You informed your spouse about your knowing of his or her meeting with an opposite sex.  You kindly asked her or him if there is anything here you should be concerned with.  Your spouse response was that there is nothing here for you to be concerned with.  In addition, his or her explaination was that “I just have a fascination for others’ lives.  I just like to meet people.   Beside, it is none of your business,” s/he said.   S/he is unable to explain to you the reason for this fascination nor where s/he taking this relationship. 

What do you take of this response?  Do you have a theory on why s/he spending so much time attending to other’s live and fail to attend to his or her own life?  

Have you ever had a desire to put an end to all your desires? Or had a fear of being afraid?  Why do you think most of us are refusing the feeling of lack, rejection, incompleteness, imperfection, or emptiness?

Your spouse was meeting an opposite sex that he or she met on Xanga without telling you. You found out of this meeting from a friend who saw them together.  How do you take to this situation?  

Up to my mid twenties, I would classify myself as being shy.  Being raised in a Vietnamese culture, I was not supposed to talk back nor asserted myself in any way.  College years were the time I learned to break off the shyness and hardened with boldness.  Having an opportunity to discover both spectrums of shyness and boldness, I can say that there is no difference between a shy unassertive person and a bold assertive person. 

Have you ever observed your shyness or another’s shyness?  Try and observe and tell me if you see the symptoms that I described here.  A shy person is easily frightened.  She is quite timid and unassertive.  Her behavior can be easily misunderstood for other characteristics including gentleness, kindness, loving, and understanding (not to say that she doesn’t have them, but quite ambivalent in exhibiting them.)   

Being shy or being bold is one of the many faces of the ego; some are more ambivalence than the others.  A shy person has an ambivalence ego that both wants and fear attention from others.  The fear is that the attention may take the forms of disapproval or criticism.  That is to say something that diminishes the sense of self rather than enhances it.  So the shy person’s fear for attention is greater than her needs of attention.  

Seeing myself as this or that is ego, whether positive or negative. Behind every positive self concept, there is a hidden fear of not being good enough.  Behind every negative self concept, there is a hidden desire of being the greatest or better than others.  Behind the confidence’s ego feeling of superiority is the fear of being inferiority.  So the shy inadequate ego that feels inferior has a strong hidden desire for superiority.  Many people fluctuate between the feeling of inferiority and superiority, depending on who they come into contact with. 

All you need to know and observe in yourself is this:  whenever you feel superior or inferior to anyone, that’s the ego in you.

I saw Marty while waiting for the elevator on the 15^th floor.  He warmly greeted me with a good big hug.  We got in the elevator together.  As the elevator closed, he reached over, touched my hair, lightly caressed my face, and looked at me with that sweet look, which reminded me of how my husband used to look at me.  Then, he backed off and said, “I am sorry.”  I calmly smiled at him and said, “You can touch and admire me all you want, but you know I don’t feel it.”  

A powerful realization has come to me:  NO ONE, doesn’t matter how enticing, how wonderful, how handsome, sweet, kind, loving, caring, understanding, smart, rich, powerful… can stands between me and my husband, EXCEPT MY OWN THOUGHTS or BELIEFS that I have about him.  This is how powerful love is. 

I guessed he didn’t remember.  I tried to arrange for baby sitter this weekend so we can go to dinner.  I let him know about this dinner a week in advance.  I reminded him the day before.  And when the time come, guess what his response was?  “ Sorry, I am full. ”  Ha,  what a character my ADD husband is!     

Happy 9th Anniversaries Ron Baby!

I love you a bunch.

“I need someone to listen and understand”

When I need someone to listen and understand me and they don’t, I got frustrated and sometimes angry.  I saw my frustration and anger caused by others because they don’t listen and understand me.  I would make subtle criticisms that appear to be caring, justifying that I am trying ‘to help’ them so that they can ’improve.’ And when they still really didn’t learn how to listen and understand me, I gave up.  I became patronizing and bitter, sometimes quiet and sulky.   I felt and behaved like a victim.  I felt separated.  I felt hurt.

The Work of Katie Byron has helped me to question the ‘needy little me’ thoughts.  I inquired and confront this ‘needy little me’ thought and challenged it until it is through.   I can say that when I stop believing the thought that others should listen and understand me, I am listened and understood.  I am allowing others to be who they are.  When I am allowing for them to be, with lots of patience, strangely enough, change occurs.  You see, even when people say, “oh I understand,” or appear to be listening and understanding, you and I can never be sure what it is that they are listening and understanding. 

The fact is that I need to listen and understand myself.  I need to listen and understand others. Why?  It could be that others are hurting and can’t listen and understand me.   I don’t need anyone to listen or understands me. If I am more direct and honest with what I want in my speech and communication with others, it is must simpler for the people who love me to listen and understand where I am coming from.  I am not demanding or criticizing them and making them feel inferior as if there is something wrong with them because they cannot listen and understand me.  I just try to be kind and loving.  I just let them know clearly how I have contributed to the problem.  I know that they want to be listened and understand.  But if I expect any listening and understanding, what important is not that they listen and understand, but what I listen and understand because this is where I am the happiest.  It is not others’ job to listen and understand me.  It is my job to listen and understand me. 

Out studying for the PE exam.  Will be back sometimes around November. 

Love you all. 

Last night, husband and I had theoretical reflections about many things including the “self.”  One of the questions was why do we have a constant need in life?  Why do we have these constant desires to fulfill our lives in doing including helping, giving, acquiring, achieving? My answer is because we don’t know who we really are.  We don’t have a sense of being rooted in life which is our nature.  Though we are called human beings, most of us are human doings.  This is why we have so many people looking for the others as saviors to help them complete their sense of self.  This is why we go through life searching for a sense of specialness that operates on the level of “better than” or “more than” or “me, the special one.”  This is our purpose in life: to strengthen our egoic sense of self.  And it may be the motivating force behind our actions in whatever we do. 

So we live in fear that other may be more superior than we are.  We invest so heavily on our sense of self by constant comparing, analyzing, labeling, judging, complaining, blaming, and attacking others so that we can strengthen the “me.”  We complain about life situations and people.  “This shouldn’t be happening….” When we complain about something or somebody, we feel that we are right and the other person and situation we are complaining about is wrong.  There is always this precarious sense of self and love being right.   So we are constantly in a conflict relationships with things, situations, other people, and even ourselves.  We cannot be happy with ourselves because something that happened in the past that preventing us from being ourselves truly or something hasn’t happened yet. 

When we can not achieve the specialness in the way we want, we achieve a reverse specialness by feeling unfairly treated by life.  By feeling that we are victims of certain people or situations, we feel very special.  So we can still win even if we loose.  After five minutes of meeting a stranger, this person knows our whole life stories.  “Do you know what he did to me three years ago…..” We build our specialness around the suffering that happened or even is happening in our lives and imprison ourselves behind the bars that we erect.    But at least we have a story that says our lives treat us “more” unfairly than most people, at least we have the feeling of “more than.”   See how clever we are?

“What is God?  The eternal One life underneath all the forms of life.  What is love?  To feel the presence of that One life deep within all creatures.  To be it.  Therefore, all love is the love of God.”    -Eckhart Tolle