OT: Power Trip

Ride that power trip wave for all its worth honey! Suck all the attention in like its a cool spring breeze, then tell the ass to go lay an egg. Some times its actually *fun* to pound their ego into the ground like a tent stake. :-D

Karlee in Kansas, who is still feeling vindictive and pissy right now. (oops. I cussed again. Me and my damn potty mouth! Just don't tell mom ok? )

I concur. No matter how 'good' it feels to act negatively towards someone, it feels a LOT better to rid yourself of such energy-robbing relationships and pursuits.

I know how this feels as many of us do. I don't act on my feelings for one, I don't know where the A-hole is although I could find him if I tried. I still harbor the bad feelings and most of the time I don't even think about them but they are still there and its been more than 27 years. I've told myself, well, I'm letting this go but its still there. I've yet to figure out how you

Jo Jo

And I think hanging onto the resentment has a way of drawing more

-reasons- for resentment into your life, whereas letting it go acts as a kind of 'reversing the polarity', so you begin to repel where you used to attract angry-making-injustice energy. Don't mean you should deny that the anger or injustice ever happened. Just look at it one last time, learn from it what to avoid in the future, and then set it gently back in the river of time, like a leaf, and watch it float away. That's freedom, where the vengeful stuff is just more captivity in disguise.

No scientific proof of this, just fits my experience and my observations of others who go that route.

Deirdre

Hmmmm good way to see if he is really trying, see if he has a $7000 check in his pocket!

Jim Redden snipped-for-privacy@rochester.rr.com

Dearest Deidre,

Are you in the profession of mental health? If yes, how much do you charge an hour, and do you take Tri-Care? If no, you should be....

Hugs Karlee in Kansas

No. I'm an experienced survivor of the kind of family that wrecks your mental health. But now that you bring the subject up -- I do have some desire to share what I have learned in the process. Not as a 'professional', who is automatically an authority figure ... but as a non-credentialed person who went through my own version of hell and finally came out the other side a lot stronger and happier than most people who make the trip dare to hope of being someday.

These days, my only real source of lasting unhappiness is witnessing how much harm is still being done by the people who feel stuck in their own private hells. And watching how the pain keeps being passed from generation to generation without much to change the old, established, compulsive urges to keep doing things that don't work. Things that make nothing better, and a lot worse. For a lot of us, our default programming is pretty destructive, and hard to overcome. For someone like your MIL, being 'your own worst enemy' seems like the literal truth. And it means that she behaves in ways that make other people her enemies, too.

But I think we each have a Healer inside us, too. And that can sometimes be better than a shrink, in that they are always available, and we can afford them even if we are broke, uninsured and unemployed.

This is one reason why I think I share Tina's shamanisic worldview... I think the healing energy is available, if we can open our psyches to it. And I think imagination is the biggest door through which it enters. One reason why in authoritarian times, the arts are unsupported, and even feared.

Once we contact that Healer, its power becomes -our- power. And it has enough power to change how we feel about our lives, enough power to help us feel competent and capable, even without power tools ;-). It's a Power Tool in its own right, imagination. Perhaps the most powerful Power Tool of all.

Deirdre

hour, and do you take Tri-Care? If no,

Im glad your anger is gone. And forgive me if it sounded as tho I was singling you out , my post wasnt in direct response to yours but to anyone who is still stewing over long dead relationships. I just hoped to pass along one of the lessons life has given me..

Me too. The longer I stayed hateful and angry towards him for things that couldn't be changed, the more he still had control. He gets that satisfaction NO MORE.

It didn't even come across that way to me. :)

Rachel T. Damn right I'm good in bed. I can sleep for days. ;)

He can try all he wants, he won't get anywhere with me! :)

He'll never pay that money back. Everybody knows it. He claims this and that, and it's all lies. He lies to make himself appear better, and it only ends up hurting him.

Rachel T. Damn right I'm good in bed. I can sleep for days. ;)

Yes. For me. He's not worth spending that kind of energy against. What good would it do me to rage against him after 7 years? None. And it feels good to know that I let it go a long time ago.

Rachel T. Damn right I'm good in bed. I can sleep for days. ;)

There you go again, Dierdre. My thoughts and feelings coming from your post.

Regarding professionals as "authorities", one reason my psychologist is so good is that he considers me a greater authority on myself than he is. Although he is sometimes a better translator. Any time a therapist encourages you to doubt your own sense of reality, dismiss him or her. A psychologist works on your interpretations only, otherwise you get pushed further and further from your reality and integrity of self (which I call healthy ego).

Tina

charge an hour, and do you take Tri-Care? If no,

If "most of the time you don't even think about it," you've done a pretty good job of letting go. What's really important is that you don't let those feelings control or monopolize you.

I'm sure I will always feel some resentment about my ex and the floozie he left me for. But it's not a controlling factor in my life, and I don't go out of my way to find out things about him. (Though I'm still friendly with my ex-in-laws, and I do ask how he's doing when I visit them.)

Celine

I think I would define a good therapist, in part, as one who does this.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of not-so-good therapists out there who may do more harm than good. I also think that, while a good therapist can be enormously helpful, therapy is not a certain requirement for emotional wellness. With enough inner direction, a drive to grow and change, and the willingness to honestly and critically self-examine, it can be something that a person achieves on their own, following their own path.

Laura

On Thu, 10 Jul 2003 18:54:44 -0400, Rachel T. wrote (in message ):

Okay, this has me wondering: now that we have the Internet and a whole bunch of tools at our disposal, who here has looked up an old lover? Have you contacted that lover? If so, what happened.

My story is dull: I looked him up online, Discovered that he grew up to be ugly and bald and is a cop. (Bald wouldn't bother me if the rest of the package didn't turn out so yucky) He's a "lay minister" to some heavy duty evangelical church in Washington DC and has a crapload of kids. (Greater than

His wife looks just like me, or rather, the way I could have been expected to grow up from his time with me. I am unrecognizable from my college days: my face was reconstructed after the car accident, and my health has made me less attractive than I otherwise would be. Surprisingly, I was totally flat chested until I was in my early twenties, so that wouldn't be a good identifying factor, either.

I recognized his face, was glad that we were together while he was still good looking and not a religious fanatic and/or cop, shut the web page and went no further. If he's found me, he's made no effort to contact me, Thank God.

Kathy N-V

Diana, I am right with you on this. I feel as though this is just beginning to open up for me, and I have no idea how to open myself up to it, sometimes. I keep letting in all this other stuff about how much it costs to do this, or how little I really know, or how much skill I still need to develop, or this or that or the other... and somewhere the real art of me gets left inside.

I think maybe it teases out slowly. Like all the other stuff-- as we're ready for it.

Laura

On Thu, 10 Jul 2003 19:09:27 -0400, Lee S. Billings wrote (in message ):

Besides, that's the most satisfying thing to do. You get to imagine all these scenes where he grovels at your feet, totally destroyed without you in his life; while you whip out your cell phone and talk to one of your many worthy swains who call and offer you outrageously scandalous gifts.

In real life, those get together meetings aren't that satisfying. Even if he wants to get back together, groveling and sobbing that he cannot exist without the benefit of your goddesslike presence rarely happens, IME.

He'll tell you about the hundreds of other women with whom he's (reportedly) slept and his new Dodge Ram Truck. (He won't mention that it's used to pull his home from trailer park to trailer park, though) The phone call you'll get will be from day care, saying the child has puked 37 times in the past half hour, after whacking someone else's kid with a toy truck, followed by one from the mechanic saying "I tore apart the tranny, and it's gonna cost you." You'll come home to your husband telling you that he has the flu and got laid off.

Personally, I'd take my bad self out to a lovely, dark, very French cafe; someplace where this guy would never darken the doorsteps (They don't allow bowling shirts or work boots or whatever this guy wears, anyway). Order a plate of chocolate dipped strawberries and a split of vintage Champagne (1999 was an _excellent_ year for champagne). Then let your imagination hold the reuinion.

Much more satisfying that way.

Kathy N-V

P.S.: If you do agree to meet with him, make sure he comes up with the seven large (certified funds only) up front.

I lost that place somehow. Where is the path that leads me to there? A lot of the cr*p in my former life has been healed or at least I am aware of it and am trying to heal it, but that creative part that gets lost inside an experience of creating seems stunted. I dont know how to cut loose and boogie! Something tells me the answer isnt going to be found in a back of the magazine ad. But.. perhaps some of you had to battle the demons of the past to be able to create the fun and beautiful things you do. I cant walk your path but perhaps you can tell me where to start looking for mine? Diana

--

And do art. The authentic, straight from your guts kind. The

I looked up my first ex.. in the police records! LOL It was just for S&Gs and I didnt look farther. My second ex lives 4 miles away and we are sociable to one another on the rare occasion we see each other... we dont seek each other out. Diana