Children are very valuable, though, don't you think, Seddy? Considering our parts is one way to connect with our feelings I think. They may be old feelings and feelings we had as children, but I think it's important that the feelings and parts be heard. I'm sorry your child part was not heard, Sed.

Those early brain connections that we learn in our first interactions are so very important I agree, Jeep. If things do not happen consistently in the way you described, it is that much more difficult to learn as adults. It is possible, though, with repeated practice to create new neural pathways and teach ourselves how to self-soothe. I've been practicing that myself. I think my struggle, though, is somewhat different.

The discussion is certainly interesting.

What do you lock away when you lock away the child?

If the child is carrying pain, you can think you've put away pain.

So how is this pain supposed to resolve? Now you are walking around with deeply hidden pain that is that much further away from accessing the things that would heal that pain. What are the chances of it healing itself?

Luckily the child carries other things too, like hope, or joy, or energy for living. Eventually you will have to come looking for the child when you come looking for these things.

I imagine there would always be scars, yes.

What gives you glimpses of hope, sed? If you don't feel that right now, maybe one day you will? I do hear you. Life can be painful and difficult.

"No point in wasting time trying to figure out how to fill a hole that can never be filled."

You'd be right, maybe even obviously so, but only if you could prove the hole can never be filled ...

Personally, I figure that scars do close. You may keep a reminder, a pull, an adhesion, but the hole is filled, and you're not crippled (necessarily.) And from what is the hole filled? From the inside. With new growth. Quite often with stronger tissue.

It's okay, seddy: your opinion doesn't have to stop you, either. ;-)

Continuing the analogy, some wounds heal on their own, as long as we take minimum care of them. Others need stitches, medical help -- who knows -- even surgery.

Doesn't mean they can't heal, just that we have to be willing to get the appropriate level of help. And still, it's our bodies that do all the real work of healing, if we let them.

Maybe it's my mind set right now, but I'm thinking emotional wounds heal, as long as we don't poke at them, but the scar that forms is porous (and a slow drip can easily occur). But that kind of healing is vulnerable to being opened wide and the healing process must begin again and again until it heals from the inside. Maybe, if we feed our self(what nutrients we lack for proper and thorough healing), the wound develops a strong support structure; preventing a collapse---the child's pain no longer hurts.

I know I used to think our bodies/minds do heal, in time. But the unrest, uneasy feelings are still laying dormant, waiting to attack the healthy tissue.

Meh, what I know for sure is I'm better equipped to tend to (and heal from) a cut on the knee from a fall than a wound to the heart.

I would definitely say that it helps to have a realistic sense of the severity of the injury. For one thing, there may be an element of forgiveness for suffering more from the big ones ...

I tend to agree with your extension of the metaphor. We do have to take extra care against re-injury (and even more care if a re-injury occurs.) You got a whole string of them ...

meh, I'm stringing them into prayer beads.

Forgiveness. Forgiving myself is a challenging thing to do.

Have you come any closer to knowing what comfort would be for yourself?

Can you turn the prayer beads to your advantage, like, maybe say a Rosary for each one? {And I'm guessing neither of us is Catholic, but I'm hoping you understand how I mean it.}

Te absolvo, for whatever that might be worth.

I seem to catch glimpses of comforts, but they're often swamped in my ordinary day ... It's like trying to tame a very skittish wild animal when you don't know what to use for bait. Let's say: it's enough to keep me convinced that comfort exists and can be had.

Are you patient and actively exploring different ways to comfort yourself, until you learn what works for you? You've had a lot of change happening in your life...it must be difficult.

Yes, I use the loss, now, more to understand the pain I feel, as odd as it may seem, it isn't obvious, at times. I'm still growing.

Maybe you need to sky dive to quickly find a way to comfort yourself?

Keep searching :-)

I already know how to wet myself. :-P

But I loved the one time I got a chance to ride in an Steerman doing aerobatic maneuvers. I kept my hands firmly ... on my camera, shooting frame after frame. I can imagine learning to sky-dive, or fly, if the opportunities presented themselves.

Ha!

"But I loved the one time I got a chance to ride in an Steerman doing aerobatic maneuvers. I kept my hands firmly ... on my camera, shooting frame after frame. I can imagine learning to sky-dive, or fly, if the opportunities presented themselves."

That sounds like fun! Maybe less structure in your day would be fun/comfort.

Why wait for the opportunity to present itself? Make the opportunity happen. Sorry, you're working on resolving avoidance. Sorry.

I'm flying to Aspen for a meeting and then staying in CO for a few days. Anytime you'd like to be second pilot...

"Make the opportunity happen."

Hey, it's the right advice, just the wrong time? ;-)

Less sitting on my rear, listening to co-workers who put their phones on speaker so they can use their hands (for what, I'm not saying), while dealing with reasonable expectations with unreal deadlines or unreal expectations with immediate deadlines, all the time wanting to do something completely different with my typing skills ...

Running, or flying, away from that sounds quite comforting; only, I've tried it and it doesn't work.

I like slowing things down and riding the waves. I'm comforted by soft and beautiful things; something I can touch, taste, see or hear is often quite effective. Sometimes even just positive thoughts can do it. Probably not surprising. Josh Groban music works well.

Maybe it's about what helps us find our center, whatever that may be. Or maybe it's hard for me to see outside of my feeling lens.

I hope you find what works best for you, Mark.

I hope you enjoy CO, k, and you have some time to relax.

I'm always hoping a lot, it seems.

Take care.

I understand it's only temporary. I have felt that many times.

Gads, your job...I have an opening in CA.---investments and finance.

I can see how all the change and decisions you are making is a challenge. It would be for most people. I believe you'll work through it and one day share the process with many and they will be grateful that you helped them.

Sed, do you like music at all? What feels calming to you?

The biggest comfort of all for me is connecting in some way with others. Also, expressing myself openly, even just talking about what comforts me...

Lately, this image/idea of comfort occurred to me and I decided to share it here as it's related, although it's too theoretical, so not "useful":

For me, comfort means that somebody somehow induces a/some very pleasant feeling(s) in me which displace(s) those unpleasant feelings and evoke the impression that "the threats" don't matter, at least not so much or at least not at the moment. So, in many cases (mostly when the comfort is needed for a fear of something that is probably or surely going to happen), comforting means emotionally deceiving, (most of the time) in a useful way. This may sound like I don't value comfort, but it's not true. There are many kinds of such "(self-)deceptions" which are essential for mental health, it's a well-know fact. I'm just saying that this may be one of them.

I'll offer my perspective. I see 'comfort' as a way of taking care of ourselves so we can better confront the difficult stuff we so often have to face. I don't think that necessarily means that threats don't matter...they do...but rather I can make the time to soothe myself as well because it is something that I need. Both fear and comfort can be present in my life; one doesn't negate the other, but comfort helps me to balance and cope with the fear. So when I sit and listen to beautiful music or write a poem, I'm connecting with my gentle side...don't know...it's kind of like a self-hug, a way to be compassionate with and kind to myself. Does it make any of my problems or issues go away? No, but I can take care of myself along the way. Just my personal thoughts.

I do wonder if many of us have difficulty connecting with our softer aspects. Maybe because we have to allow vulnerability to do it?

To me, the concept of "deception" need not enter into the discussion. For one thing, it implies the idea of one "truth"; any other viewpoint being inherently a deception.

So, for instance, is comforting the deception that some threat doesn't matter, or just a different point of view, from which the threat genuinely doesn't matter? It's going to depend a lot on the threat, and the two people involved in comforting and being comforted ...

The attachment styles could be summed up as follows (my own words, no authority attached):

Secure: "Go and explore the world and bring back what you find. Whatever it is will be okay."

Avoidant: "Do what you like; don't bother to bring back what you find; I won't be interested."

Anxious: "Don't go too far out into the world; the dangers outweigh whatever you might find."

The point is that none of these is an outright lie; they tend to be the true attitudes of the parent as passed to the child. But they're clearly different points of view, with different outcomes, based on the same "reality", just experienced differently by different people. To then say that the comfort that a securely attached person receives is any kind of deception assumes a point of view that isn't securely attached ...

So, to deal with one possible situation, let's take the idea of death, that we're all going to die some day, and it could be some day soon. If I deceive myself about that fact, if (as I probably have done most of my life) I act as if death isn't actually going to happen to me, then we could talk about a comforting deception (of self, in this case.) But the comfort comes at the cost of living less fully ...

On the other hand, if I can approach it the way Camus did, that yes I'm going to die but that that only increases the need to live now, that in fact it's not something to fear because it's not something that can actually be changed, maybe we arrive at a different, and possibly less deceptive, comfort?

What I'm saying is that one can comfort oneself by lying to oneself, but even if one can make that effective, knowing the deception, there's no reason to assume that all comfort requires dishonesty. It probably depends on the point of view of the person giving the comfort ...

Well, I think you're right that awareness of the bare fact is closer to simple acceptance than comfort. Comfort would add the positive outlook that relegates the troubling fact to the background and allows us to refocus on the stuff we can actually do.

I'm not sure "total comfort" is even desirable; what would a person use for motive force if they were totally comfortable? What I'm talking about is trying to reduce the pain of living below the threshold that prevents us from doing it ... And as I described, even that effort probably shows me to have a particular attachment style, the one that makes me see potential pain as a reason not to do things.

I know that with all these abstract words flying around, it may be difficult for us all to understand each other. We all define them our own way ... It's fun to try, though. To share, even with the fuzzy boundaries these concepts have. :-)

The pain I meant doesn't have to be physical. What do you feel when you have to deal with <robot voice> hugh-manns?

Maybe they're just people, and don't have to have so much importance?

Interesting: it seems like several different traits put together. There's their ignorance, their desire to get ahead, and their being in the way.

All of which disappear once you get to know them! So, do they change in the process, or do you?

Yeah, as we get to know people they take on the traits they actually have, and seem to lose the ones we assumed they had. Those assumptions are called "projections", and they're more part of ourselves than the people we project them on. Not that we actually want to be or believe we are, say, arrogant or ignorant, but maybe we're afraid we are, unconsciously, so we interpret the world that way.

Even the low value initially placed on them could well be a mistaken reflection of the same attitude about yourself ... It's not true of them, and it's not true of you. We all have value, because fundamentally, none of us is just part of the populace, we're all individuals.

It can be interesting approaching each new person with the conscious thought, "I know nothing about this person except what they tell me." The corollary, of course, is that they know nothing about you except what you show them. We're all ignorant until we learn, and learning goes on all the time.

{I'm tempted to count how many times I used the word "all" in there ...}

I like the way this debate is going on .

However, to go back to the notion of "deception" I brought here: I agree with what you, Mark, wrote about it, but I also think that I should clarify that in the "image" I described, "deception" distinguishes "comfort" from "changing the point of view". This means: Yes, there are many ways of looking at a thing (a threat, a problem, ...), there are many "truths", but for me, in the described concept, comfort is just a temporary emotional change, not a long-term rational change of opinion. So from my dominating point of view (-the one that, for instance, makes me fearful), my temporary ("comforted") point of view is "a lie". (It's obviously due to my own experiences with comfort - it feels good but always lasts only for a short time and doesn't bring any "solutions" or long-term changes, its long-term effect can be only (and just sometimes) in making me, at the moment, emotionally able to do something that may have a long-term consequence. I don't say it's not enough! But it's still not an actual change of opinion/mind.)

However, that's an image that I recently (spontaneously) created (= it occurred to me) and I can also (if I try) create (slightly?) different images of comfort - much more similar to those described by others, as, for instance, by Beth here.