asking for help to find my blue sky-replies

 in my previous post, asking for help to find my blue sky, i asked one of my sister to practice acknowledgments with me. i explained what they were, gave her some examples and share the benefits with her .i got two replies from her. i  found them to be disappointing. her replies will be indented; my thought will be out-dented. her two replies came within an hour of each other.

Here is her first reply arriving on the hour.

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Thank you for this, your thoughts are presented well. Know that I send links to you as my acknowledgement of your struggle. As you struggle we struggle to know how best to engage. You are in my heart always,

i guess i have a problem with this because in my mind,  acknowledgements and acceptance go hand in hand. someone who regularly sends information about mindfulness, makes the implied suggestion to check it out; it may help you beat your depression. to me, that doesn’t seem to accepting of my situation. that causes to fear what her response my be if i didn’t follow through with her suggestion. fear contributes to my depression.

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here is her second reply coming at 57 after the hour.

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And then there are times when we are caught in our own swirl we are unable to acknowledge a simple gift. . a simple gift,. We look at it and think “oh, I don’t need that, I need this instead” and we forget to acknowledge that we just received a gift, and that someone just thought of me.

let’s see, I attempt to practice self care, and somehow i’m now unthankful? I couldn’t accept a simple gift? check the e-mail, I never said don’t send the mindfulness e-mails. I said it would be far more helpful if you could practice acknowledgments with me.

But lost in our own swirl we throw it away, wishing we could get sent something else instead of just being present in the fact that someone just thought of me.

let’s see, i’m over 2 years into this cycle, not to mention some 6 other cycles. I’ve learned what contributes to my depression. one of the major contributions is when i fear about other people think of me. i clearly recognize that as wrong and it would be great if I could change it. today, none the less, fear of judgement contributes to my depression.

secondly, again, i  never said i didn’t want her ideas, i informed her what would be a far more helpful approach.

Know I will continue to think of you even if gift do not arrive,

wow, does this sound like, “if you don’t want to play my game, i’ll take my ball and go home?”

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i just feel frustrated. i finally recognize my needs, after 2 years in this cycle, and can take steps towards self-care. i spoke my needs to someone, who i thought would be somewhat receptive of my request, and I got this? I guess i’ll have to go find someone else who has a ball so I can play with them. I  feel sad because this just feels like another wedge between my sister and I.

will I reply to her? I’m still undecided. I still feel like my reply would be to inflammatory. that definitely would not help the situation.