Sexual attraction and power

 Sexual Attraction can be one of the most effective ways for losing your power to someone else- especially if, that someone aims at taking your power and manipulates towards it, knowing you are attracted to him/her.It never seems this way at first. Sexual attraction has a way of distorting your thinking, of skewng reality, of discarding all the warning signs that are obvious to everyone else. Unconscious sexual attraction can lead you to willingly give your power away to the other person. If you're unlucky enough to be attracted to a narcissist, he/she will manipulate you into thinking that he/she is the one giving. But gradually, you may feel that you are giving to him/her and it is not that voluntary. It is expected, almost demanded. Sexual attraction is the means through which the person can most effectively manipulate you into giving your power, especially your spiritual power.It is no accident that all major religions strongly advise against casual sex. The area of the body where symbolically creativity and survival lies is often very unsettled, almost reorganized through sex.And if this happens in a context of a safe marriage, it helps expand you power in co-creation with another.But if there is the slightest hint of selfishness, narcissism, ego agenda, then through sex the pother person has good access to your power. If the other person has none of their own, they ll take yours.

The strongest the attraction, the greater potential to take your power.Be wary when the attraction is so strong that it seems irresistible.Theamount of irresistibility is directly proportional to the amount of power you may lose. Losing your power to another means that you fear them, yet you stay with them, that you obsess about them, yet you don't want to, that you keep arguing in your head about what to say to them, but you never do, that you are resentful about them, but you hide it, that you hurt about them, but hide that too. Losing your power to them means that if you stop seeing them, nothing in life seems juicy or tasty. It means  thinking that your experience in life doesn't count unless you are with him. This is the time to try as much as you can to dampen your sexual attraction to them.Think of all the times they fell short, they acted weak and small.Think of all the moments your life was rich and fulfilling outside the relationship. Pull yourself away from the people who admire them.Cultivate your relationship with your spiritual source to start getting your power back. Power drainage through sex and sexual attraction is rampant especially among young and inexperienced people, who, in a distorted view of liberation, let them selves loose to energy vampires. Then it can take decades to take themselves back. Be careful when the attraction makes you ache. True falling in love makes you see everything else in a wondefrul light. Vampire sexual attraction makes everything else look dull and unworthy and your life energy is drained out. Be careful who you have sex with. Don't gove your self away easily and be especially careful of those who are charismatic, popular, the ones that everyone seems to be falling in love with. Keep your energy for those who are worth it and almost certainly then, the attraction builds gradually (not suddenly) in a peaceful, liberating way. 

Victoria Prekate, 22/12/2021

7 types of loneliness and what to do with it

There are several kinds of loneliness.Knowing what type of loneliness affects us more may help us respond more effectively. It is problematic when we expect one person to fill all these different kinds of loneliness. Recognizing, accepting, and responding to loneliness should be a key element of socio-emotional education to all children. Part of the addiction epidemic we see today, as well as relationship obsession (sometimes leading to extremes of violence), could be prevented, if young people can recognize loneliness, embrace it rather than judge it and respond to it appropriately.

7 types of loneliness :

1) Situational loneliness: this is the kind of loneliness that relates to social occasions and situations, such as having people to go out with on a Saturday night, during celebrations, holidays or trips. It can be more easily satisfied than other types, as it relies on being open, friendly, asking questions and being in a place with other people, open to socializing. 

2)Caring loneliness: this type relates to the need of having people who care about you, who will seek you out when they haven't heard from you.People who will feel compassion for you, when you are in pain, but will also rejoice when you have successes. Caring is a necessary ingredient of a good friend, and harder to find.It takes great discernment to find people who a) have the quality of caring for others and not just taking, b) have availability for friendship in their lives. Also, to receive caring from friends one has to be a caring friend himself.

3) Communicational loneliness: this type relates to sharing values, ideas,views on life. This type of loneliness can nowadays be more easily satisfied through connection with like-minded groups, focused on a common good cause. Whether in person or online, the sharing of ideas/ debating can give the individual a strong sense of connection that may even develop into friendships. In general, participation in groups with whom we share common values, is very life-affirming and seems to last longer than other types of connection. 

4) Affection loneliness: this relates to the lack of physical affection and expressions of tenderness, such as baby talk. All too often people get involved with inappropriate partners, only to fill this need. It can lead to superficial, even harmful, connections. However, the need for affection can, to a certain extent, be satisfied through a pet. Stroking or hugging a pet can give much comfort, and pets never betray! 

5)Loneliness due to lack of honoring: this relates to lack of recognition, appreciation and even, admiration, that for example, a woman needs from.her husband or a child from his/her parents.It is a healthy part of the narcissistic need for positive mirroring. Many women feel deprived in this sense.They feel devalued, dishonored, ignored, contempted in their intimate relationships. The answer to this need is self-love. You are the one who can give this honoring to yourself. For women in particular, it is more important than ever to give this honoring to ourselves.It is the key to eradicating violence against women. A woman who honors herself doesn't stay in dishonoring relationships. 

6) Loneliness as a societal norm: Most cultures place an expectation on companionship, marriage,family etc and being alone is often treated with suspicion, judgement, stigma. So,for alone people it is not only the lack of companionship itself, but the loss of social status that accompanies it and often,the societal exclusion. The important thing to remember is that societal norms always judge. Even the most successful families will have comments behind their back about shortcomings. Social status is a construction that becomes important, only if you give it importance. 

7) Spiritual/Existential loneliness: it is the inner longing that there's something more to life than getting distracted with socialising or workaholism. It is the longing for meaning and inspiration and beauty. It is the nostalgia for something very sweet and long lost. The only way to soothe this kind of loneliness is the spiritual path. This path takes hard work, daily practice and much persistence. Its fruits come slowly and scantily, but they last and they truly have a deep effect. Ultimately, the healing of spiritual loneliness through our reconnection with God has repercussions on all areas of our life, including all types of loneliness. 

Victoria Prekate, 16/12/2021

Trauma and expectations

Much has been written about the effect of childhood trauma in making subconscious decisions and forming subconscious beliefs. These beliefs mostly refer to the image formed about the self, the world and the cause of trauma. These beliefs can be. for example: " The abuse/abandonment is my fault", "The world is a dangerous place", "I am bad". But there are also beliefs formed about the future, as a way of coping with trauma. They come as a defence to a devastating present and they misplace the reparation of the present with some promise that will be fulfilled in the future. So, the future holds the key for repairing an intolerable present. For example, the child who lost her parents, cannot face the reality of the devastation, so she places the following projection to the future: through her own marriage, she will create her own family and  her future family will then heal her present loss. Through this future expectation, her pain in the present becomes bearable and some sense of hope and meaning is created. Another example: a child feels acute sense of shame and worthlessness because of childhood abuse or parental abandonment. He places a future promise to achieve a successful career in some worthy cause, for example medicine, and this would heal the worthlessness and inferiority by proving to others and to himeself that they are not true. A third example, an institutionalized child, rejected by her parents, places a future promise that her grief and  jealously of the other children (cared for by their parents) will heal when she will give birth to her own child and raise the child with the love and care she never had. Some meaning is created about intolerable, unexplicable loss and a sense of hope, justice and purpose. After all, chldren need to be future oriented. Especially, if maltreated.

Understandably, these expectations can cause huge problems...They were functional at the time of trauma, as they created a sense of meaning, sanity and hope. But they become completely dysfunctional in the long term, especially since the individual normally doesn't have much control over the manifestation of the promises. Instead, his or her dysfunctional beliefs may actually block the manifestation. So what happens when the 'compensation' promises don't manifest? What happens when no matter how hard the person tries, they don't turn out to be true? 

If the adult abused as a child still holds on to the 'reparatory' nature of the expectations, the consequences of the disappointment can be devastating:  both present and past losses get activated. In the first example, the orphaned child may not get married, or she may have a betrayed, broken marriage. Then she will have to grieve both her adulthood loss and the expectation that somehow  the childhood loss would be resolved through a happy adulthood outcome.If not, why did the childhood loss happen? What was its meaning? Her sense of even a compromised,  delayed justice is shattered. And what about all the other things she neglected in the expectation of this marriage 'resolution' (for example, a career she abandonned, or hobbies she didn't pursue etc). In the second example, what happens if the successful medicine career never happens? What is often overlooked is that most of trauma experts and speakers come from affluent Western countries where 'anything is possible' and the motto 'make your dreams come true' abounds. Yes, in some countries opportunities and freedom to make use of them are everywhere.But this is not the reality in most countries of the world. The dream career may indeed be not possible for the adult survivor  who lives in a poor community and tries to survive from day to day.What happens then? He becomes devastated with even more shame, more sense of failure?  Does he manage to resolve the childhood sense of inadequacy or does it get compounded with the adult loss of dreams? In the third example, the institutionalized child who grows up may not be able to have her own child.She may be infertile, she may not meet an appropriate husband, she may have a miscarriage.What happens then? Are her hopes of restoring her lost childhood shattered? What happens when she no longer has the chance to repair her childhood according to the scenario she had in her mind?

The key term is : scenario.The grown adult has a scenario in mind about how a successful a healed life should turn out. But very rarely scenarios turn out true. The key is to recognize the scenario for what it is and the purpose it served and to re-examine it as possibly not appropriate for the present (medicine may not be the right field for everyone!). Also, to disengage the expectations about the present from the past and to find alternative methods of compensation for the past. 

This is one of the hardest aspects of childhood abuse: not only one loses one's childhood, but one loses a significant part of adulthood trying to cope with that past childhood trauma. The present cannot be shaped to compensate for the past. Allocated time and resources can be devoted in the present to focus on past losses and other slots of time on present situations and present losses. The two need to be disentangled and the adult needs to become flexible to face the unexpected, without demanding any specific outcome. Even though much current research suggests links between childhood trauma and adult life, it can be damaging to form solid, one-way causalities, such as 'my childhood abuse ruined my marriage' etc.  If there is religious belief involved, it is important not to blame God for not meeting the person's expectations, but, instead to practise seeing  the unexpected forms of God's benevolence and consolation as they unfold in each and every moment. The fewer expectations about specific outcomes conceived as compensatory scenarios in the past, the greater the sensitivity to discern actual postive outcomes in the present.

Prekate Victoria, 23/10/21

The catharctic value of daily writing

Much has been written about the therapeutic value of writing. Writers and coaches, such as Julia Cameron and Anna Runkle have talked extensively about the therapeutic technique of letting your thoughts and feelings on paper. And many others of course. In this article, I ll talk about the value of that kind of writing that no one else has any chance to look at, that is the writing that we know beforehand is goind to be 'respectfully destroyed'. 'Respectfully destroyed' means destroying the pages not in a way of just discarding (in a bin for example), but carries with it the sense of letting go the thoughts and emotions expressed on it, so they can transformed, while honoring the process of having expressed them.  The catharctic value of daily writing comes when we sit down every day and free-write at least one A4 page long, by pouring the heart out open on paper and then, and be sure that this page cannot be accessed by another human being- ever, not even us actually.It is important to ensure that they cannot be accessed by another human being, because if not, subconscious inhibitors will self-censor the writing.And it is exactly these self-censored tiny details that need to get out in the light of day. So, it is not a diary, it is not memoirs. In cathartic writing, you need to know beforehand that this writing is a completely free and safe space to say anything you want about anyone or anything. If during the writing,you arrive at some important conclusion or insight, fine, you can make fresh notes afterwards or discuss it with someone,if you wish. But the raw process of cathartic writing has to be free. You may want to vent,to lash out, even say things we don't really mean,so the paper is a temporary platform for this.

This daily writing can help re-establish the connection between the self,the world and God. Life can be seen as a journey on Earth, one with ever increasing speed, and this honest writing is like the witness to this journey. After all, when the journey is over, all we are left with is the lessons from the journey, this is the only thing that will stay with us. And these lessons are expressed on the daily pages. Even if they don't stay around for anyone to read them, they have emerged through the surface of  human consciousness and  can be connected to something wider and more useful. People around us may be part-time witnesses, as they only know a little bit of us. The daily attempts to make a more consistent witness. For those on a religious/spiritual path God is the ultimate witness,knowing all things about us, including those we are not aware of ourselves. But the daily writing is our conscious effort to bring some of this hidden self into awareness, into the light. Because we write the truth, it is a meeting of witnessing minds, our minds, God's mind. It can feel very healing and empowering.

We often have resistance to daily writing. For example, if we find its content depressing: well, we  do it anyway. The sentence can start with something like : 'I now think that... I seem to want to... I feel as if I...' These introductory phrases create a sobering distance between us and the thought/desire/feeling. It is empowering to see it this way, especially when very strong emotions arise, like rageful thoughts of revenge. 'I feel like I want you to suffer so and so...' is a more accurate and safer way to lash out whatever revenge fantasies we may have in mind. It needs to be expressed and this is a safe way to do it. There is no censorship in the cathartic writing. Do not judge it, do not evaluate it. The only gentle reminder is the introductory phrases... Even at the moment of lashing out, it helps to remind us that we are bigger than what we write.

Do not forget to do the daily pages.Another reason for resistance is busyness or tiredness. But the truth of your experience of the life journey is what counts more than anything else, more than other tasks, more than rest even.Value it.Even if no one else knows about it, value it. It's like saying to God this is the truth of who I am, this is the truth of what I experience, help me, bring clarity to me.By showing the truth, one cannot be but helped. By exposing all that is bothersome or ugly inside, it cannot but change. It will save years of therapy and countless troubles.Its purpose is to cleanse, to bring to light, to form the questions.Once formed, they cannot be but answered, sometimes in surprising ways.

Victoria Prekate www.victoriaprekate.blogspot.gr, 1/8/2021

A single woman's quest to fulfilling self love

As more and more women find themselves without partners, for short or longer periods of time, the quest for finding that love, the fulfilling love that a woman longs for, becomes a pressing personal and even societal need. It  was interesting for me to read an Orthodox saint quoting that it is the love of our Divine Father God, that a man can allow to flow through him and touch a woman's heart. This is the love that many women long to find. Well, the good news is that we can have direct access to it, even without a partner.In an ideal world, it would be preferable for some to receive an aspect of this love from a loving, caring partner. This would be love between masculine and feminine  manifested in the physical world. Well, this is not an ideal world, the statistics are not in our favor and many men have lost memory of this ancient promise... But even if there isn't a loving partner to remind us of God's love,  it is not the end of the world. We can still access that love of God ourselves. Interestingly, we know how to do it. We know.We do it all the time, when we give this love to others. It is a matter of decision to give it to ourselves.

One way is to remember to give this love to ourselves on a daily basis. I found that four times daily in prayer/contemplation are necessary to get in touch with this spiritual source of love in order to charge up and to get in touch with our needs and wants (although each woman can decide for herself which frequency suits her best). It has to be frequent though. Just as a healthy loving couple would communicate lovingly several times a day (morning, lunch, afternoon, evening, night). so single women should give themselves this loving attenndance regularly and not forget about it. One mistake we make is that we give an extra dose of self love on a special occasion (during a weekend trip for example) and then completely forget about ourselves for the rest of the week.But this is an important  principle of love, the principle of continuity. 

Another principle is that of protection. We get educated, we ask for help, about all the practical ways to help ourselves survive in this world.As one recently divorced woman put it, 'When I separated, I thought I wouldn't be able to walk out of the house alone'. Yet, she did. Little by little, she learnt how to do the little errands of everyday life, how to earn money for herself and her daughter, how to fill in tax forms and sell property, all the little things that terrified her before and her husband took care of. And she found that she was more protected than she thought. 

The third principle is that of affection. It is all these words that we long to hear:"I love you, I miss you, you mean so much to me etc". There is so much investment in these words that some women view them as dangerous and are downright suspicious about anyone who spurts them out easily.  Well, we can still tell these words to ourselves, though speech, acts, art, gifts, we can still say these words to ourselves in a creative way.Or allow God to whiper these words to us in His own way.They don't only count if said by another person.They count if said by us too.

The three principles: continuity, protection, affection. God's love for us certainly fulfils these criteria and it is up to us to claim it for ourselves. Even without a partner.

Victoria Prekate, 6/7/2021

Being loved on Earth as a soul first

 As a psychologist, specializing in domestic abuse, I have long been studying the dynamics that keep women trapped in abusive/ dishonouring relationships. More and more, it seems to me that sexual desire plays a more important role than once thought.It is the attachment many women have to the intense energy interchange during intercourse and a hidden cultural idea that the value of a woman depends upon her desirability by men.Once, it was the marital status that was interpreted to give women value, but nowadays, through a distorted turn of the sexual revolution, it is the number of partners a woman had or the intensity/frequency of the sexual experience by one desired partner. I was surprised to find that it the role of emotional and attachment needs is lesser than  thought, but it is actually the sexual experience, the pleasure as an escape mechanism and the misplaced value upon it. Sometimes there doesn't even have to be a physical experience in itself but the fantasy of one. Whether the fantasy is about getting 'divine' sex from  multiple partners or an ideal fantasy partner, it is a hidden expectation of an exalted sexual fulfilment that keeps many  women attached to inappropriate relationships or the pursuit thereof.  Unfortunately, young women take it for granted that there has to be a two or three figure number of sexual partners for any kind of worth to be given to their lives, without realising the huge expenditure of psychic energy that goes with every sexual encounter, not protectively coated with love and respect.

Through a combination of media brainwashing, the elusive play of hormones and the emptiness of a spiritually void life, many women stay stuck for decades in the pursuit of some mystical sexual fulfilment that would somehow validate their spirit and their existence. It is a mistaken belief that disempowers women and makes them lose their true direction and purpose. It pushes them to projecting outwards a hysterical version of femininity, while overlooking the more subtle, kinder aspects of true womanhood. It is a more peaceful, more gentle, more encompassing energy that brings true femininity to the world through women, rather than the sole purpose of igniting sexual desire. Once women find this gentler, kinder energy, one that honors them as souls on Earth first (rather than sexual women first), then they can feel truly fulfilled to share love and bring their true feminine qualities forward. The sexual feminity doesn't have to monopolize their existence.They become more empowered.They become more whole.

26/5/21

Choosing Jesus

I was brought up in an atheist family. These are some of the reasons I now believe in Jesus. I am not a theologist, but all these arguments, one by one, have come out of the experience of my conscious effort to be with Him. This is not a preaching, but the expression of my experience of the now compared to the experience of the past. I believe in Jesus: 

 Because He is the One to still care about you when everyone else has left you. Even though you may have betrayed Him many times (to the point that you can no longer bear yourself) He is the One to still care about you- always. 

Because His icon is the sweetest image.There is nothing that doesn't pacify when you look into His eyes.In His eyes there is hope. 

Because His acts (when on Earth) were the most revolutionary, innovative and brave acts ever done.They always teach, they always have something new to tell, no matter how many times you read about them. 

Because He leaves you the freedom to consciously choose Him. To see your life, with or without Him.And to choose. 

 Because if you look closer and carefully, you ll see that He has actually bailed you out many times- even if you don't want to admit it.He always tries to bail you out -you don't want to admit it. 

 Because He is the One to trust.People say they don't trust anyone.But in reality they do.Trust is an energy and has to go somewhere. They do put their trust somewhere, but they don't know where. They secretly trust their governments-although they may criticize them. They put their trust to their relatives-athough they criticize their traits.Despite having been betrayed again and again, they keep on placing their trust in all the wrong places.Yet it is very simple.Jesus is the One to trust to take you to the best place for you and make you the best person for you. 

 Because His help is the only effective help.When all else fails, He is the One who succeeds in clearing the mess. 

 Because He is the only force that can withstand the darkness of our world today. Humans by themselves, we can do little. But His, is the only power that can overcome that amount of darkness.

Because He still holds out all the love for us, no matter how intricate our needs or how far we have come from Him.He still holds out all the love for us. 

 Because myriads of saints, ascets, monks across the ages, who achieved miraculous heights of spiritual manifestation, have also believed in Him and declared Him as the Truth.They can't have been all wrong! 

 Because He Answers all the hard questions about life, death, connection and disconnection, meaning, self sufficiency and interdependence, all the tough questions of life, He is the One to convincingly answer them all. 

 Because in Him, you find the loved ones you lost.Those deceased can find you through Him.

Because in every love that is real between two people, there is always His spark in between. He knows what to do to keep that love alive forever.He knows what to do to help you find each other again. 

 Because in His love, you start feeling real and alive again.The moment you ve been waiting: "When is life going to start?" This is the moment. Reversely, you can't really feel truly alive, unless you start opening your heart to His love.This is when life starts... 

 Because He is always there, always waiting... to the point of taking Him for granted.At the back of your mind you reckon that you can play hard to get and He'll still be there. Well actually yes, He can't forget about you, no matter what you do. But what you don't realize is that it is you the one who really suffers when you are away from Him. 

 Because He is the way to be in this world. So often when you wonder 'what am I doing here? What am I to do? How am to pass the day?', He is the answer needed. You devote the day to Him and then the day passes with fulfilment and meaning. He knows what it is to be in a body, He's been there.He can help you be there too. 

 Because whenever a relationship is strained, whatever that relationship is, ask Jesus to come in between the other person and you.This mediation transforms the relationship.It dampens the strong emotions.It brings fairness.It protects.He's the best mediator to bring the light of truth of the purpose of the relationship. 

 Because Jesus is very relevant in our everyday practical life.He is not for another remote Universe or another realm. He is for the here and now.Find Him. Through icons, through reading, through chanting, whatever the means, find Him.We need Him more than ever. 

 Because His love has the sweet, tender, peaceful feeling.It is not obsessive, straining or upsetting in any way. It unconditional and does not demand anything back.Not asking a sacrifice of you,but giving you a gift. 

 Because He will accept you at whatever place you are. Even at the place where you think that one thousand times you have lost all hope and betrayed Him beyond all correction, He 'll start with you at that point and pick you up from that place. He doesn't expect you to improve to find you. 

 Because He is humble. He brings the simplest humility in an era where all that matters is being better than someone else. 

 Because He is the companionship, constant, non failing, non betraying.Just a little opening is necessary to start feeling His presence, which is the most fulfilling love there is. Calm.Uncomplicated. 

 Because whatever the myriad of things said about Him, the myriad things written, whatever the countless associations and boxes we places Him in, His experience always remains new, real, as if only just discovered.Always new and very personal.

Greek Orthodox Easter 27/4/2021