Secundum

Today I had my second therapy. fuit bonum. I told Candy now I finally understand what "open" means when people told me I have to be open in these therapy sessions. At first I thought, ya, open, no problem, I can open and talk, I am not going to hide. Sed nunc intellego. It's not open to talk, but open to accept what aren't right in me, what are different in me, and what required to be rectified. Etiam open to the methods of rectification, to change the way of thinking, even though the process can be slow because there are a lot of things in me are already there for long time.

One central thing came up was self-centred, pro hoc hunc gratias ago. I really thank someone for telling me this many times in the past. It caused me to think why he said that, what does it mean, and what's wrong in me. Honestly I never understood. When people said I am a self-centred person, I never understood and quickly jumped into denial because I truly thought I am not one of this kind. These few months I have been thinking about this more, and finally I guess I understand what this means.

It's true that I am always of such kind. I measure everything as they all revolve around me. When something happens, when there is conflict, all I ever think about are what's happening about and around me, how myself feel, how myself think, what should I do or not do, what can I do or cannot do. However it's not always about me - someone said this to me before as well, and I didn't understand, till now. The world contains more than me myself, and other people have feelings and thoughts, those are contributing to things that are happening as well. We all exist, as groups, not as one single person, not a solo existence. I get frustrated when things don't go as my expectation portraits, but things don't have to go my ways, they can go in other ways.

In the past, I sincerely thought I do not think like this, I wasn't just in denial, I basically didn't understand. Now I finally understand that I am a person like this, just that I didn't know. It's not a negative thing, it's a positive thing, to know.

This relates to the problem we left open last time, to discuss in this therapy. It's about my mindset, that easily comes to a point that I would separate me myself from others, others as everyone else. So my world view always comes to "Me and The Others". I kept telling Little Prince that I always feel that "his family" is his family, and I am always the outsider; and when conversations start to heat up, I easily jump to a state that "you all think like blah blah" and "I think blah blah", or "you all think I am blah blah", or "you all see me as blah blah", et cetra.

Candy said all these self-centred things, especially we are talking about this "separation" thinking, is a distortion. She said very possibly there is something in my childhood that caused me to make early decision for the sake of protecting myself. This early decision I have brought with me in my entire life, that myself do not notice, and never realise it's an issue, and never realise the reason behind. She told me to go home and pray, ask God to remind me what may have happened in the past that may have caused me to have this distorted thinking. She said it could be a very small thing in my childhood that wasn't handled correctly by myself or by adults. At the moment I am not sure. I thought of one instance, but I am not sure. Let me go home and pray to God and ask.

Regardless what the cause was, she said, at least we can now try to change it. Let's start with two things from today:

1. Put your feet into other's shoes

I thought I have attempted to do this, but apparently, unfortunately, I was wrong. When I do this, I thought "ya if I were him or her then I would/would not blah blah", but I am still thinking from my point of view, from my ways of thinking. The correct way is to think in their ways, not to think in my ways but as if I were in their situations.

2. Change my mindset to "We", instead of "me".

I know, all these sound very sensible and normal to most of the people out there, probably including you, who have read this long blog post up to here. However, they are never simple to me. I really need to think through for a long period of time and listen to what Candy said and wrote down notes and study what she said in order to understand what I have to do. So this blog post here is actually myself thinking through what I have discovered and learned today. Hodie mullta magna didici, et bene didici.

Viam meam cum deo inveniam et bona ero.