Using our Triggers Productively

"Those children who are beaten will, in turn, give beatings, those who are intimidated will be intimidating, those who are humiliated will impose humiliation, and those whose souls are murdered will murder.

...Children who are lectured to, learn how to lecture; if they are admonished, they learn how to admonish; if scolded, they learn how to scold; if ridiculed, they learn how to ridicule; if humiliated, they learn how to humiliate; if their psyche is killed, they will learn how to kill--the only question is who will be killed: oneself, others, or both." -- Alice Miller above excerpt from Pedagogy Fills the Needs of Parents, Not of Children. From the book For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence by Alice Miller https://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/2011/01/pedagogy-fills-needs-of-parents-not-of.html?m=1

XB,

You tried to attack and humiliate your aunt and cousin in front of the family and because I didn’t go along with you, and I wrote the words below -- you got mad --and things after that spiraled out of control. 

This shows me you just want to be surrounded by YES people that go along and agree with you all the time! And you still don’t understand your emotions when they are triggered by present events and let yourself compulsively be driven by them.

I wrote: “I already know that! It's better to let go... one thing I have learned is that it's not worth it fighting over money! At the end of our journey where we go, we can't take our money with us anyway! What we leave behind someone else will get to use our money for good or bad and we will not have a saying by then!!! The reality is, as long your mother is alive, she's entitled to give her money to whoever she wants and we don't have to like it! Unless L is declared mentally insane, she can do with her money whatever she wants...”

I feel like all this time I spent with you has been wasted just like your mother’s money! Time to me has more value than money!

The aunt you hate so much is lost and stuck playing the same roles as your mother -- of the hero and victim -- and are one and the same -- so if your hate your aunt -- you also hate your mother, but your aunt is not responsible for your childhood traumas -- your mother and father are.

You have made your aunts your scapegoat your entire life. Maybe, I'm a little guilty that I have not tried to explain this to you more clearly before, that you were making your aunts and cousin your scapegoats.

If you were really smart you would walk away and let go of your mother and her money, and let all of them be. 

You are at crossroads and have to ask yourself what is more important to you -- your freedom or your mother’s money? If you choose to stay in your mother’s emotional prison to guard her money -- you stay stuck – and it can be very dangerous and destructive to you both.

You need to stay away from your mother for you to heal and be free. But that’s your choice and you are the one wasting your life and dying in an emotional prison like most people in our world. Money alone has never saved anyone! If you didn’t make your own money and needed your mother’s money to survive would be one thing but you don’t need her money and this addiction to money can be the destruction to both of you.

This is an opportunity for you to heal and liberate yourself.

Just like I wrote in my book on pages 129, 163, and 164:

“The key to effective therapy is learning how to use your present triggers productively. They can help us clarify, understand, and consciously feel our intense emotions within the context of our own childhoods without losing our adult consciousness. A good therapist can help us regain our adult consciousness if we lose it and encourage our autonomy, so we can deal with present issues from an adult perspective.

… Just remember this: If particular people or circumstances trigger excruciatingly intense feelings inside you, just keep telling yourself that these are the repressed feelings of the child you once were. Feelings don’t kill anyone no matter how intense they are. Only actions kill. So if you ride your intense feelings into shore, direct them at the real culprits who hurt you when you were a defenseless child and avoid taking any actions you may regret later, you’ll be free and no one will get hurt. As an autonomous adult, you do have some control over the people you let into your inner circle, and you may have to make some relationship adjustments as you do your emotional work. I took a lot of extra time to be with myself in solitude because most of the people in my life just didn’t understand what I was going through. When you’re trying to resolve your repression, being around unconscious people who are doing everything they can to avoid their own truths puts you at risk of relapsing into playing your old roles.”

I wish you the courage and strength to spend time alone in solitude to face your painful truths and feel your triggered emotions within the context of your own childhood.