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Honesty to a fault; virtue or excuse?

Suggested Reading

Pedagogy of the Oppressed ~ Paulo Freire
The Paradox of Choice – Why More Is Less ~ Barry Schwartz

Catherine Westerduin
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Relationships do not need to follow a certain timeline and manifest in many different ways. “Moving in” with a significant other looks different for each person that wants to do so. The key point is to KNOW who you are making deeper commitments to before moving too fast based on fantasies, hormones and other factors based in irrationality. A few months is in almost all cases simply not long enough to have an accurate picture of who someone is. ~ Darlene Zimmerman

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The Fantasy Bond : Structure of Psychological Defenses | Glendon Association, Dec 1, 1987 Robert W. Firestone

It is composed of a spoken, manifest message and an opposite underlying latent meaning or action. Parents and family members continually give each other mixed messages to cover up their real sentiments. For example, a parent who tells a child, “It’s time to go to bed; you need your rest,” might be camouflaging a real desire to be free of the child for the evening, or might be attempting to hide a more general rejecting attitude. The child picks up the underlying message in the parent’s tone of voice, body language, and expressive movements, but is confused by the words. The child realizes, on a deep level, that he or she is receiving two contradictory messages. However, because of the child’s dependency on the parents and need to believe their words, the child must sacrifice his or her own sense of reality. Having one’s sense of reality distorted can lead to serious psychological disturbance, particularly when rejection is denied consistently with double messages from one’s parents.

In a couple bond, men and women give double messages far more often than they realize. If they honestly stated what they really thought or deeply felt, they would be breaking an implicit pact to maintain the pretense of love and therefore the form of their relationship. Believing the words of one’s mate while ignoring the actions can lead to serious distortions of reality.

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“One young couple had been deeply involved for several months when they began talking about the possibility of living together. In this instance, the man initiated the conversation following a particularly close, romantic evening. However, soon afterward, the young woman became uneasy when she realized that they had only spent one evening together over the previous week. When she asked her friend if he was pulling away from her for some reason, he became angry and acted insulted, denying the real message of his behavior, all the while insisting he still cared for her. The woman felt confused and depressed until she finally admitted to herself that her lover was trying to deceive her about his waning interest. She was still pained by the rejection, but regained her sense of perspective after she saw through his duplicity. She would have been less disturbed had she noticed sooner that his actions belied his reassurance of love.”

Darlene Zimmerman | #metanoiahealingarts
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Long Distance Monogamy and We Have Never Met | part I

Darlene Zimmerman | #metanoiahealingarts
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Daily Dross : She’s someone's sister/ mother / daughter / wife

Darlene Zimmerman | #metanoiahealingarts
https://www.facebook.com/metanoiahealingarts/
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Where Empathy and Compassion Meets Transgressions

Life is full of opportunities to condemn others for what we experience as transgressions. How can we infuse more compassion and kindness into our lives? The kind of kindness, forgiveness, thoughtfulness and compassion we offer children.

I have noticed there can be a major discrepancy in the way we offer children larger boundaries to flounder in error with impunity. Why do we stymie these conditions for adults? It is erroneous to assume the maturation process has yielded an individual skilled at taking into consideration the needs of others and navigating in manner that makes the most optimal sense.

Instead of condemning people, let’s try to understand them. Let’s try to figure out why they do what they do. That’s a lot more profitable and intriguing than criticism; and it breeds sympathy, tolerance and kindness. “To know all is to forgive all.” Dale Carnegie

Recently, the past six years of my life have been filled with many of these opportunities and to say I have skillfully navigated them is a poor assertion. I have struggled immensely with establishing healthy boundaries.

All suffer in some manner, some greater, more extant or overt. Do the suffering not require love and care too? It is not an easy choice to care for the suffering. It is easier to discard and extricate from these types of interactions. But I ask who is perfect? Who does not suffer and who does not deserve love?

To properly love and support others requires immense resolute and counseling. If the correct supports are not in place they cause many mirco traumas that aggregate into a larger trauma.

A journey towards your freedom from suffer might arrive from the liberation of responding to others negatively because of their suffering and doing the following, asking questions, not condemning and offering support.

As with any practice there is no final destination and it is ongoing. It is filled with many mistakes and failures one of life's greatest teacher.


Who is the we in the offering the love and tenderness children? There are many “we’s” who do not offer that to children. At what point to we paralyze and enable children by allowing them to mistreat others? How does the proper consequences happen? When is the loving response compassionate punishment or consequences?

Darlene Zimmerman | #metanoiahealingarts
https://www.facebook.com/metanoiahealingarts/
https://www.facebook.com/darlene.zimm
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