Re: I had a conversation with a friend and now am wondering...

Hey b2reflect! (sorry for the long post)

The relationships that one has with their parents is what basically sets up how we view all the other men and women that we encountered later in life. This is the basic reason why we are attracted to certain individuals and repelled by others. For example, it could be as simple as the nose on your mother’s that attracts you toward a few people that have similar type noses; that is, if you had a good relation with your mom. Or, it could be a mannerism, or a way of saying something that is noticed. And the same could be the reason why you are not attracted to others individuals, some small quirky thing that reminds you of something you did not like about someone from your childhood.
We make such choices of acceptance and non-acceptance of others constantly without ever really being aware of doing so.

Generally, we go through life unconsciously wanting to repeat the relations we had when we were younger. So, the tendency for a man to be attracted to a woman that in some way reminds him of his mother is not uncommon. The same can be said for a woman looking for a man with qualities that are relative to her father.
And so if the relationship between a child and her father was established which contained a form of abusive behavior, the child will grow and move into the world with this basic pattern used as the basis for establishing an intimate or distant relationship with other men.

The abuses that we are subjected to during childhood can be the most diffult to resolve, however, not impossible to dissove away. It is my understanding that the best way to really come clean from such events is through a combination of catharsis therapy used in conjunction with meditation, a simple method of introspection and self-examination.

Understanding the reasons why you relate to certain people the way you do can be revealed if one is persistent and by going through these types of methods with a very determined desire for resolve. Understanding why one feels attracted to certain personality types and repelled by other types can also become more clear. The basic reason why body/mind reacts the way it does is simply a method used by the body/mind mechanism to protect itself from a possible future harm as it relates to an event experienced at some time in the past. It does this automatically in an attempt to help you survive.

Understanding it in this way explains that there is really nothing wrong with why you relate or don’t relate to others. Its just the way its turned out for you up to this point in your life. No wrongness- no rightness about it. Such events that cause your body-mind to react the way it does to protect itself cannot be resolved by desiring such an event away or wishing that it never happened, or wishing that things were different, or desiring that someone would come into your life to help cover up what had happened sometime in the past.

Stagefright or shyness, for example, can be a simple reaction by the body-mind as a way of protecting itself. A form of childhood abuse may lay as the root cause for such behavior. For example a child may have had an over disciplinarian type of parent that forced his child to be absolutely obedient to the demands of the strict parent., or to, otherwise, suffer the consequences of physical, psychological and/or verbal abuse. The parent would, of course, be unaware that he is affecting his child’s ability to stand and speak freely [to express himself] in front of others later on in his life. Because the parent has conditioned the child to be fearful of being able to express himself in front of the parent, this sets up the unconscious pattern of behavior which may follow the child through his entire life, the fear to express oneself, which is basically the fear to be oneself.

Usually after an event involving abuse, it is typically the child that blames him/herself for the reason why the event occurred. Unless the child, that later becomes an adult, is willing to go through the looking into the memories of the relations with the parent/relative [not an easy thing to do for anybody, let alone a childhood consisting of sexual abuse], he may carry this as a flaw within himself, as something wrong about himself, feeding an image that lacks self-esteem, lacking self-love.

The child, in other words, ends up not being able to totally accept hiself for who he or she is out of the fear of not being accepted by others [as in the form of the abusive parent/relative]. Without being able to totally accept oneself for who one is, it will not be possible to totally accept others for who they are, too. The two automatically come together.

Non acceptance of oneself, because of the fear of not being accepted by others, will create despair, sadness, Depression and ultimately anger to be generated within the individual. And, of course, these emotions once they are generated need expression, but all too often they are repressed within the body-mind mechanism.

As these emotions are tied to the event(s) of abuse, when they are finally allowed to find expression [in therapeutic context], they can be used to help the body–mind release memories of the event. This is the catharsis therapy part that I mentioned previously.
As the emotions are allowed their expression (starting with anger or the tears), the memories of past events are also allowed to re-surface and to begin to be released from the body-mind mechanism.

If these events are simply witnessed without any judgement attached to them, no good-bad, no right or wrong given to them, they will continue to move out of body-mind and dissolve away on their own accord. Events that have a great deal of emotions attached to them, will need to be look at time more often, and time and time again, but each time they are simply observed, as something that happened to someone else other than you, they will lose more and more energy, till they become nothing more than a far away distant memory. They are just on their way into becoming nonexistence.

This is the miracle of meditation, choiceless awareness. By going back and remembering such events, allowing to surface, and objectively and simply witnessing that memory, without passing judgement, it will allow the event to dissolve away. It is like digging after the roots of an old tree that you don't want to grow anymore. Dig them up and bring them to the surface and let the light of your awareness and simply observe them for what it is. The roots simple dry up and slowly, slowly dissolve away on their own. Nothing to do but look directly at the root cause, and it will begin to wither and die.

In this way, accepting yourself who you are will grow more and more. Allowing yourself to express emotions tied to past traumas is accepting yourself for who you are. This is loving yourself. Once you are well established in acceptance of yourself, acceptance of others comes with. Loving yourself totally will attract others around you, others will want to be near you. You will be able to take your pick of who you want to be with whenever you the time is right for you.

Love and peace to you.