Nivea–hypnotic advertisement

I

was watching tv last night and there was this advertisement for Nivea, a line of products for the human skin. I have a strong reaction to this brand. I’ve noticed before; with a previous commercial - Nivea for Men – they end with ‘what Men Want’ and I experienced the tendency in myself to believe that Nivea is what men actually want.

Why is that? I trust Nivea. I’ve known this brand for so long, maybe since childhood. when I see Nivea I think immediately: ‘healthy, sunshine, family’, I feel safe and taken care of. I do not remember, did we use Nivea at home when I was a child? No memories of it, probably we did because in those days there was not such a variety in products.

I did buy Nivea in the past and experienced it being not  more or less effective than most other products. So I do not buy or use it. Still this reaction to Nivea is in me, like a hypnotic state, seeing this blue box with the specific white lettering I slip into a state of trust, feeling safe and secure and want to be as healthy as the blond, attractive mother with the sun tan in the commercial (well, the one I link these feelings to that I saw in the past). Of course I stop it but last night I experienced this is quite a strong, automated reaction, that I do not experience with other products. Wait, yes, I do on other product, toothpaste that my parents did use – Prodent – but less prominent. Both have in common that I’ve known these products all my life. Well, now I come to think of it, there are more, like Maizena, I use this to prepare food because my mother did use it before me and because I like the product.

Lately I’ve been observing commercials on tv , especially the commercials from companies/products I do/did bond with. They do appeal to some kind of loyalty – I feel loyal to these companies, because of positive experiences when dealing with them. And in their commercials I see they appeal to that loyalty, the loyalty gets emphasized even more.

I was looking for pictures of Nivea on the internet and there was this page full of them: I react strongly to the color blue with the lettering.

<-though not this one, no reaction, so it is not just the color blue with the white, but the specific lettering in particular. And the shape of the box like in the first picture, but primarily the specific lettering on the box.

Well, I am ending the automated reaction to Nivea, this hypnotic state of mind I let myself be trapped in.

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More info on the hypnotic effect I allow Nivea to have on me:

MC indicates I should check my starting point of working on this subject

I want to be done with the subject, not because of the effect it has on me, but from the starting point of doing my ‘homework’

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to abdicate my responsibility for the hypnotic effect of the Nivea-picture by placing myself as a person that has ‘to finish her task’ instead of working through the point of the hypnotic effect I allow to be triggered by the picture of Nivea in my mind

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be impatient with myself and not willing to walk this process of exposing the effect the Nivea-brand has on me step by step. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be hard on myself and self indulgent at the same time instead of relaxing myself by breathing and push myself to work through this point. I am too tensed=because of being hard on myself. I am self indulgent=allowing myself to stay in this state of mind. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not take time for self intimacy, being close with me, here, pushing myself to work on this point instead of taking time for myself to be intimate with myself and from within that work on this particular point. Enough – I am here, with me in me as me.

Ok – I realize I have been avoiding to face a certain point. To face it in his totality – instead I’ve been thinking a lot about it. I’ll write about it in another post. The Nivea point I’ll address later on. Will be interesting though to see what the picture exists of.

Rage

I

am noticing an increasing rage within myself. I started to notice it this summer when following what is going on Dutch politics – we had elections and this time the more ‘right winged’ parties won and are therefor allowed to form the Government. I felt this rage coming up because of their plans to economize, but merely cutting back the people that already do not have that much money to spent and well of people aren’t barely affected or even better of. Getting even more more more more ‘fair share’.

I am so immensely pissed because of the inequality of all of this/because I cannot comprehend why these people and their voters are so selfish that they want more more more money and luxury at the expense of fellow citizens that will not have even enough money anymore to buy food - yes, this is already happening here in The Netherlands – people have to go and get their food for free somewhere, charity,  food that is thrown away by stores, that nobody else  wants to buy anymore. They still have food that way, I know, these people are way better of than the starving in the rest of the world, but I can’t stand this principle, I hate it!  And now this is happening over here, where there is plenty, more than plenty. Where there is a lot of food that gets thrown away every single day… Food imported from Africa, where the farmers have barely enough to survive, we ship their harvest to Europe and then we throw it away! So unspeakably wrong… yes, I am full of rage.

So far I do not mind this rage – when I can use it to stand up.

But what I really need to look into is that I feel this rage could overwhelm me at one point. That I could easily get possessed with it. I think. So far I observed myself experiencing this rage – I could also see there is a line I could easily be tempted to cross and get violent. Thoughts of placing bombs and shootings crossed my mind. I realize this is mainly because I feel powerless at this stage.

I can even see what is happening now is a good thing – from the perspective that how bigger the gap between rich and poor gets, the more likely it is the Dutch people will eventually revolt and maybe maybe maybe be ready to work with an equal money system. So the social injustice could very well be very supportive of the implementation of the equal money system, I know. But I still feel this rage because of these people that are so totally into ‘more, more, more’ for themselves – and do not consider the rest of the world, not even people close to home, their fellow citizens.

Loose ends

A

t one point I’ve decided to not allow myself to write about other stuff until I ‘finished’ the topic I was dealing with – the musophobia at the moment. There are a million other things opening up, but I have this idea that I should first finish what I am doing before starting something else. That I should completely focus on the mouse-thing for now and not be distracted by other points.

I can see that’s because I know I let myself get overwhelmed easily by exploring too many topics at the same time, so to stay focussed is ok. But now this is keeping me from exploring the other points.  For instance what is happening with me with regards to my role as a mother – much movement, realizations and struggle within that – I certainly would benefit from writing it all out instantly.

So this idea of keeping myself focussed on just one topic is not that effective.  

I know what I am afraid of: that I will not work through the mouse-point effectively when I at the same time work with other points. All these loose ends in my life make me feel like a failure – nothing properly finished.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define me as as ‘a failure’ because there are many things in my life I left unfinished. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to categorize in ‘finished’ and ‘unfinished’ and labelling ‘finished’ as good and ‘unfinished’ as bad. Finished and unfinished are one and the same.

Besides High school I didn’t ‘finish’ any study – always dropped out for various reasons – mainly because I never was really motivated. And High school I finished because I didn’t know what else to do at that time. There were many things I liked to do, many things I liked to study – but in the end I was never motivated enough to push through.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel like a failure because in the past I did not carry through these studies, courses. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel bad about myself because my father disapproved of me not carrying through my education. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be angry with my father because he disapproved of me not carrying through with my education – because I feel he never supported me in carrying through, just judging me but not supporting. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to judge my father for not supporting me but yet disapprove of me.  I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel left on my own by my father regarding my education and using this as a justification for my lack of perseverance and my lack of motivation. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to consider this as missed opportunities and let myself defined by it. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define me as a person of ‘missed opportunities’.

expand on: ‘angry’

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel abandoned by my father by not being there for me  when I had no clue what to do with my life and no idea what direction to take. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to consider it all to be my fault and not consider my father to fail in supporting me. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be angry with myself for always taking the blame for anything regarding my father – instead of taking in consideration he was the adult and me the child and I needed him to support me in this. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel bad about myself for not getting approval from my father and judging myself as not worthy of his love. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to still take the blame and feeling lonely because of that. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to withhold myself from being angry with my father. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to judge and fear the anger that is building up in me right now. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to use all kinds of justifications for my father to not experience anger towards my father. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to consider myself as my fathers ‘keeper’ for as long as I can remember, protecting him and always finding excuses for him. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself for waiting in silence for his approval. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to finally find some approval in him stating ‘you are sweet’ by the end of his life but also be surprised he did see this only after so many years – I was 38 years. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel disappointed by my father when I found out he had not been seeing me at all for all these years. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to create a picture of how my father saw me, that he loved me as much as I loved him, that I was special to him like he was special to me – only to discover that was not so; he just saw me through his own eyes and I was not that special to him; not special enough to take effort to know me for who I was.

expand on: ‘on my own’

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel so extreme lonely and lost in this world. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not support me as I feel my father should have and because of that felt lost without direction all my life.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to still seek approval from my father by demanding from myself to finish things, not having all loose ends. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to seek approval of myself – to not judge me as a failure because I do not always finish and leave loose ends.

I accept me. I hear me. I see me.

So ok – I am perfectly able to work on more than one topic at the same time. I will not undermine my ability to work on more than one topic at the same time by the belief I am a failure when not finishing a topic first – instead I realize I trust myself in this to be self honest and see when I avoid to continue working through a topic out of discomfort.

Practical speaking, there is a limit to the amount of topics I want to work on at the same time. So I will take notes of points opening up and work on them later on.

Mouse alert! #2–Possessed

I

watch myself getting more and more controlled by this fear of mice – I am on standby for any sign of a mouse constantly, ready to get out of here, in a continuous state of overstrained alertness - especially when it’s dark at night: that’s when they are active.  But yesterday afternoon the neighbours cat had ‘sneaked in’ and almost immediately started chasing a mouse in the living room, so now I know they are still here during day time. Though I am still not that scared in the day time.

I am actually obsessed by this fear – mind possessed  – the fear has taken over, is in control. I see mice everywhere, in the simplest acts like seeing a bottle with juice: in a flash I think ‘is there a mouse in there?‘ With every little noise I sit straight on guard – mouse!? My cat is staring – mouse!? I see movements in the corner of my eyes  – mouse!? I see these movements in the corner of my eyes all the time – but now this is linked to mice.

Making dinner in the kitchen – well, it is getting dark by 5 o’clock and so my fear gets more prominent. I really have to put myself to it, the cooking, otherwise I would not make dinner at all. It’s quite funny how I act while cooking: stamping my feet to scare the mice away, making lots of noise, singing, so they know I am here.
After dinner I make sure there are no left overs, no crumbs, get things I probably need like beverage, close the door of the kitchen to not enter again ‘till the next morning.

I’ll stay in the living room for some time, reading posts on the forum, watching YouTube vids, after an hour or so the noises getting louder – in the kitchen, but also in the back of the living room. I’m kind of used to it, so it is not that upsetting but at a certain point I’ve had enough and head upstairs, to the safety of my bed.
‘Till 2 nights ago I considered ‘upstairs’ as a safe, mouse-free zone. Then I thought I heard noises in my bedroom, saw movements close to my head, in the corner of my eyes – Mouse alert! Fear, but I did not want to give in, it would mean the end of my safe zone and I would have nowhere else to go in this house to feel safe from mice. It would mean I would not be able to sleep because then this mouse would crawl all over me. And I made very clear pictures of this happening in my head – aaaah! So I had to convince myself I was only fooling myself and there was no mouse at all. Succeeded in that. I call this: numbing – I just refuse to let certain thoughts play out, I just deny so it doesn’t exist. Severe Suppression.

I

t is quite cool observing myself and making notes of what is happening, what is playing out in my head while in fear of mice and writing it down in this post. Also because I’ve never actually taking this fear seriously, meaning I felt foolish for fearing them and other people laughed about it. 
Also: there is no difference in how I handle this fear for mice or all other fears I am allowing to play out in my life.

(I also notice myself wanting to write ‘Destonian correct’, meaning instead of ‘I fear’ I feel I should write ‘I allow myself to fear’ to prevent people commenting and pointing this out to me. I get kind of annoyed with it, because I know all of this, but I do not want to write it down that way when I am not actually experiencing that I am ‘allowing’ myself, but feeling a victim of it. But this is another topic I’ll write about in another post. This point is not just ‘Destonian’ related, it has played out in many other occasions in my life.)

I’ve observed 4 stages, or different parts, playing out:

• fear
• anger
• numbness
• guilt/sadness

 

Anger

At some point anger comes up. I get nasty and yell at ‘them in the kitchen’ like: ‘if you dare to come in the living room I’ll cut your head off’ and things like that. I throw things, magazines in the direction of the kitchen door. The anger is not self supportive, the anger is towards the mice and destructive, not empowering self (anger can be empowering, when used to state: Stop!) Besides that, I wonder what I would do if at that point a mouse would actually enter the living room lol I doubt I would ‘cut his head off’ for real – most likely I would run.

I prefer the anger though – it makes me feel less of a victim of the mice.

Numbness

Is where I just suppress every thought of mice and convince myself with reasoning, with ‘common sense’, there is no mouse at all. At this stage it is important to me to not actually be confronted with the sight of a mouse – only then I succeed in hushing myself. So I prefer to not actually see the mice for that reason, for me to be able to deny their existence.

 

Guilt and Sadness

I am kind of ashamed to tell but I did buy poison to kill the mice. And I use it. For the simple reason I can’t allow the mice to take over my house like it happened many many years ago when Dj was still a baby. I was way back then in severe denial of the presence of mice in my apartment – I only allowed myself to know there are 2 maybe 3 mice, not more, while in fact there must have been 40, 50, maybe even more, before I acted. I was already very very scared of mice then.

I did try all the ‘humane’ ways of catching mice and put them outside again – this didn’t work: I’ve only caught one mouse this way and it did die still, out of stress. Another mouse that fell by accident in a bucket died of stress as well. So in the end I poisoned them to get rid of the mice. They had caused quite some damage – the wash dryer and the refrigerator for instance they’ve destroyed by nibbling essential parts.

So now I am using this ‘practical reason’ to not feel the guilt I am actually experiencing by causing the mice to die by poison. I saw one of them lying behind the fridge, dead and I felt so sad. He was such a tiny creature, not as big as I imagined in my ‘scary mind’. Tiny paws, slim tail. I felt sad I had killed him, but also realized I was only able to feel sadness and sympathy for the creature because he was dead, because he couldn’t get up and scare the hell out of me. I feel I am such a hypocrite! With this SilentlyTheySuffer Youtube channel but meanwhile causing these creatures to die by poison…

But I really do not see any other option. I cannot allow so many mice living in my house for obvious reasons. We do have a cat living with us but she is not the least interested in mice. She might take a look for a little while but then she jumps back on the coach, to relax some more. And the mice aren’t scared away by her presence, her smell or the smell of the cats box. So she had no solution to offer.

 

 

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So - I’ve written out of what is happening, made an overview and arranged all the things playing out in my mind. Have to write some parts out in more detail though. I’ll now continue with the SRAT tools, self forgiveness and practical application.