From Healing the Child Within (audiobook) Chapter 7, from 8 minutes in Codependence - the neurosis of our time Co-dependence is a disease of lost self-hood in a viscous cycle, it's a condition that stifles our true self - our child within. We can begin to define co-dependance as any suffering and/or dysfunction that is associated with, or results from, focusing on the needs and behaviour of others. Co-dependents become so focused upon or preoccupied with important people in t

Right now, I feel very sad, I feel very down I feel hopeless I've been trying to do the right things Writing in my little book I've been trying to get up I've been exercising I've not been out in the sun as much as I should be, I know that But when I do it's just depressing, and dirty, and ugly And I don't get any joy from going out there This joy that I'm waiting for is not immediate - I have to put in the work now in the hope, faith, belief that it will pay off at some unk

In The Matrix, Morpheus gives Neo/Mr Anderson a choice of 2 pills - a red pill and a blue pill. One of these pills will allow Neo/Mr Anderson to forget everything he's learnt, and return back to his normal life -i.e. to continue living as Mr Anderson, the person he believes he has always been. The other pill allows him to remain in the Matrix as Neo - and learn all of the truths - the full truth - no matter how horrible it is. I've found myself often thinking of this scenario

Transcription from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A02Ucd6monY One of the most surprising but powerful explanations for why we may, as adults, be in trouble mentally, is that we were in our earliest years, denied the opportunity to be fully ourselves, that is, we were not allowed to be willful and difficult. We could not be as demanding, aggressive, intolerant and unrestrictedly selfish as we needed to be. Because our caregivers were preoccupied or fragile, we had to be pre

First section is the original 'Bad Thing' written on 3rd December 2023 I need to learn that I can do the bad thing, and 'get away with it'. I can do the bad thing, and I won't be hated, or disliked, or punished for it. Or that if I am hated, or disliked, or punished for it, that's ok. That's survivable. It won't destroy me. I've always done the good things, because that means they will love me, they won't reject me. But it wasn't me they loved - not really. It was the other m

The process of dissecting / splitting / breaking down the false self is full of risks. In fact, it can be fatal. One outcome of beginning to break down the false self is - what is left behind? Who, actually, am I? I've lived within this false self for so, so long, so many years. I've worn this costume for so long, I can't remember, I don't know, who the real me is. Self-alienation - Being an alien (unknown) to oneself A consequence of dismantling my false self, of realising t

All excerpts taken from the audio version of The Drama of the Gifted Child, Alice Miller, which can be found on YouTube This excerpt begins at approximately 39:54; I constantly feel that the demands are too great, but I cannot change that, I must always achieve MORE than others. ... Accommodation to parental needs often (but not always) leads to the as-if personality, to a FALSE self. This person develops in such a way that he reveals only what is expected of him, and fuses s

All excerpts taken from the audio version of The Drama of the Gifted Child, Alice Miller, which can be found on YouTube This excerpt begins at approximately 28:21 Apart from these extreme cases, there are a large number of people who suffer from narcissistic disorders who often had sensitive and caring parents, from whom they received much encouragement. Yet these people are suffering from severe depressions. They enter analysis in the belief, with which they grew up, that th

There's at least 2 of me. We talk about there being 2 sides to a person, 2 sides to every story. But this goes much deeper than merely sides. There are 2 quite distinct, quite different people living within this frame. There's the one you may know. He's the confident, funny, outgoing one. He can be pretty opinionated, rather loud, and is never short of a word to say. He's the one who confidently leads a team of 4 people at his work - one of them much his senior. The one who t