People Rather Kill Themselves, others or both than Face the Fears of Being Alone and Feel the pain to Become Real

Dear HH,

Thank you for sharing and translating the beautiful song Erkläre mir die Liebe by Philipp Poisel into English.

Explain "love" to me

Like two dogs under the sky, heading towards the night.
So lost and so different.  Do you know, what you really want???
When will you catch me from this darkness?
Tell me, where you are!

Please explain life to me,
I don't know, how it works.

Like two foxes in the polar sea, constantly heading for the night.
I haven't slept for a long time
Do you know, what you actually need?

When will you catch me, in this hot snow of july?
Two times summer, and back

Please, explain life to me
cause I don't know how it works.

Tell me about love.
I have never seen it.

When will you catch me.
In the hot snow of July?
Two times Sommer and back.

Tell me about your Life.
i have never seen you like this.

Tell me about love.
I have lost before i ever had it.

It describes beautifully most people’s and once my condition. Lost and searching for love all in the wrong places.

Love is within. And the only way to experience true love -- we must resolve our own childhood repression -- and after that love that’s all, there is – understanding equals to love -- but the path to resolving our childhood repression is not an easy path, and most people don’t have the space, courage, and strength to take. So far I only know me and Alice Miller to really have taken this path.

It took me more than 40 years all alone and thanks to the the books and the website of Alice Miller as my enlightened witness to arrive at this place and here I’m all alone because I don’t know anyone else that is truly on this path and have arrived at this place of true love, peace, and freedom.

Alice Miller was the only one I know that arrived at this place and took her also more than 40 years because, she, like me, was alone most of her journey and had to battle many sociopaths/psychopaths, even her own son. I’m pretty sure he is a full blown sociopath with a sharp intellect knowing exactly what to say to fool everyone, make them feel sorry for him and manipulate people to join him in his emotional prison -- because if he was real -- I have no doubt we would have communicated with each other by now -- he has no courage to consciously feel the repressed emotions of the child he once was -- and liberate himself -- he is too afraid to be alone in his emotional prison -- just like this proclaimed psychologist from the Netherlands -- Liliane Rombout or Olane Roos – whatever she calls herself now.

I still can’t believe it that this woman contacted me acting all understanding and saying all the rights things to gain my trust, but the moment I let her in and let her read my manuscript, she wasted no time looking for something in it that she could grab on to turn on me and play mind games with me -- to try to regress me into the emotional prison of my childhood -- to try to discredit me and my book.

She never saw me in my book or heard me, she just saw her own projections and what she wanted to see to use as tools for manipulation. And then when she was not able to regress me at the time, she sits 4 years with her critique full with her own projections and changes her name before publishing her critique. She never predicted that I would figure out that Liliane Rombout and Olane Roos is one and the same.

I see clearly the games people play and I’m free from all people’s projections and I no longer allow anyone standing in symbolizing my childhood abusers to manipulate me to bring me back to the emotional prison of my childhood. Free at last!!!

Isn’t this a calculated move of a malignant narcissist or sociopath?!

Malignant narcissists and sociopaths in the mental health profession are the worst because they have mastered the art of manipulating people's repressed emotions to do exactly what they want -- they are the most deceiving and cause a lot of harm.

I guess she didn’t believe what I wrote in my book that I had consciously experienced and understood the repressed emotions of the child I once was within the context of my own childhood and no longer can they be used by sociopaths, psychopaths or malignant narcissists to grab on to use as reins to manipulate me and gain control over me to bring me back to an emotional prison.

I will still try to write to everyone that writes to me but from now on I will be very careful and not trust anyone that contacts me saying all the right things, because most likely -- they are not real -- it’s a lie. Just like Alice Miller wrote me in an e-mail: “I have learned over the years of my work on the internet that there are readers who SEEM to understand SOME of what I have written, at least intellectually, but they are still so afraid of their very cruel parents and of their repressed FEELINGS of rage towards them that they are constantly looking for scapegoats.

They thus live in a continual confusion pretending that they are healed and even offering help and empathy to others. But eventually they use unconsciously other people (even the ones who are quite friendly to them) as a poisonous container like their parents did to them, and if the offended people begin to defend themselves they can become very mean.

I can only urge you to trust your feelings and do NOT offer your empathy and interest to everybody just because they say they read and understood everything I have written. In most of the cases, it is a lie. To understand my books means to overcome the fear of one’s parents, to honestly feel the justified rage TOWARD THEM and to no longer use others to getting free from the accumulated rage.”

 Obviously Liliane Rombout or Olane Roos, she still scared of the repressed emotions of the child she once was at her own mean mother, otherwise, would not have looked on the internet for someone she could target to project herself into and use as her scapegoat.

She broke the camel’s back and from now on I just want to be left alone to enjoy for the rest of my life my freedom and peace. It was a long journey!

But eventually, I still want to write and publish “Reenactment” for those searching for the whole naked truth about the real face of humanity, it is ugly, very ugly!!! I ask myself many times: is anything real out there?!

Thanks to writing and publishing A Dance to Freedom I got to see how ugly it really is!!! I always felt and suspected it -- that it was very ugly, but thanks to my book I got to see it really close -- staring it in the face -- at a very close range -- it was dangerous to be that close to evil, and now I have no doubt humanity is evil -- cancer. And the more I come to the conclusion that very few people out there are capable of being real and authentic.

I understand your fear of sharing your authentic feelings with people around you. Becoming real and authentic is very risky because most likely people around us will turn on us -- as you witnessed in my case -- we have to be strong enough to stand alone on our own two feet because most likely people will ostracize us and we find ourselves alone. Most people are fake, acting as if personality, and feel threatened by real liberated people because real authentic people trigger their fears of exposure and they will gather all forces at their command to destroy you so they can go on, as usual, acting as if personality and sell to the masses their lies and illusions.

I have learned nothing scares people more than facing and feeling their own painful truths that they rather kill themselves, others or both than face the fears of being alone and feel the pain to become real.

Wishing courage and strength,

Sylvie

True Love Endures the Truth

Dear L,

Thank you for writing. It makes me teary eye to read your honest moving letter. Seeing people that have become completely real like you are very rare, and until now I only knew of Alice Miller. Before I forget, can I publish your very moving letters on my blog? Of course, I will publish them anonymously.

I am glad my written words helped you get in touch with your feelings and feel them. And that you were inspired afterward to write your blog “Giving children the truth”

Yes, true love endures the truth. It makes me so sad that so few mothers can gather the courage to become real, and tell their children the whole truth, but instead they work very hard to block the truth from themselves, and their children by trying to control and manipulate every situation of their children’s lives, and everyone else around them to protect themselves from having to face and feel their own fears. Without the truth, true healing and true love will never have a chance to develop and grow. I am sorry you lost all of your loved ones in order to become real with yourself and others. Me too I lost everyone I loved in my search for the truth. I still talk to most of my family members, if they want to talk to me and want my truth, but we are worlds apart and I don’t mean just physically, I mean emotionally. You are right you are giving them the chance to heal and develop real love by giving them the whole truth, that’s what I hope to do for my family too.  I am happy for you that in spite of being alone in the last years, you finally feel real love in your heart. Me too I am alone, but I never felt so much love and joy in my heart like I do now. I congratulate you for only wanting to live in the basis of truth and true love, even if that means being alone and never again compromise and leave your true self for lies and illusions no matter how seductive they might appear. We are alone but close to our authentic selves and free! And is the best feeling in the world ever!

At one time I too wanted to belong to a family, and I too was very lonely when I was a little girl and a teenager and suffered immensely for being ostracized in my family. You are right they cannot love because they are alienated from their authentic selves, and you could not be more right that being authentic and having inner freedom is not lonely, because once we have found our authentic selves we are never alone again, because we have the most important person in the world, ourselves! We belong first to ourselves and no one else!

Yes, it’s good to separate from the masses who blindly repeat with their children in one form or another their own suffering. Someone the other day posted on facebook the quote below. I get so tired of cult leaders posting disconnected half-truths that sound good to attract followers.

 "Let's raise children who won't have to recover from their childhood.” Pam Leo

The only way to do that is for people to face and resolve their own repression, otherwise, the unresolved repressed emotions of the parents will be transferred into their children overtly through abuse or covertly under the mask of the illusion of love. As long parents' childhood repression goes unresolved the compulsion to repeat will go on endless in one form or another.

Yes, it’s very sad that the mother on that article posted on facebook blamed herself to spare her parents for the deficits she suffered as a child when her mother could not love her and therefore her motherly instincts were killed and she repeated this traumatic experience with her own children. Yes, it’s very sad that they don’t want to see the truth and remain closed to this very important part of their emotional life and like you say closed leads to insensitivity towards children and the chain of abuse and neglect are not broken. It’s very sad to witness this that pretty much is everywhere I go.

Yes, you are right my motherly instincts were saved somehow and because I was so aware of children's needs and I knew in my heart I didn’t have what children need most: true love, freedom to grow, and stability, I didn't have than any of these things myself, I needed to get them first for myself, before I could ever have a child and there was no way I would have a child in captivity for others to use and exploit. I saved a child by not bringing it into this world just to suffer and I saved myself from severe suffering, and people resent me for not falling in their traps, they want me to suffer and have the same fate as them. I cried reading your words because for the first time someone really speaking honestly and not preaching to me for not falling into society’s traps.

You ask me how I deal with the attacks from the people, that because of stigma surrounding abortion feel free to use the hook of the abortion to make me their scapegoat or poisonous container to transfer the repressed hate of the child they once were at their parents into me for being born, because unconsciously want others to suffer like them and have the same fate as them. It’s never easy to deal with people’s attacks, even if I understand of how transference and projections work. It always reminds me of the suffering of the little girl I once was, when I used to live with my family, that all used me as their scapegoat or poisonous container to temporally alleviate their own fears and anger. I am getting better every day at moving through people’s projected feelings into me and give them back their projected feelings, but I question myself every day if my book sales, and if the whole world starts to make me their scapegoat or poisonous container, will I be able to handle it? I hope so because what I mostly want to do with my book is to bring Alice Miller’s books to the masses and reach people like me that want the truth and feel all alone like I once use to and expose the liars and psychopaths of the world.

Yes, I have no doubt Alice Miller’s life was shortened, because so many psychopaths exploited her to make a name for themselves and use her as a scapegoat or poisonous container. And what sadness me the most right now, is that psychopaths like BR, DM and others like them that are exploiting her son’s anger at her to make a name for themselves and use Alice Miller as their scapegoat or poisonous container, just like a psychiatric doctor exploited my anger at my family when I was 17 to sexually abused me to feed his sexual deviance.

Also gives me a sense of wonder in me and a feeling of harmony to know there is one more person out there who has become authentic, honest, sincere and sensitive. And thank you for being here too. To me too Alice was a life savior, her courage was astonishing and out of this world. Me too I would have loved to thank her in person, but I am happy that at least had the honor to thank her before she left by e-mail and we exchanged many e-mails that I will treasure forever.

Thank you to you too for your kind, honest, sincere and sensitive words.

Best wishes to you too,

Sylvie

Open Letter to Cristiano Ronaldo

Dear Mr. Ronaldo,

I’m extremely dyslexic and writing is one of the hardest things for me to do in life.  I can’t afford to pay an editor at the moment to edit my writings, so I apologize if you have difficulty understanding my letter. 

To tell you the truth I have given up on humanity. I think humanity has passed the point of no return.

But I feel compelled to reach out to you.

These words by Leo Tolstoy could not be truer: “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” This is the problem with our society. No one wants to look in the mirror and face themselves. 

If you like to take the attention from yourself and put it on someone else that should be held by Portuguese society to a higher standard than athletes. 

Ask all the talking heads on TV -- why are they protecting Dr. Julio Macchado Vaz with a wall of silence? 

I have been trying to tell my story since the year 2000, I went to Portugal and contacted the media there to go public with my story and I even tried to contact a lawyer there to sue this doctor for malpractice, not because I wanted money, but to expose the harm done by the so-called professionals/experts that are "supposedly" to help the public, but no one got back to me, so I came back to America and started thinking about writing a book to tell my story, share my life experiences, and psychological discoveries. I published my book  A Dance to Freedom: Your Guide to Liberation from Lies and Illusion in 2014 -- and I hope you read it. 

Just like here in an America that was an open secret in Hollywood of Bill Cosby's problems with women. 

I know without a doubt that there is also an open secret in Portugal of this doctor having sex with his patients. 

They don't pay attention to my story, because my story is a connected story and I own it, so they feel threatened by my story. Owned and connected stories like mine need to be told, but sadly most people in the media are only interested in disowned and disconnected stories of victims without resolution they can exploit for pure sensationalism, they are like vultures looking for dead bodies. 

And they feel threatened by owned and connected stories like mine, because stories like mine, makes people look in the mirror to question themselves, their own parents and people in power position standing in symbolizing their parents. AND WHO WANTS TO DO THAT?! Most people are still scared little children afraid of being punished if they dare to speak the naked truth and expose the real state of affairs.

This quote by Alice Miller that I included in my book A Dance to Freedom: Your Guide to Liberation from Lies and Illusions, page 76 -- it's so true: “To many people, it seems easier to take medication, to smoke, drink alcohol, preach, educate or treat others, and prepare wars than expose themselves to their own painful truth.”

I don’t know the details of what happened in the hotel in Las Vegas, only you and Ms. Mayorga know the real truth.  I read the whole article Her Name Is Kathryn The Woman Who Accuses Ronaldo of Rape by Spiegel online and there is no doubt that something happened.

I used to be a topless dancer for 18 years in a nightclub in Phoenix Arizona. And I met many young famous athletes, like you, and movie stars – suffering from the illusion that success, their talents, money, and fame alone would liberate them -- and  they felt  were superior to everyone else – suffering from grandiosity -- these words by Alice Miller could not be truer: "The grandiose person is never really free; first because he is excessively dependent on admiration from others, and second, because his self-respect is dependent on qualities, functions, and achievements that can suddenly fail." From the book The Drama of the Gifted Child: The search for the True Self  Page 36

All the other dancers were always totally star struck by rich and famous people like you -- and they all flocked to the rich and famous people's table – to me famous people are just like everyone else and I treat them the same --as everybody else -- I don't care how talented or how much money they have -- so most rich and famous people didn't spend much time talking with me and would move on to the other girls that give them the special treatment they thought they deserved.

The look of Ms. Kathryn Mayorga in the picture below, she is totally star struck by you!

Yes, a lot of young girls look at famous and rich guys like you as a path to freedom and salvation, because like you  -- they also suffer from the same illusions that money and fame alone is the path to freedom and salvation.

In 2012 I got into a debate with an ex-dancer from Israel that used to dance in New York City where she confessed to having sex for money with customers, she met at the club.

You can read more about this debate with the ex-dancer on my blog Comments and thoughts on the “Doll” Documentary” by Zohar Wagner that gives insight into these dangerous exploitative relationships.  

Most dancers would enter mutually into exploitative relationships -- men trying to exploit them sexually and the dancers try to get as much money out of them as they possibly could and they did not have boundaries or limits in what they did in order to get to the men’s money, so they were each other’s victims. 

But this doesn't mean it's okay to force yourself on them and not accept their no at any time -- if they change their mind -- and ask you to stop.

While growing up in Portugal I had many experiences with Portuguese boys that they didn't know what the word NO meant! I talk about it in my book -- that I hope you read -- a little bit about my experiences with many Portuguese boys that didn't know the meaning of the word NO.

I also shared in a comment in the article in the link below of an experience with Portuguese boys in the Summer of 1983 while I was in Paris. "..while I was in Paris, France one summer I was working in a restaurant and Portuguese people, that, “look like nice people”, came to eat and they invite me to go with them for coffee and me thinking -- for being with those from my own country --- it would be okay and safe, but when I was inside the car with them, they started to disrespect me and when they stopped at the traffic light I got out of the car really quickly. I am sure if I had not gotten out of the car I would have been raped by those Portuguese young people that looked like they were nice guys, that day I learn to avoid and be careful with Portuguese people because most of them have no respect for themselves and others. ..."
https://www.facebook.com/notes/sylvie-imelda-shene/its-still-a-mans-world/453280120451/

Even if Ms. Kathryn Mayorga accusations are not true. You are in the stage of the world and all eyes are on you! This can be an opportunity for you and your millions of followers to become real and open the path for all humanity to free themselves from lies and illusions.

Is not just dancers that get into these exploitative relationships. Everywhere I look I see people in this type of exploitative relationships and not in an equal partnership between adults.

I am pretty sure most people, if not all the people, around you, are around you, because, they just want to exploit you, stand in your head --  take ownership of your story -- and make as much money out of your story as they possibly can -- if you lost all of your money -- most, if not all around you would leave. 

I have been living in Arizona since 1985! And I didn't hear of you until my niece that lives in Portugal came to visit me in Arizona -- while she was here -- she mentioned to me that you paid a woman to have a child for you --- that gave me a small window right away to a troubled soul.

A seeing and a feeling man would never pay a woman to bring a child into the world to separate from the mother at birth. And a seeing and a feeling woman would not EVER agree to carry a pregnancy to term for money and give birth to a new being to give away after birth like a puppy or a kitten -- babies are not puppies or kittens ---  the trauma of separation from the mother is a hard trauma to heal and a seeing and a feeling man and woman would NEVER traumatize a baby like that.

I read a little bit of your history that you are, like me,  the product of an unwanted pregnancy --  this pain of being unwanted is hard to heal -- and we go through life feeling unwanted everywhere we go --  it took me more than 40 years to heal this trauma -- and everytime I'm rejected in the present moment -- it is still a painful reminder -- of the pain of being an unwanted and rejected child. 

I read your mother even thought about aborting you; you are unconsciously and compulsively reenacting your childhood traumas -- traumatizing yourself and others like you were traumatized when you were a defenseless little infant. 

You have been repressing this pain with the aid of football, money, and fame, but now with Ms.Mayorga accusation of rape -- she is triggering this pain to the surface and bringing you to your knees -- not to be brought closer to god like religion wants you to believe -- but to face your childhood repression and gain ownership of your own story and free yourself from the emotional prison you were born in. 

Your fans and the people around you don't care about you and how much you suffered as a child because they don't want to be reminded of their own painful childhoods. They are just interested that you win games for them, protect your image, so they can keep on going on, as usual, to exploit you to distract themselves from facing their own painful truths.

Like I wrote in my book A Dance to Freedom: Your Guide to Liberation from Lies and Illusions page 39 and 62: "It’s also important to realize that unresolved trauma will always catch up with us. “Merely forgetting early traumas and early neglect is no solution,” Alice Miller writes. Instead, we have to go back in time and deal with the true feelings we had as children. Only then can we free ourselves from overwhelming fear, shame, guilt, anger, and frustration. Getting to that point is a lot easier when you have someone who can help you understand how present events trigger repressed feelings. 

Alice Miller calls the type of person who can help an adult face their childhood traumas an enlightened — or knowing — witness. Ideally, parents should fulfill the role of helping witnesses while their children are still little —  ...but too many mothers and fathers are too traumatized themselves to provide the patience and loving support their children need. 

When most people grow up they unconsciously and compulsively reenact their own childhood traumas with people who have nothing to do with those painful scenarios, such as their own kids. 

Parents who have suffered are compelled to make sure that others suffer, too, and the cycle can go on for eternity. 

...Abused and otherwise traumatized children are forced to repress their true feelings unless they’re lucky enough to find someone to comfort them. 

But because enlightened witnesses (and even helping witnesses) aren’t always readily available, most of us develop what Alice Miller calls a false self — usually for the sake of our parents — only to pay for it later in life. 

In an article entitled “The Essential Role of an Enlightened Witness in Society,” Alice Miller writes that “it seems clear to me that information about abuse inflicted during childhood is recorded in our body cells as a sort of memory, linked to repressed anxiety. If, lacking the aid of an enlightened witness, these memories fail to break through to consciousness, they often compel the person to violent acts that reproduce the abuse suffered in childhood, which was repressed in order to survive. The aim is to avoid the fear of powerlessness before a cruel adult. This fear can be eluded momentarily by creating situations in which one plays the active role, the role of the powerful, towards a powerless person.” This is how the vicious cycle of parental abuse continues for generations. And in extreme cases, the repetition compulsion can lead to violent atrocities against humanity."

You have an opportunity here to resolve your childhood repression and become real and authentic.

It will require great courage and you might lose some money and many fans, but you will recover your soul -- and save your soul -- and your children's' souls -- our souls are our authentic feelings -- without our authentic feelings -- we become soulless -- like robots -- and  when we repress and deny our authentic feelings -- we will be endlessly driven by them compulsively and unconsciously -- to do to others -- what once was done to us -- when we were defenseless little infants.

Now you have a choice to become real or go back to live in denial -- falsing your true feelings for feelings you don't have --- acting as if personality -- and continue to live and die in an emotional prison -- like millions of people in our world.

While growing up in Portugal I always said to myself: the pain stops with me and I will never be like my abusers.

It took me almost all of my life to break free from the chains of repetition compulsion and this is my proudest achievement and it doesn't matter if society ever recognizes one's liberation to be the most important achievement in a person's life. I'm free at last.

Wishing you much courage and strength to break free from the chains of repetition compulsion.

Sincerely,

Sylvie Imelda Shene

Today 6-9-19 my sister shared this post of Cristiano Ronaldo on Facebook:

The only footballer in the world who doesn't have a tattoo to donate blood to children with cancer
Respect 👏👏

My comment on her post: The question is: Is he genuine or he does it just to create a good image for himself. Most random acts of kindness in our society are done just to manipulate public perception. Most people out there are acting as if personality pretending to be good people but are wolves in sheep's clothing -- learn to question everything -- I constantly witness people behind closed doors creating traps to trap the emotionally blind and then when people are looking rescue the people they just trapped so they look like heroes. Everywhere I look I see every well-orchestrated illusions.

Read my blog Experienced Knowledge about my experience with emotional harassment in the workplace.

Charlatans are so Annoying

M: Dearest Sylvie, I hope that your Holiday season was enjoyable. I have posted some links and definitions for Epiphany, since it's a word often misused and misunderstood.  I came to the conclusion that your book and our recent friendship have been my own Epiphany in 2014. I can hardly wait to sit down and share my latest news with you in a long email.  Thank you for being such a fantastic being! M

Sylvie: Dear M, thank you for your lovely message. I worked through the holidays, and as you could imagine, work was busy, and I am glad the holidays are over.

I am so glad my book and friendship have been helpful to you.

Sometimes I asked myself why I bothered working so hard to deliver my book/baby to the world, most people would rather have pretty seductive lies or half-disconnected truths articulated by charlatans that are more than happy to exploit them by telling them the pretty lies they like to hear than have the naked truth I expose in my book. Still, when I get a message like yours, I am reminded why: there are people out there who really want the naked truth and facts, and are desperate, like I once was, to hear it from someone else.

Talking about charlatans, do you know J B, the author of Sxxx Sxxxxxx? He is a charlatan from Canada. Someone told him about my book, and he reached out to me. He suggested that we exchange books and offered to write me a review. I sent him my book, and he sent me his. However, I could tell from his website that he was not real. Despite this, I gave him the chance anyway. I read two pages of his book and could tell he was full of BS, so I put it in the recycle bin, and, of course, I never heard from him.  There are so many charlatans out there pretending to be healed, preaching to others, that it is sickening. He probably thought I was another phony like him, and that is why he contacted me, but from reading my book, he saw I was real and not someone pretending like him. Phony people always promote each other but feel threatened by real people like me, and they will do their best to repress the work of real, honest people. Our world is full of phony people and psychopaths who promote each other and kiss each other’s asses.

It’s been a long day, and I have to get ready for bed. I hope you too had a good holiday season.

Talk more soon,  Sylvie

M: Blah, Blah, Blah... This is how I feel after reading the first phrases on his website.  When there are too many unnecessary words fluffing the expression of feelings in a text, I feel dizzy.  This guy probably loves hearing his own gymnastic, contorted brain preach his own truth.  Is he honest about being dishonest? You know the answer since you've thrown away his book. I've never heard about him since I've never searched for a quick fix or so-called soul-shaping gurus.  I don't need anyone to confirm or approve that I have a soul, and, as a matter of fact, a damn beautiful one!  Ironically, my greatest oppressor and lifetime soul terrorist, my father, gave me your book; the ultimate accessible Tool that helps me heal myself and understand my life story once and for all, so I can move forward.  Seriously, at this point in time, the last thing I need is an opportunistic and seductive dude's guidance to recruit my so-called ''lost soul''.  I'm not lost.  I'm hurting as hell, trying to free myself from this emotional prison as you wrote so well.  The only things I need in these crucial times are silence, space, peace, rest, respect, and “privacy". He probably found you attractive in all your beauty and light. He thought you'd fall for his BS like many women in search of some form of recognition, appreciation, attention, from a man representing their own fathers or husbands or boyfriends, or lovers, or...Don't worry about giving him the benefit of the doubt; it's part of your journey, and since you have nothing to lose but everything to gain, you will encounter each and every one of these charlatans. Go girl! Feed your fire with their books and keep spreading REAL SOUL HEALING FOOD.

Sylvie: Dear M, thank you for your kind and encouraging words.  I get a little discouraged sometimes by so many charlatans in this world and by the emotionally blind people who fall for their BS. And reading your words is a breath of fresh air.

"... and thought you'd fall for his BS like many women in search of some form of recognition, appreciation, attention, from a man representing their own fathers or husbands or boyfriends, or lovers," sooooooooo true!

M: The guy is a lawyer.  These people mastered the art of using powerful words to impress and befog the minds of vulnerable beings to make money.  And they do make good money.  Most of them lose their soul through the judicial system that claims to serve the Truth.  He probably found himself hollow after losing the romance he cared for.  These guys are dangerous because they manipulate women with their poetic wordings and fool any starved feminine soul out there.  I met a guy like him back in 2009 during a long trip to Florida.  No other man has written so many love letters, poems, and odes to my feminine beauty. He showered me with gifts, emails, phone calls, and pictures, but I saw through him, and soon enough, I figured he was another Beauty Stealer.  As long as I allowed him to access my heart and my vulnerable soul in search of a deep connection, he fed off me like a vulture and fueled his shallow existence with my presence.  When the time came to get really serious and act on his pretty words, he collapsed.  He needed me to feed his ego and give his existence a sense, but he couldn't create a genuine, authentic relationship day to day.  He was an empty shell with a mouth full of fluff.  The path to authenticity can be pretty challenging, as you know.

Sylvie: Yes, he used to be a lawyer, and I wish he had stayed a lawyer, because I am sure he was more authentic then than he is now. Now he is too invested in his illusions and enmeshed in the web he has woven for himself, making it nearly impossible to break free. He is probably going to die in this web and take many with him.

M: I always said that I have more respect for an asshole that fully acknowledges he's an asshole than an asshole who pretends he's a nice guy.  Authenticity can have many faces as long as it is real and transparent.  I have repeatedly found myself in situations with people who pretended to be something they weren't, and I always ended up having to set them straight.  Why do these so-called spirited gurus have so much influence? I understand your web concept, and I can see it clearly with my fresh eyes as I read his website. I really can't feel any attraction to his writing. It sounds like another sect in disguise to me.

Sylvie: Dear M, it’s so lovely to read your written words. I had posted our conversation about charlatans on my blog, of course, using people’s initials. I kept everyone anonymous, but some of his Facebook followers might know who I am referring to and start questioning his authenticity, trying to save themselves from his web. Now I have to add your last words to the blog! :-) The reason people fall for these gurus is that they are still emotionally blind by the repressed emotions of the child they once were, and their seductive words are like medication that makes people feel better temporarily and superficially.  

Comments from Facebook:

Georgina Emily King: I find all his posts really inspirational and not at all fake... am I missing something???

Sylvie Imelda Shene. He does a good talk, but has not done the real walk. He is one more charlatan in our world whose only inspiration he gives is to distract people from facing and feeling their own repression, by helping them feel better temporarily and superficially, like medication does, with his seductive words. The quote you shared by him the other day, I felt he was inspired to write it from reading my book, to make him sound authentic, but he is not. He is a big illusion. My eyes are wide open, and I recognize an illusion or a lie when I see it.

Georgina Emily King I've been digesting what you said above.... are you happy to discuss this here openly? As it's about someone else?

Sylvie Imelda Shene I have discussed everything I had to say about him in my blog about charlatans and in my comment to you above, but if you have more questions, you are welcome to ask them in a private message or here as long you keep him anonymous by just using initials; the reason is not that I want to protect him, because he is a public figure, so he is open for criticisms from the public, but because I don’t want to deal with the backlash from his followers. People who fall for charismatic charlatans are still little children looking for a father/mother figure. These charlatans become their substitute father/mother, and like little children who cannot afford to see the truth about their parents, because they are dependent on them, they will deny the truth and defend the parents by attacking those who dare to speak the truth about their supposedly “loving” parents, so their followers will do the same. They can get very nasty to anyone who dares to remove the mask or the pretty veils of their gurus, standing in as their substitute mother/father figure, exploiting them just like their own parents once did. The only shaping this guy is doing is trying to shape his bank account by selling his BS and illusions to those still emotionally blind by the repressed emotions of the child they once were.

I was looking for a quote, and I found one that I think relates here: cult leaders and charlatans use similar clichés to attract followers, just as politicians use them to win votes. "There is a good deal else that would not exist without 'poisonous pedagogy." It would be inconceivable, for example, for politicians mouthing empty cliches to attain the highest positions of power by democratic means. But since voters, who as children would normally have been capable of seeing through these clichés with the aid of their feelings, were specifically forbidden to do so in their early years, they lose this ability as adults. The capacity to experience the strong feelings of childhood and puberty (which are so often stifled by child-rearing methods, beatings, or even drugs) could provide the individual with an important means of orientation with which he or she could easily determine whether politicians are speaking from genuine experience or are merely parroting time-worn platitudes for the sake of manipulating voters. Our whole system of raising and educating children provides the power-hungry with a ready-made railway network they can use to reach the destination of their choice. They need only push the buttons that parents and educators have already installed. Alice Miller, “Thou Shalt Not Be Aware” p.20, also cited in “Concerning Forgiveness: The Liberating Experience of Painful Truth.”

Swords and Knives: A Review of Alice Miller’s The Body Never Lies: The Lingering Effects of Cruel Parenting

 Swords and Knives: A Review of Alice Miller’s The Body Never Lies: The Lingering Effects of Cruel Parenting

A Review by Stephen Khamsi

There is an unwritten law, and unacknowledged commandment, that adults may exploit children in extreme ways and in accordance with their needs and neuroses. There is, moreover, a social taboo against recognizing any of this. Parents are protected while children are sacrificed.

Tragically, much of psychology is comprised of nonsense and noise . . . rats, statistics, medications. So we are fortunate to receive the rare and exceptional work of Alice Miller. Her most recent volume, The Body Never Lies, continues one of psychology’s most important collections. Previous volumes include The Drama of the Gifted Child, Thou Shall Not be Aware, and For Your Own Good, among many others.

Dr. Miller’s chief concern has always been childhood suffering, its denial, and the lasting effects on individuals and on societies. Her current book continues this thread and focuses on the denial of real emotions, the tension between what we really feel and what we “should” feel—and the enduring effects these have on the body. Real feelings are direct and visceral, and real feelings conflict with morality. The author’s hope is to reduce personal suffering, isolation, and tragedy.

Our bodies, according to Miller, keep an exact record of everything we experience. Literally—in our cells. Our unconscious minds, moreover, register our complete biography. If emotional nourishment was absent during childhood, for example, our bodies will forever crave it.

“Negative” emotions, to take another corporal example, are important signals emitted by the body. If ignored, the body will emit new and stronger signs and signals in an attempt to make itself heard. Eventually, there is a rebellion. At this point, illness often results. The body is tenacious as it fights our denial of reality.

Dr. Miller was moved to write this book after she heard about a mother who deliberately used pharmaceuticals to provoke illnesses in her children, which ultimately resulted in death. This condition is known by the psychiatric community as Factitious Disorder by Proxy (FDP), and is more widely known as Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MBP). Most commonly, MBP is a pattern in which caretakers (usually mothers) deliberately induce physical problems in their preschool children, present their ailing offspring for medical attention, and then deny knowing anything about the cause of the child’s malady. This is, of course, a most egregious example of an all-too-common betrayal.

Betrayal? We all know that child abuse and child neglect are pervasive and destructive. And we know that violence toward children may be stored within them and that, later in life, they may turn the violence on themselves . . . resulting in depression, drug addiction, illness, suicide, or some other form of early death. “When life begins with needles and pins,” so goes the Tears for Fears song, “it ends with swords and knives.” Sometimes swords and knives are directed at other people—sometimes at whole nations.

In The Body Never Lies, Miller pays particular attention to the Bible’s Fourth Commandment. This is the edict that one must honor one’s parents, no matter their conduct. For thousands of years, this commandment—in concert with our personal denial of early maltreatment—has led us toward repression, emotional detachment, illness, and suicide. This Commandment, notes Miller, is a species of morality “that consigns our genuine feelings and our own personal truth to an unmarked grave.” While many of the Ten Commandments remain valid, the Fourth Commandment is diametrically opposed to the laws of psychology.

To illustrate her ideas, Miller provides brief portrayals of Fyodor Dostoevsky, Anton Chekhov, Franz Kafka, Friedrich Nietzche, Friedrich von Schiller, Virginia Woolf, Arthur Rimbaud, Yukio Mishima, Marcel Proust, James Joyce, Saddam Hussein, and Adolf Hitler. What do these writers, dictators, serial killers, and others have in common? They all followed the Fourth Commandment. They honored their parents, even though and even while their parents did them harm. Each individual sacrificed their truth in the unanswered hope that they would be loved, and almost all died in denial and isolation, tragically unable to admit to their own personal truths. These lives and these stories lend credence to Miller’s argument that moral laws lead to repression and to emotional detachment.

And what about these unlived emotions? Emotions have a basis in reality. And the “negative emotions” are reactions to neglect, abuse, or a lack of nourishing communication. They are important signals emitted by the body in an attempt to be heard. The banished emotions reassert themselves. Real needs and real feelings make their return to the body.

Sadly, many of us were unloved, neglected, and abused. The remedy? While there are no simple answers, we do know that the body is healed when one admits to personal truths and to real feelings. But how do we admit to such truths and to such feelings? We need to feel our pain and our powerlessness so that we can, paradoxically, become less pained and more powerful. We need to admit to our “negative emotions” and change them into meaningful feelings. And we need to see through poisonous pedagogy in order to embrace and to embody integrity, awareness, responsibility and loyalty to oneself. Our greatest personal task is to learn the difference between love and attachment . . . to extend our love when it’s right, but to break off attachments when they are destructive. Our greatest therapeutic task is to locate an enlightened witness—a mature and helpful individual—who can be fully present without judging. The latter is indispensable in the process of psychological integration and personal liberation.

Techniques generally fail. The attempt to convert “negative emotions” into “positive emotions” fails, according to Miller, because these are manipulations that reinforce denial, rather than lead to honest confrontations with one’s authentic emotions. And forgiveness, she suggests, rarely has a healing effect. One may rightly forgive their parents if the parents truly realize what they’ve done, and when they honestly apologize for the pain they’ve caused. Otherwise, preaching forgiveness is hypocritical, futile, and actively harmful. The body, after all, doesn’t understand moral precepts.

Still, Miller retains a hopeful view of the future. Society at present always sides with the parents, but individual bodies fight against lies. It’s possible that our collective body may rise up and lead to a future society built on conscious awareness. First, though, we must jettison our “fundamentalist faith” in genetics and, I would add, pharmaceutical “miracles.” With the help of a witness, each damaged individual may advance through infantile fears and can reject the illusion that one’s parents will save them. When we finally feel our real truths of being unloved, neglected, and beaten; when we internally separate from our parents and caretakers; when we eventually experience love for the worthy child we once were—only then can our bodies really rest, and only then can we get on with the important business of real life.

 Stephen Khamsi, Ph.D., is a psychotherapist in private practice in San Francisco.

This article appeared in the Summer 2005 IPA Newsletter.