Hi Cleopatra,
Awesome! Good to know we can put whatever behind us and go forward as better SR friends than when we started, lol.
You know, we've all learned experience is a wonderful teacher. Speaking for myself, I haven't always understood what it was I experienced during several important and critical times in my life. These ongoing misunderstandings only added to my own misery. When I would finally seek from others their help to a better understanding, it was always painful somehow, no matter how careful my "helpers" tried to be in their efforts.
Knowing more of your background now, I can fully understand your clear need to know you are feeling good about yourself. I want to tell you feeling good about ourselves is a worthy pursuit in itself. I too felt very deeply rotten and guilty from abuse I received, so I'm knowing abit about what you speak of, I think.
I also now know, that I can still feel good about myself even while I examine myself in ways which cause me to feel uneasy so as to get to the bottom of some of my challenges with life. I've learned to not entirely let go of my good feelings even while enduring other feelings. It can be a bit tricky sometimes, but I learn from my challenges to do it better next time.
I like AVRT alot. It is an ideal way to place some very horrific feelings into the Beast, which otherwise I would have difficulty with. The separation experience is priceless for me, and so I'm very attentive to my AV, so as to have razor sharp separation of many issues with myself and my past addictions.
Even though I can instantly become indifferent to my AV, I still make sure it's not new AV I'm dismissing. I'm always careful. If it's same old same old, fine, away with it. If it's new though, I really do make an effort to explore it's finer points, lol. That's me.
Thanks so much for your earnest and honest reply, Cleopatra. You Rock!
:ghug3