posted March 09, 2011 11:27 AM            

Stories like that are great to read for compassion building though.

Also, I just want to say.. there are very interesting studies on the mortality rates of early 1900's orphanages, where they said not to touch or caress the baby or it would develop attachment causing separation and trauma, not to mention infection. The ones with the strictest sanitation standards were the ones that had the highest mortality rates.. nearly 90% in some places. The people who survived were emotionally cold and unable to form real attachments for the rest of their lives. There were many emotional problems. Nowadays we call the result attachment disorder which creates a charmingly superficial but sociopathic personality. It can be cured, but it's very hard and you have to recreate the ability to have a loving attunement figure through many psychosomatic, neural reattuning through eye contact, and role playing exercises. It's almost as if without love and affection, the body loses it's will to live and stops trying.

Very sad.. but most people don't have those early memories, not to mention any biological phenomena that precludes chemical imbalances in the brain, like celiac disease and hypothyroidism which both cause depression and are pretty decently common in America with the consensus being it should not be looked into first and we should go strait to the prozac.

We could go into past lives traumas too. I'm saying this because the heading can be deleterious to emotional wellbeing. People should accept how they feel even if they don't know why. Suppressing it makes emotion worse and when you dissociate from your emotional wellbeing.. well guess what controls you? Compassion is healing but placing guilt on people for having emotions is not, and the "If you think you're suffering then ____" line definetely pulls off that vibe for me. And please, I mean this in a very compassionate way. I know most of us were taught to think in an invalidating way about many things.

posted March 09, 2011 12:59 PM            

Both avenues have merit but must be taken together,imo.

to you both

posted March 09, 2011 01:22 PM            

That isn't even in my nature to say something like that as I am aware that we all handle our struggles differently.

I am just saying, everyone goes through it is all. Never think you are the only one in the world that has struggles.

There are many 9/11 stories there too. Of women that lost the love of their lives. I couldn't do my assignment on those particular stories because my emotions were too strong. To lose the love of your life . . .

posted March 09, 2011 01:31 PM            

If I had to do my own podcast, I’d talk about my journey through homelessness, alcoholism and depression that I endured for a large part of my twenties. At one point my life was in such a downward spiral that the only way I knew out was death. Just the idea of waking up and facing life was an extremely difficult task for me. I hated my family for not being supportive and neglecting me. I hated God for punishing me when I did absolutely nothing wrong in life. It was when the church came to the shelter one night that I told the preacher I didn’t believe in Jesus. He instructed one of the sisters to guide me. I had nothing to lose so I told her the truth. God doesn’t love me because I am bad. As she went on to tell me that everyone feels unworthy of God, but that God is unconditional love and always available to us once we reach out to him, I began to cry. I began to look at my life, not from a Christian standpoint, but a spiritual one. I will not say that my life changed overnight, but, I will say, with spiritual awareness, huge changes in life are possible and anything you desire in this life are possible. I had to learn that I had to make an inner change and a conscious decision to be happy in this life. I often think about the women I lived with in the homeless shelter. I wonder what became of them and begin to feel sad and worried. Some of the women were beautiful souls and as good as gold and deserved so much happiness, but, due to unfortunate circumstances, have given up in life. I am blessed that I had the strength to survive. Since that difficult journey in my life I have learned to never judge anyone no matter what they appear to be,

posted March 09, 2011 02:39 PM            

Also, I don't think it was about different avenues. I think it's beneficial to read those stories and develop empathy.

posted March 12, 2011 04:09 AM            

I've just expressed to LL that I wish to be drama free do me a favor and stay FAR away from me, lady. You thrive on drama and negativity. I'm done with it. This will be my last message to you, PERIOD. I have too many priorities in life than to feed into your malicious games. I am sorry for even trusting you as I did because I've noticed I'm not the first person you've crapped on.