Author Archives: Guus

Finally on the way?

Am I finally on the way to success, to more happiness, or maybe just to happiness?

And I don’t know how to make this into an inspiring post, but I am discovering more and more that I am codependent. And a phone call with my mam tonight confirms some very dysfunctional stuff in our family, as she acts like she is fully helpless and ‘cannot do anything’, which is not true, as she did sign some very important papers as ‘she had no other option’. And the strange thing to me is still that she says she ‘does everything’ for her children, especially me, but when I want or need something from her ‘she cannot do it’.

Anyhow, I don’t want to talk about my mam, but it seems there is a lot of codependent behavior in my family, where probably I and my sister are the ‘target’ of my mams codependency. And somehow my dad was also a ‘target’, as I saw my mam do everything for him, instead of setting healthy boundaries. And my dad must have been part of the system that kept it all going also, ‘needing my mam’.

So I found myself in this weird discussion with my mam where I tried to settle some stuff related to the death of my sister last week. As my mam, my other sister and I are the heirs of my sister and responsible of arranging the legal stuff. And to me it is relatively simple to settle the inheritance of my sister as she was a special child living in a mental institution. This means she only has a few thing like a closet, a bed, clothes, some toys, etc and some money on the bank. And most of the financial stuff I know as I used to be her curator, being responsible for all the legal stuff.

The strange thing however was that I was no part of any arranging of her funeral as my mam ‘had to follow the undertaker’ and ‘there was no time to involve me’ as I live far away in The Philippines. So I tried to involve myself by asking if the undertaker could call me to set up a video connection as I was not able and willing to go to The Netherlands and with current technology it shouldn’t be that difficult to be present through some video conferencing system. Even the common Skype would do perfect for that purpose and only requires internet and a laptop or something. But no, nobody called me, even though there were two days available to arrange something like that. And as far as I know undertakers always work under time pressure, so my request or anything ‘there is no time’ doesn’t make any sense to me.

Anyhow, when Thursday afternoon and evening Philippine time, which is the Dutch morning and beginning of the afternoon nothing had happened, I knew nothing would be arranged anymore, as the funeral was Friday morning Dutch time. So I decided to just make my own plans and let the funeral be, even though it hurt a little, but not that much.

And right now I find myself in the same situation. As my mam somehow has instructed a notary public to deal with things like payment of the funeral and other bills. Which to me she does not even have the right to, at least not on behalf of the heirs, but that’s not the point. So I had this discussion with her yesterday, that Suzan, my other sister, she and I could just arrange the stuff ourselves and that I am even willing to do most of the work. And as she got very upset yesterday because ‘bills have to be paid’ and ‘maybe there is not enough money’ to pay for the funeral, I decided to not push through yesterday with deciding who is going to do what.

But today I got the feeling to call her again, especially as I found out that my mams notary had been sending e-mails to third parties about legal stuff they don’t have the right to as far as I know. And again, they fully bypassed me, where I expected a phone call or e-mail from them to check with me how I thought things should be handled. And maybe also because I know all the details about Janneke’s finance. I mean, it’s easiest to check those things with me, as I have the overview.

But no, nothing, not even after I sent them an e-mail that I felt a bit bypassed, being the brother and one of the heirs.

So I called again. And ended up in the same discussion, my mam kind of blaming me that she can’t sleep because of, well, it seems money problems, where as far as I know Janneke has enough capital. So contrary to my mam I am more worried about inheritance tax that needs to be paid than about not enough money available for the funeral or stone repair as she is buried in a family grave. So while I was trying to get an answer how my mam, Suzan and I would like to have all these legal things arranged, my mam had only one solution: the notary public who is going to pay the bills. And in my opinion he can’t do that, as he would need the permission of all three of us to do that. But for my mam there is only one way: the notary is going to do this as ‘there is no other way’.

So I am trying to learn from this, like if my mam is also codependent and if I am a bit like my mam, do I behave the same in similar or other situations? And if so, how can I change that, so a ‘normal’ negotiation would be possible?

And another thing I am trying to learn is how to deal with this person who has only one solution in mind and doesn’t want to budge. As I also want something, and that is just a decision on how we are going to do all this. And yes, maybe there is a similarity, as I also want that ‘now, now, now’, where there is no real time pressure.

Ah, but one thing I think I learned, and that is not giving in to the sad stories of my mam. The ‘I can’t do it, I can’t do anything’ thing. As that is just not true, that is just victim behavior. And indeed, I am not responsible for my mams feelings as she chooses this behavior (which is not easy, as I know she is really worried and does not sleep).

So for now I decided just to lie low and do nothing, but somehow that feels like passive aggressive behavior. And this means I still have something to learn, similar to find a way to communicate with my sister, who at the moment only wants to communicate through WhatsApp, something I don’t use and yes, installed on one of our computers giving in to my sister.

Divided consciousness

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Today I had a very strange experience during a massage. And the massage was very good, so I was pretty relaxed, and most of the time I had my eyes closed. And the experience was something like my body did not stop where it normally stops, at the skin, but it went on into the massage area that was divided by curtains and a little bit further, but not really the whole room, with like ten of those massage places or so. And my consciousness was somewhere in my head, where I usually the ‘I’ feel, and it extended somehow into this area, where I perceived less with a larger distance, although the music that was present was pretty ‘close’. And I didn’t really perceive different ‘things’, like the parts of my body, the hands of the masseur and things like that. It felt more like a contiguous energy or something, the thing I read a book about recently, like everything is made up of strings. And it was weird, as of course I could feel the hands of the masseur ‘pushing’ my body, sometimes even going towards almost pain, but all of this was just ‘feeling’, no material, no ‘matter’.

So yes, this all went back to the subject Infinite Intelligence that was very close to me the last few days. And to the story I read a few days ago, the additional chapter of Outwitting the Devil. And to the book I read about how science is searching for how everything is built up and where it all comes from.

And the strange thing was, that ‘I’ was some kind of consciousness, but that I was aware that there were also other consciousnesses, like the masseur and the other people nearby. So I did not experience some kind of universal consciousness or infinite consciousness. And somehow the ‘matter’, the physical things were not created by me. I was just the observer, not a participant.

And I am not fully sure why I am sharing it here, but something inside of me wanted to keep that experience, hold the experience, write down the experience as it was some kind of esoteric experience, something very good and peaceful. So I wanted to share that feeling, like ‘everything is good, everything is okay’. And the somehow ‘divided’ consciousnesses. As that was very strange, as normally I believe there is just one universal consciousness that we are all part of.

So yes, I want you to know that everything is okay and that there are many levels of physical experience, where our daily experience is just one of them.

Evasive?

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I often use indirect or evasive communication to avoid conflict or confrontation. So I want to learn better use direct and straightforward communication to resolve conflicts and deal appropriately with confrontations. That was something presented to me today and it seems to fit me, seems to fit my behavior. But something else I was confronted with was that I often act in ways that invite others to reject, shame, or express anger toward them. So I am looking to act in ways that encourage loving and healthy responses from others.

So just now I was confronted with a situation where I didn’t know what to do, how to behave. As I felt provoked by someone close to me, so finally I decided just to leave, but while reading the above it might have been evasive communication. But ‘confrontation’ in this type of situation with this person mostly just ends in anger, so I didn’t and don’t know what to do, even though I think that I might have done a little bit better than in the past.

And I still don’t know what I am doing or not doing that seem to make other people, well, not sure what to day. Do I make them feel insecure or something? But maybe I am just going too fast, as I just started learning about these things where people like me or with my type of behavior are being helped and supported by doing better.

So yes, let’s just relax and start with step one.

Outwitting the devil

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It was very strange what just happened to me. Somehow I ended up on the site Outwitting the Devil. And what happened after was something like the thing described in the document with ‘the last chapter’, the thing that happened to Napoleon Hill as described in this text. As somehow I felt I was guided to this site, this page, this document. And somehow it feels that it was no accident that it mainly reminded me of the virtual cabinet Napoleon Hill also describes in Think and Grow Rich. And it reminded me of the sessions with my private virtual cabinet a while ago. And it somehow made me believe I should continue with that, restart it. And while writing this I realize that I have felt very lonely lately, especially the last few weeks, as somehow the people who I was talking to (with?) for my Connect Mindanao project have not done so much recently, have not really contributed, have not done their part. So this felt like another project, another business that failed, where I failed to create a team to make it happen, where I failed again to generate some income for myself, some pleasure for myself. So maybe that is also why I was lead to Outwitting the Devil, as it talks about what to do, how to become happy.

And no, I don’t like what I read there and heard everywhere. As somehow it never worked for me, or somehow I didn’t do it or didn’t do it the right way.

So time for meditation right now, even though I still want to finish some things tonight. But maybe first stop.

Inspiration for Success November 2014

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I met another blogger yesterday, which made me realize I am a blogger, not the creator of the website of Inspiration for Success. And her comment on having like a million hits shocked me a bit, as she did not start so much earlier than me. And it was especially strange to me as her blog is on blogspot.com and not on her own domain. And she said it was kind of her full time job, that her blog provides her enough income to live from. So of course when arriving home I checked some stuff and indeed, she has more than hundred thousand followers in Twitter.

So yes, these things emphasize that I need, or actually want, to improve the quality of Inspiration for Success. But how to do that, without any budget, without a team and next to a, well maybe not full time job, but pretty busy business life.

And yes, the number of pages goes up steadily and the traffic also, so my daily writing and starting the page Top Inspirational Sites is paying off. But yes, creating more value does not look really easy to do, even though I feel more inspired lately to work on the quality and quantity of some stuff in this site.

Anyhow, I guess indeed ‘as long as I do not stop’ something will come out of this, something good. But I could use some help to make that happen or make that happen faster.