Recoup

[LoisB]

I don't get the sense that you want them to be unhappy in an unkind way. What MLC causes many of us to do is to doubt everything about ourselves. MLC behaviour is emotionally abusive because it belittles, trivialises and puts down the person who until that time had been the centre of the MLCer's life

It is cruel: all abandonment is cruel because it strikes at the heart of our security and sense of self.

How could a person who does that and a person who encourages it form a healthy and happy relationship?

I believe that woven into our mental DNA is a sense of story, a sense of justice, and a sense of the rightness of things triumphing.

It isn't naive, or childish - it is human

We can talk all we wish about owning our own feelings, workng on ourselves, letting go, and so on. Great mental disciplne, and it does help us. I am not disagreeing with this, about the need to own our own feelings. But it doesn't help our inner story in the short term. That is what we have to gradually reshape - and initially a triumphant self needs to triumph over the villain.

When we no longer define them as the villain, but as sad and damging people who damage others, we have reshaped it.

I think the KEY to surviving this whole thing is right here ^^^^^

Our experience as the LBS is very, very, very different from the MLC-er. VERY.

For OUR survival, I think it's important to tap into that competitive part of yourself that refuses to give up. Find that most tenacious, competitive, determined part of yourself and stick to it like a fly to poop.

Redefine yourself in a way that you have always wanted. Dig deep for those dreams and visions and hopes you set aside over the years. RECLAIM those dreams and, slowly, you rise above what was. You begin to understand your own strength and awesomeness. Then, it really doesn't matter what ONE person said, did, or believed at one small point in history. BECAUSE YOU HAVE TRANSCENDED.