posted May 01, 2006 11:33 PM            

Aside from the irritation and shock I am now experiencing at reading that not only does lotus think she's Linda Goodman and that she attacked one of the gentlest and wisest souls on this site, I'm rather freaked out to discover that not only do we share the same first name but the same middle name as well!

posted May 02, 2006 12:47 AM              

"oh and you lied..you never have gone within..and gotten any anwers.."

I rest my case. There it is folks this is what we are talking about here.

I just wish the arguing would stop. We all have valid points and frankly, Lotus just made my point.

silverstone:

Your humble and sincere apology is accepted. I'm sure it was not your intention to offend anyone. Just your actions here of attempting to be the peacemaker shows your heart. Blessed are the peacemakers. The written word is so easily misunderstood, especially on forums like this. The internet has it's drawbacks. We cannot hear the inflection in the words and we cannot see the body language. So we are really left to our own perceptions. Many times I have regretted the way I phrased things but hindsight is 20/20.

Pidaua thank you for understanding that my intention in posting this was not mean spirited at all. I can be very direct and honest and sometimes I do get irritated and show it. I will defend myself when personally attacked like anyone else but never is it my intention to just be mean for the sake of being mean. That is not in my nature at all.

This post was neither attacking Lotus or talking about her in the third person. How could it be in the third person when she was here to read it on a public forum? Someone 'splain that statement to me. I knew that though she was getting frustrated Rainbow was trying to understand Lotus and trying to explain things to her as was I. I know Rainbow and I know she will go a long way to do that with most people. If any of you truly knew Rainbow personally you would know she is truly one of the kindest, sweetest, loving and compassionate people on the planet. I just wanted to let her know it would do neither of us any good to continue dialouge with Lotus. No matter how hard we tried or what we said.

In hindsight I should have just emailed Rainbow the thread. I posted this late at night when I was tired so I was not thinking. It may have been unfair to Lotus as Isis stated but I didn't do it just to be mean to her. Maybe it was meant to be. Maybe the Universe is trying to tell Lotus something. It's my belief that God talks to us more through others and in the experiences of our lives than in our heads. But I know what Lotus means by going within to find your truth. The only problem is that when we tell her that is how we came to our truth she tells us we are lying and never go within because our truth is not the same as her truth. So what are you going to do? How can you respond to that? Any suggestions?

posted May 02, 2006 12:58 AM              

Lotus did not stop when I asked her plain and straight out to "put a lid on it." I let her know my personal boundaries and she no more respected my boundaries than she respected my beliefs or my opinions. She was not contributing anything to the discussions. She was only arguing, personally attacking and preaching her brand of spirituality to us.

And she just proved my point, AG's point, Tinks point,prox's point and the point of others here who have encountered her in the past on other threads.

Silverstone, I agree with you. The arguing should stop because it is divisive and frankly it is not worth it.

Maybe Lotus's intentions are good but she needs to find a better way of communicating her beliefs to others that both respects their person and their own beliefs. Also it could be a whole lot less holier than thou and judgmental in it's presentation. There is an urgency about getting her message out in Lotus that escapes my understanding.

Maybe I would understand what she is trying to say if she just told me what she believes instead of telling me what I don't believe and what my relationship with God is, and what my character is, and that no matter what I believe if it disagrees with her viewpoint it's wrong anyway.

Rainbow, now that you know, this post has served the purpose it was meant to serve so I am going to do as silverstone wisely suggested and move on to more positive things.

P.S. Pidaua, I am getting the same page cannot be displayed and have had probs posting here all evening. Have had posting probs on other threads a lot lately but first time at GU today.

posted May 02, 2006 01:06 AM            

quote:

---

Actually, that's not correct. See 4th post.

---

posted May 02, 2006 03:20 AM              

Whew! I've just come back from the site Proxie posted and I feel so foolish.....(for assuming I've been dealing with a sane person)

If this one is 'for real' then she's very disturbed!

I'm sorry I wasted so much energy trying to reason with her or even understand her....and yet from the threads I looked at, it's obvious in spite of her problem, she's able to push just about everybody's buttons!

posted May 02, 2006 03:40 AM              

About Lotus, she has had a failed marriage, 2 daughters to raise and the one who she thought was her "twin soul" ditched her when it mattered the most to her. She really does have some great knowledge but psychological circumstances prevent her from expressing the gained wisdom coherently, and the result is merely an irritating post.

She needed support and she wont change her manners, so the easiest route is to get the support of very strong jingoistic/bully types, like JWHop. This is a very natural psychological development, programmed in the human genome.
One more observation is conflict. Some people feed off conflict, they just have to provoke someone who threatens their comfort zone of existence. Sue, Fayte, Mirandee, Trillian, Pixel, 26T, SunChild and yourself have all threatened Lotus philosophical/spiritual comfort zone, and hence a conflict with all the above was necessary for her to continue believing in her own theories.

So what should we do? Forgive her and ignore her till she changes her manners is my suggestion. We have to move on and grow, we just cannot do that by arguing/feeding conflicts/defending ourselves.
If she changes, we must try not to hold her past behaviour against her and continue as normal.

Just my 2 cents, apologies if I offended anybody.

posted May 02, 2006 03:44 AM              

I find this thread very cruel and harsh....no human being deserves this treatment....

I am now beginning to understand why in the past I have decided to step away for a while...

Talk about a pack of salivating wolves....

What a shame.....this really saddens me......if this was my daughter or son being treated this way, I would be horrified, even if they were in the wrong.

If you dont like what Lotus or anyone else says, at least have the maturity and decency to ignore such comments....

And as for the author of this thread, I hoped she would know better...being of "mature" years !!!

Obviously I was wrong...

Lotus....I find it hard to reason with you, but I want you to know that I dont agree with this thread at all...it makes me feel very .....

posted May 02, 2006 03:54 AM              

It was precisely the same thing that went on here at GU and the UC thread only much worse.

I feel very sad after reading about 8 pages of the 25. I was irritated and annoyed by the way Lotus behaved towards Rainbow and myself here at GU on more than one thread. At the time I just felt like she was deliberately trying to disrupt threads that she didn't want to hear because they didn't agree with her political viewpoint. You know, a tactic to get us off the topic. I also felt she was one of those over zealous religious control freaks who was going to cram her beliefs down your throat whether or not you wanted to hear them. You run into those a lot in the malls these days.

After reading prox's thread though I can see there is a much deeper issue here and it made me sad to see a fellow human being obviously suffering in so much pain and inner turmoil and unable to control their behavior or their words. I don't think that Lotus means to do these things or does it for any other reason than she can't help it. That is what made me sad.

I am not sorry now that I didn't just email Rainbow about this because otherwise all those other threads would not have been brought to my attention. They helped me understand things better and realize that this is not something that Lotus does on purpose just to start arguments or annoy people or force her views on others. She can't help it. We should show compassion for her and not scorn.

Thank you for your remarks Iqhunk. That helps me to understand Lotus better too.

posted May 02, 2006 04:49 AM              

quote:

---

Whew! I've just come back from the site Proxie posted and I feel so foolish.....(for assuming I've been dealing with a sane person)

---

The quote above was NOT meant to be cruel or harsh. TRULY!
.....and I certainly know Mirandee was not being that way either.

It was meant to convey that I had had a revelation...

Like now...I now 'understood.'

....and I probably should have used the word embarrassed instead of foolish in describing how I felt about how I had been acting...or I should say re-acting to all her strange comments......*sigh*

I want lotus to know that I don't "hate" her either....I do have compassion and send her only good wishes - even love....

However, I am going to ignore any comments she makes from here on out....merely because I am not any kind of 'professional' in that department and so choose to "remain silent."

Lotus....

Now I must go...

posted May 02, 2006 04:57 AM              

Don't be hard on yourself...

....you didn't know......

posted May 02, 2006 06:06 AM              

All of us are connected and all must attain happiness.

to Sue.

posted May 02, 2006 10:55 AM            

I guess I was wrong!

Plus you couldn't have done it to a person that couldn't defend themselves as sour and sharply as we could!

posted May 02, 2006 11:38 AM              

They want you to tell them what they expect or want to hear instead. People want their egos padded they don't really want to know the truth about themselves and will strike out at you for being honest.

posted May 02, 2006 12:09 PM            

I just think that AG thinks very highly of himself and I really don't know why!

posted May 02, 2006 12:54 PM              

Not ragging on you when I said that to AG, ozone just letting him know that honest people pay a high price for being true to themselves. Especially in our society today which is full of phoniness, lies, deception, manipulation, and in short dishonesty.

I admire honesty in others is what I was telling AG and have been in his position myself.

You did in the way you expressed it ask AG for his honest opinion of you, ozone. AG gave you his honest opinion but others might not hold the same opinion of you. Only you would know by being honest with yourself and thinking about what AG said if there is any validity to AG's honest opinion of you.

posted May 02, 2006 12:54 PM            

In a nutshell, I said that I didn't organize a witch hunt. If I had I'd take credit for it.

I did let Mirandee, who has had limited personal experience with Lotus, know that Lotus DOES indeed have a long history of offending people here. I stand by that decision, and will continue to do so, because it doesn't do anyone here any good to passively tolerate her.

Now again we see that people are going to let this go, and it's a really safe bet to make that Lotus will be offending someone else here in the future.

posted May 02, 2006 01:23 PM            

Or neither were you around during the time that people wanted to push JW out of here and when that didn't work, they started with me too.

So to be honest with you guys, when it comes to talking about tolerance here, you can bet your @$$ that you talking to the right person over that! This has not ceased since it has started and I know that it is not going to end anytime soon!

My rant is that you make this all sound so unusual and your rebuttle is not really that original, this has been tried and it has failed many many times before AG.

My rant has turned out to be however Mirandee is that AG has managed to "bag,tag and ship" me and yet doesn't even really know who I am and in that matter he is quick to judge anyone that doesn't meet his criteria! I find this to be a shame, for the fact that I'm sure that most of the time he would sit there and wonder why would anyone do the the same to him.

posted May 02, 2006 01:25 PM              

I understand how you feel. It is only enabling and co-dependency to take the abuse of others without saying anything. It does not help the person either when we do that. We have become a society of enablers and co-dependents. No one with any self-respect would put up with the bad behavior of others. It is only self-respect that demands we be honest and stand up for our own personal rights and boundaries.

However, the only person that can help Lotus is Lotus. We cannot force change on someone else. I know that you know this AG. It has to come from within the person from a desire to want to have better relationships with others in their lives and a desire to look at themeselves honesty and a desire to change. Even with all that change does not happen overnight.

In Lotus's case I truthfully feel she does have an illness that makes it impossible for her to control her behavior or change it or even recognize it as wrong. I do hope she is getting treatment for it for her sake and the sake of her children.

I don't think it is a case of Lotus not learning how to conduct herself in society with others by now but instead an inability to control her behavior, her thoughts, or herself. I think lotus is attempting to reach out to others the best she can which to me shows the heart is there, the will is there but not the means to be able to do that in an effective way.

I don't know if just ignoring Lotus is a good thing or not because that kind of ostracizes her and that shouldn't happen to her because she cannot help being ill, she didn't ask to be ill and doesn't want to be ill. We can't patronize her either because that might be worse. I don't know the answer. I am not a psychriatrist so I do not know how to handle it in a way that is helpful to Lotus who is a victim of something she cannot help or do anything about and a way that does not make us victims of her behavior.

It's a tough call to make.