I think yesterday I got a glimpse of something very important. This is a result of a follow up process after meeting the right people.
I was looking at myself in the gym's mirror and I felt a familiar disgust. At the same time I had awareness of the gym's female worker having a joyful conversation with a friend few meters behind me. When I was passing by I smiled and said "hello" and as they replied with a smile I could feel the connection between the two of them and their "essences". This feeling of noticing the connection and person's "essence" is something that started happening to me only recently. So I was standing there in front of the mirror, having this disgust feeling. And instead of avoiding it, I managed to ask myself before it was gone: "what am I disgusted with?". And the answer was: "I am disgusted with having an essence". And immediately a memory of the two women behind me popped up, with a question: "are they disgusting?" and the answer was "no, they are adorable". And then I asked "why am I disgusting then?". And then what popped up was.. my mother. And then there was a realization on some very subconscious level, going like "oh wait a minute.. it is not my essence that is disgusting, it is my mother's essence that she has always considered disgusting!". And then I took the opportunity remembering that it is very important in such moments to teach the brain by memorizing the differences, so I explained to myself: "so she had an essence, and those two women have a different essence, and do you remember the essence of this man you spoke to on that trip? do you see how many people have so many difference essences and there is no way that someone can know all of them? then how can you assume that yours is the one disgusting for everyone?". And then I just tried to stay with that notion. Seeing my mother's self image not as something that defined me, but something that is specific to this very person in 1980's. I saw it in sepia colours actually, I think the NLP exercise kicked in :D
And what I wanted now to write about is that this desynchronisation on the essence topic was what was preventing the intimacy for me. Because intimacy between the two people requires getting in touch with the essences of each other. And as soon as I felt or saw someone trying to share their essence with me I saw it as pityful, pathetic, disgusting, it felt like someone is trying to trade the feelings "under the table". And yes sometimes I agreed on trading them under the table because I was attracted to another person incapable of intimacy. I saw only the glimpse of the real thing. I saw someone wants to share themselves with me and I did not see any other way than "under the table" way. Under the table way means the toxic way. Means getting over attached and assuming mind reading. Meaning letting myself be treated like someone's possession. Meaning being either one or no one, in other words I saw only the pathetic side in someone who is opening up and the only way to prevent seeing them as pathetic was to merge with them and consider them part of me. I saw only the pathetic side and I was missing out the whole gift part. If I saw the gift that this person gives me, I would not see it as pathetic overall, and would not have to resort to either the toxic merging or rejection. But to see that gift one needs to understand human interactions, needs to see that extra layer that I was completely missing out on.
And the way to see that layer in other people was to see it in me first. Yes, that was the start of the break through, I wrote about it here.