Saturday, December 30, 2023

Masterpiece of Comedy


Ahead of its time! 

The last line its so perfect! "It is symbolic of his struggle against reality" 

We can't have mental health without facing and feeling our painful truths... Sadly most people rather go insane and kill and be killed than face their own painful truths. 

Friday, December 29, 2023

Dangerous ‘No-Kill’ Shelter Policies Exposed! Learn How They Harm Animals

I have been saying for a very long time that many organizations that supposedly help and care for animals are part of the problem. These people call themselves experts in the care of animals and proclaim to love them and to know what’s best for them, but all they do is create the illusion of love for animals and under the disguise of helping and caring, covertly are part of cruelty to animals and they prolong their suffering. I lost complete faith in organizations like the Arizona Humane Society and many of the people who proclaim to love animals. I know they know where the people in trouble are that need help and assistance, but they put their blinds on and they just go rescue the animals when the people get in trouble and the law gets involved and the cameras are on, then they do what should have been done long ago to prevent cruelty and suffering, in this way, they look good in front of the public’s eyes and manipulate the public to donate money to their organizations, but really secretly don’t care about the animals or anyone else’s suffering. They don’t fool me anymore. 

I'm glad to see that are other people to see this also.

https://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/2011/01/arizona-humane-society-unconsciously.html

An article in The New Yorker by bestselling novelist Jonathan Franzen is lifting the veil on how “no-kill” policies at animal shelters—even those funded by taxpayer money—are causing cats and dogs to suffer. As Franzen explains in the article, many shelters prioritize “save rates” over spay rates. Shelters are focused on keeping animals out of their facilities and out of their statistics, even if it means that they suffer and die on the streets. Click here to learn more, and please share this important information with others who care about animals."

A long-serving animal-control officer described a system intensely pressured to keep animals moving through it. “No Kill sounds great,” the officer said. “But it’s a myth." 

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/01/01/how-the-no-kill-movement-betrays-its-name

How ‘No-Kill’ Policies Are Harming Animals

As Franzen explains in the article, many shelters prioritize “save rates” over spay rates. Facilities are focused on keeping animals out of their euthanasia statistics even if it means that they suffer and die on the streets. But many shelters aren’t doing nearly enough—if anything—to prevent animals from being born into a world already bursting at the seams with unwanted ones and ending up homeless in the first place.

Some facilities warehouse dogs for weeks, months, or even years and turn away other animals. Many refuse to accept cats altogether, condemning them to abandonment on the streets as “community” cats—a particularly egregious policy, given a new study revealing that cats allowed to roam outdoors terrorize, maim, and kill more than 2,000 species of animals.

These “slow-kill” policies leave the most vulnerable animals with nowhere to go, leading to abandoned dogs and cats not only reproducing and creating even more unwanted animals but also suffering and/or dying of starvation, traumatic injuries, disease, or abuse. Facilities with “no-kill” policies enjoy positive public relations—advertising “90% save rates” that are misleading at best and dishonest at worst—while open-admission shelters, which never turn away animals in need (and are therefore most in need of funding), are vilified.

“A long-serving animal-control officer, who asked not to be identified, described to me a system intensely pressured by No Kill to keep animals moving through it—dangerous dogs and frightened feral cats being placed with unsuspecting adopters, abusive or psychologically disturbed people being given animals without even a basic background check, because there aren’t enough good homes for all the animals. ‘No Kill sounds great,’ the officer said. ‘But it’s a myth.’”

—Jonathan Franzen

Shelters Should Keep Their Doors Open to All Animals in Need

Animal shelters are meant to serve as safe havens. There should be no waiting lists, no admission fees, and no excuses to keep animals out.

If your local shelter has harmful policies and turns away animals, please speak up and encourage humane, responsible “socially conscious sheltering.” The basic steps are simple: Document your experiences, gather support, and make your case. Your involvement could make a world of difference to the companion animals in your community who need you the most.

https://www.peta.org/blog/jonathan-franzen-no-kill-new-yorker/?utm_source=peta::e-mail&utm_medium=alert&utm_campaign=1223::acom::peta::e-mail::283730::dangerous-no-kill-shelter-policies-exposed::::no-kill-blog

 Shelters are under extreme pressure by laypeople who are opposed to euthanasia under virtually any circumstances and at any cost. They harass and vilify shelter workers who make the difficult but compassionate decision to euthanize some animals in order to keep their doors open to every animal in need.

In response, an alarming number of shelters—in some cases, even taxpayer-funded ones—are choosing to operate like exclusive clubs or boutiques instead of refuges for animals in need. When shelters make it difficult for people to surrender animals, closing their doors and refusing to help, they leave animals with nowhere to turn. Many are abandoned on the streets, where they starve and die in agony of untreated diseases or injuries. Others remain in the hands of people who don’t want them and who may mistreat, neglect, or even kill them.

https://www.peta.org/features/shelter-refusing-animals/?en_txn7=blog::jonathan-%20franzen

Lisa Lange is a senior vice-president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Last year, when I recorded a short video for peta, urging people to keep their cats indoors, I’d been surprised to learn that the group opposes both No Kill policies and trap-neuter-return. “We’re opposed to outdoor cats, period,” Lange told me, at her home in Pasadena. “T.N.R. isn’t ‘better than nothing’—it’s worse than nothing. It doesn’t reduce the number of homeless cats, but it does normalize the idea that cats should be outdoors, and it turns a blind eye to their suffering. We see it every day in the diseased faces and broken bodies of feral cats. There is a fate worse than death.”
Critics of Best Friends are unimpressed with its stories (“It’s a lot easier to raise money on Save Them All than Spay Them All,” Lisa Lange, of peta, said), but neither of the Battistas struck me as venal or phony. I got the impression, instead, of true belief—militantly pure in Judah, more nuanced in Francis. Although their politics are generally liberal, and although No Kill doesn’t preclude some euthanasia, the imperative to “save them all” is reminiscent of the anti-abortion movement’s faith-based insistence on saving every unborn life, regardless of the circumstances. In its simplicity, the imperative also recalls the nostrums of progressives: “Open the borders,” “Defund the police.” The allure of simple prescriptions derives from an aversion to hard choices, and to the truth of human carelessness and cruelty. Everyone wants to tell their children a happy story: If we take a homeless cat to a shelter, it’s sure to find a loving home.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/01/01/how-the-no-kill-movement-betrays-its-name
These words by Alice Miller on abortion come to mind: 
"
In disbelief, one asks oneself:  Is it possible that the people behind such actions really are so clueless?  Do they not know that no less than one hundred percent of all seriously abused children are unwanted?  Do they not know what that can lead to?  Do they not know that mistreatment is a parent’s way of taking revenge on the children they never wanted?  Shouldn’t the authorities do everything in their power, in the light of this information, to see to it that the only children who are born are wanted, planned for, and loved?  If they did, then we could put an end to the creation and continuation of evil in our world.  To force the role of a mother on a woman who does not wish to be a mother is an offense not just against her, but against the whole human community, because the child she brings into the world is likely to take criminal revenge for its birth, as do the many (mis)leaders threatening our lives.  All wars we ever had were the deeds of once unwanted, heinously mistreated children.  It is the right to lived life that we must protect wherever and whenever it is threatened. And it should never be sacrificed to an abstract idea.
 
Not everyone is capable of thinking in real, concrete terms.  Many seek refuge in religious beliefs.  In their weakness, they place their trust in “relics,” awaiting salvation at the hands of one stronger than themselves.  Anyone who claims to be a strong and knowledgeable authority for such people, and to be acting on their behalf, has the duty to be conscious of the appropriate facts.  If they aren’t, if they ignore or neglect that duty, claiming instead that their palpable lack of information and their abstract conceptions of “life” are sanctioned by God and practiced in the name of humanity, they are acting against life, by misusing the weakness and trust of the faithful and dangerously confusing them.  The injunction against abortion goes even further:  Consciously or unconsciously, it represents support for cruelty against children and active complicity in the creation of unwanted existences, existences that can easily become a liability for the community at large.
 
When I see the passion with which Catholic priests - men childless by choice - fight against abortion, I can’t help asking what it is that motivates them.  Is it a desire to prove that unlived life, as perhaps their own destinies suggest, is more important and more valuable than lived life?  Was that, perhaps, how the parents of those passionately committed to stopping abortion thought, though they expressed it in different ways?  Or is it a case of seeing to it that others share the same fate as oneself?  Both are possible.  Both are dangerous, when people are driven to blind and destructive actions by the dead hand of their own repression.
 
It is, in fact, not surprising to find that those who are both victims and apologist for the use of violence and severity against children are often those who most passionately proclaim their love of the unborn child, i.e., the kernel of life.  Abortion can, indeed, be seen as the most powerful symbol of the psychic annihilation and mutilation practiced since time immemorial on children.  But to combat this evil merely at the symbolic level deflects us from the reality we should not evade for a moment longer:  the reality of the abused and humiliated child, which, as a result of its disavowed and unresolved injuries, will insidiously become, either openly or aided by hypocrisy, a danger to society.
 
It is above all the children already born that have a right to life - a right to coexistence with adults in a world in which, with or without the help of the church, violence against children has been unequivocally outlawed.  Until such legislation exists, talk of “the right to life” remains not only a mockery of humanity but a contribution to its destruction." 
https://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/2011/01/protecting-life-after-birth.html
 

Tuesday, December 26, 2023

Two Forms of Mental Illness

"Two forms of mental illness: the profound psychopathology of political "leaders." And the delusional (and cowardly) psychiatrists--who claim that an individual has to be "on the couch" in order to be diagnosed."

Most psychologists and psychiatrics are nothing than scared little children afraid to speak the naked truth and are a bunch of cowards!

Sunday, December 10, 2023

I Bet You Think About Me (Taylor's Version)

This song by Taylor Swift brings to mind my EX, With this song she describes also beautifully my ex and me to a T. I didn't write a song about him but I wrote a book A Dance to Freedom: Your Guide to Liberation from Lies and Illusions...

https://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/2023/02/happy-valentines-day.html?m=1


3 a.m. and I'm still awake, I'll bet you're just fine
Fast asleep in your city that's better than mine
And the girl in your bed has a fine pedigree
And I'll bet your friends tell you she's better than me, huh
Well, I tried to fit in with your upper-crust circles
Yeah, they let me sit in back when we were in love
Oh, they sit around talkin' 'bout the meaning of life
And the book that just saved 'em that I hadn't heard of
But now that we're done and it's over
I bet you couldn't believe
When you realized I'm harder to forget than I was to leave
And I bet you think about me
You grew up in a silver-spoon, gated community
Glamorous, shiny, bright Beverly Hills
I was raised on a farm, no, it wasn't a mansion
Just livin' room dancin' and kitchen table bills
But you know what they say, you can't help who you fall for
And you and I fell like an early spring snow
But reality crept in, you said we're too different
You laughed at my dreams, rolled your eyes at my jokes
Mr. Superior Thinkin'
Do you have all the space that you need?
I don't have to be your shrink to know that you'll never be happy
And I bet you think about me
I bet you think about me
Yes, I bet you think about me
Oh, block it all out
The voices so loud sayin', "Why did you let her go?"
Does it make you feel sad
That the love that you're lookin' for
Is the love that you had?
Now you're out in the world, searchin' for your soul
Scared not to be hip, scared to get old
Chasing make-believe status, last time you felt free
Was when none of that shit mattered 'cause you were with me
But now that we're done, and it's over
I bet it's hard to believe
But it turned out I'm harder to forget than I was to leave
Then, yeah, I bet you think about me
I bet you think about me
Yes, I bet you think about me
I bet you think about me when you're out
At your cool indie music concerts every week
I bet you think about me in your house
With your organic shoes and your million-dollar couch
I bet you think about me when you say
"Oh my God, she's insane, she wrote a song about me"
I bet you think about me


Marty still is in his emotional prison regretting leaving me and has the illusion he could have made it work with me -- if he had stayed with me -- but the truth is -- without resolving his childhood repression -- he will never be happy -- alone or with anyone else.

Saturday, December 9, 2023

The #1 Emotion Driving a Narcissist’s Mean Streak

A defining feature of narcissism is the ability to create a false positive persona. We refer to it as the False Self, which arises from a narcissist’s inclination to live inside their own Alternate Reality. Most narcissists know it is in their vested interest to attempt to appear pleasant, supportive, and coordinated, so they can make attempts to appear more congenial than they really are. But the foundational elements of narcissism are so contrary to relational and personal maturity, that they cannot maintain the façade indefinitely. This is especially true when difficulties inevitably arise.

Beneath the surface of narcissism are all sorts of features that run counter to healthy relationship connections, so it is only a matter of time when the false positives will collapse and a mean streak will emerge. Narcissists are so self-absorbed that they cannot contain their proclivities toward harshness. Being fair-weather companions only, when trials or differences emerge so does their contentiousness. It’s what they do.

There are multiple emotions at the base of narcissism that fuel their meanness. Insecurity, fear, anger, and haughtiness come to mind. But the primary emotion that propels them into meanness is vengeance. Feeling entitled, narcissists see you as a potential giver of narcissistic supply. They want you to remind them of the many ways they are special and when you do not, there is a price to pay. Mere differences between you and the narcissist can be enough to trigger the notion: “You’ll be sorry for ever going up against me.”

It is essential for you to understand how the identifying ingredients of narcissism predispose these individuals to become mean and vengeful.

Keep in mind:

Their lack of empathy makes it easy for narcissists to dehumanize you. They care little about what you think or feel, and when you show yourself to be different, they have no willingness to consider your distinctions.

Their need for control leads them to think of you as a subordinate. You will never be their equal, so if you insinuate a desire for equal consideration, you will be “put in your place.”

The belief in their superiority excuses their ongoing condescension. Narcissists view you as an ill-informed, unenlightened menace who needs to remember who is in charge.

The narcissist’s fear of your independence results in their inclination to criticize. They have an agenda, a script that you are supposed to follow, and they will enforce that agenda when necessary.

Their chronic defensiveness creates a natural distrust toward you. They are mean because they assume negative motives from you.

A narcissist’s willingness to exploit causes them to see you only in terms of your utility. You are merely a tool to be used.

Their propensity toward keeping secrets puts them in an adversarial position against you. They want no one probing their personal initiatives and priorities.

Craving admiration, narcissists are naturally inclined to think of your desire for respect as a competing desire. Therefore, they feel justified in showing you dishonor. You are a detriment to their ego needs.

How to handle their vengeance

The very nature of narcissism sets up the potential for vengeance, which then sets up mean reactions. As far as the narcissist is concerned, you will never measure up. Criticism is justified. You can be replaced. Your differences will lead to a loss of favor. Their anger and contempt are your fault.

Naturally, when a mean narcissist seeks vengeance, you want to defend yourself, and you can get sucked into a “why-are-you-doing-this” discussion. But let’s acknowledge that such a reaction will not help your cause. Remember, before you ever showed up in the narcissist’s life, that person was already inclined toward meanness and vengeance. It’s built into their psyche.

That being the case, know who you are and how you wish to conduct your life. This becomes the foundation for your own relationship boundaries. Know that no one deserves to be treated with contempt and disdain, including you. Seek your own separate path. Apply consequences and stipulations where possible. Expose yourself to people who can and will accept you as you are.

Narcissists do not know how to relate to your humanity because they have never been able to come to terms with their own frailties and dysfunctions. While it is pitiable that they are so developmentally stunted, you need not become anyone’s doormat.

~Les Carter, Ph.D.


Tuesday, November 28, 2023

Narcissists and Empaths

Both narcissists and empaths suffered childhood trauma. The empaths use their pain and anger to help them grow more compassion for themselves and others, not wanting others to suffer like they once did, while the narcissists allow their pain and anger to drive them to take revenge on scapegoats. Vowing to put themselves first. 

Empaths were strong enough not to let the trauma destroy their soul. While narcissists lack the courage to face and consciously feel their pain and anger within the context of their own childhood, they are weak and a bunch of cowards. 

A narcissist demands that you give up everything, especially your soul, in order to be their nothing 

Saturday, November 18, 2023

What’s a dog breeder?

Anyone who uses dogs’ reproduction to make a profit is a breeder. Some may be small-time “backyard” operations, while others could be filthy industrial-sized puppy mills. Regardless of size, every breeder is responsible for exacerbating the overpopulation crisis.

In a time of extreme companion animal overpopulation, breeding dogs is always irresponsible and cruel. Dog breeders treat living individuals as commodities to be genetically manipulated for profit. In this industry, many dogs are kept in crates and cages, where they live alone, never experiencing the affection of a loving family.

How are dog breeders worsening the overpopulation crisis?

There’s no excuse for bringing more puppies into the world. More than 6 million animals end up homeless every year, and half of them must be euthanized because there simply aren’t enough proper homes for them. Every time a dog is bred, more dogs lose the opportunity to have a good life.

Few breeders require the puppies they sell to be spayed or neutered, so they can soon have litters of their own, further exacerbating the overpopulation crisis. Just one unaltered female dog and her offspring can produce 67,000 puppies in only six years.

Breeders don’t see dogs as individuals with personalities and specific needs—they just see dollar signs. When fleeting trends arise around particular breeds, such as the craze for huskies fueled by HBO’s Game of Thrones, dog breeders pump out dogs just to satisfy humans’ most recent whim. The pet trade encourages the public to view animals as impulse purchases, no different from fashion accessories or home decor, rather than as thinking, feeling beings who deserve love, respect, and a lifetime commitment.

Many other unwanted animals—who are abandoned but never make it into a shelter—suffer and die after being hit by cars or attacked by other animals, succumbing to disease or the elements, or enduring other awful fates.

Are dog breeders always bad news?

When millions of dogs must die every year because no one will adopt them, breeding a dog even once is unethical. Instead, guardians should be having their animal companions spayed or neutered.

Tuesday, November 7, 2023

Let go of the Reins of Control if You Want to Save Yourself

 I. has to understand that the old tactics she used with L to get money no longer work because C won't let that happen. 

I. has to let L and her money go. L doesn't care about her. L. and I. are at different ends of the same stick. There are Fxcked up people with money on one end and there are Fxcked people without money on the other end, but both are Fxcked up nevertheless, the only difference is one has money and the other doesn’t. 

Have no doubts if I. was better off financially instead of C. L would be at I's house running away from her daughter. For L, money, status symbols, and being around people with financial success is what is most important to her, no matter if they have a heart or not! 

If I. wants to save herself, she has to let L. and her money go and let go of the reins of control and leave everything behind. And start mourning all the things lost and what could have been but never was. 

Even if I. could get money from L. would just buy her more time. She has to face the inevitable and the sooner the better. 

Her health issues are caused by the pressure from all that she has been repressing all of her life and running from facing and feeling the painful truths in her life. 

The moment she lets go of the reins of control and lets everything go her health will improve. 

The words below by Alice Miller are so true. The body never lies, It sticks to the facts.

“Inability to face up to the suffering undergone in childhood can be observed both in the form of religious obedience and in cynicism, irony, and other forms of self-alienation frequently masquerading as philosophy or literature.  But ultimately the body will rebel. Even if it can be temporarily pacified with the help of drugs, nicotine, or medicine, it usually has the last word, because it is quicker to see through self-deception than the mind, particularly if the mind has been trained to function as an alienated self. We may ignore or deride the messages of the body, but its rebellion demands to be heeded because its language is the authentic expression of our true selves and of the strength of our vitality.” From the book “The Body Never Lies: The Lingering Effects of Hurtful Parenting” by Alice Miller

Another truthful quote by Alice Miller comes to mind: “Children who have been beaten, humiliated, and abused, and who find no witness to come to their aid often develop a grave syndrome in later life: they have no knowledge of their true feelings, fear them like the plague, and are therefore incapable of recognizing vital connections.” — Alice Miller

https://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/2022/05/swords-and-knives-review-of-alice.html

Unfortunately having children is how many people unconsciously deal with childhood traumas. That's how many people get to live long lives by making the vulnerable feel what they themselves can't feel. These words by Alice Miller come to mind: " Individuals who believe that they feel what they ought to feel and constantly do their best not to feel what they forbid themselves to feel will ultimately fall ill---unless, that is, they leave it to their children to pick up the check by projections onto them the emotions they cannot admit to themselves." 


Just like Alice Miller wrote in the introduction of her book The Body Never Lies “ As long as the children allow themselves to be used in this way, it is entirely possible to live to be one hundred without any awareness of one’s personal truth and without any illness ensuing from this protracted form of self-deception. A mother who is forced to realize that the deprivations imposed on her in her youth make it impossible for her to love a child of her own, however hard she may try, can certainly expect to be accused of immorality if she has the courage to put that truth into words. But I believe that it is precisely this explicit acceptance of her true feelings, independent of the claims of morality, that will enable her to give both herself and her children the honest and sincere kind of support they need most, and at the same time will allow her to free herself from the shackles of self-deception.” 

Maybe one of the secrets to living a long life is to be disconnected from one’s own truth and feelings, but it’s done at the expense of others and the next generations. When I was a kid I used to say to myself: the pain stops with me and I was willing to die than passing it into an innocent being. I much prefer resolving my own childhood repression to have a chance of living a long life than living a long life at the expense of others. 

These words by Alice Miller also come to mind: 

"Only unflinching realization of one’s own past reality, of what really happened can break through the chain of abuse. If I know and can feel what my parents did to me when I was totally defenseless, I no longer need victims to befog my awareness. I no longer need to reenact what happened to me with the help of innocent people because now I KNOW what happened. And if I want to live my life consciously, without exploiting others, then I must actively accept that knowledge.

A
m I saying that forgiveness for crimes done to a child is not only ineffective but actively harmful? Yes, that is precisely what I am saying. The body does not understand moral precepts. It fights against the denial of genuine emotions and for the admission of the truth to our conscious minds. This is something the child cannot afford to do, it has to deceive itself and turn a blind eye to the parents’ crimes in order to survive. Adults no longer need to do this, but if they do, the price they pay is high. Either they ruin their own health or they make others pay the price – their children, their patients, the people who work for them, etc."

 

Wednesday, October 25, 2023

Violence is an Illusion or a Trap

Violence is an Illusion or a trap and you will never find or maintain freedom through violence but it doesn't mean we give up working towards liberating ourselves and staying free. 

Most people's objective in life is not freedom for themselves and others. Most people's objective in life is to one day own their own slaves. They work very hard to get into positions of power over others so they can suppress others the same way they once were suppressed. Most people are unconscious and compulsively looking for scapegoats to take revenge for the wrongs done to them...

"Sadism is not an infectious disease that strikes a person all of a sudden. It has a long prehistory in childhood and always originates in the desperate fantasies of a child who is searching for a way out of a hopeless situation."
 http://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/2011/01/unlived-anger.html

Pretty much no matter where we live there is half of the people who try to suppress the other half to a degree, either with manipulation tactics or violence. 

People can be right about a lot of things but the moment they resort to violence to make a point or bring attention to their cause by killing innocent beings -- they lose the argument completely -- even if they were right at first in a lot of things. 

People and countries have the right to defend themselves when attacked, but they need to be careful not to let themselves be blinded by hatred and pain, they need to take all the precautions to protect the innocent on both sides. 

No one can liberate us but ourselves, so when people scream; Free Palestine or Free Britney Spears, they are just making a bunch of noise because no one can free Britney Spears from her emotional prison but herself. 

All of my life I have been surrounded by people trying to suppress me and it took me over 40 years to liberate myself. 

Since my personal liberation, I have been the target of three psychological warfare in the workplace but if I had resorted to violence to get justice I would not be here today! They want to bring me back into an emotional prison but a mind that is truly free can never be captured again, they can kill me, but my mind dies free!

The words below by John Lennon could not be truer. The sociopaths at my job of nine and half years were hoping I would react to their lies, mind games, and smear campaign and I would become violent in some form. The system is thirsty for blood, but I don't play their game.

"When it gets down to having to use violence, then you are playing the system's game. The establishment will irritate you - pull your beard, flick your face - to make you fight. Because once they've got you violent, then they know how to handle you. The only thing they don't know how to handle is non-violence and humor." John Lennon

"Children who are told the truth and are not brought up to tolerate lies and cruelty can develop as freely as a plant whose roots have not been attacked by pests (in our case, lies)" Alice Miller 

Lies are the fuel that creates wars. And religion is one of the biggest lies ever! 

“If you were born in Israel, you’d probably be Jewish. If you were born in Saudi Arabia, you’d probably be a Muslim.  If you were born in India, you’d be Hindu. But because you were born in North America, you’re probably a Christian.  Your faith is not inspired by some divine, constant truth, it’s simply geography.”

"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the politicians helpful."

Religion is an emotional prison that keeps people chained with invisible reins of guilt, shame, and fear. In different parts of the world the prison of religion has different names and gods and in some parts of the world some religions/prisons, might treat you a little better and give you the illusion you have freedom because it gives you longer reins and more room to roam, but still in prison nevertheless. I have removed the invisible reins of guilt, shame, and fear and broke free completely from the prison of religion.

The Roots of Violence are NOT Unknown

The misled brain and the banned emotions

The Facts:

1. The development of the human brain is use-dependent. The brain develops its structure in the first four years of life, depending on the experiences the environment offers the child. The brain of a child who has mostly loving experiences will develop differently from the brain of a child who has been treated cruelly.

2. Almost all children on our planet are beaten in the first years of their lives. They learn from the start violence, and this lesson is wired into their developing brains. No child is ever born violent. Violence is NOT genetic, it exists because beaten children use, in their adult lives, the lesson that their brains have learned.

3. As beaten children are not allowed to defend themselves, they must suppress their anger and rage against their parents who have humiliated them, killed their inborn empathy, and insulted their dignity. They will take out this rage later, as adults, on scapegoats, mostly on their own children. Deprived of empathy, some of them will direct their anger against themselves (in eating disorders, drug addiction, depression etc.), or against other adults (in wars, terrorism, delinquency etc.)
 
Questions and Answers:

Q: Parents beat their children without a second thought, to make them obedient. Nobody, except a very small minority, protests against this dangerous habit. Why is the logical sequence (from being a misled victim to becoming a misleading perpetrator) totally ignored world-wide? Why have even the Popes, responsible for the moral behaviour of many millions of believers, until now never informed them that beating children is a crime?

A: Because almost ALL of us were beaten, and we had to learn very early that these cruel acts were normal, harmless, and even good for us. Nobody ever told us that they were crimes against humanity. The wrong, immoral, and absurd lesson was wired into our developing brains, and this explains the emotional blindness governing our world.

Q: Can we free ourselves from the emotional blindness we developed in childhood?

A: We can - at least to some degree - liberate ourselves from this blindness by daring to feel our repressed emotions, including our fear and forbidden rage against our parents who had often scared us to death for periods of many years, which should have been the most beautiful years of our lives. We can't retrieve those years. But thanks to facing our truth we can transform ourselves from the children who still live in us full of fear and denial into responsible, well-informed adults who regained their empathy, so early stolen from them. By becoming feeling persons we can no longer deny that beating children is a criminal act that should be forbidden on the whole planet.

Conclusion:

Caring for the emotional needs of our children means more than giving them a happy childhood. It means to enable the brains of the future adults to function in a healthy, rational way, free from perversion and madness. Being forced to learn in childhood that hitting children is a blessing for them is a most absurd, confusing lesson, one with the most dangerous consequences: This lesson as such, together with being cut off from the true emotions, creates the roots of violence.  Alice Miller


Saturday, October 21, 2023

Asshole Factory

I agree with Bill Maher that going to college can be a total waste of time and money. 

"I wonder how the high colleges managed to produce so many high asses." Paracelsus

As long people's childhood repression goes unresolved -- 
they will be shackled into the chains of compulsion  repetition -- and it doesn't matter how well anyone articulates very nice ideas... The problem is not lack of knowledge and educated people, there are plenty of educated people with intellectual knowledge, the problem is an emotional blockage with the so-called “professionals” or “educated people” hiding behind their rationalizations and seductive theories to protect themselves from having to face and feel their own emotional pain.  It takes courage to see, face and feel our painful truths, intelligence alone is not enough; but it rather helps create seductive, rationalizations, theories, illusions, and lies. 

Alice Miller explains beautifully  in her book For Your Own Good: hidden cruelty in child-rearing and the roots of violence page 42 and 43: "Just as in the symbiosis of the "diaper stage," there is no separation here of subject and object. If the child learns to view corporal punishment as "a necessary measure" against "wrongdoers," then as an adult he will attempt to protect himself from punishment by being obedient and will not hesitate to cooperate with the penal system. In a totalitarian state, which is a mirror of his upbringing, this citizen can also carry out any form of torture or persecution without having a guilty conscience. His "will" is completely identical with that of the government.

Now that we have seen how easy it is for intellectuals in a dictatorship to be corrupted, it would be a vestige of aristocratic snobbery to think that only "the uneducated masses" are susceptible to propaganda. Both Hitler and Stalin had a surprisingly large number of enthusiastic followers among intellectuals. Our capacity to resist has nothing to do with our intelligence but with the degree of access to our true self. Indeed, intelligence is capable of innumerable rationalizations when it comes to the matter of adaptation. 

Educators have always known this and have exploited it for their own purposes, as the following proverb suggests: "The clever person gives in, the stupid one balks." For example, we read in a work on child raising by Grünwald (1899): "I have never yet found willfulness in an intellectually advanced or exceptionally gifted child" (quoted in Rutschky). Such a child can, in later life, exhibit extraordinary acuity in criticizing the ideologies of his opponents--and in puberty even the views by his own parents-- because in these cases his intellectual powers can function without impairment. Only within a group--such as one consisting of adherents of an ideology or a theoretical school--that represents the early family situation will this person on occasion still display a naïve submissiveness and uncritical attitude that completely believe his brilliance in other situations. Here, tragically, his early dependence upon tyrannical parents is preserved, a dependence that--in keeping with the program of "poisonous pedagogy"--goes undetected. This explains why Martin Heidegger, for example, who had no trouble in breaking with traditional philosophy and leaving behind the teachers of his adolescence, was not able to see the contradictions in Hitler's ideology that should have been obvious to someone of his intelligence. He responded to this ideology with an infantile fascination and devotion that brooked no criticism.”

Wednesday, October 11, 2023

Peter Hitchens Storms Out of Interview


Obviously, Peter Hitchens is stuck in childhood, pretending to be grown up, and can't have a real adult conversation or debate. Unfortunately, the world is full of people acting as if personalities pretending to be all grown up but are stuck in childhood, without realizing it, unconsciously and compulsively reenacting their childhood dramas.

Alex O'conner should read my book A Dance to Freedom: Your Guide to Liberation from Lies and Illusions and invite me to his podcast. It will be entertaining and enlightening. He should take the risk with me! I would not storm out of the interview! He would not regret it. 

Making drugs illegal causes more problems than solutions.

Mental illness is not caused by drugs but by the repressed emotions. People take drugs to self-medicate.

Tuesday, October 3, 2023

De Ultimate Question

Dear J,

Thanks for the link, but the question NOW is how we get human beings to face and consciously feel their repressed emotions – to move through their repressed emotions -- and free themselves from the emotional prison of their own childhood. 

As long as people’s emotions remain repressed they will be driven by them into compulsion repetition no matter how much we teach about the importance of respecting babies and children.

When people resolve childhood repression and are free from the emotional prison of their own childhood -- are incapable of exploiting anyone and the environment -- they will not hurt themselves or others and they will respect all beings, small and big. 

The conversation about the effects of childhood repression in our society needs to start happening in the stage of the world, sooner rather than laterif we want to save ourselves and humanity from falling off the cliff and committing mass suicide.  

Everyone is trying to change the world at the surface, especially so many people using the political machine and religion to manipulate the masses, making things worse in the long run, and no one wants to look at the root causes of how we got here?! Into this messed-up world! It’s very frustrating because trying to change the world at the surface, no matter what people do, the changes will always just be superficial and temporary. All I witness people doing is making a bunch of noise. 

That's why I wrote my book A Dance to Freedom: Your Guide to Liberation from Lies and Illusions to show people how I liberated myself and be a support to others that still are in the same place I once was. 

These words by Alice Miller that I quote in my book could not be truer:

“It is not true that evil, destructiveness,
and perversion inevitably form part of
human existence, no matter how often this
is maintained. But it is true that we are
daily producing more evil and, with it, an
ocean of suffering for millions that is
absolutely avoidable. When one day the
ignorance arising from childhood
repression is eliminated and humanity
has awakened, an end can be put to the
production of evil.”
— Alice Miller, Banished Knowledge, p. 143

Be kind to yourself and take good care,
Sylvie

Monday, October 2, 2023

Dark Truth

Emotion for a narcissist equates to fuel. They want to hear you getting irritated. They want to get you annoyed. They want your voice to rise and see the tears of frustration welling your eyes. When they see this, it makes them feel so powerful.

Narcissists are not what they pretend to be. They are what they hide.

Not everyone staring at you is admiring you. Some are amazed you survived the traps they set for you.

Don't be afraid of losing people. Be afraid of losing yourself by trying to please everyone around you.


The journey to healing begins with creating a safe place

You can't heal in the same environment that traumatized you or made you sick. This is because these environments are unsafe and triggering, and your wounds won't heal if they're not given the space to breathe and regenerate.
You will likely continue to be hurt unless you break the cycle and remove yourself from the situation or environment where you were hurt. It's not an easy road to healing or emotional freedom, even when you remove yourself from the situation.
One of the most difficult experiences in life is that unless you break the cycle and remove yourself from a situation or environment where you have been hurt, you will most likely continue to be hurt.

Turning the page is extremely difficult because it implies understanding and accepting that letting go of someone means that while they may have been a part of your history, they do not have to be a part of your destiny. Murakami once said, "Pain is unavoidable, but suffering is optional." And the longer you stay in a situation where you are the one who is getting hurt, the more difficult it is to heal and the more you suffer.
So, as Sartre, the existentialist philosopher, put it, life isn't just what others do to you; it's what you do with what others do to you. And the sooner you realize this, the sooner you can start healing. It's difficult to heal where you got sick.
The journey to healing begins with creating a safe place.
Also, healing or emotional freedom is not possible without knowing your history and where you have been.

For true healing to happen, we must have conscious access to our own personal truth.

“We cannot really love if we are forbidden to know our truth, the truth about our parents and caregivers as well as about ourselves. We can only try to behave as if we were loving, but this hypocritical behavior is the opposite of love. It is confusing and deceptive, and it produces much helpless rage in the deceived person. This rage must be repressed in the presence of the pretended “love,” especially if one is dependent, as a child is, on the person who is masquerading in this illusion of love.” Alice Miller (The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self) Page 23

“It is precisely because a child’s feelings are so strong that they cannot be repressed without serious consequences. The stronger a prisoner is, the thicker the prison walls have to be, and unfortunately, these walls also impede or completely prevent later emotional growth. “Alice Miller (The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self) Page 58

https://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/2016/02/quotes-from-book-drama-of-gifted-child.html


Friday, September 22, 2023

HR is Mine Field

I can testify to that! 


They have no problems lying right to your face.



Evil is born anew with every new generation

 


.Evil is born anew with every new generation. Humanity is insane and this insanity will end only when humanity is wiped off the face of the Earth. Maybe, that's why they are creating AI to wipe off most of humanity...

Humanity is unconsciously and compulsively shackled into the chains of compulsion repetition...

Human beings are great at creating illusions. And the sharper their intellect is, the bigger the illusions they create. When it comes to humanity, nothing ever is what it seems.

Alice Miller: You write: “My main point in the allegory is that by necessity none of us are passengers anymore. Everybody’s crew.” I agree with you. But to become aware of the fact that our obedience learned in childhood doesn’t allow us to think freely needs probably more than many hundred years. I am not sure if the tortured planet leaves us the necessary time to understand this fact, to protest against it, and to become a conscious, responsible member of the crew." 

https://www.alice-miller.com/en/we-all-are-the-crew/?fbclid=IwAR04jWsUkyyCUtJalCrzjI9ycxG6VsVOjLahwydjndeWa9UrazJ69CEhNI8

No one can ever accuse me of being an obedient child! Thank goodness I had the courage to rebel against the system from a young age.  

Adolf Hitler

 

Having formal education or not has nothing to do with being a conscious person. 

Adolf Hitler was emotionally blinded by the repressed emotions of the child he once was; just like the masses that followed him. 

Society has not changed since then, and people still are emotionally blinded by the repressed emotions of the child they once were to follow dangerously repressed leaders into an abyss. Humanity is doomed.

As long people's childhood repression goes unresolved -- they will be shackled into the chains of compulsion repetition -- and it doesn't matter how well anyone articulates very nice ideas... The problem is not lack of knowledge and educated people, there are plenty of educated people with intellectual knowledge, the problem is an emotional blockage with the so-called “professionals” or “educated people” hiding behind their rationalizations and seductive theories to protect themselves from having to face and feel their own emotional pain. It takes courage to see, face and feel our painful truths, intelligence alone is not enough; but it rather helps create seductive, rationalizations, theories, illusions, and lies. 

Alice Miller explains beautifully in her book For Your Own Good: hidden cruelty in child-rearing and the roots of violence page 42 and 43: "Just as in the symbiosis of the "diaper stage," there is no separation here of subject and object. If the child learns to view corporal punishment as "a necessary measure" against "wrongdoers," then as an adult he will attempt to protect himself from punishment by being obedient and will not hesitate to cooperate with the penal system. In a totalitarian state, which is a mirror of his upbringing, this citizen can also carry out any form of torture or persecution without having a guilty conscience. His "will" is completely identical with that of the government.

Now that we have seen how easy it is for intellectuals in a dictatorship to be corrupted, it would be a vestige of aristocratic snobbery to think that only "the uneducated masses" are susceptible to propaganda. Both Hitler and Stalin had a surprisingly large number of enthusiastic followers among intellectuals. Our capacity to resist has nothing to do with our intelligence but with the degree of access to our true self. Indeed, intelligence is capable of innumerable rationalizations when it comes to the matter of adaptation. Educators have always known this and have exploited it for their own purposes, as the following proverb suggests: "The clever person gives in, the stupid one balks." For example, we read in a work on child raising by Grünwald (1899): "I have never yet found willfulness in an intellectually advanced or exceptionally gifted child" (quoted in Rutschky). Such a child can, in later life, exhibit extraordinary acuity in criticizing the ideologies of his opponents--and in puberty even the views by his own parents-- because in these cases his intellectual powers can function without impairment. Only within a group--such as one consisting of adherents of an ideology or a theoretical school--that represents the early family situation will this person on occasion still display a naïve submissiveness and uncritical attitude that completely believe his brilliance in other situations. Here, tragically, his early dependence upon tyrannical parents is preserved, a dependence that--in keeping with the program of "poisonous pedagogy"--goes undetected. This explains why Martin Heidegger, for example, who had no trouble in breaking with traditional philosophy and leaving behind the teachers of his adolescence, was not able to see the contradictions in Hitler's ideology that should have been obvious to someone of his intelligence. He responded to this ideology with an infantile fascination and devotion that brooked no criticism.”

" . . . the anger felt by every individual person stems from the primary justified anger of the small child at the blows inflicted on it by the parents. The immediate expression of that anger is suppressed, but at a later stage this suppressed fury will be directed at innocent victims with uninhibited savagery." -- Alice Miller, "Free From Lies"

“If we hate hypocrisy, insincerity, and mendacity, then we grant ourselves the right to fight them wherever we can, or to withdraw from people who only trust in lies. But if we pretend that we are impervious to these things, then we are betraying ourselves.” Alice Miller  Free from Lies: Discovering Your True Needs page 55

“It is not true that evil, destructiveness,
and perversion inevitably form part of
human existence, no matter how often this
is maintained. But it is true that we are
daily producing more evil and, with it, an
ocean of suffering for millions that is
absolutely avoidable. When one day the
ignorance arising from childhood
repression is eliminated and humanity
has awakened, an end can be put to the
production of evil.”
— Alice Miller, Banished Knowledge, p. 143

The conversation about the effects of childhood repression in our society needs to start happening in the stage of the world, sooner rather than later, if we want to save ourselves and humanity from falling off the cliff and committing mass suicide. 


"The unconscious compulsion to revenge repressed injuries is more powerful than reason. That is the lesson that all tyrants teach us. One should not expect judiciousness from a mad person motivated by compulsive panic. One should, however, protect oneself from such a person." Alice Miller -- Breaking Down the Wall of Silence page 82

“Humiliations, spankings, and beatings, slaps in the face, betrayal, sexual exploitation, derision, neglect, etc. are all forms of mistreatment, because they injure the integrity and dignity of a child, even if their consequences are not visible right away. 

However, as adults, most abused children will suffer, and let others suffer, from these injuries. This dynamic of violence can deform some victims into hangmen who take revenge even on whole nations and become willing executors to dictators as unutterably appalling as Hitler and other cruel leaders.

Dictators and the dynamics of cruelty
Every dictator torments his people in the same way he was tormented as a child. The humiliations inflicted on these dictators in adult life had nothing like the same influence on their actions as the emotional experiences they went through in their early years. 

Those years are “formative” in the truest sense: in this period the brain records or “encodes” emotions without (usually) being able to recall them at will. 

As almost every dictator denies his sufferings (his former total helplessness in the face of brutality) there is no way that he can truly come to terms with them. 

Instead, he will have a limitless craving for scapegoats on whom he can avenge himself for the fears and anxieties of childhood without having to re-experience those fears."