04 January 2008

Light A Candle

Little sisters of the sun lit candles in the rain;
Fed the world on oats and raisins, candles in the rain.
Lit the fire in the soul who never knew his friends --
Meher Baba lives again, candles in the rain.
To be there is to remember, lay it down again;
Lay down, lay down, lay it down again.
Men can live as brothers... candles in the rain.
-- Melanie Safka.

Use this link to light a candle in the rain.

Light a candle for happiness, for hope, for peace, for freedom, to honor a loved one, for help in time of pain and need, for anything your heart and soul may need or desire.

There is also a link to the site, Light A Candle, on the sidebar of this page.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Protesting too much at a compliment or castigating oneself over an error can also be characteristics of the victim of the narcissist.

I grew up with an N Mom and her insults were always couched as though they were compliments. Consequently I learned never to trust any positive statement from her as it would inevitably come with a sting in its tail. Now I can just say thankyou if somebody compliments me, but I am in my 40s it took a long time to get there.

Similarly with getting it wrong, I grew up in a narcissistic household where I was not allowed to question anything, and nothing was ever my mother's fault including her abuse. I questioned myself constantly, and considering the routine gaslighting that my mother indulged in, it was a surprise I ever emerged with my memory or mental faculties intact. You end up beating yourself up over every imaginable small error. It is more about a terrible self-esteem and the deep seated idea that you really are responsible for everyone else's problems. (Just as an aside, I was once told by a religious narcissist 'elder' that my son's autism was my fault and all he needed was 'his mother's love' in order to cure him. I took it on board and apologised profusely to my poor son for not loving him enough. Suffice to say, I am now much more aware of narcissistic poison and how it operates than I was then).

All of that said, I realise that narcissists do these same things with entirely different motivation, but I wanted to point out to the casual observer that people's reactions to both praise and wrongdoing are generally much more complex than they seem.

05 January, 2008 20:40  
Blogger Stormchild said...

Jordie, you are absolutely right.

Just this afternoon I was thinking about this and realized that I now respond to many professional compliments in a way that deflects the praise and attention away from me.

This derives from years - make that decades - of vicious workplace bullying in various settings, which has left me convinced that a compliment from certain professional associates actually telegraphs their intent to do me as much professional harm as possible.

Stemming entirely from envy, as Martha Stout describes in "The Sociopath Next Door".

Sad but true.

You are absolutely right.

Thanks for balancing the perspective.

05 January, 2008 20:53  

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