Hi HARRIET,
Wednesday March 13 1996 23:32, HARRIET LEVY wrote to BILLY O:
 HL> There's a woman in my home group who is like that.  She goes
 HL> to such lengths to be controlling in that meeting, that I
 HL> want to scream at her to shut up.  One day I realized that
 HL> my wanting to shut her up
 HL> was exactly the same thing that she was doing.  I wanted to
 HL> control the meeting too....just that she was more blatant
 HL> about it.  Gave me a whole lot of compassion to realize
 HL> that.  Now she no longer irritates me...no, that's not
 HL> true...but she doesn't irritate me as much.  Whenever she
 HL> starts up, I can say to myself, "there she goes again..."
 HL> and then be amused at my own reaction.
Yes, recognising *why* you feel a reaction is halway to dealing with the 
reaction. My MIL used to drive me mad with her bigotted comments on people's 
race, religion, diet or whatever. It was when I realised that I was taking 
what she said as personal criticism of my beliefs, rather than the very 
generalised view she held of the whole world other than herself, that I was 
able to detach and simply feel a bit sad that she needed/needs such 
self-justification to survive emotionally.
Phew... sorry for the length of that sentence! :-)
 HL> These days that's pretty much where I am.  Trying to figure
 HL> out how to be more comfortable with me...instead of focusing
 HL> on what I can do to make myself more acceptable (which I'm
 HL> really f*cking tired of doing).
Agreed!
 HL>> story.  I feel like a swan born into a family of ducks.
Hah! I feel like a duck in a family of swans. :-)
Pat
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