Grant and Lincoln's invitation

[loetar44]

(10-12-2014 04:04 PM)Linda Anderson Wrote:  Kees, I'm not sure I understand what you are saying. Do you mean to say that I am being unfair to Mary when I say that she had control over how she chose to react to situations? Are you saying that she had no control over her actions then?

Linda,

Sorry that I was not really clear, but let me better explain what I ment to say. We all face negative situations in our life. And in most cases you are completely right, you can keep your response under control and if you cannot you can train a better behavior. However there are situations where it is extremely difficult to keep a positive attitude. That’s why I gave –see my response to Laurie- as example how I reacted in an extreme negative situation, when I lost my twin and was literally torn by grief, because that was for me personally a situation in which I had not myself under control, during more than a year. I personally thought that there was nothing wrong with me and that I had given the loss of my brother a certain place in my life and that I could carry on. I really thought that I acted as normal as I always did. But subconsciously I reacted totally different to all kind of situations, especially negative situations. In fact I had no control over my response, only I did not know or see that. I also said that my grief was “nothing” compared with the grief Mary Lincoln had to endure. That was "in extremo". If I had no total control over my response, I suspect that it was extremely harder for Mary to overcome all kind of negative situations, because response out of emotion (which will only make it all worse) is (and I speak out of my own experience) in particular in case of grief only clearly visible to others. The circumstances made it that Mary was (feeded by her subconscious brain) out of her control. I needed help to realize that and after that I could continue with my life. Nobody blamed me. But who helped Mary? That’s why I wrote that it is not fair to blame Mary. It’s still my opinion that Mary could not in all circumstances always decide how she wanted to react.