What happened on Saturday meeting with my boos:

It was very brief. It would have only lasted 15 seconds if I hadn't found the need to say something. He talked to me with another manager present and what he said was simple.

Chef: I need to speak to you about what happened last week. I want you to know that I am not upset, I don't hold a grudge against you and I want you to know that I will not pick on you because of what happened. But I cannot have this happen again.

He was ready to call the meeting adjourned and then I felt the need to speak or say something. I hesitated a little and then I said.

Me: I just want you to know that if in a future event I feel the need to speak to you or have an observation I will do it like we are doing it now in private and in a civilized way.

He said OK, we shook hands and got back to work.

My impressions: I believe him, I don't think he is upset at me. I think he either realizes that there was some truth in how I acted and he was really being unfair or.... he realizes that I incorrectly believed he was being unfair but acted accordingly to such belief. Whatever conclusion he arrived to, I am kind of innocent to his eyes. Because it is apparent that I didn't do it to simply piss him off, then he does not feel the need to be pissed off right back at me.

I haven't seen him since and I don't think dealing with him will be a problem as long as I don't make it into one.

Claudio:

Thanks for the reply... the whole CS channeling makes a lot of sense and explains a lot of things. This is a big part of the puzzle I don't fully understand. I always wondered for example why or how a woman that has been the victim of an abusive relationship manages to find another one exactly the same. It is obvious to me that the guy has issues but to her this is completely invisible and yet she picks them as if she knew. I will try to remember and apply this observation to myself and everything else now and the future since this is very revealing.

I am glad you are working things out at your work. You see, CS attracts her to learn from abusive relationships and she follows. Once she learns enough from it she might lose interest in that and focus on other things. Eventually CS won't attract her to that and she won't be attracted to it either. Hope you also notice the coupling between CS and IUOCs regarding interests, desires, attractions, etc. It is common to have boyfriends/girlfriends that attract us from some aspects and later on have new relationships based on other aspects. It is good to notice it is not only about love but also about learning and attractions to what is needed to learn.

Claudio

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"Every moment can be as good as you want it to be."
"Experience is the ultimate teacher."

> http://soprano.com <

And I didn't think this thread was a good idea. I didn't want to be associated with arguing like this specifically. I learned a lot about me from what you learned about life from this thread MeClam, thank you for taking all the time to find and insert connections you made along the way. Yes, when my buttons are pushed and I feel the need to fight for "other" who I feel are thought about "badly", it is because I take it personally. It felt like you said whatever you said about being disappointed with the single mother about me because I am a single mother who came real close to not becoming educated; I started at 37. So I guess it is my ego that gets mad? My ego that has me say, BS, that's a damaging view being put out there (I think thoughts are things), and I know it is a damaging viewpoint because it hurt me when I heard it. Perhaps I am over-empathetic or something, I know that is a real issue in my daughter, she takes everything personally. I suppose I could be where she learned that way to be from.

So if it is my ego that gets activated when I hear something that I as a representative of the population I am hearing this something about find insulting, or even worse subtly dismissive of that "group", is it still wrong for me to stand up for that population just in order to help others be aware of what falls out of their mouths? Many time the person will say, "yes, I know how that sounds, but that is how I feel about it", and then that's all I can do. But those times when someone says, "no, I never thought about it that way, that is belittling" (or whatever), then it makes all the other times okay.

As far as people in abusive relationships, and then making a habit of those kinds of relationships, there are several scenarios, but most probably is that first the women has low self esteem which the male picks up on, the type that abuse women, because he knows he can manipulate her. How she got low self esteem is variable but once you have it it becomes a beacon for abusive others. She doesn't feel that she deserves better. She grabs onto the first person that shows an interest blindly like a religion. Until someone, even herself, shows love to her she will feel she deserves what she gets. It is simple to see if you know what to look for.
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

My introduction into the male/female relationship dance was via John Bradshaw.

The irony in this, is, my sister's late ex-husband introduced me to the material, and he committed suicide just a couple years later.

I read this person's Wiki, and the first thing that pops out is a feeling he thinks he was negatively affected by his father's "abandonment" since it seems to be a common thread to dysfunctionality in many cases. I find that ironic since if my father would have abandoned me it would have served my functionality better, in my opinion.

Perhaps your "ex"-brother-in-law's IUOC felt he was finished sharing the pieces of his puzzle with others that time around. I am sorry for the loss his leaving made, the void it left for those who loved him such as yourself.

The male and female relationship dance/game has always been viewed by me as a game. I know it's all a game, it's a series of test, after test, after test, and figuring out the rules to the games, life is.

I think we as a species have the male/female thing all mucked up. Perhaps we just need several thousand more reiterations experiencing each way to be before enough will "get it" and we (us boys and girls) can become symbiotic rather than symptomatic.
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

To be honest, I didn't read that Wiki at all. When I initially began the post, I had forgotten the name. I remember tentatively 'John' but what was solid in my memory was 'inner child' so that's what I Googled. I figured he made enough of an impact my search would prove successful.

I think it's mostly useless to second guess the past, even when sorting things out. The probabilities are too vast, IMHO.

That said, I've caught my self doing it, occasionally.

My answer will be in the case that you act (stand up) based on ego: (I will not answer about an ego-less action because I'm not sure I even know this)

As you know I entered this thread in reader mode to simply read and learn. At some point I decided to engage and write specifically to Claudio because I thought that what he was doing was wrong (I stood up). As you saw/read I had positive intentions. I tried to let him see the "reality" the best way I could and in the most respectful way possible. I wanted to help him see that he was being an arrogant/delusional/aggressive person towards you.

My "reality" turned up to be incorrect because as I realized later, it had been filtered by my ego. I was defending you in this thread where there was nothing to defend you from. It was an illusion I believed because it is simply more convenient for me to conclude to it, it makes me feel better to accept that things are in such way because it manages to avoid discomforts I don't want to see. It is better for me if things are like the "reality" I thought I saw, than the way it really is. I obviously do not like being wrong, I do not like to find out I am arrogant, selfish, ego-driven and delusional, but I ended being everything I was trying to let Claudio know about himself. The "reality" I was trying so hard for Claudio to see was not his truth but mine. Because of the presence of my ego, not only was I not able to help you (Bette) like I wanted, there was in reality nothing to help you from since that threat and those attacks were simply a fantasy I had created.

If I (stand up) triggered by my ego then the question changes to, how can my self made illusion/delusion/fantasy/mirage/myth/false belief possibly help anyone else?... I know now that what I had perceived as an injustice towards you was not even occurring in the first place. If I hadn't been hit by a little glimpse of "enlightenment" or in other words been prepared/ready to see the truth as it really was (not a very pretty view about myself, since I am the one that can be arrogant/delusional/aggressive) I would still be arguing and I would still be projecting the way I am or have been onto him (Claudio) in order to explain what was being witnessed here by me. I obviously thought of his actions as an injustice because I assumed that he was like me(big assumption). If I hadn't realize this truth, I would be referring people to this thread and using Claudio as proof of ultimate denial. I would still be mounted on my horse in disbelief and upset to see how with all of my explaining he would still not get it. In retrospect I was lucky that Claudio was not acting on ego and reacting to my accusations, else things would have gotten nowhere, or worse splattered everywhere.

I would have stood up against aggression (misconceived) to defend you but ultimately would have gotten no results because there were non to get. After a while I would have had no other choice but to resign arguing with him (Claudio) and settled by giving you simply the perceived comfort of company... weee!... I defended Bette!... weee!... I defended the dishwashers!

Non the less, If you/me act on ego I believe still some positive outcome can arise. You never know how the other person is going to perceive your actions and there is no way you can calculate this in advance. I think the price you/me pay by acting with ego is that the positive outcome becomes coincidental and out of your control and not intentional or as intended like you/me originally wanted and perhaps they way it can be achieved only with the absence of ego. If you act with ego like I have, you run the risk of finding yourself fighting in a battle that doesn't exist against an enemy that is not even fighting, the case with Claudio. If the other person does react based on ego then obviously Egos will clash, pieces will fly everywhere, it wont be a pretty site and things will get complicated. At the end any positiveness/truth will only be perceived by those who are looking for it and not too ego hurt and blinded so that this can't be allowed.

I think at the end, the answer to you question boils down to what has been said in this forum over and over... your intent. Do the best you can, do the best you know and things will come out ultimately for the best. I would say that the key part in (standing up) is to try to remember that you can always be wrong and allowing everything said to you in return the possibility of being correct... OMS.

All it ever happened here was a miscommunication and lack of explanation. The fact that I quickly decided to perceive this as an injustice, an arrogant act, an attack and so forth only speaks about myself and how I think of others and nothing about how things actually exist.

-----------------------UPDATED POST BELOW----------------------------

The proper way to address the apparent misunderstanding is to have taken the direction of treating it as such from the very beginning. But I didn't, I took sides and started throwing assumptions and accusations based on what I know about myself applying it and projecting it to Claudio. If you read Claudio's feedback given to me you can clearly see how at some point it became apparent and translucent to him that I was simply doing this. I think this is the point and the threshold where I had the opportunity to grow from this realization, or not and simply fall back denying it and staying the same way.

I think because that week I turned 34 I was looking at my accomplishments in life and got tired of seeing the same status-quo. This assumption of me always believing to be correct and being able to find a logical explanation for everything yet somehow when I see the life I have created for myself it does not reflect the life of someone who has figured things out. For once it became more important to me to see some real truth (whatever it was) than to allow illusions that could shelter me in a safe place. So I did, I took the risk, I followed the logical train of thought to wherever it needed to go and not to where it was convenient for me to take it. Things changed and the perception of what I had once thought of impossible suddenly became logical. Things flipped 180 degrees. I got a PM a few days later from Claudio explaining how this straight forwardness way of communicating is how in NPMR is done. I don't know how but I had already figure this out in advance based on my interactions with Claudio, it made sense, it was obvious (NPMR pure truth communication method flat/solid without BS/no ego). I think this is my first step of MBT to become my personal big toe and not Tom's book theory anymore. It is a tiny step, it is my own and it is encouraging. I am simply openly sharing this because perhaps someone can benefit from it... or not... perhaps someone can point another false assumption I have accidentally already made.

This is a link to Krishnamurti: The last talks. I think it would be an appropriate place for it.
http://www.youtube.com/user/seastarwatc ... HNX9KsgBfM

This is a link to his biography. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiddu_Krishnamurti

Lena

_________________
'Real knowledge is to know the extent of ones ignorance.' Confucius.