Classroom Talk
Winter 2002 Archive
About some typical Rebel things. Posted by John on March 05, 2002 at 18:49:10:
In Reply to: Re: Dusting off the old hotseat again. posted by Sally on March 05, 2002 at 11:17:01:
Great, Sally! Here goes. I'll be bold, if you will permit me.
I'd like to start out by focusing on what seems to be a reoccurring pattern in your behavior here in our class over the years that you have done a lot of
reflecting about on your own already. You once called this pattern "being a bitch." Heh-heh. But you have a more favorite nickname for it:
"PsychoSal;-)"
We have seen this interesting pattern of behavior come out in you from time to time in the form of a kind of intense "flaming eruption," so to speak,
that often catches us by surprise. There have been eruptions like this with several other fellow students over the years—with Rob that time, was an
interesting example, and with Bruce back then, and with others from time to time.
And I'm not here-now to focus much on *them*, but rather on you as an individual person, if I may, Sally? Here's the first "key question" for today.
Are you following what I'm talking about here? 1. Do you see exactly what I'm referring to in this?
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And I would also like to examine whether the emotional feeling that most ties in with that pattern of behavior is the feeling of jealousy. And you
recognized long ago on your own that the feeling of jealousy was coming up in you. You saw that come up after awhile when you started becoming
good friends with Pauline. And you brought that out in class. Even though you and Pauline are much mellower friends nowadays, that jealousy
seemed to get in the way back then.
Jealousy, as an emotional feeling, could be referred to by several cognitive names. It could be called "bitterness." Calling it bitterness can often help us
to recognize when it is going on. It's kind of easy to see when a person is feeling bitter. And it could be called "rejection." It is the emotional feeling
that ordinarily comes up in our human bodies "when we feel rejected."
"Something is spoiling the beauty of it for us." We feel very sensitive that this is happening. We become bitter about it. And we feel rejected. — "I
don't want you to have what is spoiling the beauty of it for me!" That is a central idea in the arising of jealousy. "I don't want you to have what I
can't have, for beauty's sake, for me!" "And if you *do* have what I can't have, I feel very jealous." "I feel very sensitive about it, as if you are
rejecting me."
Now, bear in mind that if we happen to be Rebels in our main personality make-up, we have a built-in, spring-loaded tendancy to "anticipate rejection,"
to think we are being rejected when we aren't really being rejected. So we could add another cognitive name to the list here, and say this emotional
feeling we are talking about is "sensitivity," or "heightened sensitivity." We Rebels are highly sensitive to "feeling we are being rejected."
Jealousy-bitterness-rejection-heightened sensitivity.
For simplicity's sake, I'm going to use the term "jealousy" as the generic term for the emotional feeling in question here. Just as anger is the
characteristic negative emotional feeling of the Judge, jealousy is the characteristic negative emotional feeling of the Rebel.
So . . . . . here's the second key question today, Sally. 2. If you *did* start getting jealous of Pauline, back then when you were starting to be friends .
. . . . what do you suppose you were being jealous about, precisely? What was the rationale of your jealousy?
This can be good for Pauline, too, to understand this—i.e. to have a clearer understanding of "What happened?" when things got sticky at a given
point back there between you two. She was going to India. And you may have some contrition about this, Sally. You may feel you regret it. And
each of you may have something to forgive each other for, by the way, when these possibly painful yet healing truths are shared.
If you can't relate to this one, Sally, or if you can't remember well enough what I'm talking about, let this second question slide.
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This can be good. We can have a thread of fairly short postings back and forth with each other here for awhile, if you can get into that.
Remember this: I do love ya'. And I do foregive All of you students for the conditioned personality types that you've picked up as you were growing
up. (And I forgive *me* for the same thing.) — Your over-all inner strengths and qualities seem much, much greater to me, Sally, than . . . "PsychoSal;-
)", which is just a little part of the Whole of you, there on the outside, a part that may get in your way.
Coach
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