[jimrich]

Originally Posted by hopeful harry

Thank you for the replies and sorry for bumping this thread but I've only recently considered myself to be on a spiritual path and feel I may need some guidance.

i don't give advice but will offer my experiences here.

For twenty years I've had problems with anxiety and depression. At my worst I've been suicidal, at my best it has been an ever present lurking in the shadows. Recently I have started watching my own thoughts and I have been utterly shocked at what I have found. It sounds obvious when I write it down but the contents of my thoughts are extremely negative and angry. I even have imaginary arguments in my head with strangers I walk past in the street! It's ridiculous.

In therapy, I began examining myself, my thoughts and mostly my feelings to see where, how and why they come from. Most of my anger was connected to my parents and very bad stuff that happened back home. The "strangers" that I "argued" with turned out to be my parents once I had the courage to acknowledge that I was mostly ANGRY with them for being so selfish, abusive and ignorant. i HATED THEM! It took a while to accept that they had seriously damaged me, in my childhood, and I needed to direct my RAGE back onto them where it belonged and not at "strangers", my wife, friends, co-workers, pets and just about every one & thing I'd been punishing all those years instead of the ones who truly deserved my rage - MY PARENTS! I was deathly afraid of them so I just couldn't face it that they were the ones who had damaged me in the beginning. This is very common for most of humanity. They will defend and excuse their parents right to the end while abusing and punishing others instead. Psychology calls this Deflecting or Projection where the victim (you) sends their feeling onto the wrong target (strangers) instead of the right target - which was mom & dad - in my case.

At the moment I am still at the stage of noticing these thoughts (and, like I say I have shocked myself with the severity and consistency of them) but I'm wondering now how I can begin to change the way I think. I feel like a lot of damage has been done over the last 20 years and I don't know how to undo it. I feel like I've had a bit of an awakening simply by noticing my thoughts more often but at the same time a little bit disheartened by the severity of the problem.

My "thinking" and feeling automatically changed, for the better, as soon as I began directing my feelings/thinking towards the correct target - my parents - and not at the incorrect target(s) myself, my wife, family, neighbors, friends, co-workers, etc. The process of finding the correct target for my RAGE & Hatred began the day I entered an Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunction Families (google it) meeting many, many years ago and, with the help and support of others, who were in pain, like me, started understanding and healing from the various traumas of a bad childhood. All I can say is what I did and how it worked for me. I attended many other support group sharing meetings and obtained even deeper healing by going there and learning how to manage my inner pains from a rotten past. I found that my basic issue was something like PSTD so my main goal was to vent as much of my bottled up anger, sorrow and FEAR as possible - not seek revenge against my parents. So far, I am feeling a lot better now that much of my repressed anger has been SAFELY discharged.

I've never really understood the law of attraction like I'm beginning to now but it seems as clear as day to me now that what I have been doing for the past 20 years is creating this reality of sadness and anger and hate. I now feel ready to turn this around but I don't really know where to begin....... Any help would be gratefully received!
Thanks for reading.

I went looking for HELP and found it at 12 step support groups and therapy so now I am finding even more HELP in spiritual circles and teachings right on line, so, good luck, jim