Yoma – Thanks for saying that, it makes it clearer to me.
Perhaps I have said these things before, but to make it plain I will repeat some things. So I feel that it is your inner brother you need to deal with - When you think about a lover, a brother or a person you know, you are only taking in your thoughts, impressions and feelings about them. So many people do not realise that they have an inner person equally as powerful as the external person you know. You have taken in millions of bits of memory, lessons learnt, life experiences along with all the feelings or problems met by meeting or living with them, and the experiences change you and make you the person you are. The memories and experience we gather unconsciously are not lost. It is part of you and is symbolised in dreams as a person or event. Such an inner person can appear in dreams because you still carry the memories or impressions of them, and so they influenced what you hold within you and the way you live your life.
As an example of dealing with such feelings; because my grandmother had been my prime carer, and had died before I had reached the age of two, I had already experienced great loss. This had left me open to the fear of abandonment. At three my mother without warning put me in a convalescent hospital, being at the hospital released this terror that I had been abandoned.
Meeting that terror again in my late 40s was almost more than I could bear. although the feeling was originally connected with my mother, as usually happens, whoever we love becomes the target for such fears. In meeting these awful feelings, I traced the origin of them back to the events mentioned. But the terrific anger I felt to my mother at exposing me to such unbearable emotions, also spilled over onto my wife. I tried to forgive my mother but the anger did not abate and it became obvious that unless I could forgive my mother, I would ruin my marriage with that anger.
It was difficult to find this forgiveness because I felt that what my mother had done was unforgivable. Of course none of this was neatly rational. The feelings were burning beyond reason, and could not be rationalised away. But I could not ignore the fact that this was not, in the end, about my mother, but about me. My continued anger was ruining my life. So for my own sake I had to sincerely forgive my mother. This was not a fast change, and it was not easy. But it did release me from the crippling effects of the anger. And some effects of non-forgiveness in these situations are quite subtle.
I found that admitting that it was my own inner mother/brother that was doing the damage was the first step in dealing with it. The next step was to love and not to hate and try to kill my mother/brother. This was helped by the realisation that it was myself – a real and powerful aspect of myself I was dealing with that was causing my inner turmoil.
Love and forgiveness is the same thing. If we can love yourself it opens the door to love other people, because loving yourself means accepting and loving the very ordinary, the very wonderful, the very awful, and that covers all men and women. Also it means you stop judging other people, and most important judging yourself. For when I finally forgave my mother/brother/myself, I saw with open mouthed wonder that because I had judged and condemned my mother/brother, I had been an awful judge on myself. That was a real smack in the face and an awakening that freed me.
Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Luke 6:37
Tony