needs. What are they doing with their pain?

I’m curious though…were you able to receive what I said? That as you are pointing the finger at people who judge men for being something that you consider they don’t deserve to be judged for, you are at the same time being that very same person judging women. You say you don’t hate women, but I’m wondering…There are untouched places in you that you haven’t visited yet and there are feelings held in those spaces that leak out from time to time. There is a part of you that is absolutely open to women AND there is a part of you that carries the hurt and trauma about them. So you are “split” which is very normal when trauma lives in you.

This is loaded. I am unable to receive what you say about me because it is not true. You seem to think that it is not possible for me to not hate women, because of what i’ve been through.

Here’s my picture of myself: i see myself as a vessel — i was full of different kinds of pain and anger and unpleasant stuff bleeding into it from all the wounds – most of which i have forgotten. Because i had forgotten the details – i saw myself as full of murky, mixed up sludge. HOWEVER, what has been happening to me in the past year and half, since my return to Church, is that i have been flooded with ‘clean water’. The amount of Clean Water being poured into me is greater than the amount of sludge that was in me. As more and more Water pours into the sludge, the sludge dilutes, and gets flushed out. This makes the walls of the vessel visible and i see some wounds.

JB highlighted some of those wounds for me, by the pain he triggered in me. I went into them and the Waters soothed and cleansed me. Those wounds stopped bleeding. This increased the surface area of healthier vessel walls in me. The Waters continue to flush out the sludge. Some wounds are so old that they are just dead scabs. They stopped bleeding a long time ago. These wounds i encounter as a memory that returns, but it no longer has any emotions attached to it. So, the Waters just remove the scabs. I know what hate feels like. the ex is the wound from which hate seeps out the most. I do not have any hate seeping out of my ‘mother wound’. The thing that seeps out of my ‘mother wound’ is distrust. Not distrust because she is a bad person, but distrust because she is a WEAK person.

The distrust used to be mixed with disgust. But, the disgust has long since been diluted by the Waters and flushed out. Her weaknesses are not disgusting to me anymore. However, i am never going to go to her for emotional advice or support, because that’s an area of MY strength, not hers.

I connect my wounds to individual person who seem connected to those wounds. So, i don’t hate ALL WOMEN in general. I don’t think i ever did. I think it was more disgust than hate. Hate has an element of fear in it, because the person you hate seems to be more powerful and capable of hurting you in some way. That’s the difference between my feelings toward the ex vs my mom. Hate has the ability to make you respond in docile way, in order to protect yourself. I never felt the need to protect myself from my mother or any other woman. To me, the less emotional control they had, the more weak they seemed to be, so the more they disgusted me.

if you were to really dive deep into that space, my guess is, a hatred would rise up in you. How could it not with what you have been through…with both men and women.

What you said here, truly surprised me. WHY should there be a hatred in the wounded places? I have been forgiving people relentlessly. You know why? Because they didn’t F’ng KNOW WHAT THEY WERE DOING to me! They are short sighted, weak minded, thoughtless and ignorant, incapable of soul searching, incapable of examining the effects of their own actions and words, too blind to see the pain in me, totally useless to me, and yet — they were not malicious, and evil and deliberately trying to destroy my life. IN other words – they gave me the best they had. So, i’ve turned to God, and asked him to heal my malnourished soul, because i sure as hell can’t rely on other malnourished humans to feed me! So i don’t hate them. Not even the handful who DID take advantage of me sexually. Those folks, still fill me with disgust, but not hate.

the ex is the only one i hate because of his deliberate deception. He failed to tell me he was gay. And that makes me super angry, and i hate him for stealing the best years of my life. I don’t know if i would’ve made a different decision IF he’d told me he was gay, because back in those days, i didn’t even know what it meant to be gay. I’d never met anyone who was gay and never read about it, or heard others talk of it. So, he would’ve had to go into a lengthy explanation of what it means to be gay, and i wouldn’t have been able to understand it at all. The thing that WOULD’VE stopped me from marrying him, was IF i’d valued myself enough to respect my feelings towards him. His temper worried me. And also the way he twisted things in his mind, so he was defending others FROM me. I should never have stood for that, except that i valued everyone else’s point of view more than my own, at that point in my life. Anyway, that’s why i hate him.

That’s also why i feel like my POV is being devalued when you say it’s just mine. YES, it is ABSOLUTELY mine! But not because i haven’t given due consideration to how everybody else sees the flowers in the vase. It was my OWN view that i rejected my whole life. I accepted everyone else’s as more real than mine, because i thought i was seeing things skewed, because it didn’t match what others saw. So now, when i am finally able to respect myself enough to stand by what i see, and i’m told – yeah, but that’s just your pov — i just exit the conversation, because i am not being given the same degree of respect that i gave others. I have learned to trust myself, more than i trust others.

i don’t bother explaining myself to others. But you are a good listener.

~~ vino

[Vino]

I understand this is your experience and perspective. Know that is not at all my experience or how people view the masculine/feminine in my circles. Both energies and genders are highly respected and honored as they should be. That’s how I choose to hear and speak about both energies and genders and I hope you will receive my intent that way.

i understand your intent. i wouldn’t be having this conversation with you if i felt you did not honor the masculine energies or gender. I do not know what circles you live in. I am very sensitive to the energies that swirl about me in the average world. And i see men and anything masculine being dishonored, and anything good in men being labeled as a feminine thing continues to dishonor the male as if the male is incapable of good unless he is feminine.

I would venture to say that this is just relative to the kind of people you meet. Since you inherently have a strong dislike towards women, your perspective is going to support what you need to believe about women and men in your life.

I have a distrust towards women. That is different from dislike. Of all the women i’ve worked with in the past 5 or so years, there’s only 2 that rubbed me the wrong way that i DID dislike them. However, nobody else liked them either, so i was not out of synch with the others on the team. I always give the women i meet the benefit of the doubt. IF i didn’t, i wouldn’t have lasted on this forum and i would have zero respect for you.

I still noticed a subtle difference between you and the other lady, and if you’d left instead of her, i wouldn’t be on here anymore. Also when you say that something is relative to my experience, do you not think it devalues my ability to see and recognize patterns?

I’m sad this is your perspective as it’s part of all of us and was made just perfectly. I view the mind as incredibly powerful and innovative and amazing!

I agree the mind is powerful and amazing. But it needs to be trained. Most people don’t train it. And that is why it bleeds all over the place.

Again…I think I would say that everything you are describing is true for both genders, as it depends on the person.

True. But the way they go about it is different. For example: Men express their love in silence and their anger in loudness. But Women express their anger in silence and their love just bubbles out all over the place very visibly. Of course, there’s differences based on personality, but, what do you think? In a generalized way, have you noticed that as well? I think it’s because men aren’t as practiced in expressing their tender side.

And nobody likes to not be in control. So of course, everyone is going to develop their own ways of controlling their lives and those around them. I was thinking about women in places like India where men are given so much power and value in society than women. And yet, when you let them loose in a free society, it is women who hold on to the cultural ways more than the men do. So i was trying to figure that out. Of course, it’s just my own speculation. But I thought – maybe – women have figured out how to get their own way in a place that is so full of toxic masculinity – and they are extremely powerful, in extremely subtle ways. The West, in general, sees people from the East as a gentle, kind, loving and respectful people. So they are open towards the people and the ways of the East. But the people of the East have mastered the art of controlling each other, so far beneath the surface that there’s hardly a ripple on the surface. This maintains their status quo, and also gets them what they want!

I realize I am taking a chance at triggering you here and maybe creating a defensive response by saying this. Hopefully, you will receive it in a way of just being open and that I am NOT judging at all. You hate others’ limited perspectives of men and the villainizing of men, yet you do that very same thing towards women. So really, you are doing and being and living with a mindset that you are so “hateful” of in others. Wouldn’t you say it makes you the same kind of person that you “hate?” Just something to consider and think about.

I’m not triggered at all. But as i said above, i don’t HATE women. I just don’t trust them as much as i trust men. I don’t trust all men either. I am able to connect at a deeper level with men than with women. If i hated women, i wouldn’t connect with them at all. Do you feel like i hate you, when i get into such conversations with you? If i hated you, you’d feel it, i know! I know how my hatred tastes and feels in myself — it was INTENSE! So, i’ve been working on it. i don’t even hate the ex anymore. And he is worse than all the women i’ve known. lol 🙂

This is an interesting perspective. How come you feel that if you had many lives, it would somehow diminish the worth of this life? Why can’t this life be fully and completely important, valuable and powerful, even if you had other lives?

Because there’s no value in the good that comes out of me when it is just an expected part of a cycle of lives, and my own struggles, to find the meaning of life, and to make the difficult choices to choose life over death, loses significance. There’s no value in individuality if you’re just a part of a big mass of one life. I value the uniqueness of each individual.

The eastern cultures do not value the individual. They value the family and the community more. You rise and fall together. That can be good but it also has it’s bad side. If i succeed, everyone in my family feels like they have the right to share in my success, whether they were a help or a hinderance in my success. There’s this massive sense of entitlement as a group. of course, sometimes, there is help too, but you have to know how to pull all the right strings so you are not taken advantage of, and get your fair share. i think the idea of living over and over and over again, diminishes the value of a single life in the same way as this mob mentality of the east does.

What if you didn’t view this self sabotaging part as an enemy? In reality, any part of us that is sabotaging our happiness, success or whatever, is actually a part of us that is trying to protect us. It’s a part of us that holds the programs, beliefs and paradigms that are unhealed and full of lies. The lies are there in the first place because of traumas, hurts, social/cultural programming etc. So really, it’s not an enemy part of ourselves, it’s a part trying to help us and protect us, right?

It’s not ‘my’ view – it’s whoever said ‘you’re your own worst enemy’ – the very first time. I’ve heard many people say it and it’s the generally accepted view of things. lol 🙂 And yes, it’s not a good way to look at things because you feel like you have to defeat and overpower your ‘enemy’ and of course, your ‘enemy’ is stronger, because they’ve had more years practicing their ways of life.

I hope you never do!

Thank you! 🙂

Happy New Year, Heidi!! Thanks for all the hours you’ve spent engaging with me!! truly appreciate that!

~~ vino

[Vino]

I agree that energies are neutral. And if they got labelled as male and female somewhere along the way, then it was wrong. And there’s no need to continue doing so because it perpetuates the stereotype that men aren’t naturally caring and loving and nurturing, that men don’t live from their hearts, that masculinity is toxic and all these lies and ugliness being attached to anything masculine. it perpetuates the lie that a feminine energy is somehow better and more authentic and from the heart rather than the mind. I totally Hate, Hate, HATE how masculinity is vilified.

Also, from what i have seen, MEN live more from their hearts than women do. That is why they are generally more straightforward in the way the speak and the way they live their lives. They cannot tolerate discomfort, because they are true to themselves and their values. They know their boundaries, because their very gut reactions are connected to their hearts. Their inability to multitask is because they are living WHOLEHEARTEDLY and they focus on the one task at hand. Their ability to compartmentalize is natural, and it’s also from the heart! It allows them to not drag the problems of one area into another, so they are able to give their best to whichever area they are focusing on at the moment. This is a heart action, not a mind action.

The mind is weak. it bleeds all over the place and into everything. it is incapable of holding opposing truths in balance. It also tries to control everything and everyone around it. And women are generally much better at controlling situations and relationships by their ability to be manipulative. They can manipulate emotions. They know how to toy with you feelings and pull your strings just right to make you do what THEY want you to do. Their loving, caring and nurturing is natural to them, so they use it to control – by altering the quality of caring/ and loving and nurturing they provide, in order to get what they want. This is a mind thing, it’s not a heart thing. A heart cannot live with lies.

Anyway – i see energies as neutral. They are present in equal amounts in both men and women. They are expressed by men in masculine flavors and colors and textures, and they are expressed by women in feminine colors and flavors and textures. The men that i found unattractive are the ones who expressed energies in feminine colors and flavors. I’m afraid i’ll continue to defend men for as long as people have this automatic, negative response to anything that is male and an excessively positive response to anything that is female. If the truth is that energies are neutral, those of us who believe that they are neutral, shouldn’t continue using terminology that creates certain images. the words ‘male’ and ‘female’ ARE gender specific. They are not neutral terms. ENERGY is a neutral term.

I imagine you probably don’t, as it’s not part of the Catholic belief system, but I thought I’d ask anyways…do you believe in the possibility of past lives/reincarnation?

No, i don’t believe in the possibility of reincarnation. I don’t know what it really means. From what i understand it is that my life here and now, is a current expression of a life that has been in existence from the very beginning, and that one life just gets recycled in different forms. I have a problem with that idea. It eliminates the uniqueness of an individual life and neutralizes their full worth in the here and now.

i don’t want to live a recycled life. I want my own. lol 🙂

So whatever frequency lives within you, resonates with the U.S. I know it sounds so simple and it is, but I’m sure there are many more layers to it. I’m so glad you get to feel “home.” I know some people go their whole lives not having a clue what that feels like.

I understand. Some of the most complex things usually have a simple answer. I was just throwing out questions. I like the mystery and the marvel of it all, and am not really searching for an answer.

It is interesting to me that my Dad and my siblings, also enjoyed the same books and shows that i did. However, there was never a desire in their hearts to come to the US. I’ll just have to ask God one day, when i see him. Perhaps it was so i could meet JB! lol 🙂 He fits the image of ‘man’ that i had in my mind, just like the US fits the image of ‘home’ that i had in mind. i never had any image of ‘children’. So, my kids were fully free to express whatever ‘child’ meant to them. In some ways, i think they are still children. But then, so am i. I sometimes wonder if i even know how to live in the real world. there are so many things i feel so ill-equipped for.

i had a brilliant thought yesterday! I was thinking about the concept of being your own worst enemy. I think that’s fully true. We all self-sabotage to a much greater degree than be sabotaged by others. So then, this thought popped into my head – what if i could make friends with my enemy self? Then i’d have a self-best friend instead! I tossed the idea at my kids and they agreed that it’s entirely possible – since we know exactly how we want to be treated by this ‘best-friend’ that we imagine has to be someone else — what if we treated ourselves the way that this ‘best-friend’ whom we haven’t met yet, would treat us?

Some years back, when L was feeling super pleased with herself for something brilliant she did, she asked me if she was being arrogant for thinking she was clever and smart. i reminded her of that moment and told her – that was a moment when you were being your own best friend! You saw something totally brilliant and clever in yourself that nobody else could see and you complimented yourself on it and so you felt so chuffed! That is not at all arrogance! it is simply acknowledging the truth, and being recognized, even by your own self, fills you up with a warm glow!

So, i’m going to practice being my own best friend. If i told this to my mom, she’d be sure i need mental health care. lol 😀 i used to think that when i became an adult, i’d be serious and worried like all the adults around me. I thought it would be automatic to be concerned about politics, about the economy, about the future, and all kinds of things that were terribly insignificant to me as a child. Gosh, i still haven’t developed the ability to take all that seriously!

~~ vino

[Vino]

Wow! That’s so interesting how much you love the U.S. and how you connected to it being a place you would never give up. Tell me more about it! What do you love about this country? What aspects are you not willing to give up?

It’s not an aspect of the country. it’s the Land itself. The book i was given when i was 7, was the Little House on the Prairie. i fell in love with Laura, her family, her way of life, Pa’s philosophies of life – basically, whatever Laura loved, i loved. (hate the tv series they made of it, with Landon because he didn’t have a beard like Pa did. And Laura mentions Pa’s beard EVERY time she talks about him. They left out a very important part of him! i remember our own reaction when my dad decided to try out the beardless look once. We refused to talk to him or even look at him till his beard grew back! Details matter! lol 🙂 ) Then, i met Jo, in the Little Women. She was my next best friend. I was a voracious reader. I didn’t discriminate against what i read. However, i noticed a deep difference between the stories that came out of the US vs the stories that came out of India or Ethiopia. This was a gut level reaction, not a deliberate one, based on my beliefs that the US is better. I was just reacting to stories i was exposed to. (My Dad, even though he never disliked India like i do, also enjoyed Western stories more. He never watched an Indian movie till he met mom. And he collected all the Superhero comics that came out in the newspapers. You know, it’s really interesting to me – there are NO superheros in Indian or Ethiopian stories!)

At any rate, when i came to the US, i did not at all experience what most people experience when they are in a new place — Culture shock. I was filled with awe, at everything i saw. But it was only because everything i saw was a fulfillment of the pictures in my heart. The only place that wasn’t American to me, was Chinatown. Full of chinese people i couldn’t strike up a casual conversation with, because they didn’t know English! That was the same as being in India or Ethiopia, so it was very stressful – because i was in the US but not in the US. It was like being gaslit on a different level. lol 🙂

My biggest surprise was the land. When i am out in nature, i feel the life of the trees, the animals, the flowers, the breeze, the rocks, the grass — everything is SO ALIVE! And i can feel all of it welcoming me, as if i’m a part of it. I felt no need to go out and make friends because i wasn’t lonely! I didn’t need people to add value to the place. It was entirely different in India and Ethiopia. When those i knew left Ethiopia, i had no reason to go back there. My relationships are my connections to those places. But here – the land is a part of me. It’s a deep, visceral feeling. Even now, just writing about it, is making me feel all kinds of good feelings in my body, especially around my heart. It’s also getting me emotional, because i feel like my words don’t do it justice. Basically – i’m in love. 🙂 Not being allowed to live here would be more painful than JB blocking me.

So, i narrowed down my feeling of not feeling at home, to the relationships that i wasn’t welcome in. My entire life, with my family, i didn’t feel ‘at home’. My entire marriage, i felt like i was in transit, waiting to go home. All of those relationships were in my way of just living in this land. This is why i feel like, even if my kids moved to some other place, i wouldn’t go with them. Whenever friends post pictures of super cool places they are visiting, i want to visit those places too, but i don’t want to live in any of those places. The land is different. What do you suppose makes the land what it is? What is the energy in the land? And why is it different from place to place?? is it the people? Is it something else? i don’t know. i just feel like this place has always been a part of my inmost being. I believe that God made me from American dirt. I don’t know how he managed to do that when my parents were Indian, but, nothing is impossible for him! lol 🙂

I love the “song” that you identified with. You said you started to lose it when you heard the other participants shared their progress. Were you losing your song because you comparing to them and how you haven’t quite started yet?

I felt like my song was not fully formed. I wasn’t comparing my song to the others. I was listening to how they sang their own songs. They knew their songs very well – well enough to know the sequence of the words and actions and progression of the music. Mine is all over the place. But i thought it was awesome that i recognized my song as unique, even though it had a lot of overlap with what the others were sharing. AND – as much as i liked all of what they were sharing, i love my half-baked song more. So, i felt no jealousy or ill will of any kind. i didn’t even feel like my song wasn’t strong enough to make the kind of impact that one of the women shared. Just that it wasn’t ready yet.

I’m wondering if you downplay your influence on that because it was easy for you to create that kind of mindset/experience for your kids. It wasn’t hard for you because you were just being yourself as you allowed them to be themselves. For you it was effortless…

you are absolutely right in this! it’s the same with my academic abilities. I was never impressed with them myself.

The problem is…it’s their vision and not their kid’s vision. You just allowed your kids to be free.

This too, was simply in reaction to my parents’ parenting methods. I never forgot how undermining it is to have someone else’s expectations placed on me. When was i supposed to live my own life? So, i made it a point to provide the kids with what i wished i’d had, but never gotten – a safe place to discover my own life. Don’t all parents try to give their kids what they never got? I was disappointed that my kids didn’t want for themselves the things that i wished i’d had. Crafts galore. Opportunities to learn music, sports, get involved in clubs like boy scouts, girl scouts, and all the things i’d always read about and seen the American kids do, but i never got to do. But, i knew that my kids would hate these things more if i forced them into it just because I wanted them when i was growing up. That’s so stupid! I also hate ‘tiger moms’!! ugh! you should never treat your child or live in such a way that the kids have to forgive you in order to have a relationship with you! Relationships are hard enough! Why create an extra wall for them to climb over?

I know people like to say that you’re supposed to be the parent not a friend to your kids, but that’s also stupid. There’s no way you can logically be a friend to your child, or your child be a friend to you, if you are mentally healthy. It’s totally inappropriate! Also – what kind of a friend knows how to provide a growing child with a safe place to experience life? I shielded my kids from all the unrealistic and stupid expectations that had been placed on me. The rest, they learned by osmosis. They have never been disrespectful to anyone in school or other public places, because i never am. When they used to be disrespectful to me, i treated it as if they had thrown up. Their respect for me right now, is unbelievably solid! I’ve never, ever, ever had to ask them to treat me with respect. When you are deserving of respect, you automatically get it. Their respect for me is from their heart, and not an external behavior thing that i forced upon them.

My family was surprised that my kids have no arrogance in them. (just as they were surprised my kids weren’t fat). I know why they were surprised. I’ve never met any other Indian or Ethiopian that doesn’t develop a sense of arrogance for having lived or having had the opportunity to live in a ‘foreign’ country. Some even developed this arrogance if they were just tourists in the US or Europe! Oh! now i see the connection! lol 🙂 Must be my utter and total and absolute love for this land that prevented my kids from being arrogant! They never grew up in ‘foreign country’! lol 🙂

I also love that women are wanting to help other women!! It’s been happening soooooo much more over the past 5 years…women coming together vs. competing and destroying each other. I have seen it everywhere in different forms where the divine feminine is being healed in women….something that has needed to happen for a very long time. I’m glad to hear about it again!

thank you for that perspective! that is not at all how i saw it! i want to share my gift with ALL, not with a specific group, especially not based on their gender! So, to me, it seemed really narrow minded to limit your gifts to just women.

That is a beautiful story about that man who learned to just “be” instead of “fix.” He allowed his “female” energy to lead, instead of his “male” energy…

i didn’t at all like what you said here! It bothers me when people think that caring, nurturing, loving energy is ‘female’. The male version of caring and nurturing and loving is SO SUPER Powerful! and infinitely beautiful in it’s own way. It bothers me deeply that it isn’t honored as being male. i’ve seen men in their feminine energies. They are not at all attractive to me. This man, never stopped being masculine in telling his story.

~~ vino

[Vino]

Interesting experience today.

I was on two zoom calls, with two of the programs i’d signed up for. I got lots of notes from both of them, clarifying my ‘message’ – which i’m starting to see as my ‘song’. But then, when some of the others in the 2nd call, started to share what they are doing, what their visions are, etc… i started to lose my song. Most of them have already been helping people in some way or other and now they’re just packaging their stuff better and increasing their impact (and income).

On the plus side, i could still see what makes my thoughts and ideas different from theirs. So, even though there are overlaps, it’s not identical. It was also interesting to me that the women were focused on helping only other women. But the men were neutral. Well – only one of the men shared, but his thing is helping caregivers discover the joy of caregiving. He took care of his mom till she passed from cancer, and he’d always been the kind of person who had to fix things, and he was up against death, and knew he couldn’t fix that! but his mom, even though she never thanked him for the STUFF he did, she did constantly tell him how much his PRESENCE meant to her. And that’s when he went from fixing mode to being mode, and filled her last days with joy and got as much joy back out of it. That was so meaningful to me! Just SO BEAUTIFUL in every way imaginable! to be able to accept the presence of death itself, and find joy and peace in the midst of it — just too awesome!

His story clarified for me that part of my song is rediscovering the joy of life. Perhaps that’s my whole song. I know i was happy when i was 7. I was happy because i had a book! it was my own book, my first book, and it opened a whole new world to me – the United States of America. It was a Narnia that i could reach because it was real! Twenty years later, i stepped foot in the United States of America. And i’d rather be dead here than alive anywhere else! I’d rather be homeless here than live in a palace anywhere else. Even if my kids decide to live in some other part of the world, i won’t leave here.

According to Dr Demartini, we have everything we need, just not in the form that we recognize it. So, for those who aren’t rolling around in infinite wealth, he asks the question – what do you have that you won’t give up for all the money in the world? And everyone has something like that. Well. I found my wealth. If by any chance i DO become homeless and every relative i have tells me to go live with them — i wouldn’t go! i just can’t! it’s just such a hard, hard, hard, NO! I’ve never really given it so much thought before. Gosh, i love this country!

~~ vino

[Vino]

I suppose you can call her fiery. I had to think about it for a bit, and compare it with the others whom i see as fiery. All the men whose programs i signed up for are fiery. The difference i notice is in the way they ‘attack’ a model that doesn’t work. They do not mock those that it DOES work for. She mocks – with the rolling eyes, the voice she uses when she lists the things they tell you to do, and stuff like that. That’s why i said she’s judgmental.

I think people get REALLY confused by the terms male and female energies.

You’re right. They ARE confusing! I differentiate between them as Heart and Mind energies. The decisions made by the heart can sometimes seem to be extremely foolish to the mind. Like the decision made by John L & John F to prioritize their band members. They may have taken a financial hit from the loss of a good manager, but they gained something much greater.

Isn’t that interesting how you are getting a high open rate??? That just tells you how interesting you are! You have A LOT to share and A LOT to say and you are someone who is good at “seeing” others, beyond what they know about themselves. You have been learning the language of the subconscious that lives within you, which means you will be able to recognize it in others more easily. That makes you very effective in whatever it is you are wanting to create!

Thank you. 🙂 i got complemented on my ‘mothering’ too, yesterday. (I have to spend some time playing with that word. I’ve never connected with it!) – anyway – i ran into a neighbor in the laundry room, and she asked how Christmas was, and i told her i wasn’t able to get the decorations up, or do anything special, or even buy Presents for the kids. I wrote them each a card and gave them a little wooden heart to put in their pockets – it had the words ‘A little hug’ inscribed on it. That’s all they got! But they had such a good day! And it was SO EXTREMELY peaceful. I told her my kids are easy to please, and they’d stopped wanting birthday parties when they were 7 or 8 and just wanted to spend their day with their best friends (just one or two kids!) — we never did the expensive parties at chuckee cheeses or other such places. Never had to hire anyone to entertain the kids at home – most times, i never even decorated the cake, because they kids had so much fun decorating it themselves! Especially when they did it with their friends! We got a pinata once, of a character that they DIDN’T like because it made so much more sense to hit something you dislike. OH, they LOVED IT! lol 😀

Anyway, my neighbor said that it was my influence on them that allowed them to be so laid back about special days, and truly enjoy it and not get all worked up about stuff. I’d never seen it that way. I mean, it was THEIR decision not to have birthday parties. I just went with what was meaningful to them. I don’t know what i would’ve done if they’d asked for expensive parties! we might’ve tried it once. idk. lol 🙂

Today, i have become clearer on what it is that i want to create. I want to create a ‘Path of Hope’. I noticed how my mind jumped in as soon as i felt that in my heart. My mind was like: EXCELLENT! Now what are the things you need to do in order to build this path? lol 🙂 So i told my mind, i’m going to write one more email to my list – and encourage them to enjoy the Lull, and not write anymore till the new year.

~~ vino

[Vino]

Hi Heidi!!

I understand what you’re saying! I don’t have all the vocabulary – like i didn’t know he was creating an ‘avatar’, etc. But I was keenly aware of how heady it was. But it was also interesting to me to note how listening to him, clarified my own thoughts. Mostly in the negative – but that’s a solid place to start, right?! lol 🙂

As he was explaining to me how marketing works, i got the picture – but it was also not something i wanted to spend time on. SO, when my stuff gets big enough to need more attention to details like that, it will be a total no-brainer for me to delegate all those things that just create the framework. In fact, on a mental level, i have already delegated all that. I have another appointment with the next person on the list Next week. My interest lies in finding out how ‘I‘ can flow through the blueprint or framework or whatever it is that they have built.

I was curious enough to listen to what Perri Chase had to say. I listened to the whole video. She’s speaking facts and the picture she paints is similar to what i wish to create. However, i don’t like her judgmental tone of voice and choice of words, and overall attitude. So, she’s not a good person for me to learn from. After listening to her, i understand what ‘magic led’ means. And — interestingly enough, i’ve already experienced the power of this approach. i learned it from an obscure Band called TMBG. They Might Be Giants. Just 2 guys – John Linnell and John Flansburgh, who started out making music together in the garage, when they were in high school. Like all kids at the time, they didn’t think their love for music should be something to rely upon for resources. SO they both had their jobs and they continued to make music for fun and they put it out for free on an answering machine! They advertised the phone number in the newspaper and every week, they had a new song on the machine. People could dial in and listen to a song! They called it ‘Dial-a-Song”. When they had about 28 songs, a friend of theirs asked them why they didn’t put that together on a tape and sell it? So they did. And they were sold out in days. They had underestimated how many secret fans they’d created from their Dial-a-song number!

Anyway – in one of their interviews, they were asked how they know what kind of songs to create for their fans. One of them joked, saying they spend hours interviewing their fans to find out what they want to listen to. lol 🙂 Then the other one answered – “We make music that WE won’t get tired of, because we have to perform them. And we want to be able to enjoy the songs we are performing.” That was my intro to Magic Led business. Whoever likes what your song will be your fan for life, and whoever doesn’t, is free to not be your fan!

I love the TMBG guys because their focus on their values made them make some ‘bad’ business moves. They were doing a tour in Some asian country once, and their manager, who was in charge of booking all the venues and so forth, had done a good job of it, except that he’d booked so many that there was no time for the band to enjoy the place there were at. One of the days, the other band members wanted to see some local tourist attraction and the manager said they didn’t have time for it. Band members got Angry and the manager got angry – told John & John they either had to stick to the plan or lose his services – they fired him on the spot. I guess he thought he was more important than the band members. lol 🙂

Anyway — i’ve made some drastic changes in the way i’m writing my emails to my leads. And i’m just writing what i’d enjoy re-reading myself. I can’t stress about what heading works better, length of emails, etc etc. I just write whatever i feel like writing. If it works itself into an appropriate message that i can share an affiliate link in, then i include the link. If not, i don’t. If the thing i’ve written was inspired by a video i’d listened to, i include the link to the video. I don’t know who these people are. There’s no way for me to know them! So, i just have to be me. I kind of like that.

The other day, i wrote about my experimenting with a bit of Gin in my scrambled eggs. The open rate on that one was 36%. A few days back i wrote about my Portal. That has a 40% open rate. And according to my mentors, i’m doing well if i have a 16% open rate! lol 🙂 One of my leads, opened up older emails after reading one of my latest one. That was interesting to me.

I believe my talk with Jack really helped me tune into what i truly want. And i’m just using my email list that i’ve been building for my affiliate marketing as practice for telling my story. I obviously can’t tell my WHOLE Story. So, i just share one random incident, and what i learned from it. One thing Perri said – i realized i have already begun doing – was in relation to goals. She said her goal isn’t something in the future that she has to work towards – it’s already here.

(I was about to share what i was doing, but i totally blanked out!)

Anyway – there’s one other thing that she said about goals that i disagree with. Goals aren’t completely useless. For example – if you set out on a hike – you can set forth with two goals – one is to just enjoy the nature around you, and the other would be to reach the top of the mountain. Just because your goal is to get to the top of the mountain, doesn’t mean you’re not enjoying the nature around you. you are enjoying a DIFFERENT part of nature – the challenge it provides your body. Knowing your goal, will also guide you in knowing what kind of stuff you need to take with you, and what kind of stuff is unnecessary.

Thanks for sharing about her though! it was really interesting to me to listen to her! I don’t like her attitude, but it’s entirely different from this other woman i tried to learn from, whom i DID like but also couldn’t learn from. She was more on the motherly, tender side, and was way too soft, and some of the things she said made me feel like i was with my mother. She’s a successful businesswoman too!

Perri mentioned the balance of the male and female energies in a business. I fully agree with what she said – that the male provides the structure for the female to come out through. But, I’ll leave the male things to the men as much as possible, and i’ll do my own thing. i don’t want to be both.

I know what my story telling goal is – at least one of them — my desire is to be able to tell my story in a way that doesn’t embarrass my kids or humiliate my mother. this can create a very vague story, so my challenge is to make it SUPER vulnerable, without compromising my values. If i had NO ONE else to think of, i can share every nitty gritty of my story, because i am not ashamed of anything in my life, the good, the bad, or the ugly. But, i don’t want to write a book one day that becomes a best seller, and then i have to hide it from my kids and from my mom because it might hurt them! I want them to be able to come to my meetings, share my videos with their friends, and be secretly pleased with me.

I’m enjoying the Lull between Christmas and New Year!! I’ve always been aware of it, but it used to make me restless because i was in a hurry to rush through it. Now, i’m enjoying it. It’s peaceful. A time to wrap up the old and prepare for the new. Such a perfect pocket of space and time!

~~ vino

[Vino]

Are you able to see what an incredible mother you are?

Yes, and no. lol 🙂 I do recognize the positives in their lives, that were not there in mine. It’s hard for me to connect the good things directly to the things i’ve done. It’s easier for me to take credit for the negatives in their lives. I know i’ve had some good effect on them. But i’m not the only one who’s had an effect on them, right? And the good i gave them, also came with the bad, and isn’t that the same with all people? So i don’t see that anything that i have done is incredible in any way. It’s incredible in ONE area, but only when compared to my mom — I’ve been able to maintain their trust in me and i still have their respect.

But there’s other good things in them, that i believe is entirely rooted in THEM. For example, several times, in the last few days, i noticed that when L was in her room, working hard on finishing assignments, T went to talk to her, and she wasn’t upset about the interruption – she engaged fully, and then, she asked if he could get her some water, and he did! I’ve NEVER, EVER, EVER done anything for my sister – i would now – but not when we were younger! She had no permission to ask me for anything! And today, at breakfast, L was getting herself some milk and asked if T wanted some and got some for him. I’ve never done that for my siblings either. and to me – this is something good that that has grown between THEM, because they love each other. To me, since there was no love in any of my relationships, doing something for someone was always a transactional thing – and if i had to do it for free, i got resentful. I’d feel like i was being treated as a servant. I never asked anyone for anything either, because, i didn’t want to treat anyone else like a servant.

You are getting it!!! Did you ever get some answers to your probing questions??
🙂 thank you! lol 🙂 i haven’t gotten any answers yet. I’ve also been a bit overwhelmed and exhausted, so i have followed up with him. But, i’ve noticed something about him. He doesn’t do as much deep-soul diving as i do. At least not in the same deliberate way. He’s got a gps that is better at long distance analysis than mine. For example, he once told me a co-worker, introduced him to his children as ‘uncle’ – and he said he immediately put a stop to it. I couldn’t understand at first, because i grew up calling every adult uncle or aunt. that was our way of showing respect to folks who were as old as our parents or older. I thought it was because he doesn’t like being called uncle, but that wasn’t true. It was because he was aware of an expectation that forms in the mind of a child when you use a relationship term. And he wanted to make sure that the kids wouldn’t be building false notions of his role in their lives, because he was a temporary figure, but an uncle wouldn’t be a temporary figure. You know – i had never, ever, ever considered that angle of things AT ALL. But – it was a cultural thing too. I didn’t expect anything from anyone i called uncle or aunt, because it meant nothing to me. BUT – i truly liked how JB preserved the integrity of a relationship, by not taking it lightly. This isn’t something that he sat down to think through, he just spontaneously sees situations and issues that might arise down the road. All this to say, i don’t know how long it will take him to answer my questions.

The other interesting thing about him is how he doesn’t know what to do with himself after a deep conversation. lol 🙂 it’s kinda cute actually. 🙂 So, he’s not able to maintain a deep conversation for more than a day. I think it takes a lot out of him to engage at that level. But he continues to want connection. I suppose it would be easier to do this in person, but it’s not easy by text. So, he tries to get that connection, by sending me random texts that have absolutely nothing to do with our conversation. It used to make me super annoyed because i used to think he was trying to change the topic. But, at some point, i learned to let it go, and engage with whatever he threw at me at the moment – if i felt like it. He’s never offended if i don’t respond to his posts. Or i respond in any way i please, if i have something to share. So, yesterday, he did that by sending me a picture of himself with just a ‘Hi Vino’. lol 🙂 so we’re having gentle conversations today!

You know, JB likes to go deep sea diving. And i just picture this as the flip side of that. I can only swim in the shallow end of a pool. If JB took me deep sea diving, i would die of fright. He’d have to ease me into it, and probably teach me a lot of things too. And i may never get as good as he is, because he’s been doing it for years. I won’t be able to keep up with him. And the only way to be with him, is if he is willing to slow down to my speed and my abilities. So, if i have the patience to show him that it’s not scary to go ‘deep soul-diving’, maybe one day he’ll show me how to not be afraid of the sea!

Oh – i forgot to tell you – his previous relationship ended about the same time my divorce happened – Sept of 2017. My divorce was finalized in Nov of 2017. So, it’s not long, and considering the amount of focused work i’ve put into my own healing, i can see that his is going to take a while! Unless he heals in a different way than i do? idk. He is far more focused than i am!

This happens because you are able to see the BIGGER picture. If all you focused on were the small details, you would miss the point. Instead, you are taking a step back and seeing/feeling the entire picture…and you see the value these programs have brought into your life. Beautiful perspective!!!

This is cool insight! Thank you! the closer you are to the details, the more pain there is! It’s the same in a relationship! But there’s also greater reward! I was wondering this morning – if a everybody comes with an equal amount of pain & pleasure causing abilities. and whoever we choose to be with, we are basically saying, ‘The pleasure i get from this person is worth the type of pain he is causing me.” So i examined my marriage, to look for the good in it, to see if i somehow overlooked it, because the pain was the only thing i could see. — it is still too soon to do this test! i am not able to do it!

I love that you are finally getting into the value of your life. You have a lot of things to say and share and I have no doubt your amazing, powerful heart will get to touch many lives!!! I’m excited for you!!!!

Thank you! you’ll get to see some of the nitty gritty work! lol 🙂

I cannot wait to hear how that phone call went for you. So now you are connecting to your story and how you want to help people. What about your story do you feel can help others? And HOW do you want to help others? What do you imagine they will feel, experience, and learn by working with you???

I kept getting more and more anxious before the phone call! And then, 12 minutes into the call, my phone made a staticky noise and died! i was so upset, it was fully charged too! i thought he’d be upset and not wait till i figured it out! i didn’t have his number, so i emailed him and gave him my daughter’s number, while trying to revive my phone. So, there was a 5 or 6 minute interruption that made me extremely anxious. But, he was cool with it, and we talked. And he showed me how the program works. And he tried to get an overview of my story, but it was hard. He tried to get a jist of the message that i have to share and that was hard too, because i have way too many thoughts in my head. And so he tried to impress upon me the importance of knowing my audience, and asked who i was trying to reach. I couldn’t pin it down! 🙁 So he painted a picture of a hard-working overwhelmed mother with too many bills to pay, and as he built that picture, i realized i had nothing for her. I told him what i had to offer was more along the lines of healing. SO he switched the image to that of a broken woman — and here — he hit a wound. What do i have to offer a broken woman? For some reason, i didn’t like focusing on a broken woman. I want to help both men and women – more men, if possible.

I’m hoping they’ll be able to ask me some solid good questions like the ones that you’re asking me, so i can separate all the different stories in my head, and help different groups of people! I was so confused last night, because i wasn’t able to answer his questions with 100% clarity and so i felt like i had made a HUGE Mistake! But, i think the issue is that i have too many stories, and i can’t narrow them down to ONE big pit that i found my way out of. I think i grew up in a mine field! There’s a ton of pits and a ton of explosions! and I am severely lost!

Today, i had a big picture moment. I realized that my parents were fully equipped to provide me with a solid foundation to build a traditional Indian life, with a little bit of interaction with the non-indian life. HOWEVER – i got exposed to so many different ways of life, and i saw things in the lives of others that weren’t there in the Indian promise, and I wanted those other things. So, i cut myself off from the Indian foundation but i had no way to anchor myself to the American life, because i was just a child. So, all these years, i’ve been building a life with no foundation.

Anyway. My story can help people look for, and find their foundation. Anyone can build any kind of life they want, but they need the necessary foundation for it. For me, part of the foundation was trust. Or maybe that was ALL of it. I still haven’t figured out if there’s more to the foundation. All the things that happened to me, caused me to lose trust in my family, and also in myself. Basically, i was being gaslit by my experiences. lol 🙂 For example – when i was 6, the 7 yr old Canadian boy with the pale brown curls and blue eyes, who was the only boy who would play with me, excitedly told me that he was adopted. I had no idea what that meant, but i figured it was a wonderful thing because it made him so happy, and i wanted to be adopted too. So i tried to find out if i was adopted and asked my mom — not directly — but indirectly, because even then, i knew i couldn’t ask her anything straight, i had to test her receptivity. So i told her David was adopted and she reacted very negatively. She thought it was a horrible thing for a child to know and thought his parents were insensitive to tell him such a terrible thing. So, i had two opposite responses to this adoption thing. But it was something that made David SO happy, so i wanted it too! And i felt she was keeping me from having something that would make me happy – which is the way i felt about a LOT of things — all the rules they made up for me because i was Indian, or because i was a girl, or because i was the oldest, or because i was my Dad’s daughter! (that was a special additional expectation from my mother who worshiped my father). i don’t know if this is how it began – but i can see how it added to my distrust of my parents, my family, my culture, etc.

There was nothing of value from the Ethiopians that i wanted in my life either. They actually disrespected my boundaries big time so honestly, it’s a miracle i don’t hate them completely. There was this one woman, who knew i hated her. She’d look right in my eye and pull me close to herself and greet me the Ethiopian way – which is to embrace a person with great gladness and kiss them back and forth on both cheeks. The normal number of kisses is 3. So, after tolerating the 3, i would pull away from her, and she would tighten her grip on me and give me two more kisses. Normally the kisses are just lightly brushing the lips on the cheeks or shoulder to shoulder. But she planted solid, deliberate kisses on my cheeks, and when she was done, she would look at me like she’d won. I’d tell my mom how much i hated her but my mom thought i was being rude if i didn’t greet my guests properly. Other Ethiopians weren’t as receptive to their cultural greeting being rejected either. They’d be like: “but it’s my culture!” — well — it’s Indian culture to keep distance and just bow politely to each other, what about respecting MY culture? (not that i respected it myself, but i did like that part of it). How about one step better than both of those cultures and be a bit more American and be AWARE of who is willing to go for a hug and who isn’t, and respecting each person’s boundaries?! (yes, i was only exposed to good Americans – but still – respecting another person’s boundaries is a VERY western thing – it’s totally non-existent in Ethiopian and Indian).

Anyway – what happened to me was erosion, not an earthquake. So, little by little i totally lost sense of my worth, because of all the little things that i experienced, that were disrespectful of my physical, mental and emotional experiences, that left me feeling like i couldn’t be trusted to know what’s good for me and what isn’t. This took about 30 yrs – and i was at the place where i couldn’t make ANY decision because i simply had no way of knowing if it was good or not. this is about the time i became orthodox. And i clung to it with every last bit of strength i had – because my Monk friend was good to me, and he was smarter than me and he had already asked all the right questions and he had chosen to become Orthodox. And i DID find a lot of healing there! The process of going to confession was SO Cathartic. and that is where i broke through one of my physical wounds that was preventing me from freely hugging my children. However, i was still living without a foundation, so everything i built, continued to collapse. I didn’t know how to build with my heart! I had to learn to trust my own body and mind and emotions first.

IN order to learn to trust, i had to respect myself first. Respect the feelings in my body, not judge them as good or bad, and simply accept them as just a feeling, an expression of some experience. It started with giving myself permission to cry, whenever i felt the urge to cry, regardless of if i had a ‘logical reason’ to cry or not. I just went with the feeling. And cried till the feeling stopped. No therapist told me to do this. I didn’t read it in any book. I don’t know how i got the idea. But when i freed myself to cry, i cried for weeks. I used a pillow to muffle the sounds that came out of me so my neighbors wouldn’t think i was murdering someone. I recognized that i was probably letting out all the cries that had not been allowed to come out before, and that’s why i sounded like i was being tortured, and not that i truly was tortured at some point in my life. I had no idea when this kind of crying would stop. I think it happened over a period of a month – it gradually reduced in intensity and duration and then it was gone. If i went back to examine any thoughts that had triggered those tears, those thoughts no longer held any pain. Most of the time, i had no clear thoughts though, only clear responses. that is, the words that were going through my head would be things like: “Make it stop” “i don’t want to” “I don’t care”. i suppose they were all the things i was never allowed to say.

Anyway. i have learned that my body is my ally, not my enemy. 🙂 I can free my mind and emotions through my body! just as my thoughts and my feelings can trap my body. it’s all interwoven. It’s starts with respecting oneself, and honoring oneself, and restoring one’s own dignity that way. AS you restore your dignity, your self worth increases. it’s a slow process, because we’ve been our own worst enemies all our lives. It’s as if someone tried to hurt us by tossing a knife at us and it only lightly grazed us. Then we pick up that knife and stab ourselves with it. Why do we do that?! Where’s our sense of self-preservation?! lol 🙂

I don’t have a clue how to streamline any of my thoughts or ideas or stories. i’m hoping they can help me with it. I don’t even know who my target audience should be. I believe they are invisible, just like i was, hoping that someone will see them. I don’t know who they are specifically. they are very good at blending in. Perhaps they themselves don’t know that they are lost!

Well, that was a long Christmas post! 🙂

Merry Christmas!!

~~ vino

[Vino]

Heidi, we are in exciting times! 🙂

but I’m curious…do you find your children to be unattractive? You believe you are, and I imagine they carry your features, so I wonder if you also find them unattractive.

No. They are EXTREMELY good looking. There are good looking genes in my side of the family. My son looks the most like me. When he was younger, before his teenage growth spurt, he was chubby and i was afraid he would end up looking like me. Plus he was more of a book person than a physical activity person, and that worried me more. Then, he had his growth spurt. He’s not very tall. He’s probably 5’7″ – but it was quite a jump from 6th grade, and he became so lean. He’s afraid of bulking up, so he doesn’t exercise. And he makes healthy food choices, so he has maintained the leanness he got with his growthspurt. He has a very symmetrical face and his smile is perfect. And for some reason, his teeth are great even though he never got any braces and other expensive dental work.

The younger one is petite. She has the looks from her Chinese Grandmother who looked like a model in her youth. It makes me so sad that both the children are trying to change their bodies. So, L has been looking like a short, cute boy. Now with the T treatment, her voice is deeper. I’ve lost L’s voice forever. (in a way). Her heart is still the same, and so is her brilliant mind.

I did an ‘experiment’ with my kids when they were little. I read somewhere that we are all born with a natural mechanism to stop eating when we are full. And we break that mechanism, when we are forced to finish what’s on our plate because someone somewhere else is starving, or when we start using food as an emotional crutch. So, my experiment was to never, ever, ever, question the children when they said they weren’t hungry. And to never force them to finish what’s on their plates. My experiment worked. They are incapable of eating even their most favorite deserts, if they are full! They are also very sensitive to food that IS good. Both kids, like sweet things, but they don’t gorge on it. The older one doesn’t drink any soda. The younger one likes fruits better than baked goods. If i bake a brownie, i’m the one who eats more than half of it, because they can stop with one piece each, and i can’t. They also don’t feel the need to finish something because there’s only one piece left. I can’t do that! Best of all – they eat food when they are hungry and not when they are in emotional pain. SOOOO…. my kids have never had a weight problem!

I’m still totally amazed whenever i look at them! My entire family was amazed when we visited them in 2019. Only mom voiced it. She said she thought my kids would be fat. (and i filled in the … ‘like you’… that she had left out.) But – i was afraid they’d be fat too, because i was never not fat, and i thought it was genetic. Nobody is surprised that my sister’s kids are not fat! Oh, my kids’ dad is also fat. So i guess they had reason to believe my kids would be fat too.

Gosh – that got longer than i expected! lol 🙂

You are putting 100% value in what a person looks like and competing.

Not 100%. Only 80%! lol 🙂 but you are right. Looks matter to me a great deal. and so i think they matter to others too. I don’t think looks matter in the area of friendship though. So, i don’t feel undeserving of friends. HOWEVER… there’s an exciting update that’s causing me question this value i had on looks, because it looks like it’s more than looks.

Finally this makes sense about what JB is doing. I imagine how your heart must have sank. Why did they break up in the first place? And how long ago did they break up? It’s been a few days now…how is it sinking in for you? What thoughts/feelings are coming up now?

Yes, it sure cleared up everything that JB’s been doing! They broke up for several reasons. The most external reason was that he cheated on her with an old FWB. But also – they’d been dating for 7 yrs and she was living with him, and he hadn’t proposed to her, so she was getting frustrated. On a deeper level, he never felt safe enough to share his deepest heart with her, nor she with him. So yesterday, i brought it all up with him again, so i could ask him to explain himself better. I asked him why he said he’d go back to her in a heartbeat, if he’d never felt safe enough to share himself fully with her. What kind of a relationship was he picturing in which he wasn’t free to be himself? And i asked him a bunch more questions like that, because he seems to have an idea in his head, but they don’t match who he is in his heart, so i pulled out the disconnect and asked how he was planning to fit himself into this picture? Either he hasn’t been truthful to me about his heart, OR, he’s got an unreal picture in his head, that he wants to fit into. Whenever i ask him probing questions, he doesn’t answer right away. Sometimes it takes him a week. Sometimes he doesn’t answer at all and suddenly, in some random conversation, he says something that shows me that my questions and thoughts had gotten into his subconscious. So, when i have questions like this, i imagine myself directing my words to his subconscious, becuase i think i have a better relationship with his subconscious than i do with him. lol 🙂

At any rate – just the fact that he’s brought his pain out into the open, and his fantasies too, and has allowed them to be examined, i’m sure he’ll break free soon enough. And this is where i started to notice a shift in myself. I tried to picture what he would do when he finds himself free. Would he see me differently? Or not? At first, there was some pain associated with the thought that he’d still only see me as a friend and nothing more. And then, i had a surprise thought pop into my mind: “Give me whatever i a worth to you.” And i released him to decide for himself what i am worth to him. I could be worth a few hours of his time each week, or i could be worth more. And suddenly, I knew i was worth more than a few hours. Maybe not to him, but i am definitely worth more than a few hours. that thought has been snowballing!

And guess where i’m at now?! lol 🙂 Yesterday, i was on a free coaching call, for yet another program i’d signed up for. It was a mini-course to help me tell my story, and help people with my story. I got it because i wanted to bookmark it for later, when my other two online businesses started making money for me, and i could focus on what i REALLY wanted to do. Tell my story. Because there are lessons in my story. Maybe i’m a living parable! i don’t know. But yesterday morning, the noise of all the courses i’d signed up for, plus all my relationships taking a few steps deeper, i was getting out of my heart and into my head, when she called. We were on the phone for over an hour and a half. She asked me some questions, that i enjoyed answering. At the end of the call she told me most people can’t answer the questions she’d asked because they are too much in their heads. I thought that was funny because i was consciously trying to get into my heart when i tried to answer her. i closed my eyes, and paused, and tried to touch my heart, and i couldn’t reach it. But i guess the distance between my heart and my head is closer now than it used to be.

She had another appointment, so she hung up and she called back later in the day to finish what we’d started. And she said: In the few hours since i spoke to you, your voice has changed completely. What just happened?

I told her i’d been thinking about the other two programs i’d signed up for. I’d been drawn to them because they focused on mindset growth as well as making money, and i liked that aspect of it, because i’m incapable of falling in love with making money, but i LOVE to challenge my mind. BUT – they were still going to be a way for me to make money, so that i could pour myself into what i REALLY wanted. they were a stepping stone to my true desire. My true desire is to be able to tell my story. And make money from helping people with my story. I didn’t think i could do that on a large enough scale to support myself. And that is why i’d signed up for the affiliate marketing programs.

As i spoke to her during the second call, i too noticed a difference in her. i could FEEL her listening to me! Exactly like the times that i felt that JB was Listening to me, even though he’s dead silent. And then she said she was going to recommend me to the senior coaches because she is convinced i have a story to tell and that i’m way farther along than most people they work with, because i already know how to get to my heart. I have a call later today, with this guy. OMG. I just looked at his website and he’s a millionaire. I won’t be talking to his assistants! i’m going to be talking DIRECTLY with a man who makes millions of money! And HE is one of the head coaches of this thing i signed up for! The think that i was just going to ‘bookmark’ and get to later!

I was supposed to read lesson one of the first module and do my homework, to prepare for my call with him. AS i wrote, i saw there was actually a theme to my life. it’s very vague still, but not as vague as yesterday! My appointment with Jack is going to be 90 to 120 minutes long! You know the weird thing? I’m not at all fazed by his flashy titles. To me, he is a coach and he is an expert. I believe he can see what i can’t see. Diane told me i wasn’t able to see my worth yet, and she is right. She’s also one of the top 3 coaches in Ted Mgrath’s dynasty. (lol 🙂 Don’t know what else to call it. ) I honestly don’t know what she sees. I had a fleeting moment of suspicion, because i noticed how her praise felt good, and it softened me up to bite whatever she was feeding me. It’s moving super fast. I got an email from Jack, to confirm the appointment and he’d attached his websites, and want to buy his stuff even before talking to him!

I am desperate to work with them. I was working on my homework till 3am. It was such a relief to write things down. But that was like just one page out of a thousand pages. I have SO MUCH MORE than i need to get out of my head! When i finished my homework, i lay back on my bed and just soaked in how good it felt, and i realized that the two online businesses i had signed up for – would require me to use my head. This one, uses my heart. Was the money i sank into the two worth it? ABSOLUTELY! every single penny! But what i got from them wasn’t what they said i’d get from them! They were indeed, stepping stones, but not financially! if i don’t make back a single penny from them, i still feel like i am winning! How does that even happen?!

And then – i tested myself again. I put myself in a picture with JB. A photograph. And this is when i realized that there was something deeper than looks that is affecting me. I’m not proud of what i’ve done with my life so far. I’m not ashamed of any aspect of it, so that’s why my self-esteem isn’t in the dumps. However, i feel like i’ve been wasting my life. And that’s what i’m ashamed of. But for some reason, being able to tell my story feels like a worthy use of my time! i don’t know why. I feel like JB would be proud of me for that too! More than if i was just making a lot of money as an affiliate marketer. In fact, there is NOTHING attractive about that at all! Just as there’s nothing attractive about working at the store. Those are just jobs. They’re just a way to make money. When i was at the store, i was making less than $12/hr. I wasn’t dissatisfied with it. I knew that was the value of the work i was doing. But i was keenly aware of how much value i added to everything i did, not because i was better at it than anyone else, but because i was ME. i was adding MY WORTH to everything i did. And i wasn’t being paid for that. It never kept me from adding My Worth to what i did. In one of the videos i watched, Ted said: “you don’t want to get paid for what you do, you want to get paid for who you are, for your true value.” and i cried. Because every time, in the last 2 yrs, when i’ve thought of what i have to offer – either in a relationship or in a job – i keep coming up with one thing: I only have Me to offer. I’ve got nothing else.

So, if someone can’t see my value, i’ve got nothing to offer them. That’s the same with JB or with any of my future clients.

Well. I have a headache now, because i didn’t get enough sleep. My call is in an hour and a half.

i truly needed to write to you!

~~ vino

[Vino]

Hi Heidi!

For some reason, i didn’t get the notification in my email, like i usually do, that you had replied! i’m so glad i logged in! I was just going to add to my update and i was pleasantly surprised to find a reply from you!

That’s interesting to me what you said at the end – that there’s a wave of change – the turning tide – where you’ve stopped going the way you were going before and your starting to shift but haven’t yet started to move in the new direction. I see it as a swirl too, chaotic, but not if you look deeper – there is a strong undercurrent that is building up it’s strength.

Today was a fantastic Swirly day! it started at around 10 am this morning, when JB showed me a book he had purchased to help him deal with some stuff that he’s struggling with. And then, he started pouring out his heart. That was like a two edged sword for me. On the one hand i excited to listen to him, because his moments of vulnerability are rare. But the place where we went into today, was painful. He finally shared with me about the last woman he was in a relationship with – this was something he never wanted to talk about when we met 2yrs back. Every time he said her name, even in writing, it was filled with so much pain. once, he brought her up and i asked a few related questions – like how long ago did you break up? and he clammed up, he said it was too painful to talk about. SO. Today, he randomly started talking about her, and when i asked him how long ago they’d broken up, he told me. He also told me the exact day they’d started dating. And he’s STILL sharing stuff – it’s down to pictures now. But i know that each picture he shares is filled with a ton load of memories for him. Pictures of her with with his mom. Pictures of them on vacation. pictures of just her looking like a stunning model.

As you can imagine, it’s doing a number on me. so, i came here to spill some of my pain, so i can be free to keep listening to him. The first few times i met with him, i knew he wasn’t over her, the way he spoke about her. Then, i’d kind of forgotten about her, because she didn’t come up in conversations. Today, he admitted that he’s not over her. He’s been trying to get back in touch with her. She has been totally unresponsive. I asked him if he’d get back with her if she was interested and he said he would, in a heartbeat. Anyway. The exciting part of our conversation was the connection he made between the chest pain he’s been having and his loss of her. EVERY test that he’s gotten done in the past 3 or so years has been negative, and i suspected it was emotional almost as soon as he described the pain to me. But i had no timeline to work with. So, when he told me the date of her leaving, i connected the dots right away. And i thought it was cool that he did too, because it has more weight when you discover it yourself. So, he shared the connection first, and i then i shared my detective work with him to confirm it for him. lol 🙂 At any rate, i know it’s important for him to spill his pain. I don’t want to be his therapist, but he doesn’t have one right now. Once he finishes sharing with me, i’m going to tell him it’s an excellent time for a therapist to help him pick up the pieces. now that he’s got a picture in his head of what’s going on in him, and has verbalized it, he’s also got a picture in his head of what he needs and that’ll help him focus and then there will be no stopping him.

I also played with the idea of what would happen if she wrote back to him! He said it would never happen. But i thought – why not? Her heart was just as wounded as his, and it’s probably starting to heal again like his, and what if she decides he’s worth the pain? He’s a very good man! He’s incredibly caring and responsible and gentle and kind and when he loves, he puts his whole life into it. IF she’s had enough time and distance and she feels the weight of the good he brings is greater than the weight of the pain, wouldn’t she respond to his messages? Well — i’ve made room for her to return. And that was my pain. not as painful as i thought it would be. Because — he can never see himself with anyone else, as long as she still has his heart.

So, that took up most of my day today. And then, this evening, it was my oldest. WE had our 3 hrs marathon conversation. He used to do this with me when he was in middle school. Discuss a controversial topic with me. He’s so incredibly good at looking at things from all angles – including mine – and he keeps me on my toes because i need to be able to provide accurate information and the right details or he pokes holes in my thoughts. lol 🙂 The last few days have been good days for him, and he posted some updates on his IG account, sharing how surprised he was that he’s happy for so many days on end. And that’s been filling my heart with such gladness. When he is depressed, he cannot have ANY kind of a discussion with me, because it takes too much mental energy, one just doesn’t care enough about any topic. SO, the fact that he was able to wrestle a topic with me for 3 hrs, with alertness, and with interest, and with a willingness to look at things from a different pov than his own — that was just loads and loads and loads of miracles for me!

SO, it seems everyone is on this wave of change! Even if they weren’t actively trying to hop on it! oh, i’m so happy for these changes! I love spotting healings! OH — it’s happening in the younger one too! She asked me to find her a therapist! AND she spoke to me without her short-temperedness. AND she detached enough from her assignments to enjoy them and complete them. ALSO – a few days back she did a self-diagnosis on her anger and she have me a detailed report of why she got mad at me and why she wouldn’t have gotten angry in the exact same situation if it had involved friends and how she can avoid getting angry at me in the future, because she noticed the double standard in herself. and i was just blown away. She’d taken responsibility for her own emotions, figured out the different paths she could take, and just like that – her anger towards me was gone. i realized that some of her thought processes sounded exactly like mine and i was happy that i have never hidden my thought processes from my kids. she’s learned how to use my tools! 🙂

I’m curious…did you make any connections in this dead spot to women? or Ethiopians? I have no doubt this “dead spot” has many layers to it. How about calling it something different? It’s not really dead…it’s just a spot of extreme protection. Your system has created a way to protect you, so it’s actually doing a really good thing! Although you don’t need protecting anymore, you did when you were younger and your system doesn’t know it’s okay to let go now. No one is harming you anymore. But that part of you doesn’t quite know it yet. There is a lot of healing, forgiveness, and releasing that needs to happen in order to support that part of yourself to open up more and live more authentically.

I looked for connections with women, indians and ethiopians, but they are vague. For example, i found one reason why i didn’t want to be like my mom — her talent is hospitality. It’s a background talent. Everyone loved her, but it also seemed like many people loved her food more than her. I didn’t to be in the background like her, cooking and serving people. That just wasn’t my thing. I liked engaging in conversations. But that put me in front of people. And i didn’t feel like i looked good enough to be in front of people. So, i always had fantastic private conversations, with one or two individuals at a time, but if the group got bigger than 4 or 5 i would begin to shrink. I connected my fear to my looks – and i blamed it on my mom, because i looked like her, and i resented her for making me look like a cook and a servant when i wanted to look good enough to talk in public. Does that make any sense? that was the only thing i could sense that was remotely related to what i uncovered. There’s so much emphasis on looks!

It’s just so hard to not feel like my life would’ve been different, and my choices would’ve been different, if only i looked a little bit better! Why would JB want to be with me when he can have women who look like models? i can’t compete with pretty little Japanese women. Or any woman for that matter. I think i always took myself out of the equation, when i became aware of competition. I see other women as competition. I feel like i am invisible next to other women. i ache to be seen but i don’t have any hope that i WILL be seen. If i AM seen, it’s temporary – just until the next woman shows up.

~~ vino

[Vino]

Hi Heidi!

i’m locked out of this conversation again! i can access everything except the last page. For some reason, i need to become a member to see page 22 lol 😀 if only they knew, that i’m part of the history of this page! lol 😀

Anyway — i wanted to write to you saturday, but i thought i would let everything soak into my being for a while. i don’t have any crystallized thoughts that i can put into bulletpoints. Just a little happening. I believe it took me into the Dead Spot in my heart, where nothing grows.

It happened through a quiz i took, just for fun. It promised to show me what was blocking me from finding my freedom. AWESOME quiz. it told me my issue was procrastination. Which is 100% true. Then, i wanted to see if i could find an affiliate link for it and promote it! still, just for fun. lol 🙂 i found an affiliate link for it in clickbank! So then, i tested out the link with an alternate email and the quiz was in a slightly different format. I noticed that some of the questions were in two parts – in two different colors – and the first time i had done the quiz, i had assumed the first part was instructions, and i had only read the second part – which was more visible because of the color! (face-palm!)

When i read the ENTIRE question, i realized i would’ve chosen slightly different answers. I didn’t think the result would be very much different, because the variations were slight. But it’s a bloody BRILLIANT quiz. it was set up like a choose your own adventure thing – so the questions that followed were based on how you answered the first question! And i ended up in a very different space than procrastination. She had labelled that space ‘anticipatory fear’. And when she explained what she meant by it, i cried. I hadn’t cried over being told i was a procrastinator. So, i knew this anticipatory fear space, was a much deeper space. Procrastination is a symptom of it.

Here’s what i found in that A-F space as i explored it and allowed myself to feel it. EXTREME FRUSTRATION! it’s the nightmare of the bipolar brain. But it was based on my desires. I craved attention. But i didn’t want to be ‘attention-seeking’. So i devised subtle, quiet ways to get attention. This gained me small amounts of attention, which was ok, but not good enough. I could’ve gained a LOT of attention through my schoolwork. And yet, i dumbed myself down. WHY? because that only got me attention from ADULTS. i couldn’t care less about adults. I wanted the attention of my peers. And brains create walls between yourself and your peers. So i hated my brains. My only gift. To gain the attention of peers, i needed to be more physical. But my body was against me. I was always a bit overweight. Never fit well in my clothes. Mediocre in all activities. Nothing worth the attention of anyone. I could’ve developed physical skills if i’d worked at it – but i was terrified of failure. I would get so embarrassed if i didn’t get things right the first time. Failure was sure to get the attention of my peers, but in a negative way.

SO – i was stuck between a rock and a hard place. I couldn’t push myself to my mental limits because of certain sucess and i couldn’t push myself to my physical limits, because of certain failure! What a tangle i wove for myself! And here’s another nugget i discovered — With attention, comes visibility. I would be seen more, and as much as i wanted to be seen, i also didn’t want to be seen because i hated how i looked in photographs! You know those visualization exercises, where they tell you to imagine what it feels like to win, and be congratulated, and recognized, etc etc etc. Well — i short-cicruit there – because i feel like i am not pretty enough to be in a photograph or a video or in front of people. It’s almost like failing to deliver on a promise because i couldn’t back up my brilliance with a pretty face.

And in situations of failure – that also garners publicity – and crying makes an average face ugly. I couldn’t afford to be uglier than i was or have my average face exposed SO — all my life i have chosen SAFETY! Safety over risking rejection. Safety over living life to the fullest. THIS is at the root of my lack of effort and motivation! I want full blown attention, in secret! lol 🙂

How this showed up in my relationships — well — with JB – the first thing i did was put myself in the pictures he’d send of the events that he was at. Sometimes in uniform, sometimes, just dressed nicely for a party. And i ALWAYS felt SO, SO, SO UGLY! i can’t picture myself next to a man in uniform. JB looks FABULOUS in his uniform. I saw my presence in those pictures as ‘ruining’ the picture.

So, what would i have to do to not ‘ruin’ a picture? Well – with a lot of hard work, i might be able to change the shape of my body, but i can’t change my face! All that work for nothing! And that is how i demotivated myself. However, i’ve never gotten OBESE, because that is ‘failure’.

well — this is why i had to let it all sink in for a while. I’m not 100% sure what steps i need to take next. i’m exhausted. I keep remembering the decisions i made, and the choices i took so i could be in the ‘safe’ zone. the marriage was within my safe zone. JB is in the risky zone. Being with him, might get me photographed with him! That, to me, is a risk! lol 🙂

Anyway – that’s my update. 🙂

~~ vino

[Vino]

Oh my goodness! What a tree! I want to go see one too! So powerful, artful, expressive, colorful, and just amazing! It feels like looking at a painting where you have to stand there for a while to see all the different aspects of it. Wow! Thank you for sharing!

You’re most welcome!!! 😀 oh, i’ve been looking at other old trees since then, but i wasn’t drawn to them like i was drawn to Methuselah! And you said the same thing – that you’re drawn to some trees and not others!

Oh — you know what else?? I matched this ‘want to touch’ desire with another identical one! — the way i want to touch JB, is the same feeling! lol 😀 that made me laugh for a while until i started to examine the different intentions behind touch and that took me down a rabbit hole! I should take the kids to a tree and have them feel inside themselves, the differences in the energy of touching, when they hold a different intention in their heart. The main ones i came up with are – touching to feel – which is out of curiosity, and focuses only on the external experience, so you can describe how a tree trunk feels and how it feels on you. Then, there’s touching to heal – when you want your own love to go out with your touch — when you do this, the focus is on yourself because you’re gathering up your energies and directing them out, so you’re feeling your own work and energy more than the other person’s. This is a touch that you won’t be doing on the tree – because you’re not trying to heal it’s dry trunk – it doesn’t need any healing. Then, there’s the touch to connect – which is what i was feeling with the tree – i wanted to feel deep inside of it, and touch it’s life force. When this is your intent, you look at the tree as a total miracle, and the focus is on the tree.

Anyway — there were other things that came up in my mind when i was drinking my tea, relating to the time i was newly Orthodox, and i opened my computer to write to my Monk friend about it, and lo and behold, there was a message from him to me! lol 😀 It’s been 3 or 4 months since i last wrote to him.

This is not what I’m talking about either. I’m referring to the wounded energy of manipulation. Many of our needs come from wounded energy. We NEED people to help us heal. If you expect that you are only going to ask for help when you are perfectly aligned and not in wounded energy, you are NEVER going to ask for help.

i get this. For me, distance is a great help in being able to ask for help. So, i can ask strangers on the internet for help! lol 🙂 And with my psychiatrist, it was a professional distance, so i was able to ask for and receive help from her – till she started to close the distance a bit, and it freaked me out instantly. Meeting with the psychiatrist was a huge step for me, because it was face to face! i always tried to solve my problems through reading. That created the right amount of distance for me.

EVERY SINGLE ONE is creating an opportunity for the receiver to learn compassion, to learn how to set boundaries, to learn how to communicate their boundaries, to learn how to say no, to learn how to say yes, to learn whatever it is they need to learn or practice. So…there is still a great purpose in it, right?

yes, this is true. that’s what i meant earlier, when i said that JB highlighted the things in my life that need to change, without causing pain, but these others do the same while causing a lot of distress at the same time. And in order to learn from them, i need to create mental distance so the distress they cause doesn’t cause me to become defensive. They have been invaluable to me as a Mirror – because i can look at them and then look inside myself and ask if there’s a matching vibration in myself. IF i find one, i work on getting rid of it, because they have personified it for me, and i don’t want to be like them!

Today, i’m overwhelmed by all the online businesses i signed up for and there’s so much to learn! 🙁

~~ vino

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