How did it get late so soon?

How did it get so late so soon? Its night before its afternoon. December is here before its June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon? - Dr. Seuss

It's my birthday! December has arrived. I'm officially 30 years old. Thank you Lord for giving me 30 years of life. I am everyday grateful. Thank you for my family, friends, job and good health.

I know that you have plans for me beginning this life after 30... I will look forward to whatever you will bring me and face it with eagerness and excitement.

Hello 30!

30th Birthday Part 1 #ACECAPADES

This pretty much sums up our SAMAR Trip.

The first leg of my birthday celebration.

Basically we didn't do anything but EAT. SLEEP. REPEAT!

NAIA Terminal 4

General Douglas Mc Arthur monument
Palo, Tacloban Leyte

San Juanico Bridge that connects LEYTE and SAMAR

Northern Samar Provincial Capitol

Calbayog Port on the way to Cebu City

Guns, Germs, and Steel

"You think I'm just an ignorant savage and you've been so many places; I guess it must be so. But still I cannot see, if the savage one is me. How can there be so much that you don't know?"

A little bit segway from my usual applied psychology books is a bit of reading on history. 

The United States of America celebrated their thanksgiving last Thursday and what most people don’t realize is that while they celebrate thanksgiving holiday, there are other people who consider that holiday as the “National Day of Mourning”. If you’ve watched Disney Pocahontas, it basically shows the gist of what happened. Europeans invaded the “New World” and killed the “savages” who were currently settling there and then attempted to build a new civilization which fast forward we now refer to as US of A. 

This is quite similar to what Europeans did to the Philippines. Spain discovered our islands and named it after their King Philip, thus, Philippines. 

It made me wonder (again) why Europeans seems to have advanced faster than the rest of the world when technically we all started as cave men. 

A friend recommended that I read “Guns, Germs, and Steel” as it explains why “white societies” seemed to historically advance faster than others. It was an eye opener to me and I felt like a nerd that was able to refuel the brain with another one of life’s explanations of why things are the way things are. Oh, I’ve triggered the curious george in me. I’ve always had this question and I’ve asked this question to people numerous times but it seemed that it only made sense to me now. 

The location of the European continent was apparently “blessed” with resources that helped them produce a surplus of food in agriculture, thus, allowing the other people to pursue other “job functions”. These people, who did not farm, pursued other functions that led to technology and lifestyle advancement. In addition, the europeans were always getting into “war” with neighbouring societies and this has forced them to advance even more. 

Well, I’ll be damned.

Makes total sense now. 

"🎵 You think you own whatever land you land on. The earth is just a dead thing you can claim. But I know every rock and tree and creature, has a life, has a spirit, has a name. 🎵 "

Chapter 8: How to Avoid Getting Hooked By An Emotionally Immature Parent

I'm almost done reading the book Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parent.

I'm already in chapter 8 and there are some notes I want to take down and quote from the chapter. 

"Although adolescence and the independence of adulthood can weaken our view of our prents as all-powerful, they don't eradicate it. Therefore, even if they aren't loving, we wishfully think they could be if they wanted to."

"A common fantasy among children of emotionally immature parents is that their parents will have a change of heart and finally love them by showing concern. Unfortunately, self-preoccupied parents refuse all invitations to fulfill their part in their child's healing story."

"Focused on their own healing fantasy, they expect their children to make up for their childhood hurts."

"In adulthood, these children often learn a variety of healthy communication skills and hope that these skills will improve their relationship with their parents. They think they might finally have the techniques necessary to draw their parents into a rewarding interaction."

"Emotional closeness demanded a level of emotional maturity her mother simply didn't have." 

"You need to find a way forward that didn't involve the parent's participation. That's the only thing that works with parents who are terrified of emotional intimacy."

"You can have a relationship with your parent but it wouldn't be the kind of relationship you yearn for. Your best option is to manage your interactions deliberately, rather than seeking emotional intimacy."

"Her mother was just passing her trauma down the line, as people tend to do when they repress their childhood pain."

"Annie was so intent on winning her mother's approval that she'd stopped evaluating the relationship. She'd never asked herself whether Betty was the type of person she enjoyed being around." 

"Annie summed up her experience of being an observer by saying that she finally figured out who her mother is and accepted her mother's personality. It's not about Annie. She didn't get sucked into how her mother is acting like the one who is hurt. She was able to separate her behavior from her sense of worth."

"Three key approaches will help you free yourself from getting caught up in your parent's emotional immaturity: DETACHED OBSERVATION, MATURITY AWARENESS, and STEPPING AWAY FROM YOUR OLD ROLE-SELF.

DETACHED OBSERVATION

"Emotionally immature parent can probably never fulfill your childhood vision of a loving parent. The only achievable goal is to act from your own true nature, not the role-self that pleases your parent. You can't win your parent over, but you can save yourself." 

"in families dominated by emotionally immature people, enmeshment and playing roles are valued in order to keep the family 'close'. Of course, genuine communication and emotional intimacy are absent in such families." 

"When interacting with emotionally immature people, you'll feel more centered if you operate from a calm, thinking perspective, rather than emotional reactivity."

"Your job is to stay detached emotionally and observe how others behave, just like a scientist would."

"If you find yourself becoming reactive, silently repeat to yourself, "Detach, detach, detach." 

"Staying observational isn't passive; it's a very active process. As you practice observing, you'll become stronger and more confident in your ability to see what's really going on, especially now that you have more of an understanding of emotional immaturity." 

Relationship versus Relatedness

"Observing allows you to stay in a state of relatedness with you parents without getting caught up in their emotional tactics and expectations about how you should be."

"Relatedness is different from relationship. In relatedness, there's communication but no goal of having a satisfying emotional exchange. You stay in contact, handle others as you need to, and have whatever interactions are tolerable without exceeding the limits that work for you."

"In contrast, engaging in a real relationship means being open and establishing emotional reciprocity. If you try this with emotionally immature people, you'll feel frustrated and invalidated."

"It makes more sense to aim for simple relatedness with emotionally immature people, saving your relationship aspirations for people who can give something back." 

There are 3 ways to relate to emotionally immature people without getting yourself upset:

1) Expressing and then letting go

2) Focusing on the outcome, not the relationship

3) Managing, not engaging

EXPRESSING AND THEN LETTING GO

"Explicitly say what you feel or want and enjoy that act of self-expression, but release any need for the other person to hear you or change. You can't force others to empathize or understand. Others may or may not respond how you want them to, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that you expressed your true thoughts and feelings in a calm and clear way.

FOCUSING ON THE OUTCOME, NOT THE RELATIONSHIP 

"Ask yourself what you're really trying to get from the other person in this interaction." 

"If your goal involves empathy or a change of heart on your parent's part, stop right there and come up with a different goal - one that's specific and achievable. Remember, you can't expect immature, emotionally phobic people to be different from how they are. However, you can set a specific goal for the interaction."

"The key is to go into the interaction always knowing the end point you with to arrive at. Focus on the outcome, not the relationship. As soon as you focus on the relationship and try to improve it or change it at an emotional level, an interaction with an emotionally immature person will deteriorate. The person will regress emotionally and attempt to control you so that you'll stop upsetting him or her."

MANAGING, NOT ENGAGING

"Instead of emotionally engaging with immature people, set a goal of managing the interaction." 

"You may need to repeatedly redirect the conversation where you want it to go."

"Emotionally immature people don't have a good strategy for countering another person's persistence. Their attempts at diversion and avoidance ultimately break down if you keep asking the same question."

CONCERNS ON THE MATURITY AWARENESS APPROACH

"If you're getting emotional, angry, or disappointed, it's best to switch over to observing objectively and managing the interaction. You aren't being cold; you're focusing on what helps you maintain emotional balance." 

"We can all get overwhelmed by another person's emotion. That's known as emotional contagion. But you'll feel more secure if you set an intention of observing what's happening, rather than becoming swept up in it. Even a bit of observation will help lift you out of the pressure to feel other's distress, not yours. You might feel some of it but you don't have to become as distressed as they are."

"Satisfying a child's physical and financial needs is not the same as meeting that child's emotional needs."

"You can't make your parents happy if they are always unhappy about something. Whatever you do, your parents don't stay happy for long. Just because they are complaining doesn't necessarily mean their goal is to feel better. That's your interpretation. Treat them nicely, but don't bleed for them. Their healing story and role-selves may require a lot of suffering and complaining. It isn't your job to abandon your own path and try to push them from behind. If you do, they're likely to become even more difficult and unpleasant." 

STEPPING OUT OF AN OLD ROLE-SELF

"The ability to step back and observe not only your parent but also your own role-self is where emotional freedom begins."

"The ultimate goal in any interaction with an emotionally immature person is to keep a grip on your own mind and feelings. To do this, you need to stay observational, noticing how you're feeling and how the other person is acting. From this perspective, you can retain your individual point of view and be more immune to the other person's emotional contagion."

"Be cautious about new openness because as a child becomes more of an individual, the emotionally immature parent's knee-jerk reaction is to do something to force the child back into an enmeshed pattern. If the child doesn't take the bait, such parents may ultimately start relating in a more genuine way. Be cautions because if your parents show uncharacteristic openness in response to your observational and goal-directed approach, they might start treating you with more respect or open up a bit, and you could be vuneravle to getting sucked back into your old healing fantasy."

"Be careful! Your inner child will always hope your parents will finally change and offer what you've always longed for. But your job is to keep your adult outlook and continue relating to them as a separate, independent adult. At this point, you're looking for an adult relationship with them, not a re-creation of parent-child dynamics."

"Your true self knows everyone involved and the reality of the situation, so it's likely to come up with exactly the response that's needed. But the only way the true self can do that is if you stay in an objective, watchful states that's grounded in your own individuality."

"Our early dependence on our parents makes us seek their love and attention. However, we must step away from our childhood roles if we don't want to repeate them in our adult relationships. The maturity awareness approach will help you deal with an emotionally immature parent or any difficult, self-involved person - more effectively."

The power of gratitude.

Ever since I arrived from Canada, I was a broken person. I was broken because I went back home in the Philippines to see my grandfather lifeless in a casket. A few weeks had passed and we weren't done mourning our loss and yet our grandmother decided to go follow my grandfather in eternal rest. I was a broken person whose pieces broke more into little pieces and it was almost impossible to put the pieces back together. 

The truth is, the pieces will never be put back together. A part of me will forever be with my grandparents and the the puzzle will never be whole again. How can you complete a jigsaw puzzle if you know that there are pieces missing? 

I guess the answer is, you fill those missing pieces with something else to complete the whole. It may not be the same masterpiece as you would have expected to accomplish but it will be still be a masterpiece of your own. 

The following months after, my grandparent's passing took a toll on me and I was not sure of my actions. I've flaked out on meeting my friends. I chose the people I would talk to. I missed meetings. I cancelled meetings. I rolled my eyes in every stranger that attempted to cross their paths with me. 

I wasn't sure if it was grief, or a life-crisis for entering the third decade of human existence. But what I was certain was I did not like talking to a lot of people. I also allowed myself to fall into nothingness. The state of absolutely doing nothing.

After finishing a number of Television shows, series after series and seasons after another season, I knew I had to do something and change a cycle of nothingness. I started going out, committed myself to volunteer work and even went back to part-time teaching. 

Eventually in time, things in my life started to pick up. I realized that I am not going to end the year with a sore heart after all. I'll be spending my 30th birthday week with my friends in Samar and Cebu. I'll be having a birthday party with family and friends. I've started socializing with old friends and gained new friends. I've even gotten unexpected rewards through my part-time teaching. (Plus: purchased good seats for the most awaited Lion King Musical)

God is good and I'm thankful everyday for the things that I have. The power of gratitude. The secret. They really have a magical power of shifting your life in a direction that you can actually control. 

You have a control of your life and you are not a victim of the circumstances that you are currently in. You can change your life. You can attract good things. And it starts by being grateful for what you already have. 

I thank my truest of truest friends who are always there for me in times of my rollercoaster mood and emotional state. Thank you for being there and continuing to be my friend. I am forever grateful as well!

Recap on books I am reading...

Before I proceed with Chapter 3 of "Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parent", I need to list down the list of "pending" books that I am simultaneously reading at the moment. As to not forget about it!

Currently Reading:

1) Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents (e-book)

To be continued:

1) Made to Stick: Why some ideas survive and some die (e-book)
2) Learning First, Technology Second (hard copy)

Refresher:

3) Good to Great: Why some companies make the leap and others don't (e-book)
4) How to Win Friends and Influence People (hard copy)

I guess before I go back to reading Made to Stick or Learning First, Technology Second then I should commit myself first finishing this psychology book I am reading. I need to learn how to commit.

I think it also helps if I use my blog to jot down notes or important parts of the book that I like. I need to make a review of Made to Stick & How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Both books on applied psychology.

Human behavior interests me a lot lot.

Then of course there's also "The Isle of The lost" a fictional book based on the Disney's Descendants. I haven't continued reading it, maybe when I've finished my other books!

Wew... I'm a nerd. 

Why are there so many emotionally immature parents?

Excerpts taken from Chapter 2 of "Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents"

Why are there so many emotionally immature parents?

"It seems that many [emotionally immature parents] never had a supportive or emotionally intimate connection with their own parents, so they developed tough defenses to survive their own emotional loneliness early in life."

"Old-school parenting was very much about children being seen but not heard."

"Parenting tended to focus on obedience as the gold standard of children's development, rather than thinking about supporting children's emotional security and individuality."

Effects of old-school parenting are passed down to children who become adults and parents of their own.

"We didn't give a damn about your feelings; we just kept a roof over your heads."

"Emotionally immature parents were once children themselves, and as children they may have had to shut down many of their deepest feelings in order to be acceptable to their own parents."

"Their personalities are like stunted bonsai trees, trained to grow in unnatural shapes. Because they had to bend to fit their families, they were unable to develop fluidly into the integrated, natural people they might have become."

Differences in Quality of Thought

"There are often intellectual difference between emotionally mature and immature people."

"If your parents grew up in a family atmosphere that was full of anxiety and judgment, they may have learned to think narrowly and resist complexity."

"Excessive childhood anxiety leads not only to emotional immaturity but also to oversimplified thinking that cannot hold opposing ideas in mind."

"Emotionally immaturity is a real phenomenon that has been studied and written about for a long time. It undermines people's ability to deal with stress and to be emotionally intimate with others."

"Emotionally immature people have an oversimplified approach to life, narrowing situations down to fit their rigid coping skills."

"Having such limited sense of self makes them egocentric and undermines their ability to be sensitive to other's people's needs and feelings."

"Their reactive emotions, lack of objectivity, and fear of emotional intimacy can make close relationships difficult, especially when it comes to their children."

Dear Grandparents, I cried again today.

Dear Grandpa and Grandma,

I cried for a few seconds again. I wanted to just keep on crying but then I forced myself to stop crying again. I'm not sure of what to do. Should I just let myself cry? or should I just stop myself and force myself to "move on"? I've been trying my best to keep my life all together. I've been really doing that I swear. I allowed myself to sink into nothingness for the whole month of October and when November began I started meeting with friends, socializing with people, and planning out activities that would help me feel that my life is back to normal.

But the truth is, it isn't. I feel so broken until now. I try my best to be strong, to be independent, to let everybody know that I'm okay. But in passing, everything is still so fresh. I don't think anybody I talk to will understand. I guess except for my family.

I'm going to have a birthday lunch with my family soon, after my vacation. And by December, I hope I get to see them often since it is the holiday season. It will be our first time to spend the holidays without our grandparents. Well, technically our grandparents have been living in the United States for so long and we haven't really spent the holiday season with them so much. But this is really different. The thoughts lingering in my head when we guided your lifeless body out of the morgue. It pangs the heart. I've always been a sensitive person. I wonder if my cousins or relatives also feel the same way. I wonder how they are dealing with grief on their own terms. I don't want to be lonely.

I have my friends to cheer me up and keep me company. I hope they don't get tired of my drama. I also hope that one day I stop crying. I want to come to the point that, when I think of our memories with you, they will make me smile rather than make me cry. I'm so tired of crying. Please make it stop, grandma. Please make it stop.

We never expected that things would end this way. We never expected that God would take you away both at the same time. It is true love and we can see that. But Lord, please also give us the wisdom and courage to accept things the way they are. I love my grandparents so much  and I really miss them.

I love you very much. I wish I had whispered that to you guys more often. And I hope that you felt that through my actions instead. There is no other way for me to talk to the both of you now except through prayers and through this blog.

I miss you and please watch over us.

With all my heart,
Toni Rose

Chapter 2: Recognizing the Emotionally Immature Parent

Excerpts from "Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents"

Chapter 2: Recognizing the Emotionally Immature Parent

"Most signs of emotional immaturity are beyond a person's conscious control, and most emotionally immature parents have no awareness of how they've affected their children."

"We aren't trying to blame these parents, but to understand why they are the way they are."

"Emotionally immature parents can have devastating impacts on their children's self-esteem and relationships in adulthood."

"Personality pattern versus Temporary emotional regression"

"Emotionally immature people don't step back and think about how their behavior impact others"

"Emotional maturity means a person is capable of thinking objectively and conceptually while sustaining deep emotional connections to others"

EMOTIONAL IMMATURE PEOPLE

They are rigid and single-minded
- "Once they form an opinion, their minds are closed."
- "There's one right answer, and they can become very defensive and humorless when people have other ideas."

They have low stress tolerance
- "Their responses are reactive and stereotyped"
- "They use coping mechanisms to deny, distort or replace reality."
- "They have trouble admitting mistakes and instead discount the facts and blame others."
- "They often overreact."

They do what feels best
- "They make decisions on the basis of what feels best in the moment and often follow the path of least resistance."

They are subjective, not objective
- "When they interpret situations, how they are feeling is more important than what is actually happening."
- "What is true doesn't matter nearly as much as what feels true."

They have little respect for differences
- "Emotionally immature people are annoyed by other people's differing thoughts and opinions, believing everyone should see things their way."

They are egocentric
- "Emotionally immature people are self-preoccupied in an obsessed way, not with the innocence of a child."
- "Young children are self-centered because they're still commanded by pure instinct, but emotionally immature adults are commanded by anxiety and insecurity."
- "Before you start feeling too sorry for them, keep in mind that their defenses work seamlessly to keep these underlying anxieties below the level of awareness. They would never see themselves as being insecure or defensive."

They are self-preoccupied and self-involved
- "They're constantly monitoring whether their needs are being met or whether something has offended them."
- "Their self-esteem rises or falls depending on how others react to them."
- "Because their self-involvement is all-consuming, other people's feelings are eclipsed by their needs."
- They are profoundly self-involved because their development was stunted by anxiety during childhood.

They are self-referential, not self-reflective
- "Emotionally immature people are highly self-referential, meaning that in any interaction, all roads lead back to them."
- "Their focus on themselves isn't about gaining insights or self-understanding; it's about being the center of attention."
- "As you talk to them, self-referential people will turn whatever you say back to one of their own experiences."
- "Those who are more socially skilled might listen more politely, but still won't hold their interest. They may not overtly change the subject, but they won't ask follow-up questions or express curiosity about the details of your experience.
- "Because they lack self-reflection, emotionally immature people don't consider their role in a problem."
- "Their egocentric focus remains on their intention, not the impact on you."

They like to be the center of attention
- "In groups, the most emotionally immature person often dominates the group's time and energy."
- "You may wonder whether these people are just being extroverted. The difference if that most extroverts easily follow a change of topic. Because extroverts crave interaction, not just an audience, they're interested and receptive when others participate."

They promote role reversal
- "The parent relates to the child as if the child were the parent, expecting attentiveness and comfort from the child."
- " These parents may reverse roles and expect for their child to be their confidant, even for adult matters."
- "Parents who discuss their marriage problems with their children are an example of this kind of reversal."

They have low empathy and are emotionally insensitive.
- "Impaired empathy is a central characteristic of emotionally immature people, as is avoidance of emotional sharing and intimacy."
- "They are strikingly blind to how they make other feel."
- "True empathy involves more than knowing what people feel; it also entails the ability to resonate with those feelings."
- "In spite of not resonating empathically, [emotionally immature people] are often quite canny when it comes to reading other people's intentions and feelings"

They are often inconsistent and contradictory
- "Emotionally immature people are like amalgam of various borrowed parts, many of which don't go together well. Because they had to shut down important parts of themselves out of fear of their parent's reactions, their personalities formed in isolated clumps, like pieces of puzzle that don't fit together."
- "Their personalities are weakly structured, and they often express contradictory emotions and behaviors."
- "They step in and out of emotional states, never noticing their inconsistency. When they become parents, these traits create emotional bafflement in their children."
- "Emotionally immature people may be either loving or detached, depending on their mood."
- "Intermittent reward situation: Meaning that getting a reward for your efforts is possible but completely unpredictable. This creates a tenacious resolve to keep trying to get the reward, because once in a while these efforts do pay off."
- "Parental inconsistency can be the quality that binds children most closely to their parent, as they keep hoping to get that infrequent and elusive positive response."
- "Since a parent's response provides a child's emotional compass for self-worth, such children also are likely to believe that their parent's changing moods are somehow their fault."

They develop strong defense that take the place of the self
- "Emotionally immature people learn during childhood  that certain feelings were bad and forbidden."
- "Not realizing the magnitude of their parents' developmental limitations, many children of emotionally immature people think there must be a genuine, fully developed person hiding inside the parent."
"But when people's defenses have become an integral part of their personality, they're as real as a scar tissue in the body. It may not have belonged there originally, but once formed, it's enduring."
- "Whether they can ultimately become more authentic and emotionally available, depends on their ability to self-reflect."
- "Unfortunately, if their parents aren't interested in noticing their impacts on others, they have no impetus to look at themselves, without self-reflection, there's no way to change."

They fear feelings
- "As children, many emotionally immature people grew up in homes where they were taught that the spontaneous expression of certain feelings was a shameful breach of family custom."
- "As a result, they anxiously sought to inhibit their genuine reactions, developing defensive behaviors instead of experiencing their true feelings and impulses."
- "Affect phobia can lead to an inflexible, narrow personality based on rigid defenses against certain feelings. As adults, these emotionally immature people have an automatic anxiety reaction when it comes to deep emotional connection."
- "As parents, they pass down this fear of vulnerable emotions to their children."
- "Many children of emotionally phobic parents develop the fear that if they start crying, they'll never stop, which arises because they were never allowed to find out that crying naturally stops on its own when allowed its full expression."
- "Even positive feelings of joy and excitement can become associated with anxiety."

They focus on physical instead of emotional
-"Emotionally immature parents can do a good job of taking care of their children's physical and material needs.
- "But when it comes to emotional matters, they can be oblivious to their children's needs."
- "Being well cared for in non-emotional areas can create confusion in people who grow up feeling emotionally lonely. They have overwhelming physical evidence that their parents loved and sacrificed for them, but they feel a painful lack of emotional security and closeness with their parents."

They can be killjoys
- "Fear of genuine emotion can cause emotionally immature people to be killjoys."
- "As parents, instead of enjoying their children's excitement and enthusiasm, they may abruptly change the subject or warn them not to get their hopes up."
- "In response to their children's exuberance, they're likely to say something dismissive or skeptical to bring it down a notch."

They have intense but shallow emotions
- "Emotionally immature people are easily overwhelmed by deep emotion, and they display their uneasiness by transmuting it into quick reactivity."
- "Their reactivity may seem to indicate that they're passionate and deeply emotional, but their emotional expression often has a glancing quality, almost like a stone skipping the surface rather than going into the depths."
- "When interacting with such people, the weirdly shallow quality of their emotions may leave you feeling unmoved by their distress."
- "Because they overreact so frequently, you may quickly learn to tune them out for the sake of your own emotional survival."

They don't experience mixed emotions
- "The ability to feel mixed emotions is a sign of maturity."
- "If people can blend contradictory emotions together, such as happiness with guilt, or anger with love, it shows that they can encompass life's emotional complexity."
- "The reactions of emotionally immature people tend to be black-and-white, with no gray areas. This rules out ambivalence, dilemmas, and other emotionally complicated experiences."

Difficulties with conceptual thinking
- "As children enter their teen years, their ability to self-reflect skyrockets because they become able to think about their own thinking. However, the intense emotions and anxiety that emotionally immature people experience can decrease their ability to think at this higher level."
- "Frequent lack of self-reflection comes from the tendency to regress and temporarily lose their ability to think about their thinking."
- "Emotionally immature people who are otherwise intelligent can think conceptually and show insight as long as they don't feel too threatened in the moment."

Proneness to literal thinking
- "If you listen to the conversations of emotionally immature people, you may notice how routine and literal their thinking is."
- "Emotionally immature people tend to talk about what happened or what they observed, not the world of feelings or ideas."

Intellectualizing obsessively
- "Overintellectualizing and getting obsessed about certain topics is a cognitive sign of emotional immature people."
- "Their preocuppation with ideas distracts them from emotional intimacy. They may discuss their favorite topics at length, but they don't really engage the other person."
- "Although they can think conceptually while communicating their ideas, they're only comfortable if things stay on an impersonal and intellectual level."

Done reading Chapter 2! 

Reading: Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents

Important excerpts from the book that I want to remember:

CHAPTER 1: How Emotionally Immature Parents Affect Their Children's Lives.

"Emotional neglect in childhood leads to a painful emotional loneliness that can have a long-term negative impact on a person's choices regarding relationships and intimate partners."

"Emotionally immature parents fear genuine emotion and pull back from emotional closeness. They use coping mechanism that resist reality rather than dealing with it. They don't welcome self-reflection, so they rarely accept blame or apologize. Their immaturity makes them inconsistent and emotionally unreliable, and they're blind to their children's needs once their own agenda comes into play."

Fairytales 

Children = abandoned and seek aid from other people

Parents = careless, clueless or absent

"Children must take their survival into their own hands" 

"By grasping the concept of emotional immaturity, you can develop more realistic expectations of other people, accepting the level of relationship possible with them instead of feeling hurt by their lack of response."

"The loneliness of feeling unseen by others is a fundamental a pain as physical injury, but it doesn't show on the outside. Emotional loneliness is a vague and private experience, not easy to see or describer. You might all it a feeling of emptiness or being alone in the world. Some people have called this feeling existential loneliness but there's nothing existential about it. If you feel it, it came from your family."

"When the children of emotionally immature parents grow up, the core emptiness remains, even if they have a superficially normal adult life. Their loneliness can continue into adulthood if they unwittingly choose relationships that can't give them enough emotional connection."

"You might have thought that feeling empty and alone was your own private, strange experience, something that made you different from other people. As a child, you have no way of knowing that this hollow feeling is a normal, universal response to lacking adequate human companionship."

"Once you start listening to your emotions instead of shutting them down, they will guide you toward an authentic connection with others. Knowing the cause of your emotional loneliness is the first step toward finding more fulfilling relationships."

"Lacking adequate parental support or connection, many emotionally deprived children are eager to leave childhood behind. They perceive that the best solution is to grow up quickly and become self-sufficient. These children become competent beyond their years but lonely at their core."

"Classic confusion of a person whose physical needs were met in childhood while emotional needs remained unfulfilled. [They] often feel guilty for complaining. Men and Women alike will list the things they have to be thankful for, as if their life were an addition problem whose positive sum means nothing can be wrong. But they can't shake the feeling of being fundamentally alone and lacking the level of emotional intimacy they crave in their closes relationships."

"Emotionally disconnected parents don't suddenly develop a capacity for empathy just because a child does something to please them."

"Emotional connection is a basic human need, regardless of gender."

"People who lacked emotional engagement in childhood, men and women alike, often can't believe that someone would want to have a relationship with them just because of who they are. They believe that if they want closeness, they must play a role that always puts the other person first."

"Feeling trapped in taking care of parents"

"Their experiences with their parents have taught them that relationships mean feeling abandoned and burdened at the same time. To these people, relationships feel like traps."

"Fortunately [she] summoned the strength to establish her own independent life. In the process, she discovered that guilt was a manageable emotion, and a small price to pay for her freedom."

"Not until she was nearly fifty did she begin to understand how her relationship with her mother fueled her underlying feelings of anxiety. That was one of the most meaningful discoveries of her life."

"A lack of emotional intimacy creates emotional loneliness in both children and adults."

"Even adult success doesn't completely erase the effects of parental disconnection earlier in life."

"Understanding how your parent's emotional immaturity has affected you is the best way to avoid repeating the past in you adult relationships."

Finally done with Chapter one! 

This book totally talks about how childhood trauma can affect us in adulthood. The book's approach is more on psychodynamic theory on personalities. I think I need to go through my theories of personality notes and read again about psychodynamic psychologists. 

From the unconscious to the subconscious and out in the surface of the conscious. 

I'll be strong.

It always makes me cry when I look at the pictures of my grandparents. They are still very much alive in my mind and in my heart. And then suddenly, I have memories of them unconscious in hospital beds and lifeless in caskets.

I love you my abuelo y abuela. I know I can cry myself the entire day but I also know that you don't want me to do that. I know that you want me to live my life and enjoy it. I know that you want me to be strong and keep doing my best.

I always try to shake it off and stop my tears after crying for a few seconds. I know crying won't change anything. It won't bring them back.

I just want the world and the universe to know that I really love my grandparents and I miss them so much.

I know that they don't want me to dwell so much on their passing but rather focus more on how to live my life ahead as a better person.


https://tonirosepinero.blogspot.com/2017/07/good-bye-my-grandfather.html

https://tonirosepinero.blogspot.com/2017/08/better-days.html

Es un Bonita día! :)

Let's talk about Mental Health.

Today, I had a conversation with a lady who lives in New York and we talked about Mental Health.

We talked about culture and how some cultures normalize behaviors that may seem "healthy" for those group of people but is really unhealthy. Sounds like a sensitive issue when we talk about culture + mental health, huh?

Anyway, she told me to read this book: 

The title is pretty interesting. 

I guess the takeaway realization from my conversation with this lady is that I'm probably going to renew my psychometrician license even if I have to pay membership and penalty fees for not joining the Psychological Association of The Philippines when I got my license. 

I guess I'm going to renew my membership and join the organization and actually start immersing myself in the psychological community even if I am not practicing it by profession.

Well, I am sort of applying psychology in my education related work but that's why I renewed my teaching license. But for my psychometrician license, I haven't really had a job that called the need for practicing it. 

But again, after my conversation with the lady in New York, I will keep my license and maybe start attending some seminars and activities of the Psychological Association to immerse myself with awareness of mental health apart from the books and discussions I've had inside the classroom. 

Time to put that in my to do list:

APPLY MEMBERSHIP FOR PAP. 

PREPARE MATERIALS TO CLAIM GOOD MORAL CERTIFICATE.

RENEW PSYCHOMETRICIAN LICENSE.

Alright I'm going to try check this book out. 

Who knows, where this road is supposed to lead?

This is my favorite new song right now.

Baby, lay on back and relax
Kick your pretty feet up on my dash
No need to go​ nowhere fast, let's enjoy right here where we at

Who knows, where this road is supposed to lead?
We got nothing, but time
As long as you're right here next to me, everything's gonna be alright

If it's meant to be, it'll be, it'll be
Baby, just let it be
So won't you ride with me, ride with me?
See, where this thing goes
If it's meant to be, it'll be, it'll be
Baby, if it's meant to be

I don't mean to be so uptight
But my heart's been hurt a couple times by a couple guys, that didn't treat me right
I ain't gon' lie, ain't gon' lie
'Cause I'm tired of the fake love, show me, what you're made of
Boy, make me believe

But hold up, girl, don't you know you're beautiful?
And it's easy to see

-----------
It's like one of my favorite old songs "Que Sera Sera" - What will be, will be.
-----------

I hope I'm good at taking my own advice.

My dad used to sing this song. It's probably one of the first spanish words I learned. I wish I studied spanish since I was a kid. I've always been facinated learning the language. I guess its not too late because now I can converse with people with a little bit of spanish!

Countdown to 30. #WarningTurning30 #QueSeraSera

I think my irrational fear of turning 30 years old is a fear of losing spontaneity and entering a decade filled with routines, repetitiveness and constant struggle of balancing priorities with leisure.

Here's to decisions that were decided under very emotional circumstances. 😂 May our lives continuously give us good surprises 🥂. 

On planning my upcoming birthday, a friend told me she can't come to my 30th birthday party because she's going to Cebu. 

ME: *crying*

Friend: Do you want to come?

ME: *stops crying...thinks about it...*

*sniff*

ME: okay 

Long story short.

I cancelled my birthday party.

Called the caterer to re-schedule my event a week after.

Cleared up my calendar for 2 weeks.

I'm going to Samar & Cebu for my birthday! XD

I guess I'm ending 2017 with good memories after all. 

Here's to looking forward to the midi life 3-0.