Leila,
First let me tell you how happy I am that you wrote to me. This must have taken some courage - you can pat yourself on the back for that.
I have been thinking about you, seeing you disappear for so long. I’ve been wondering whether I had been too harsh, telling you things that you were not ready to hear. For in my assessment of where you were at - and seeing your commitment to better yourself - having you turn back onto yourself and have a look at what you are actually doing, instead of being satisfied with seeing yourself as “kind, intelligent, cute” (or whatever you want to see there) in the mirror of others, was the next step in your journey.
Regarding your “walking over boundaries”, on the forum for example, your conscious intention was never in doubt: it was to help. So you were distressed when people reacted poorly to some of your actions, because you only wanted to help! You might ask yourself though, whether what you really wanted was rather to appear helpful. To be seen as helpful. And as such accepted, validated. So that you could see yourself in that mirror as someone valuable and precious. This drive to obtain validation fueled your participation on the forum from the start, and as you were not obtaining the validation you were looking for (an actualist forum is precisely not the place for that ), your participation became a bit ‘all over the place’, as you were trying everything to obtain this validation. In that process, you indeed happened to walk over people’s boundaries. But it’s not the slight disregard for people’s boundaries that is the issue, it’s this unexamined drive for validation.
Now you’re saying that you can’t feel good because there is this issue of what you think I or others on the forum think of you, or of what you think the neighbor thinks of you… In fact you’re saying you can’t feel good because you don’t feel validated (by I, others, or the neighbor)… or in your particular case because you don’t see yourself as a ‘good person’ in the mirror that I, others, and the neighbor seem to turn towards you (that this validation takes the form of being considered a ‘good person’ in your case - and not ‘successful’ or ‘brilliant’ or ‘beautiful’ or whatever - is to your merit btw). And surely, it must be the case that many unnamed others, in your life, have given or still give you that impression too. So at the root, your feeling good appears to depend on what you think people think of you, on the image of yourself you see in their eyes. I’m sure you’re seeing how unsatisfactory this is, or you wouldn’t have been interested in actualism, which is about unconditional happiness.
To be clear, feeling good does not depend upon what other people think of you, or upon anything at all. And you can see that if you dare to take a sincere look the next time you simply feel good, not because this or that happened or because of what this or that person said or appeared to think about you, but because at that moment you’re simply feeling good. Then you can start applying the method, and see what takes you away from that simple feeling good, moment after moment. It will probably be something to do with, again, what you think people think of you. Then you can wonder if it is not simply silly, to allow such thoughts to make you feel bad. And you may stop doing that, at that moment. And the next time it happens. Until you see how silly this all has been, what you’ve been doing all these years, and that need for validation finally drops. It’s that simple.
Again, I’m quite happy to see where you’re at, showing sincerity about your intention to go on with your journey. I’m confident this matter you’re struggling with can now be easily resolved.
And about the forum, everybody as well as I would be very happy to have you back, for your contribution has been missed.
Yours,
Geoffrey