Thank you, Eric, I recognize what you say about intimicy. For me this has also always been an issue, as is the issue of trust, especially trusting authority. This may be connected to my making a point of the disagreement I have with Gary over the position of parents in my life. Why do I want Gary to agree with me? I think it is because I want my experiences to be validated by him, and I want to be able to trust him. It is difficult for me to feel safe when his view on such a major issue as the role of parents seems flawed. I have been looking again at the spiritual partnership guidelines, and it has occurred to me that throughout the discussion my physical sensations were painful, especially in the chest area. On the telephone the other day, one of the members suggested I put my hand on the area where it hurt, and that helped a lot. So thank you for this suggestion. I feel I am still full of fear, because I am discussing a forbidden subject. I must admit that I have difficulty adhering to all the guidelines at the same time, they almost seem like a straightjacket within which I have to express myself, and I feel it can block me from speaking freely. So making my contribution s partly feels like I am transgressing the rules that Gary defined. Love to all, Jeroen

Hi Joanne, I will try to answer your question. Yes, in my opinion the teenager who was arrested for the bombings in Boston chose not to feel the pain he had been subjected to during his early childhood, or at least chose not to seek help when he noticed he had a violent impulse. No matter how terrible our childhood may have been, nothing can take away the guilt if someone chooses to act on his/her violent fantasies and hurt other people as a result. Once a person notices the strong impulse to want to be violent or to use violence against others, no matter for what reason or justification , this should be a warning that he/she needs to find help. But this prospect is terrifying for some, when there is no awareness that they have been subject to great cruelty during their childhood. It can seem completely justified to these people to hurt or even kill people for a ‘just’ cause if childhood injuries remain unnoticed when they are adults. It is difficult to not give in to the temptation to act out, if people are not aware of the real cause of our own violent impulse. The temptation to act destructively is hard to resist for those people, until they succeed in making the connection between their violent thoughts and real events in their own past. This is why I think it is so important to really feel, to become aware of the reality of our childhood experiences. It is a great shame, in my opinion, that our mental health care system does not provide sufficient help in this respect.

Thank you, Gail, for your comments. The reason I am here, the reason why I am became interested in Gary’s views in the first place, is to understand myself, and to find the real me. What I think is particularly valuable about Gary’s teachings, is that they provide a more structured, methodic way of becoming more aware of my feelings and intentions, and eventually to prevent my sub-consciousness from controlling me, owing to lack of understanding. Again, this is why acknowledging and feeling what happened to me during my childhood and adolescence is so important. I fully agree with you that “resistance to feeling is an indication to me that a frightened part of my personality is active.” What makes it all the more difficult to feel, is when certain feelings are taboo, when we are not supposed to feel them, for example feeling that our parents are not our biggest supporters, and that they are not the souls that are closest to us. And yet, this is what I am feeling, when I am honest to myself, and it is the complete opposite of what Gary is telling me to believe. It reminds of a discussion I saw on the Oprah Winfrey Show a couple of years ago, when a guest said: “All parents love their children,” to which Oprah replied: “This is simply not true.” I agree with Oprah, it is simply not true. This is why I distance myself from Gary’s view on this particular subject.
The souls that are closest to me are the souls that love me and accept me for who I am. That is a far cry from what my mother represented. To be my biggest supporter, I feel it would have been necessary for my mother to have loved me, to have helped me, and to have respected my integrity. None of which were the case. In fact my mother wanted me dead when I was very small, and at some deep level I have sensed that when I was very young. Obviously it damaged me, and it shaped my life.
I do believe however, that it is important to forgive, in the sense that it is destructive for yourself to keep on hating someone who hurt you in the past. One has to move on, which does not mean that you forget, or you downplay what the other person did to you. I can see now my mother is a very sick person with many unresolved issues in her childhood, which she projected on me as a child.
I agree with you that especially our family can trigger the most painful feelings in us that we can possibly experience. Being unwanted as a child is one such experience I am still trying to fully feel. You mention that your parents are the greatest teachers/supporters in your spiritual growth. Supporters? Not in my case. My parents were indifferent to my spiritual growth. I have been growing spiritually without their support. I agree with the view of the Dalai Lama, who said that we can learn a great deal about ourselves from our enemies. This is the most positive view I can take on my parent’s role in my personal and spiritual development. My mother was my greatest, not my greatest supporter.
I agree with you, that “uncomfortable and painful sensations in the body are messages from the soul as something that is significant for me to pay attention to, by feeling them as deeply and fully as I can.” I am learning to do this, but it is very difficult for me, because it is the exact opposite of what I have been taught by my parents: they basically taught me not to notice, not to feel. What would help me most is to talk to people who have had the same experiences as I had with my parents, so that we can support each other. I wonder if there is anyone in this community who regocnizes what I have discussed so far? Thank you again, Gail, your comments have been a great help to me.

Hi Gail, thank you for choosing to use your courage to share your thoughts with me. Indeed, painful patterns with regard to our reaction with family members still bring up strong feelings in me. These patterns have been a dominant factor to me for most of my life, indeed they shaped my life, and only now am I learning how to deal with them. You may remember I was the first speaker during the first APLC online session, when I talked being abused as a child. I understand that the purpose of the community board is to write what I am learning about myself, and to facilitate the creation of authentic power. I wanted to ask Gary about his view that our parents are our best supporters and that they are the souls that are closest to us during last Saturday’s live session, but unfortunately I did not get through. Maybe my comment does not fully qualify to be posted here, but I believe it needed to be said. If the administrator wishes to remove me from the board, I will accept this. I willingly took this risk when I posted my comment. I have asked Gary to respond, but unfortunately he did not. The reason why my post is so important to me, is that when I have to believe that my parents were my biggest supporters, I have to deny to myself that my parents were not, and it prevents me from feeling it, which in turn prevents me from becoming authentically empowered. Gary’s view is no exception. But in my experience, there are very many people who say they had a wonderful childhood and loving parents, but who in actual fact are denying the truth, because the truth is very painful, and because society does not back adults who were abused as children, let alone adults who dare to feel that they were. It may well be the case that Gary is one of these people. We are told by society that we should forgive our parents, and are medicated if we become depressed, instead of receiving understanding and recognition for what has been done to us by our own parents, and we are not encouraged to feel our justified anger and pain. This is why I believe Gary’s view that our parents are our greatest supporters is so detrimental and even dangerous, because it helps to cover up, in my opinion, the damage that was inflicted upon us by many of our parents, and it does not help us feeling what needs to be felt and experienced to become whole, to become authentically empowered. I want to add that I have great respect for Gary as a person. I am sure his intentions are sound, and that he is contributing greatly to the personal development of many of us. But this issue is too important for me not to mention, and not to get an answer to. I will lose trust in Gary’s message otherwise, which would mean I would no longer wish to be a member of this community. And yes, I added a link to my comment, because I believe it illustrates my point of view perfectly, and this can be of great value to other members to understand the dynamics of child abuse and its consequences when adults do not feel and do not recognize what was done to them as children.