on integration:

these parts that we reject from ourselves — whether they are negative aspects of others, or (trigger warning) aspects of our own parents we don’t like — are still part of us. unintegrated. fragmented.

take, for instance, sleeping beauty. to truly understand what beauty is — who rose is, we have to integrate maleficent. maleficent didn’t exist until rose was born. we have to look at the totality of the story.

when we reject things — when we split, we don’t have access to the opposite.

the men who have access to beauty are the ones who can take down the dragon of chaos — the ones who have the sword of truth and the shield of virtue. those guys can deal with our shit by cutting through it. and that’s what wakes us up.

the things that we’re often afraid of are the things that remind us the most of the people we’re afraid of — because we’re most like them.

naftali moses

what parts of my mother or father do i reject or have i rejected? the parts of my mother that my father and his mother rejected include my mother’s quiet presence. my grandmother resented my mother from her pedigreed background. when i really think of it, my grandmother resented my mother (and therefore me) because of my mother’s ability to be a mother. what did i reject about my father? his absolutism, his all-or-nothing attitude. his outright rejection of anything that wasn’t his definition of the ideal. he also didn’t live up to my grandmother’s expectations, and he never had the freedom or the tools to really explore himself. he wasn’t accepted by extended family — which his shame is still posthumously ongoing.

well, it looks like i have my work cut out for me. integration of all of these aspects often felt overwhelming. i’m currently working through the shame aspect. and no wonder i have been trying so hard to be a woman that is idealized. but really, it’s better to break the projections of others. why trap myself under their projections and expectations of me?

so on a subconscious primal level, be like them because you are like them. you don’t need to die like them. you just need to understand that there are parts of you that are in them, and that your job is to show up for yourself to free yourself of the ancestral bullshit that’s been passed down… you guys don’t just have the relationship with your life. you have the relationship of all of what it took for you to exist when you’re born on planet earth.

naftali moses

courage is necessary. what am i being courageous for? my work? my image? other people? those goals aren’t fulfilling. i need to be courageous for myself. it all starts with me and my inner world.

on idealization:

women cannot speak to the men who idealize them. they attract men who have a lot of repressed idealizations of women. and then when men see you, they put this massive projection onto who you are of what you are. any time you try to step out of that projection, they get triggered as if they are betrayed. and when you try to talk to them, they can’t listen — they can’t hear you or see you. what they see is the projection. and this sucks. because the man is happy, while you are trapped and controlled by the man.

both parties in the relationship have to be consistently doing their own work in order for the relationship to progress. they cannot resort to naivete, but instead have to accept responsibility for who they are. and they cannot fear confrontation.

everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves. your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes. until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.

carl jung

simple exercise:

when you find yourself “othering” — whether you are offended by something someone said or how they responded behaviorally — ask yourself what part of you is being triggered. the part that feels triggered is the part that needs to be integrated. when you realize that “the other” is simply a reflection of what needs to be integrated within, you become free.

people treat others how they feel about themselves. they project these parts onto others.

when you realize that this is how subconscious energy works, it’s much easier to not take things personally and instead show gratitude towards “the other” for showing what needs a little more self-compassion and grace within.

how should we treat others? there are no others.

ramana maharshi