Cold Diff. cont.

[MJontheMend]

Okay, that makes more sense. I don't know why I thought you had indicated that you were bulimic as an adult. I couldn't fit together the puzzle pieces of somebody being bulimic and happily married at the same time, or happily anything, I guess.

Although what's interesting is that I don't think you don't really work directly on being differentiated (I never really heard of that exact term for it until here); rather you work on yourself and becoming the person you want to be and owning your decisions - whether they are successful or not.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. Maybe too wholeheartedly. Sometimes I think my desire to not see myself as a victim actually is not a valuable trait. As in "I freely chose to walk through a dark alley at night so I guess I can't blame anybody but myself for the fact that I was assaulted." Of course, this is a protective mechanism because if everything bad that ever happens to me can be traced back to a poor decision I made and for which I took ownership then it might be possible that I could figure out how to make only good decisions and my world will be a perfect clockwork mechanism that pops out big yummy gumballs of happiness on a regular basis.

Someone else's action should not determine your response.

I sort of agree and sort of disagree with this line of thinking. I'm sort of stuck somewhere between agreeing with this or thinking that it is better to think along the lines of "Don't react. Do respond." The notion being that you "react" to poison ivy by getting a rash and scratching until you bleed but you "respond" to poison ivy by making a wise decision to avoid it or by purchasing some cortisone cream. Therefore, a "response" is always something that requires some thought or knowledge rather than just an emotional or physical feeling or desire. The reason I might disagree with the statement of the Dalai Lama is that to my mind its logical conclusion could be nihilism. I'm going to get a bit ridiculous here but, for instance, you could smile at me and say "Would you like some ice cream?" and I could choose to spit on the floor and mutter "Wallpaper. Zebra. Electricity." and my behavior/response would be in alignment with the statement. If I have a knee-jerk reaction then I am limited to only one possible response but if nothing in your action determines my response then the possibilities for my response are infinite and many of the possible responses will be nonsense. Therefore, I think it is better to consider that there are a number of rational responses to an action and it is only natural to want to choose the "best" response but how does one determine what that "best" response would be bearing in mind that relationships are based on communication and all communication is subject to white noise.