Ahhh, lots of pine needles and shade.  So let’s move from yesterday’s conversation about personal responsibility (or lack there of) and magical thinking into…

Stagnant Green Tomato Entitlement

As we step into discussing these new maturation features of Stagnant Tomatoes, let’s keep in mind the use of a toddler metaphor.  I in no way mean to demean or patronize Stagnant Tomatoes by comparing them to toddlers, however, it really is the best way for us to comprehend how they mentally process.  Remember, the defense mechanisms of a Stagnant Tomato begin to come into operation during the toddler years.  Hence they are stunted in some of their emotional development at this stage.  Toddlers operate from a self focused perspective.  They can’t comprehend that mommy and daddy have a separate life outside of them.  They use imagination and magical thinking a majority of the time.  And they are charmingly entitled, exploitive and have bad boundaries. 

Entitlement means to have a right or claim to something (Dictionary.com); for Stagnant Tomatoes that is usually your attention and servitude.  They base this right on a valued role they egoically hold.  An entitled parent believes children are there to serve, respect and honor.  An entitled business person believes they have paid the dues earning them the right to bonuses, privileges and your admiration/life.  An entitled victim believes that extreme suffering gives them the right to be protected and served.  An entitled adult child believes people love doing and providing everything for them.   An entitled martyr after sacrificing everything, deserves to be admired and worshiped.  These are the common roles of entitlement, but I’m sure you can come up with others suiting the stagnant tomatoes in your life.

From the vantage of self focused, egoic, entitlement Stagnant Tomatoes expect people to expend energy to them, without recognizing a need for reciprocity.  Let’s look at all the various means of entitlement…

• Stagnant Tomatoes who love to talk but have no time to listen.  They can have your ear for hours listening to immediate perceived dramas, gossip, complaining, martyring, raging, bragging or mundane details.  As soon as it is your turn, they become completely disinterested in the conversation and find a need to leave or get off the phone. 
• Stagnant Tomatoes express emotions in immature and explosive ways, without toleration of reciprocal feedback.  They expect others to remain quiet and respectful as they unleash emotions. 
• Stagnant Tomatoes who expect to be visited, but rarely (if ever) visit others.  This same dynamic can be the same for phone contact.  They expect calls, but don’t make calls.
• Stagnant Tomatoes that visit often might feel entitled to your house, or ego, while there.  They might literally take over your kitchen or children.  If they don’t, they might sit back and critique everything.
• Stagnant Tomatoes that expect you to be available for their calls and contacts any time they emotionally need you.  This can mean daily, or for some multiple times a day.  They don’t normally think of your schedule in deciding a good time.
• Bosses expecting workers to put in endless hours, including nights and weekends with no understanding of the employees personal needs.  Some will also call or text at inappropriate off hour times.
• Stagnant Tomatoes that, through a guise of helplessness or martyring, have others do yard work, clean their home, run errands, watch their children, cook, do laundry…on a regular basis.  Many times this is one of their own people pleasing children going beyond the level of appropriate chores.  Spouses fall into this role many times as well. While the tomato might say an immediate “thank you,” there isn’t an appreciation or understanding of cumulative effort.
• Stagnant Tomatoes feel they have a right to the personal information of others.  Some bosses ask inappropriate personal questions.  Some parents feel they have the right to read their children’s journals.  They might eavesdrop, and mine for gossip.
• Stagnant Tomatoes also feel the right to share inappropriate information.  Parents might share their own personal sexual information with a child.  Take secrets that have been told in confidence and share them at will.
• Stagnant Tomatoes can feel financially entitled, shopping on other people’s money with no understanding of their impact on those that pay the bills.  They have a lifestyle they are entitled to; houses, neighborhoods, cars, travel….
• Stagnant Tomatoes also feel entitled to your adulation. 

Beyond entitlement, these examples highlight other characteristics of the Stagnant Tomato.  They have little to no interest in other people.  There isn’t inherent curiosity about others.  If it doesn’t impact or relate to them, Stagnant Tomatoes tune out.  Without empathy, there can’t be a deep level of appreciation or gratitude.  Most know how to say, “Thank you.” However, they really can’t grasp the inconvenience or effort made by others on their behalf.  Stagnant Tomatoes are pleased with what you’ve done for them today, but if you miss tomorrow they won’t remember what you’ve done over time.  There isn’t a memory of longevity.  Additionally, Stagnant Tomatoes have really bad boundaries. 

The last characteristic that relates to entitlement is exploitative.  If a Stagnant Tomato doesn’t receive what they feel inherently entitled to, they will manipulate until most relent.  When you try to set limits on their attention seeking, you’ll find they fairly immediately have a medical or emotional crisis that demands your focus.  If you don’t call or visit enough, a Stagnant Tomato will usually guilt you, “I guess you don’t love me anymore…”  They might also pull out the martyr card if you stop serving them as readily, “After all I’ve done for you…”, “Life has been so hard….” When called on their bad boundaries, they usually get angry and intimidating.  Stagnant Tomatoes also exploit through silent treatments, sulking or flat out threatening.  If they don’t feel admired enough, they’ll fish it out of you, “I know I haven’t been the best father…”, “I’m just not as beautiful as I used to be…” What appears like low self esteem is merely the guise for a underhanded ego feed. 

On the seeming positive side, the Stagnant Tomato will keep you serving by buttering you up.  They might leave you with the idea they can’t live without you.  While you may feel like the favorite, don’t be surprised if you find out down the line that there are several.  Another means of exploitation is through financial control.  Stagnant Tomatoes can be monetarily generous.  There is nothing wrong with accepting this generocity.  It is their greatest means of reciprocation.  However, you’ll want to check in with how much you feel controlled by it.  When a Stagnant Tomato does something uncharacteristically reciprocal or flattering, you’ll want to look out for a self serving purpose.  I know this sounds cynical, but it’s just the truth.  You’ll want to expect they’ll be asking something of you.  The other option is that they are doing it as ego justification that they’ll use far into the future.  “Dad, why don’t you ever come visit?” “What do you mean? I was just there and took you all out to dinner.” “Dad that was five years ago.” “Ah, come on, it wasn’t that long ago.”

Now…doesn’t that sound like a toddler at their best?  Again, I share this so that you can get your mind wrapped around how Stagnant Tomatoes think and operate.  Toddlers aren’t selfish…they are self focused.  They want your attention all the time.  You better watch what you say around them, because they’ll share what you’ve said at really inappropriate times (for you).  You can spend all day with a toddler, and they just don’t understand why at 7pm you don’t have the energy to play more.  Toddlers love to talk, but if you were to start talking…they’d run off, or be preocccupied with their buttons.  If they don’t get what they want, they’ll do everything in their power to work you over.  Toddlers will take what they can get, until you set a limit. 

Most Stagnant Tomatoes respond well to clear limit setting that isn’t confrontational or direct.  It’s also important to protect their ego and to be really consistent with new boundaries you set.  An example of this is setting limits with an entitled talker.  If they usually talk for an hour, adjust it to 30 minutes.  At 30 minutes have a pre-prepared reason to get off the phone (ie. somethings on the stove, delivery truck just pulled up, your kid has gotten into something).  You can also start putting limits on certain topics of conversation…without telling them.  Decide how long you want to listen to regular complaining, then either ask them for their solutions or change the subject.   If they directly insult, immediately find a reason to get off the phone.  If you are consistent, their behavior will change within three calls.  Since Stagnant Tomatoes don’t like limits or rejection, you might find them ending calls before you do, or finding someone else that will give them the ego feed they need.

Beware though, if the Stagnant Tomato isn’t invested in you personally, they may cut you off if you stop worshiping and serving them.  Parents and family members will adjust to new boundaries.  However, you will find your value reduced.  Many friends, bosses or coworkers will abandon you once you quietly change your contract.  If a boss hired you as their servant, you may be laid off or passed over for promotions if you stop.  If you stop listening and serving a Stagnant Tomato friend, most likely they’ll stop calling.  None of this is explosive or confrontational…just subconsious adjustment to needs.  When a toddler doesn’t get what they want from one parent or playmate…they just run off to find another.   So when deciding on boundaries, you’ll want to think about how much value the relationship has to you…and how much you feel the Stagnant Tomato can tolerate before setting off egoic intolerances.  

I know you may have more questions about limit setting, but I want you to back burner them for now.  At this stage of the trail, adjusting boundaries (especially with a parent, spouse or partner) is usually really difficult.  It will be hard for you to define new boundaries without resentment, or needling statements.  It will also be hard for you to withstand the exploitation that will come your way if you don’t set new limits from a peaceful, core strength.  You’ll gain this strength up the trail and your boundaries will become defined and set with real ease.  So hang in there….

For now, let’s adjust our view to Ripening Tomatoes.  Oh…wait…look at where the sun is – getting pretty low.  Let’s take a break to get our tents up and food out.  Do what you need to do for yourself…and we’ll reconvene after……..

Ok…all set?  I’m good too.  I’m glad we took a break.  We can get really egoically invested in looking at the faults of Stagnant Tomatoes.  They are easy marks.  Yet in doing so, we don’t take responsibility for ourselves.  It may be hard for you not to view yourself as a victim.  I understand.  However, I’m not going to support you in this.  Nothing will change if you spend all your time focusing on them.  Does that make sense?… So let’s take a look at…

Ripening Tomatoes and Entitlement

On the opposite end of the ego spectrum is the Ripened Tomato’s lack of entitlement for pretty much anything - including happiness.  Like a slave or serf born into servitude, entitlement and freedom are beyond experiential understanding.  Like a knight serving a King, sacrifice is a privilege.  Laying down one’s life for someone admired and worshiped is an honor.  In return the King bestows monitary reward, and titles such as Lord, Earl or Duke.  The Ripened Tomato is raised to worship their stagnant parents.  On a very deep level, they believe their parent can’t survive without them.  They also fear stepping back in their relationship would be devastating to their parent.  The titles they have worked their entire life for are savior, martyr and favorite.  Their entire identity is wrapped up in these self honored labels.  Ripening Tomatoes don’t believe they are inherently special, but conditionally special.  They learned from an early age that the label must be earned on a daily basis.  There is no such thing as tenure. 

Ripening Tomatoes learned as children that…

• They aren’t entitled to their time.  The Ripening Tomato understands they are on call…to serve, listen or counsel…at any time.  Ripening Tomatoes anticipate needs and spend their time doing for others.
• They aren’t entitled to roam freely.  Children of stagnant tomatoes usually find safety in disappearing.  They find rooms, corners and spaces out of the way of radar.
• They aren’t entitled to talk freely.  After years of others’ disinterest, rejection or annoyance when speaking, Ripening Tomatoes grow uncomfortable talking freely.
• They aren’t entitled to their emotions.  Anything other than seeming happy, respectful or silent aren’t acceptable.  Feeling hurt, angry, or depressed are met with invalidation, annoyance, disregard or shaming. 
• They aren’t entitled to be nurtured.  Ripening Tomatoes are to hug, but not need hugging.  They are to give love, but not receive it.  Their needs are a burden to others.
• They aren’t entitled to disagree.  Ripening Tomatoes learn they aren’t allowed assertion or their own opinion.  To do so risks ridicule and shaming.
• They aren’t entitled to privacy.  Ripening tomatoes understand their journals can be read, rooms searched, or calls eavesdropped at any time.
• They aren’t entitled to a childhood.  Many Ripening Tomatoes were put into roles of surrogate spouses or friends.  Instead of feeling taken care of, they felt responsible for the physical and emotional wellbeing of their parent.
• They aren’t entitled to happiness.  Ripening Tomatoes feel guilt when presented with happiness.  It’s hard to feel joy when others share how much they suffer and sacrifice.

In order to be nurtured, Ripening Tomatoes learn they must be sick or in crisis.  Some Stagnant Tomatoes egoically like to save the day.  Stagnant Tomatoes might bring soup and hugs when their child is sick – as long as it doesn’t last too long.  Being sick, depressed or in crisis also gives the Ripening Tomato some permission to take the day off to self focus.  As adults some Ripening Tomatoes manifest repressed emotions as chronic illness or persistent varying maladies.  This allows them to receive time, attention, concern and physical touch from assorted health professionals.

While their rights are taken from Ripening Tomatoes at birth, they do gain emancipation between the ages of 18 and 21.  However, like many slaves in the south after 1865, Ripening Tomatoes can’t imagine a life outside of servitude.  Even when the gates are openned, few Ripened Tomatoes ever leave.  Serving and saving make them feel special.  They understand no other identity; no other means of being recognized. 

One of the biggest hinderences to their freedom is the egoic idea that people can’t survive without them.  Seriously.  The idea that the Stagnant Tomato would be devasted, if left to fend for themselves, gives the Ripening Tomato a sense of importance to their years of sacrifice.  The reality is that, just like a favorite slave or King’s knight, anyone is replaceable.  You won’t find a Queen chasing after a lady-in-waiting, or a Duke begging a serf.   The reality is that the efforts of Ripening Tomatoes aren’t recognized or valued in a deep sense.  That is one of the hardest pills to swallow on the trail.  Ripening Tomatoes can walk away and no one will notice or come after them. 

That being said, a Ripening Tomato can claim their freedom and inherent rights while remaining in relationships with the Stagnant Tomatoes they value.  It can be trusted that while Stagnant Tomatoes play weak – their egos are rock solid.  They are like Scarlett O’Hara crying into her kerchief, while making sure people are watching.  If you will not serve, worship and sacrifice – there are others eager to fill the role.  And while they play bully – they subconsiously are weak.  When Ripening Tomatoes claim their power, Stagnant Tomatoes recognize the power shift on a subconsious level, and acquiece to new boundaries.  While Stagnant Tomatoes don’t value the effort, time or attention of others; they do value the bond they have with their most important Ripening Tomatoes.  While some stagnant friends, lovers, colleagues or bosses may disappear when you stand up; others will remain and tolerate your new claimed freedom.  Most stagnant parents are very invested in and bonded to their children.  Many spouses are very invested in remaining married.  Many historic friendships can withstand adjusting.  Siblings are rooted relationships.  All of these relationships can adjust and co-exisit with the Ripening Tomato’s freedom…under one condition… that the egos of the Stagnant Tomatoes are protected and respected in the process.

As I shared at the end of talking about the entitlement of Stagnant Tomatoes, claiming freedom and resetting boundaries will be discussed further up the trail.  Right now, as a Ripening Tomato, it is merely time to own your responsibility; to see that you are free; and understand your investment in servitude.  While it seems unbelievable, Ripening Tomatoes are incredibly fearful and resistent to claiming their inherent rights.  Let’s create a vision of where you will evolve into if you do make this life altering choice.

Mature Red Tomatoes and Entitlement

Mature Red Tomatoes feel entitled to nothing, but deserving of everything.  In order to understand the mindset of a Mature Tomato, we need clarification of three different words (all defined by Dictionary.com).  While at first glace these may appear to be synonyms, there are subtle and important differences.

Entitlement:  The right to a guaranteed benefit; being designated by an honorary title; furnished with a right to laying claim.

Rights:  that which is due by anyone by just claim, legal guarantees, moral principals.

Deserving: having claim to reward, assistance etc, because of one’s actions, qualities or situation; meriting; worthy.

Mature Tomatoes understand that all people are born with equal and basic rights.  They are ours due to the simple fact we are human; “that which is due by anyone by just claim.” I believe our rights are inherent on a moral level as well.  We all has humans have…

• A right to our emotions
• A right to be happy
• A right to be nurtured
• A right to our opinions
• A right to freedom
• A right to privacy
• A right to safety
• A right to our body
• A right to chose
• A right to determine our destiny

While our rights can be violated, none can be taken without our surrendering.  Once given away, those rights are ours to reclaim at any moment.  Mature Tomatoes have claimed and own all their full rights, even when under circumstances when they are challenged.  Understand that taking back one’s rights is not an easy endeavor.  Mature Tomatoes have taken responsibility in their journey of such. 

Even though we have inherent rights as humans, Mature Tomatoes understand there is no such thing as entitlement.  No one human has a claim over another.  Even spiritual masters such as Christ, Budda, and the Dali Lama are incredibly humble and gracious in what is given.  I can’t think of a spiritual master, present or past, that hasn’t experienced being stripped and challenged.  They understand all that is given is a gift, even that which appears to break us.  No human or spirit is entitled, guaranteed, happiness, safety, privacy, freedom…  Nothing can be done to earn the guarantee of any of these rights.  No one is entitled to be served or priviledged.  Christ didn’t feel entitled to have his feet washed…he received it as a gift and blessing.  No one is entitled to a childhood.  Mature Tomatoes understand that the challenges we are given are there to shape, strengthen and enlighten.  The concept of entitlement is one from the ego, not the spirit.

As shared, Mature Tomatoes know they are deserving of everything – not above anyone else, but along with all other spirits.  Beyond deserving rewards, they also own deserving consequences.  Until we are fully enlightened we are all victims and offenders.  Some own the spiritual choice of the circumstances of this lifetime.  Others respect the karmic deserving of lifetime circumstances.  Mature Tomatoes take full responsibility in receiving all that is deserved.  Understand reward is not monetary for a Mature Tomato.  It can be.  However, the greatest reward a spirit can receive is joy. 
Pretty incredible…  and while I don’t claim to be a fully mature tomato, I am reddening.  With each shade of deepening color, the alignment and rewards of joy are incredible.  While this journey is so incredibly challenging…reclaiming your inherent rights is truly remarkable.  We take them back one at a time or in layers.  The journey is well worth it. 

And here we are my hiking companion.  The sun is well set and it’s time for bed.  Before you head to you tent, let me share what is on the agenda for tomorrow.  We only have one more segment on Tomato Maturation.  After, I’ll share what happens when a Green Tomato rots into an even more egoic form.  This may or may not pertain to you.  Then…Guess what?… We arrive in a little town with a hotel and restaurant!  You’ll get a bath, bed and home spun cooked food.  I didn’t tell you earlier because I didn’t want you more preoccupied about food than you are…  But tonight you can dream…  I’ll see you tomorrow.

Stagnant Green Tomatoes are Never Wrong

Seriously… Stagnant Tomatoes will never take personal responsibility for doing anything wrong.  Why? Because they really don’t feel they’ve done anything wrong…ever.  Remember, in order to survive Stagnant Tomatoes can never experience shame.  They have no ability for empathy or self reflection (read past two mileposts for review if necessary).  Both are needed in order to process a wrong doing.  Of course this can cause a ton of anger and resentment for those they hurt.  People are left in absolute frustrated dismay as Stagnant Tomatoes claim innocence, lost memory and denial of events that appear absolutely obvious. 

In order to never be wrong, Stagnant Tomatoes are supported through magical thinking.  Memories are twisted, forgotten, exaggerated, misconstrued until a version of innocence takes over the original incident.  Instead of offenders, Stagnant Tomatoes see themselves as justified victims or martyrs.  Understand magical thinking is different than lying.  When we lie, we know what the truth is but say something different in order to stay out of trouble.  For those with magical thinking, their misinterpretation is their absolute truth.  They aren’t lying because their misinterpretation is their reality. 

An example of this was when Bill Clinton emphatically claimed, “I did not have sex with that woman.” (Monica Lowinsky) For those of us old enough to remember, President Clinton said these words with a straight face and good eye contact.  He wasn’t lying because he didn’t believe oral sex was sex.  If the jar doesn’t have “cookie” painted on it, can you really prove there are cookies in it? 

Since Stagnant Tomatoes can never be wrong, and will never see your truth, they become highly defended when accused.  If you come to them with a wrong doing, initially they will share the incident from the view point of their magical thinking.  In their mind the event never took place, it’s being blown out of proportion, or their action was justified based on someone else being wrong – most likely you.  Scratch that surface any deeper and you will get increasing levels of silent shut down or rage.  Trying to go up against that rage can bring greater ego consequences.  If the Stagnant Tomato is covert, they won’t say anything, but you’ll see an iron curtain drop.  If you’re on the phone with them, they’ll probably hang up.  An overt Stagnant Tomato will give you an ego smack down you won’t soon forget.  They will barrage you with every wrong doing or character flaw you have.  If you don’t have flaws, they will make some up for you. 

If the Stagnant Tomato doesn’t tenderize you into submission through their overt rage or covert silence, one of three things will happen.  They might call you the next day like nothing ever happened.  Their magical thinking might have pressed the backspace key, erasing the confrontation from their mind all together.  Or, since they can’t conceive any other option than you agreeing with their version of truth…you can move on, right?  You ego hit them, they ego smash you into back into servility.  Stagnant Tomatoes can, in some instances, be quick to forget, especially since so many people capitulate at this stage.

If you aren’t initially tenderized by a Stagnant Tomato, the second possibility is that they say, “I’m sorry.”  Understand this is not an apology or a means of taking any responsibility.  Stagnant tomatoes were behaviorally shaped as toddlers just like the rest of us.  Saying sorry is the ey word that will get people off their back so they can go back to playing.  Since most of us have never received a full fledged, well intentioned apology before in our lives, we accept this as their taking responsibility.  The way you can tell it’s only an appeasement is by scratching the surface of it, ”What are you sorry for?”  The Stagnant Tomato might say something in the neighborhood of, ”For yesterday.” Generalities.  Scratch a little deeper and you’ll begin to see the defenses come out again, “I’m sorry you were so upset.” Notice this as the most patronizing apology  you can receive.  Although we get and give this means of invalidation all the time.  If you hold the Stagnant Tomato accountable beyond their general statements and dancing invalidations their rage will return quickly.

The third possible reaction a Stagnant Tomato can give after their initial ego tenderizing rage is to cut you off either temporarily or permanently.  If your relationship with them has little value, you’ll be discarded quickly.  To ensure that you don’t ego smear them, they’ll do a good behind the scenes campaign of slandering you and martyring themselves.  If they are covert in nature, they’ll do this vicariously through other people.  Women are especially good at finding hench person’s to do their rageful dirty work.  If you’re valueable to the Stagnant Tomato, they’ll freeze you out until you come crawling back.  Most times, Ripening Tomatoes will eventually crawl back with apologies for things they never do or for merely upsetting the powerful Stagnant Tomato.  Ripening tomatoes are very sensitive to emotional withdrawal.  After you make things right with the Stagnant Tomato, it will appear that they forget very quickly; like two school yard kids going from fist fighting to eating ice cream.  However, you’ll find out their memory is long the next time you trigger their rage. 

While it is rare, a permanent estrangement can result from standing in your own power with a Stagnant Tomato.  This can be devastating when this happens with a close friend, sibling or even a parent.  The need for ego survival out trumps any relationship, no matter how close.  It isn’t personal; it is survival for the Stagnant Tomato.  You might find the loss of the relationship is more important than the loss of your self respect.  If you are at this stage, know I respect any decision you make.  However, also know that we can get your relationship with the Stagnant Tomato realigned.  You can preserve the relationship, and also regain your self respect.  A loss of a friend may feel like a relief.  Estrangement with a family member is a much more intense journey.  Know we’ll deal with this issue further up the trail. 

Through sharing these insights about how a Stagnant Tomato uses magical thinking and egoic tenderizing to avoid taking personal responsibility, I hope you’ll feel less crazy.  At the same time I don’t want it to make you feel any condescension.  Ripening Tomatoes have their own secondary avoidances…

Ripening Tomatoes also Avoid or Take too Much Responsibility

In order to avoid shame Ripening Tomatoes take on too much responsibility.  They’ll apologize for almost anything to keep people happy.  The price tag being the depths of their own self esteem.  The greatest shame a ripening child experiences is the rage or silent emotional retreat of a parent, after which there is no follow up.  Imagine the anxiety a child has after hearing, “Sammy, you horrid little child.  Get up to room!”  There isn’t usually a time frame of punishment, followed by, “Sammy, let’s talk about what you did.  And no matter what you did or how angry I get…I still love you.”  Without a follow up the child is left to believe he is just horrid…period.  The child sits in their room until they slink their way down the stairs or maybe put a card under a door, “I love you Mommy, I’m sorry.”  What they end up feeling sorry for isn’t a transitory behavior, but for being a horrid little child that their parent can barely tolerate.  And many times the behavior that triggered the Stagnant Tomato parent didn’t nearly warrant the rageful reaction.  The possibility of a parent’s emotional or physical abandonment is extremely tramatizing to a child.  Hence, this remains a very tender emotional button for all Ripening Tomatoes. 

Ripening Tomatoes have a deep seeded fear of people not liking or being angry at them.  They will put up with almost anything in order to avoid experiencing this shame or possible abandonment.  They can’t differentiate between who they are as people and what they do behaviorally.  They can’t tease out the difference between saying something stupid and being stupid.  The idea that mistakes can be easily empathized with or forgiven is almost beyond their comprehension.  Hence Ripening Tomatoes apologize way too often and for things that don’t need addressing.  Sometimes their hypervigilence and self degradation can get slightly annoying.  While Stagnant Tomatoes love to be surrounded by people who are self degradating, more mature tomatoes like to be with people who stand on their feet instead of their knees. 

Just because Ripening Tomatoes acquiece too quickly, it doesn’t mean they don’t have their own simmering mental rage.  A dog can only be kicked so many times.  While they apologize when their shame button gets pushed, most understand on some level that they aren’t wrong.  Anger, resentment and judging are just below the surface.  A sense of haughty condescension creeps in separating us from them.  And this imperative need to not be one of them, leads Ripening Tomatoes to miss an important level of personal responsibility.

Ripening Tomatoes essentially identify themselves as victims of the oppressive and sometimes abusive Stagnant Tomatoes.  The problem comes in that Stagnant Tomatoes also see themselves as victims.  So everyone in the world perceives themselves as victims, while no one can acknowledge themselves as offenders.  It’s a world full of people wanting to wear white hats, and no one wants to put on the black.  Victims are good and many times martyrs.  Offenders are abusive and bad.   While the reality may be difficult to acknowledge, the truth is that we are all universally both…both victim and offender.  These egoic roles are two sides of the same coin.  We all just choose to focus on the heads, and never turn the coin over to see tails. 

An offender is someone who is hurt and isn’t ready to take responsibility for their pain.  What we don’t recognize we pass on.

Ripening Tomatoes have shame, hurt, anger, and resentments mostly connected to never being seen and validated for who they are.  That drum of pain gets beaten every day.  At the same time we don’t truly recognize and validate Stagnant Tomatoes for their limitations of capabilities.  You’ll see this more clearly when we get to the acceptance portion of the trail.  You will really resist validating the truth about some of the most important Stagnant Tomatoes in your life.   Ripening Tomatoes spend a huge portion of their life’s energy trying to change the people around them into versions that are acceptable.  This is the case despite the fact that most people, even Stagnant Tomatoes, are pretty clear on who they are during initial contacts.  Then Ripening Tomatoes resent them for being something other than themselves… a form of offending.

Ripening Tomatoes also offend by not giving deeper apologies when they are warranted.  They have the self reflection to understand they’ve been wrong.  However, they equate being wrong with being bad.  Hence saying I’m sorry, takes on a deep level of shame.  Instead of acknowledging a wrong action, they feel like they are validating a view that there is something inherently wrong with them.  Ripening Tomatoes also have a hard time apologizing since there is minimal if any role modeling on how to do it.  Most have never received a well intentioned, deeply validating apology in their lives.  It’s hard to pass on what we don’t know how to do.

I know it is really hard to hear that you are an offender.  Don’t over personalize it or be insulted.  I say this as a self acknowledged offender.  I too am an offender.  It is a reality of everyone on our planet.  We offend people and our plant in small and big ways every day.  And until we can see the flip side of our coin…we’ll continue to do it.   But once we do…we rise in our enlightenement and become neither…

Red Ripened Tomatoes take Full Personal Responsibility

Red Ripened Tomatoes understand that we all have magical thinking in some regard.  We all construe reality to suit our own purposes.  No one view point holds the truth.  There is also full acknowledgement by the Ripened Tomato that they have been an offender.  When we know how we have consciously and unconsciously hurt others, we become more understanding in how others can do similarly.  By owning their own offenses, there is experiential empathy, which runs far deeper than intellectual.  Ripened tomatoes let go of their identity as victims.  They understand that every offense made against them has been perfect in their lives, shaping them into the spirits they were meant to be in their lifetime.  When you understand the profound purpose and lessons in the darkness of life, being labeled a victim becomes unpalatable.

Since Ripened Tomatoes aren’t invested in being right or being victims, they are more readily able to see what is their responsibility and what is not.  They understand that by making an offense does not make them a bad person.  When confronted with an offense they not only take responsibility for giving a heart felt apology to the other person, but also to take a look at the personal pain or issue that caused them to act out in the first place.  Any time we offend, the issue is ours no matter the provokation.  Ripened Tomatoes also take responsibility in releasing the wrong doing that isn’t theirs to it’s proper owner without judgment.  Then if the wrong doing has caused the Ripened Tomato pain, they take the responsibility to find it’s deeper root and deepen their healing.  They feel gratitude towards the offender for holding up a mirror in which to see themselves.  Any time we are offended against, the issue is then ours to heal. 

Through taking full responsibility as offenders and victims, the Red Ripened Tomato rises above to become neither.  When we let go of our investment in being victims, we heal the pain that causes us to offend.  When we own our offenses, we heal those we’ve wounded.  Red Ripened Tomatoes are agents of transforming fear and pain based energy into healing love and light. 

Pretty deep isn’t it all?  We’ll let that sink in a bit before we digest another chunk of information.  However, I do want to offer a couple of different resources that will help you go a little deeper on this topic… Click on the links for more on either.

The first is an article I wrote on apologies,  The Rare Gift of an Apology

I also love the book Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life by Byron Katie and Steven Mitchell.  This book is amazing in helping better understand this victim/offender coin.  Through acceptance we have the power to heal everything in our lives.

Tonight, we’re going to take a look at how spiritual and emotional maturation impact self reflection and thinking.  Along with empathy, a lack of capability in self reflection keeps Stagnant Green Tomatos from maturing.  A person can’t self reflect and maintain a primary shame avoidance defense mechanism.  Ripening Tomatoes need not judge, because their self reflection is equally off kilter… Let’s start with Stagnant Tomatoes and progress from there…

The Self Reflection and Thinking of Stagnant Green Tomatoes

It’s through self reflection that we’ve come to understand narcissistic self infatuation.  The word narcissist is derived from the Greek Myth of Narcissus, a hunter who was reknowned for his beauty.  When Narcissus was attracted to a pool of water, he looked in and fell in love with his own reflection.  He was so enamoured with himself, Narcissus couldn’t break away from the spell of himself and eventually died.  So it goes for the Stagnated Green Tomato.  They must remain enamoured with themselves due to self preservation.  If they view themselves as anything other than perfect, they will experience shame.  Feeling any sense of inherent ugliness is more than they can tolerate in this lifetime.  Shame would cause them to come undone…so they are completely defended against it.  When viewed this way, we can relinquish our negative interpretations and find greater empathy.

The reflection in a pool of water is one dimensional and distorted.  There are two reflecting pools for the Stagnated Tomato, both equally distorted.  There is the reflection maintained within their own mind and the reflection they see in the community they live in.  Stagnated Tomatoes have two or three roles in which they invest their entire sense of self.  Their ego is anchored in the limited and immobile labels built to support the ideolized role.   Additionally all thinking that takes place revolves around the maintenance of this image they see in themselves and present to the world.  Image is everything.  Let’s take a look at a couple of examples…

The Stagnated Green Tomato who views himself as a Perfect Father, is a man who might have had a difficult childhood with a father who was emotionally distant and uninvolved.  This is a man who is really well intentioned in his parenting and truly wants to create an experience that is different for his own children.  In order to be perfect this father believes he needs to be seen as an active, dedicated provider with perfect children.  Understand that perfect father is the role and active, dedicated and provider are the first supporting labels that he feels must be maintained in support of it.  Also note that I highlighted the word seen.  The image projected out to the community is how this Stagnated Tomato feeds his sense of self. 

In order to be seen as active this Perfect Father takes his little girl everywhere around town.  He takes her on business errands and to the hardware store.  People comment on how sweet this little girl is and how cute to watch them around town together.  The Perfect Father puffs in self pride.  At home, when this little girl comes up to her father with her baby doll, she is brushed off.  The Perfect Father already believes he’s active enough and that his daughter is getting needy.  What this man is unable to comprehend is that an active parent is one who is able to engage a child on their level and spend time with them in what they are interested in.  However, spending what can be tedious time with a toddler on the floor isn’t ego feeding.  It is devasting when this little girl reaches about 8 and is no longer considered cute.  When her father takes her around, he no longer receives ego validating reflections.  Hence he stops doing it.  The child believes that in order to be likable she must be cute.  Her sense of self becomes conditional.  And at the core, she believes she’s no longer loveable.  The reality is that the father wasn’t connecting with who this little girl was as a person.  He could only connect on a level that was egoically self serving.  I know this may sound horribly selfish.  But remember, Stagnant Green Tomatoes operates on the same self focused level as a toddler.  This father isn’t a bad man, he’s just underdeveloped.  His thinking in regards to being an active parent might revolve around the judgment of other men who don’t take their kids or whose children are annoying and unpresentable.  The Perfect Father rethinks the events, notes how adulating his daughter is, and strategizes when he can take her out again.  Otherwise, he gets lost in television, the newspaper or ego validating tasks such as non-fiction books, mechanics, or his man cave.

The Perfect Father might also be invested in the labels of dedicated provider.  He is home every night, but spends most hours focused on money and work.  If this father is more invested in dedication he probably gets home in time for supper.  If he is more focused on provider, he is more work obsessed.  It’s important that his children have the right clothes and enviable toys.  A nice house, good schools and eventually sending his children to college are imperative to his image.  In the meantime, even though he is home every night he’s not emotionally present.  He is very proud of the castle he has earned for his family.  However, doesn’t see that his children are starved for his attention.  He eats with his family, but he is tuned out or watching television.  He doesn’t think much, because he is lost in texting, emails and communications related to work.  This Perfect Father is obsessing over a coworker who he hates and how to prove to everyone that he is more valuable to the firm. 

The best reflection for The Perfect Father is to have the perfect child.  This man loves football and begins his son’s training as a toddler.  The child is dressed in sports jerseys and knows he can get his father’s attention if he watches games with him on television.  When it’s time, this father signs his son up for the children’s football league.  He’s so proud of how active he is by going to every game.  He is much more dedicated than most of the fathers.  His son starts off slow and is a little uncoordinated.  This Perfect Father is happy to drill his child at home and help him practice.  He knows he’s being a great role model by demanding the same level of committment and dedication from his son.  Since he knows his son is the best on the team, the coach must be an idiot for not having his son as a starting player.  He is unable to see his son is either sullen or putting on enthusiasm.  This Perfect Father spends his time thinking about his son’s next game and judging the other kids, fathers, coaches, referees.  He’s obsessed with stats and possibly ends up taking over coaching responsibilities. 

So the Perfect Father locks into the labels of an active, dedicated, good provider whose kids shine in the community.  When our eyes are locked into a self affirming reflection they are unable to focus on anything else.  If you try to get him to see how he might fall short on one label, he locks onto another.  When his children are no longer cute and adulating, he becomes less active but becomes more of a provider.  His attentional shift is rationalized by needing to focus on college savings.  While his son may be the star of the team, this Perfect Father is unable to recognize the signs of substance abuse and wreckless behaviors.  There’s no need to focus on grades, because he won’t need them with a sports scholarship.  If his wife begins to complain about her husband watching television during dinner, the Perfect Father focuses on how hard he works providing for his family and how selfish it is not to give him the peace he deserves.  When his children graduate from college and no longer require the demand of regularly plugging in, this Stagnant Tomato shifts back to being active.  He calls to check in on his adult son weekly and later becomes an active grandparent. 

Through out the years as a parent, the Perfect Father doesn’t wonder or question how he is doing as a father in the least.  He’s not going to read parenting books and won’t look to his children for clues on how he might make adjustments.  There isn’t any self reflection; as in considering, evaluating, pondering or questioning of the self.  Why would there be when he has no concept that he’s anything other than perfect.   If the Perfect Father is questioned in any way, egoic defense will be triggered immediately.  “Dad, I wish you had come to some of my dance recitals when I was young…” Note that her father liked football, but not dance. ”You’re right angel, I wish I had gone too. (but, I had to work all those hours so you could take those dance classes in the first place).” Or he would get a bit ugly, “What do you mean, I went to plenty (one to him felt like plenty).” Questioning doesn’t open mental doors, instead it slams them shut. 

Stagnant Green Tomatoes don’t contemplate, they spend all of their mental energies judging and strategizing.  Otherwise they occupy their time with mental distractions such as techno-obsession, endless hours of television, a work shop, card or video games, puzzles, hobbies, information gathering (newpapers, non-fiction reading), day trading, porn… None of these activities aren’t inherently bad.  They are just mentally occupying.  Since there isn’t a lot of thinking, time must be occupied otherwise. 

Let’s look at another example of a different Stagnated Green Tomato; The Devout Mother.  The labels that support her self reflected perfection are religiously devout, genteel, and martyr.  Like the Perfect Father, the Devout Mother is a really good woman who grew up in hardship and not in a time when she had a choice of having children.  Although this woman has always been disinterested and annoyed around them, there is no thought process about having children herself.  In her mind you can’t be genteel without children.  It just wouldn’t be acceptable.  So mindlessly she has two.  Overwhelmed by the demands, the Devout Mother subconsciously does everything she can to take space to herself.  She leaves her babies in playpens for extended times.  In her mind she’s breeding independence by expecting her kids to play outside all day when they get older.  Yet still the ordinary demands are overwhelming.  Since she is unable to reflect on her abilities and limitations as a mother, the Devout Mother views her children as over demanding and herself as a martyr.  Cooking, cleaning, running errands and other boring tasks are burdens she must carry as a means of sacrifice for her children and husband.   She lashes out regularly at the family, reminding them of all that she does for them.   She spends a lot of her mental activity in petty resentments, seeing her children and husband as ungrateful…and also thinking about how much she is sacrificing.

The Devout Mother egoically feeds on being a selfless martyr due to the investment in being seen as religiously devout.  She’s been attending services since she was a small child and rarely misses a week.  Even though she goes to service, she also regularly watches televised sermons.  The Devout Mother is a smart woman who can recall extended religous passages.  However, when asked, she is unable to personalize the content.  While she goes through the motions of religion, she is unable to ponder, process or contemplate what she hears.  All remains as one dimensional stories.  The Devout Mother regularly volunteers at church and attends topical meetings.  At these meetings she never states strong opinions.  Genteel women look beautiful and remain quiet.  She basks in her reputation and being well renoun.  While she would never state her hard judgments in public, the Devout Mother spends a great deal of time ruminating on the un-Godly people of the world.  She strategizes dishes she will make and how things can be arranged at the next meeting.  The Devout Mother wonders about what to wear and about the aborrent behaviors of the other ladies who she unknowingly competes with. 

Notice that not a lot is mentioned in regards to children when discussing the Devout Mother.  Her children rarely cross her mind.  She believes her greater focus must be on God.  Being genteel and being devout take up most of her focus.  While the Devout Mother knows the basics in her children’s lives, she is unable to see anything below the surface.  If confronted by anything she may or may not have done as a mother, she would immediately go into egoic defense.  When one of her children ends up in therapy as an adult, the idea that her impact as a mother might be in some way related, literally does not cross her mind.  The Devout Mother worries for her child and her problems.  The Devout Mother spends her time thinking about how her children have strayed from God, and attributes all issues they have as related to that cause.  While she expresses her worries to other family members, she never addresses a child directly about issues in their lives.  They learned early on that bringing their concerns to her, will only lead to listening to lectures on religious morality.

So Stagnant Green Tomatos have a self reflection, as in having an idealized picture of themselves.  They do not, however, self relfect as in self considering, appraising, or examining.  All thinking revolves around the scrutiny of others as related to egoic competition and image maintenance.  They are mentally task oriented, thinking about what they will do and say.  Stagnant Tomatoes don’t philisophically contemplate.  If interested, they do intellectually gather and consider information that they can bestow on others. 

And… how are you hanging in there?  Any thoughts?  Oh… yes… The Perfect Father and Devout Mother seem like caricatures that you’ve heard about to the point where they feel like cliches?  That’s true.  I felt the same as I was sharing both examples with you.   Yet every example I could come up with was similarly one dimensional.   We can think of many movie, television and book characters who’ve been based on the dramatic caricatures of Stagnant Green Tomatoes.   When you take a closer look at any of the Stagnant Tomatoes in your life, they’ll have a similar feel.

Is it hard to comprehend that there are so many people who aren’t self reflecting and thinking on deeper levels?…  Yeah, it sure is hard to initially get wrapped around.  When you are someone who thinks on a more reflective level, it’s difficult to believe that there are others who don’t.  Yet… believe it or not… your thinking most likely is as underdeveloped and green.  I don’t mean that in any way as an insult…. just as a knowing observation.

Take a few minutes to stretch… and we’ll turn to take a look at Ripening Tomatoes.

The Self Reflection and Thinking of Ripening Tomatoes

Self reflection and thinking of Stagnant and Ripening Tomatoes are completely at odds.  While the Stagnant Tomato can only see themselves as shame free, the Ripening Tomato has a hard time comprehending themselves as anything but shame-full.  We are all two sides of the same coin with visions of ourselves that are equally as inaccurate. 

Ripening Tomatoes do have the ability to self reflect; as in considering, seeing and pondering themselves.  However, they’ve been given filters through which to see that block out most the light.  Think of the little girl of the Perfect Father, who only received attention when she was cute.  When he brushed her off when she approached him with her baby doll, she received the message, “Your interests are stupid, you’re needy and not inherently interesting.”  As she grew out of her baby cuteness she received the message, “You’re only loveble when physically pleasing.” Later in life she most likely replaced the need to be cute with sexy.  We see our parents as omnipotent and there is literally nothing more important in the world than receiving their love and approval.  If our parents give us the message that we aren’t loveable, we believe it ultimately so we can remain in control.  If we believe we are unloveable, that means that we can do something to change.  Once we figure out how to, we will finally be able gain our parents attention and love.  If what our parents are telling us isn’t true…what would that mean?  If we are loveable and they don’t seem to love us…then maybe they never will.  Hence a Ripening Tomato’s entire existence revolved around figuring out how to be acceptable and loveable.  On a subconscious level, the primal need for our parents’ love remains with us as adults and is the main motivation in everything we do.  And since it’s impossible to receive complete acceptance from a Stagnant Green Tomato, the goal of becoming pleasing to them becomes a quamire.

With the primary filtering belief of unloveability as the lense through which the Ripening Tomato views everything, all self reflection is negative.  Ripening Tomatoes spend almost all of their self reflecting time lamenting over all the reasons they feel they are insufficent. 

“I can’t believe how stupid I am… They must think I’m an idiot.”
“Oh my God, what did I just do?! I can’t believe I said that…”
“I am such a loser.  No wonder no one loves me.”
“I am so fat…bald, short, tall, hairy, ugly…”
“Why didn’t I say something?!  I just stood there like a fool.”
“I’m so boring…uninteresting, untalented….”

Since Ripening Tomatoes can’t recognize Stagnant Tomatoes they put themselves into endless situations and relationships where they feel unvalidated and unseen.  And like with their parents, they believe that it’s because there is something wrong with them.  

Since most self reflecting leads to excruciating shame, Ripening Tomatoes also spend most of their thinking time egoically defending, strategizing and distracting.  Ripening Tomatoes are continuously cycling through egoic degradation and egoic judgment.  They are either one man up or one man down.  It’s like ego tennis.  A ton of time is also spent strategizing how to make everyone happy and how to be perfect – which is ultimately impossible.  And since none of this thinking is any fun, Ripening Tomatoes also spend a lot of time not thinking at all.  We avoid thinking through mindless distractions like TV, reading, Facebook, cell phones…noise, noise, noise. 

When Ripening Tomatoes are presented with the idea that there is actually nothing inherently wrong with them….they bridle hard.  They really don’t want to believe it.  How do I know?  I come up against it with every single hiker.  People just don’t want to hear or believe that they are gorgeous.  Luxuriating in self loathing is like an old shoe. 

So you see…there’s no means to judge.  Ripening Tomatoes are very similar to Stagnant ones in that most are also green and immature.  Universally our thinking is emotionally and spiritually underdeveloped.  And you know what’s interesting?… After hearing what it is like to think in a more evolved way… most people don’t really find it appealing.  To a Green Tomato, the thinking of a Red Ripe Tomato appears empty and boring.  It’s hard to imagine what’s left if all egoic judging, blaming, martyring, gossiping, self flogging, condescension and drama are gone. 

The Self Reflection and Thinking of a Red Ripe Tomato
 
Unlike the Stagnant and Ripening Tomatoes, the Red Tomato spends little to no time looking into the mirror of self reflection.  The Stagnant Tomato looks at the mirror to confirm she is ok.  The Ripening Tomato looks at the mirror to question whether he is ok.  The Red Ripened Tomatoes don’t need to look in the mirror because of a deep knowing that they are truly whole.  The Red Tomato understands they are perfect; in that they know they are exactly who they are meant to be.  While they observe other people, there isn’t any mental time spent on resentment and judging, because there is a deep acceptance that everyone else is perfect as well (as in being who they are meant to be in their lifetime).  Red Tomatoes know that each person is a source of learning.  So there is an open energy to know and grow.

With a core of strength, a Red Tomato doesn’t spend time lamenting about the past or worrying about the future.  They know the past was exactly as it was meant to be.  There is an intention to think about the past only as means for gaining insight and strength in the present.  No time is spent on regret or self loathing, only time searching for the information that will allow them to evolve into higher consciousness.  There are no mistakes.  A Red Tomato doesn’t have to think about lessons to learn, but are open to receving the puzzle pieces that will allow them to see greater truths. Thinking doesn’t revolve around the egoic self but on where the spirit is within the journey.  With a knowing that they are safe within themselves and their trust in the perfection of universe (or God) energy there is nothing to have fear based anticipation about.  A Red Tomato knows that whatever is to come in the future (even if uncomfortable or initially painful), will bring higher levels of peace and consciousness.  They know that even though intense experiences may come, it’s impossible for anything “bad” to happen.  Red Tomatoes are open to the journey of life.

Instead of active thinking – strategizing, striving, preparing, analyzing, a Red Tomato becomes an open channel of reception and creation.  To a Stagnant or Ripening Tomato the quiet mind seems unbearably boring.  What they don’t understand is that within the quiet, all the miracles of the universe take place.  Within the quiet is the adventure of a lifetime…where all the genuine action is.  Active thinking is fear based.  Being an open channel, is love based.  When free of mental noise, the Ripe Tomato is ever open to seeing and hearing information being given to them from God energy.  In what seems to be silence, they can tune into their instincts and listen to themselves on a deeper level.  Without the static from fear, they create on a core level which is inspired.  They embrace their purpose in the world and have a much greater impact within it.  When you know you are loveable and deserving you begin to attract and draw from positive energy.  You begin to play in creative energy.  Free of egoic thinking Red Tomatoes use mental energy to explore.  Instead of self focused questioning, Red Tomatoes extend their questioning outside themselves.  They mentally play and ponder.  In questioning the self, they are curious as to how they fit into the whole of humanity.  Self reflection and thinking become fun, adventurous, stimulating, challenging and fulfilling.

When not thinking, Red Tomatoes are able to be fully present in the moment of experiences.  They expand and explore the possibities of knowledge and joy.  Since they aren’t distracted, they can delve into and extract what is to be experienced and learned in every interaction.  Red tomatoes are busy learning how to more fully connect into the world and universe around them. 

And how wonderously, oddly uncomfortable and impossible does that mode of mature thinking sound to you? It’s out of the realm of understanding for most everyone.  Many discount the description of Red Tomato thinking as being too far out there to be a reality… in “spiritual la-la land.” Understand we don’t get hit in the head with a brick and just begin to operate at a fully ripened level.  The shade of our tomato slowly and incrementally deepens in color over time.  This higher means of thinking just quietly seeps in over time as we mature.  You’ll actively loath yourself less…and then in time can’t remember the last time you dogged yourself.  You’ll catch yourself feeling uncomfortable and avoiding gossip.  You’ll notice that “good” things seem to start happening…and in time observe how your thinking attracts events and happenings.  You don’t have to believe Red Tomato thinking- non thinking.  Just be open to observing it as it seeps in…

So…here we are…another really late night talking and considering.  Shoot…it’s way passed midnight.  We’ll just take it easy again tomorrow.  Maybe instead of staying up late, we might think about getting off the trail early, or taking a long break in the middle of the day.  We still have a lot of tomato talk ahead, so we want to make comfortable time for it.  Until then… you get some sleep.

I’m glad you’re also feeling some forward progression in your understanding of green tomato – spiritual and emotional underdevelopment.  I’m glad you are slowing internalizing the universal nature of humanity’s immaturity.  We are all green, with some of us ripening in this lifetime and others not.  All is perfect.  Those who are journeying into enlightenment need the unconsious as catalysts.   There is also perfection in all experience; even in stagnated greenness.  We’re all benefiting.  I know it doesn’t seem so on the surface, but we’ll take a closer look at the perfection a little farther up the trail.  Right now I want to take a closer look at empathy.  We talked about it a bit when looking at primary shame avoidance, but there is more to understand. 

While we can intellectualize empathy, there are few of us experientially capable of it.  Those of us who have capability are limited.  Most people understand that empathy is the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes to understand emotions and circumstances from their point of view.  Emotions are easier than perspectives.  The off shoot of empathy should be understanding and respect.  And truly….how many people in the world respect other peoples’ differing opinions?  Very, very few. 

In understanding the varying degrees of not only empathy, but all other aspects of tomato maturation we’re going to look at three different levels.   We will look at stagnated green tomatoes; those whose primary defense against shame has them locked in unconsciousness for this lifetime.  The second level will be ripening tomatoes, which will include both people pleasers and those with the intimacy allergy.  If you need to refresh or gain clarity on these categories, you might want to review our discussion back at Milepost 207.  The third level we’ll talk about is what the ripening aspect would look like in a fully red tomato.   So let’s get started in looking more closely at empathy from these three vantages…

Stagnated Green Tomatoes and Empathy

When looking at Stagnated Green Tomatoes regarding empathy, we need to remember that they have a impermeable defense mechanism against the feeling of shame.  Shame is the feeling of being inherently bad.  When being inundated with shame, these babies and toddlers determine that in order to survive they can’t experience any more of it.  In order to support this defense system, the capability for empathy does not develop.  They literally can’t understand life from another person’s view point. 

The best way to understand disabled empathy is to look at the developmental toddler state green tomatoes stagnated in.  Babies and toddlers only perceive the world through their own eyes and perspective.  While they can see people around them, the idea that Mommy and Daddy have a life outside of caring for them is incomprehensible.  Even though a parent has spent the entire day with a toddler and is exhausted, the toddler doesn’t have any understanding.  Why is Mommy tired?  The only reason why a toddler might even ask this question is not to understand the parent, but to figure out how to get the parent to play.  A toddler is completely self focused.  And understand the difference between self focused and selfish.  We’d never say that a child is selfish.  When a toddler hits another kid out of frustration, they really don’t understand that she has caused pain.  Adults make interventions, “Kimmie – stop that!  You hurt that little girl.  Say you’re sorry.”  Kimmie might say the words sorry, but we can tell she really doesn’t get it.  A toddler can sit on their cat, and not be able to comprehend that it hurts the cat.  Toddlers learn behaviorally, rather than empathically – as do Stagnated Tomatoes. 

There are a couple of different ways to see that Stagnated Tomatoes can’t empathize.  First, observe how judgmental they are.  Stagnated Tomatoes can relate to people they perceive as similar.  All others are either covertly or overtly judged.  People who think differently are…stupid, extremists, idiots, crazy, losers.  The second observation to make is that Stagnated Tomatoes are never wrong.  They seriously can’t comprehend that they can hurt another person.  When they’re confronted with an issue that would require self reflection and empathy, they immediately go into egoic defense. 

Stagnated Tomatoes can’t tolerate being in someone else shoes for fear they will come up short.  If you can never experience shame, you must always feel as if you are the same or better.  Even with some intellectual recognition of this truth, assessing the empathy of a Stagnated Tomato can be a little confusing. 

Stagnated Tomatoes are many times smart and good sociologists.  Imagine being dropped into a culture completely different than your own.  While there are many aspects of a new culture that we wouldn’t be able to understand, some of us would really enjoy trying.  Others of us would be completely freaked out.  Some would immediately leave the hotel, hit the street and see how far into the culture we could acclaimate.  Others would find the closest Holiday Inn, hole up in the room, and order hamburgers.   So Stagnated Tomatoes intellectually understand that a woman being raped would feel disempowered and traumatized.  They know that a bride feels happy and being betrayed is enraging.  We all learn to attach emotional labels to differing circumstances.  Stagnant Tomatoes are smart and observant.  On paper most would pass an empathy test.  This is different than experiential understanding.   In a situation that is experientially real, “Dad can’t you understand how your belittling affects me?” “I’m not belittling! You’re oversensitive!”  When a child falls down and cries, “Stop being over dramatic and get it together!”

There is also a fine line between what appears to be empathy and what in reality is assessing judgment.  Stagnant Tomatoes can at times be excellent judges of character.  Assessing someone on the surface is different than trying to figure out what’s going on inside.  They can smell a rat, but not understand being one. 

The generocity of some Stagnant Tomatoes can also appear to be empathy.  There are many who volunteer time and money towards helping others.  In order to understand this, we need to go back to our toddler metaphor.  When a toddler draws you a picture, who is it for?…. You?… Really?… If you took the picture, said thank you and went on with your business what would happen?  While the picture is for you, a toddler is primarily looking for your adulation and praise, “Branden, what a gorgeous picture! You are such a talented boy!  I’m going to put this picture right up on the refridgerator.”  The picture is a means of seeking attention.  Many times people are enticed to donate by some sort of community recognition.   Many times money is given to causes that impact the donor directly or indirectly.  A check is given for cancer research because he has a family member who has survived it.  It’s harder to support a cause we can’t relate to.  Stagnant Tomatoes like the reputation for generocity and sacrifice.  That’s not to say that their efforts and money don’t do good and shouldn’t be appreciated.  There is just a difference between giving money to a homeless shelter and actually volunteering to spend time there – more than just Thanksgiving.

Another cause of confusion regarding the inability for Stagnant Tomato empathy is the emotional response you receive when you’re having a crisis.  You call to tell your mother that you and your boyfriend just broke up.  She is really upset for you….so upset that you need to actually shift attention and calm her down over your break up.  While this stagnant tomato is really well intentioned, her over emoting is not being in your shoes.   

So…how are you doing with this straight forward assessing of Stagnant Tomatoes?  It is really hard to remain in a place of observance rather than judgment.  Remember, just because someone can’t empathize, it doesn’t mean they’re a bad person.  It’s actually the opposite.  If someone does have the capability for empathy and tells a hurt child to “Stop crying like a baby” that is actually really insensive and horrible.  However, if they truly aren’t capable, then their reaction is completely understandable.  We might not like it, but it’s understandable.  And with this struggle in being able to empathize with a Stagnant Tomato we turn to look at Ripening Tomatoes.

Take a break if you need it…. Stretch, go the the bathroom, get a snack…take a breath….

Ripening Tomatoes and Empathy

Alright… I want you to take a moment to experientially feel your response to the information I gave you on Stagnant Tomatoes.  What comes up for you….  Disbelief? Pity? Resentment? Judgment? Maybe a little condescension? These are the common responses of hikers when they first get this information.  All of these very normal responses will help you recognize your own limitations in empathizing.   And if you begin to demean yourself about it, you can take your self assessment one layer deeper. 

While the capability for Ripening Tomatoes is still intact, there is definitely the need for recalibration and alignment.   Realignment starts with desensitization.  Ripening Tomatoes are extremely over sensitive to the reactions of other people.  This oversensitivity was a part of their survival as children.  In order to avoid shame, these children did everything possible to anticipate a parent’s displeasure.  People pleasing children would then take action to calm, serve and support the tired or frustrated parent.  Many times these children worked hard to avoid their parent getting stressed in the first place.  An allergy child would want to anticipate an upset parent so that they could get lost or become invisible.  Since it’s impossible to control a shaming parent, no matter their efforts shaming was bound to come.  However, to avoid as much as possible their radar became more and more sensitive over time.  As adults, Ripening Tomatoes, are self destructively hypervigilant.  While they can at times be accurate in their empathy, a majority of the time they over assess the level of upset.  Hypervigilance leads to anxiety and at times over reactive ingratiation.

In order to better assess others, Ripening Tomatoes must develop empathy for themselves.  They have little to no ability to accurately be in their own shoes.  The messages they received from even the most well intentioned green parent are that they are a burden, undeserving and not enough to be unconditionally loved.  The parent is happy when they are in a good mood and the child is pleasing.   No matter how pleasing, if a shaming parent is tired, stressed or frustrated, the child will still be told there is something wrong with them.  This tells children that there’s no room for errors.  Since parents are omnipotent, and small children can only assess situations from their own vantage…children believe the messages they receive.  Mistakes aren’t tolerable or understandable.  Spilling the proverbial milk is a good example, “Eric are you stupid or a baby?! Only stupid babies spill their milk.”  Or there is the tired well intentioned parent, “Oh what have you done?!  Don’t I have enough to do?!  Now I have to mop the whole floor.”  Think of the lost allergy child who does everything to just stay out of the way.  They hole themselves up in their room, and the only time someone comes knocking is when something is wrong.  Otherwise, no one knocks.  Since a child can’t see their parent clearly, they have no abiliy to see themselves. 

Ripening Tomatoes also have a hard time discerning between sympathizing and empathizing.  The difference between these two very similar words is that with sympathy there is a level of pity.  Sympathy cards usually express, “I’m sorry for your loss.”  There is an inference of sadness.  With higher empathy, we can understand someone’s sadness, but there is an undertone that all will be well.  Sympathy implies weakness; empathy strength.  People pleasers especially feed off of sympathy.  Green tomato parents many times act out the role of martyr.  Through their immaturity, they emanate the message that they’ve sacrificed and should be felt sorry for.  This message keeps the people pleasing child motivated.  And understand people pleasing becomes this child’s purpose for living.  If there wasn’t pity or sadness…and all was ok…then why would anyone need them.  If no one needs them, no one will love them.  That is a very scary place to comprehend.

With a low self esteem for a core, Ripening Tomatoes also spend a great deal of mental time judging others.  Their sense of self is fragile and egoically needs regular shoring up.  They do have greater insight and respect for others, however, still feel condescention in their own views. 

A spirit ripens through self love.  As we love ourselves we gain the safety needed to see our parents with greater clarity.  Our acceptances of them and ourselves are symbiotic.  As we know our parent, we know ourselves.  As we see ourselves; we can see them.  When we can love ourselves, we can then love the world.

Red Tomatoes and Empathy

So let’s take a look at what empathy looks like in a fully ripened tomato.  A person who is fully spiritually and emotionally mature has a very strong core of self love and usually has a belief system for a broader understanding of God, the universe…time and space.  There isn’t anything to cloud perspectives, and there’s a greater openness in understanding others. 

When we love ourselves we can completely forgive transgressions.  What used to be seen as mistakes, can now be seen as reflections of where people are on their journey.  We are all doing our best with the information that we’re being given in every moment of our lives.  Everything that we’ve done in our lives comes into clear perspective.  We are at peace with every action taken or not.  These moments are used for our learning and evolving.  Once learned, the event no longer has a purpose. The past is over and can’t be changed.  When we can forgive and put our own actions into perspective, we can then do similarly with others.  That doesn’t mean we continue to put ourselves in harms way.  We don’t need to be in an active relationship with someone who has hurt us.  However, a Red Tomato works towards inner resolution.  Red Tomatoes also understand that the most challenging people are our greatest teachers.  Instead of being a victim of darker spirits, Red Tomatoes use them as catalysts into higher places.  As catalysts, there is only gratitude for all actions taken against us.  

Red Tomatoes are full in their spirit, hence don’t have judgment blocking their way in understanding people and ideas.  There’s no egoic investment in being right.  With a broader belief in universal perspective there is respect for all ideas and vantage points.  There is perfection in every view point and every vantage of that view point.  With a lack of ego, only curiosity remains.  Without feeling egoically threatened, Red Tomatoes have the open spirit to ask and more importantly listen.  In order to empathize, we must be open to actively and deeply hearing another spirit. 

Deep empathy resides within a deeper level of spiritual consciousness.  The more enlightened we are, the more we live in our spirits.  When egoic mental chatter ceases, we become more attuned to our instincts and intuitions.  Red Tomatos’ empathy goes beyond the intellect, into the sensing of anothers’ spiritual energy.  When hearing about or sitting with another person, a Red Tomato can energetically tune into their frequency.  Empathy becomes experiential.  In it’s highest form, it can be a form of energetic communication from which we can learn from one another’s experiences.  Maybe this is what takes place after death.  We go back into spirit where we are telepathic and perfectly energetic empathic.  We can come out of the limitations of the human mind and body to respect, learn and know one another as spirits.  On this level deep multi-dimensional communal learning can take place.  Spiritual perfection.

In understanding shame avoidance we’re going to look on a primary and secondary level.   The primary is the base level of avoidance that’s the foundation of how we operate day to day.  This level of avoidance is in place as a filter for every thought and action we take.  Think of the primary as the constant, while the secondary level of avoidance is the intermittent.  We use secondary avoidance to respond to the periodic messages of shame that are presented to us through various social transactions throughout the day.  First, we’re going to understand the primary level of shame avoidance.  This mechanism of avoidance became activated when we were babies and literally is a means of survival.  Shame is a complicated and intolerable emotion to handle, even as adults.  Babies just aren’t equipped to process emotion on such an intense scale.   They can’t discern the line between the self and others.  For a baby it’s all about them.  They can’t comprehend the idea of a world from another person’s perspective.  There is no rationalizing, intellectualizing, empathizing with the shame.  Hence, defense mechanisms need to be activitated as a shield of egoic protection.

About a third to a half of humanity have escaped into a shame defense system strong enough to cause stagnation in emotional and spiritual development for the rest of this lifetime.  They have locked themselves in unconsciousness.  Within our tomato metaphor, these are the tomatoes that remain small and green…never coming to maturity.  Eventually they fall off or die on the vine.  Our society’s characterization for a person locked in egoic unconsciousness is a narcissist.  If you’re familiar with narcissism, much of what I describe will be familiar.  I just believe our understanding of narcissism is too small, myoptic and way too judgmental.  Also looking at this defense system through the perspective of narcissism, doesn’t explain or highlight the perfection within it. 

A baby that locks itself into unconscious is one that literally can’t survive the onslaught of benign, covert or overt shaming.  What does it mean it can’t survive?… For me, this might explain deeper levels of mental illness with dementia, catatonia, hallucinations…and an overall inability to remain in reality.  So on some deep, deep level, these babies just acknowledge, “If I’m going to survive, I can never feel this emotion of shame again….never, never, never.” In the primary years a defense mechanism gets activited where they literally don’t feel shame again – ever.  While there are definitely exceptions to the rule, what I observe is that many times this seems to be the first born child.  It makes sense that the first born would take a greater brunt of shame.  New parents can be very overwhelmed, and there aren’t any other children to dilute their emotions.  Some exceptions I see are older children who find themselves responsible for the younger.  Understand the recognition of sibling responsibility takes place on a toddler level. 

In order for the child not to experience shame, two capabilities can’t be developed; empathy and self reflection.  Empathy is the ability to put ourselves in some else’s shoes.  The problem comes when we put ourselves in another’s shoes and come up short.  Sometimes we find we’ve hurt someone or aren’t as…(insert whatever quality we may egoically deem important)…as the other person.  We can’t have the ability for empathy and also always feel good about ourselves.  Someone who is ever-green has to be alright and “good” in every situation in order to survive.  Hence, they can’t survive and empathize.  The same is said for self reflection.  How many times do we think about ourselves and think wonderful things?  No often.  So you can’t be shame free and be able to self reflect.  These capabilities usually begin to develop in children somewhere around 3-5.  Similar to spoken language…if disabled at that time, the capability will not develop later in life.  This shame proof defense mechanism is thick and impermeable, and protects a hollow hole that exisits on the inside.

It can be really hard to accept that these green tomatoes will never change in any meaningful way.  Understand that in order to change, you have to be able to be aware that there are issues.  These underdeveloped people do at times end up in therapy, but with the intention of being supported in their issues with others.  Usually the therapy only lasts as long as a crisis and need for egoic support. 

The second outcome of primary shame avoidance is for the baby to take on the role of caretaker to the unconscious, shaming parent.  While it is an extreme example, think about if you were trying to survive with someone who had the ability to kill you.  One option is to run, another option is to make yourself indispensable.  For this child, the only way to avoid shame is to constantly strive to make the shaming parent happy.  These children many times take on a role reversal and become surrogate parents.  They feel responsible for their parents’ emotional well being.  Others take on responsibility for cooking and cleaning.  The people pleasing child feels they need to atone for their very existence.  They work to make themselves small but pleasing.  No matter how hard they try, they are never able to achieve the goal of their parents’ total acceptance…but the intermittent positive acknowledgement keeps this child’s head above water.  While there are also exceptions in the birth order for this child, more times than not I observe it in the middle or second child. 

The advantage for the people pleasing child is that their capabilities for empathy and self reflection remain in tact.  You can’t serve others without the ability to anticipate needs and make adjustments.  Yet while in tact, the empathy is one sided.  There is little to no empathy for the self.  The attempt to avoid shame through serving doesn’t consistently work.  Hence when this child isn’t able to please they become a live wire of shame.  There is also a hyper-vigalence and over sensitivity that needs to be desensitized.  Most people on this journey fall within this level of primary shame avoidance.  These green tomatoes have a lot of potential for ripening…if they can summon up the courage to delve into their fears.  For some caretakers, the fear that their inadequancy will be professionally supported or that they will be asked to relinquish this egoic role that sores up their very existence, will prevent them from exploring too deeply if at all.  For others, life as a servant becomes too intolerable and life’s circumstances bring them to the head of the trail. 

The third primary mode of shame avoidance is the intimacy allergy.  The capabilities for empathy and self reflection remain in tact, but an allergy develops that holds them at a distance from intimate relationships.  When I say allergy, I don’t mean a literal one.  However, it is a perfect metaphor.  As a baby, they recognize the danger of getting too close to a shaming parent.  The closer we are, the greater the shame and pain.  As adults you can have some really great conversations with these allergic people.  However, they aren’t able to plug into intimacy on a daily or regular basis.  Many are conscious in a desire for closeness and intimacy, however when they get it there is an immediate and deep physical and emotional abhorrence.  Imagine someone dreaming of a peanut butter sandwich…yum.  Yet when the sandwich ends up on the plate, the memory of the reaction is triggered and sets in a panic.  This allergy can be hard because most who have it have no idea.  The dynamic can feel really conflictual… I want it – I don’t want it.  Many times this is the third or lost child.  They float untethered.  With self reflection in tact, there is potential for some ripening, however, the idea of healing is an oxymoron.  The therapy process is inherently an intimate one.  Hence in order to heal the issues of intimacy you need to be able to have a tolerance for it. 

The common thread that weaves through all three modes of shame avoidance is intimacy impairment.  If locked in unconsciousness you can’t see other people clearly enough to be deeply intimate.  Caretakers give easily, but are extremely uncomfortable receiving.  Those that are allergic are…well allergic.  That doesn’t mean there can’t be balanced relationships and marriages.  However, there needs to be appropriate matching.  There are many successful marriages between those that are fully unconscious.  They happily co-exist with one another, each comfortable that neither has deeper emotional expectations.  It’s a little tricker for caretakers who are usually attracted to emotionally distant partners.   The allergic many times have difficulty finding someone who is neither too distant or too demanding.  And once again I come back to the same question… What percentage of the population fall into one of these three categories?  Pretty much everyone we know.  Shame avoidance and egoic defending is universal and a part of humanity on a whole.  No one is to blame…it’s just a reflection of where we are as a species – green.

So how is this all sitting with you?  Is it making some sense?  Are you able to see yourself and those in your life a bit more clearly? I’m hoping some of this is beginning to come together.  I know you still have a lot of questions, which is good…because I still have a lot more to share about green tomatoes.   I think next we’ll delve deeper into the understanding of empathy.  I’ve given some basic information, but it’s one dimensional.  

When you get home a really great movie in helping to understand all of this is Junebug, which came out in 2005 and was directed by Phil Morrison.  The first half of this movie felt really bizarre to me.  Then, as the movie progressed I could see what was going on…and began to see a perfection in it.  When you watch you’ll see that all of the characters are shame avoiders…and while all “love” one another, have little capability for intimacy.  While there are indeed caricatures…what you see is on a deeper level a reflection of a normal family.

For now…let’s try to nestle into these rocks and get some sleep.  Hopefully the rain will stop and we can make some miles tomorrow.

I’m wondering whether this weather isn’t a reflection of a little fear or resistence towards learning about emotional and spiritual immaturity.  Everything that we’re thinking and feeling manifests in one way or the other.  Even though we’ve spent our whole life yearning for answers…we aren’t always ready when we get them.  We want to know the truth, but then again we don’t.  I’m hoping once you start learning about green tomatoes you’ll feel safer and begin to feel more at ease in our forward progression.  So let’s just get to it…

Remember, green tomato is just a higher, non-judgmental term for people who are narcissitically underdeveloped.  And also remember, that you will see yourself in what I share.  In order to grow, we must be able to see… so strive to observe not judge…

The primary foundation of a green tomato is shame.

Shame is the feeling associated with the belief that we are inherently bad, and is one of the most intense and pervasive of emotions.  It is in the understanding of the universal experience of shame that you’ll comprehend that emotional underdevelopment is a state of humanity.  Most all of us are walking around with an ongoing white noise level of this emotion.   It’s been going on for so long, many of us don’t even know we are feeling it.  Low levels of ongoing shame is just a part of life; as are the various ways we cope.  We get up in the morning, put on our mask, and go out into the world with the daily endeavor of proving our value and worth.  We do that through people pleasing, accomplishments at work, purchasing material goods that reflect well…and raising children who cast good light on us.  Yet it’s all a house of cards, and is highly conditional.  Our worthiness vascilates like the stock market; moment to moment, action to action.  Any indication of a failure or displeasing someone is enough to send many of us into a shame spiral of self loathing and flogging.  Only when we feel we’ve beaten ourselves into corrective action, can we move forward into the next moment of pleasing and egoic striving for the false illusion of perfection. 

Since shame and the stress of hiding it is ongoingly burdensome, we find ways to cope and soothe ourselves.  We…

Compulsively Facebook, check our phones, text message, eat, shop, look at porn, gamble, play video games, drink, take prescription pills, do drugs, sleep, have sex, clean, exercise, over work, people please…

It’s gotten so bad within our American society that we won’t even go on vacation.  Many of us come undone without a shot of the daily validation that comes from our work.   When we are on vacation, most of us don’t quite let go.  And with this description of coping, what percentage of the population is carrying ongoing shame?  Most hikers feel it’s 90%. 

So let’s talk about how so many people in the world carry this belief in their inherent inadequacy.  Parents aren’t to blame, since they also have a negative sense of themselves.  I’m not sure how far back into the family tree you’d have to go to find the shame host.  If it’s an evolutionary issue, the source might never be found.  However, we can use parents as a means of explaining the shaming dynamic on a micro level.  Then we can take that parent child relationship and infer it back generations.

When a baby is born, it should fall in love with herself through the reflection she sees and hears from others, “Oh you are a gorgeous child.  You are so smart, insightful, divine…” In order for the child to love himself, a positive reflection needs to be ongoing, consistent, given through verbal and non-verbal communication, and be uncontradicted.  There are several reasons why this so rarely happens.

• Since parents are carrying the belief that there is something inherently wrong with them, they don’t want anyone looking at them too closely.  Babies and children are unnerving in their ability to see.  Parents can’t ususally hold consistent intimancy and contact because they can’t tolerate it.  The idea that their child will see their unloveability and reject them seems unavoidable, hence profoundly scary. 
• Parents don’t have the vocabulary to help children know themselves.  Our society sees everything in black and white…good or bad.  Think back to childhood, aren’t the two main descriptors we heard about ourselves, “Good boy!” or “You’re a bad boy!”  And we got those labels conditionally based on what we were doing in the moment.  When we were told we were bad, there wasn’t a follow up conversation to put our behavior into context with who we are as people.  Since no one told our parents that they were beautiful, it is out of their experiential understanding to do that with their own child.  Descriptors such as gorgeous, funny, smart, sociable, thoughtful, observant, caring, creative, resourceful, strong, quick minded, insightful, analytical, conceptual, detailed, neat, intuitive… literally don’t come to mind.  If they do, theres little understanding as to how and when to use them.
• Parents are preoccupied by their own emotions, life circumstances and shame soothing.  A parent can’t be consistently attentive if they are preoccupied with the computer, food, image, shopping…
• I know it may be hard to hear but not all parents want to be parents.  In our time there is greater permission to make conscious decisions about children.  Even now, that greater permission feels thin.  Most people who choose not to have children are given the message that they are selfish.  In our parents’ time, there was no permission.  You grow up, get married and have children.  Period.  I don’t even believe there was a thought in most people’s minds that they might not want to have kids.  Yet the reality is once the baby arrives, not everyone will enjoy the experience.  Understand, this has nothing to do with the child.  If a parent doesn’t enjoy parenting, it doesn’t make them bad people.  As a parent there is an ongoing, unrelenting responsibility to extend outside of yourself.  It’s very intense.  Not everyone has the intention, capability or desire to rise to it.
• Our society inherently focuses on negativity and fears.  We aren’t an optomistically positive society.  We are conditionally trained as a people to point out the flaws rather than the good.  The reality is that it egoically feels good to know more and be a little bit better than others.  Parents do get a bit of an ego feed by being an authoritative and telling children how things should be. 

With these reasons in mind, let’s take a look at what messages are given to a child in some of the best intentioned circumstances. 

• A baby cries and a tired parent responds with spoken or non-verbal anger.  Message: Your inherent feelings are bad, wrong and hurtful.
• A baby cries and no one comes.  Message: You aren’t a priority. I don’t care.
• A toddler can’t wait for their father to come home.  While he’s elated at the idea of seeing him, when Dad does arrive he gets a brush off head pat.  Dad goes and disappears behind the paper.  Message: You’re nothing special.
• A depressed mother lies on the couch disinterested no matter how much the child tries to engage.  Message: You’re a burden and life might be easier if you didn’t exist.
• Mom tells you to get out from under foot and go out and play.  Message: You’re annoying.
• A child goes up to tell her father about something that happened in school, and he only half listens as he’s on the computer.  Message: You aren’t as interesting as a computer.
• A mother who feels overwhelmed, snaps out into martyr mode telling a child how much she has sacrificed.  Message: You’ve destroyed my life.
• A father shouts in exasperation, “You kids are driving me crazy!” Message: the obvious.

Aren’t these the snap shots of the average home?  There isn’t anything abusive in these snapshots.   These little messages are given to us right after we come out of the womb.  Some of them could almost be made into Rockwellian pictures.  And outside of these seeming benign examples of the most well intentioned parent, there are children who experience actual abuse.  While physical and sexual abuse aren’t as common, verbal abuse is more prevalent than you’d think.  It is actually so normalized, most people don’t even know they were victim to it.  There is also a fine line between the emotionally distant and the emotionally neglectful.  How many of us have also coped with parents with addiction issues such as alcoholism?

Then with shame unknowingly being embedded into us as children, our capitalistic society feeds off our fears of inadequacy in order to make money.  Advertising constantly feeds the idea that we aren’t attractive, healthy, successful, having fun, materialistically pleasing…enough.  Our hair doesn’t have enough volume, our car isn’t exciting, we need better taste in clothes, we’re fat, and need to be much sexier.  While women have been objectified, the tide is turning and men are being portrayed as bumbling fools with little common sense.  In our society we can never have or be enough.  If we were, we wouldn’t need the products corporations wants to sell us.  Fear of insufficiency makes the dollar turn in our global economy.

I hope all of this helps you understand how rampant, universal…and normal shame is.  Everyone is coping with it….and no one is to blame.  It’s just a part of our world.  That being said, we all do our best to avoid the shame as much as possible.  Ultimately our shame leads us to believe we aren’t loveable…and that is the biggest fear of them all.  We want our parents to love us, we want to be in meaningful relationships, we want friends, we want to be employable… We are terrified if we look at our shame too closely…if we try to discover if there really is something wrong…we might find there is…and then what?  We are destined to be alone.  So we really do try to avoid shame as much as we can.  The implications of our believed unloveability are too crushing.  So we just cope…and avoid. 

And here we are… it’s still raining…and still sloppy.  How about we just try and figure out how we can get more securely settled for the night.  Believe it or not, I’m not even close to being done on this subject of shame.  Now that you better understand it, we need to look at shame avoidance more closely. 

So we come off another scenic overview and back into the woods.  I know the incredible view was hard to process.  We sit in the grandeur of it but have a hard time internalizing a picture to carry forward.  Is that true for you?…. 

Oh…. yes… what a wonderful question…  If you are such a perfect spirit then why is it that no one sees that in you?  It’s this question that causes the resistence towards believing the picture that I’m presenting of you.  If what I am saying is true…that you are a perfect spirit…then whose view then has to come into question?…  Your parents, friends, spouses, bosses…pretty much everyone you’ve been in contact with your entire life.  Who would you rather believe: your parents or me?  I completely respect that you’d rather believe your parents.  The implications of them being wrong in are just too overwhelming.  We feel much safer…yes safer…in our beliefs of our parents’ omnipotence and our own inadequacy.  It’s what your whole life has been based on.  Yet it is the questioning of how we universally operate that will really begin to realign you in your life.  Are you going to want to question your base core perspectives?  Of course you won’t. 

How do you feel at the idea that you are 200 miles into our journey?  Did you ever believe you would hike this many miles in your life?  What you’ve accomplished and questioned thus far has taken a lot of courage.  But now you look around and see that you are truly in the back country.  You have gotten into good physical shape.  You aren’t as winded and you have the strength to carry that pack with greater ease.  That’s not to say you don’t have aches.  Yet, as I shared with you from the beginning, this trail is a mental game.  Despite not wanting to question humanities perspectives, an underlying recognition of the truth that will motivate you forward.  In doing so you will take yourself into places you’ve never imagined.  If you’re ready…then let me present you with the key that will make sense of everything.   Are you ready?

                                  We live in a world of green tomatoes. 

Green tomato is my term for people who are narcissitically underdeveloped spiritually and emotionally.  I like green tomato because it gives the understanding of a natural and organically perfect state.  The words immature and narcissistic carry the negative connotation of someone being selfish and inherently bad.  While I do attest that there are dark, selfish souls out there, a vast majority of underdeveloped people are really good and well intentioned.  Like a green tomato, most people haven’t come into full spiritual and emotional maturity yet.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with underdeveloped people.  They – we – are just in the process of spiritually ripening.  I include “we” because the whole of humanity is currently in the spiritual state of greeness.   I started out in this lifetime green and am in the process of ripening.  You are in the process of ripening.  I’m not sure if we’ll be a succulent red before we end this incarnation.  That is what your and my life journey is about.  However, it isn’t the journey for everyone.   There are different levels of maturation going on.  As with actual tomatoes, some people will stagnate on the vine and never ripen. In order for you to grow into yourself, it will be very important that you become an expert in tomato maturation. 

Before we get into the details of green tomato recognition, let me share why I feel humanity is emotionally and spiritually underdeveloped on a whole.   I’ve shared these views earlier in our hiking, but it is important for me to reiterate them again here.  There is first the possibility that we as humans are just beginning to evolve into a higher state of spiritual consciousness.  Everything on this earth, and most likely in the universe, is the state of evolving.  While we may believe that there is no realm left for humans to improve upon, there certainly is.  We probably don’t need a tail or an eleventh finger, so it would make sense that our maturation would take place within our abilities for consciousness.  If this is the case, then there are just a few of us out there coming into new emotional and spiritual capabilities.  Over lifetimes these capabilities will then become more universal.

The other option that comes to my mind is that human consciousness expands and retracts over time.  There is a scientific understanding that all energy is breathing in this way.  The universe is expanding.  When I look back into history, there is an idea that maybe cultures such as ancient Egypt may have been more spiritually conscious.  I wonder how the Mayans were able to create such sophisticated calendars based on knowledge of the universe.  If consciousness breathes, then I believe that we are in a time of serious contraction. 

No matter the truth regarding the energetic dynamic of consciousness, I do believe that most people within humanity are spiritually underdeveloped.  This means that you and I, as well as your parents are normal.  We grow up believing that most people are living idealic lives and that we are abnormal in our tough circumstances.  While suffering childhood trauma and abuse may be more unique, the underlying reasons are universal.  Immaturity just manifests in different ways; some more overt and some covert.  What I’m going to share about green tomatoes will help you understand that no one is to blame.  This is all about explaining about your family and society, not blaming.  No one is wrong and all of it is perfect.

The reason your parents, family, friends, employers, neighbors and society on a whole can’t recognize your beauty is because they cannot see their own.  We are blinded by our ego and fear.  Your understanding of yourself and others is equally off cue.  We are all bumbling around in unconsciousness.  But now it is time to wake up and become realigned in our spiritual understanding. 

As we hike forward I am going to share the information that will help you understand what a green tomato looks like.  All of what I talk about is similarly understood as narcissism and ego.  Understand you will definitely see yourself in what I share.  We are all egoic and narcissitic.  It is a natural state of development on our journey into enlightenment.  Over time some of us begin to evolve out of our egos and begin to exist more primarily in our spirits.  We begin to see the world through the eyes of our higher powers.  For now, set the intention to use this new information as a means of observing rather than judging yourself and others.  At this stage of our journey it will be hard for you not to judge.  However, by setting an intention we set a compass point up ahead that will lead us towards observance and acceptance…even farther down the trail you will arrive in a place of gratitude and love.

When sharing the different points of observation for tomato maturation, I’ll give three descriptions.  The first explanation will be of the people who are stagnated in their maturation during this lifetime.  These spirits are not meant to emotionally evolve in any significant way.  They have incapabilities that will hold them back from turning any shade of pink or red.  Up the trail I’ll also help you see why their permanently green state has a higher purpose and is perfect.   I’ll also share about people who have the capabilities for maturation, but due to fear are still really green.  This is where you will see yourself.  The third description is what it would look like to be fully in spirit within the observation point.  We are striving to ripen into a deep red, and by knowing what that looks like we can more fully see where we are in our own spiritual and emotional development. 

So it’s time to get yourself ready for the next stretch ahead.  You get a good night sleep and I’ll see you in the morning…

Tonight we are going to see what you have to say about, what you are.  It’s hard to figure out the who without an understanding of the what.  And by the look on your face, you aren’t fully connecting with what I’m asking….  Let me break it down a bit more.  Do you see yourself as human….or spirit?……   

I can understand why you find what I’m asking perplexing.  Some of the simplest questions asked, are the most challenging to answer.  Without questioning – we live, think and operate under the assumption that we are primarily human.  Why would we not?  If you do believe that being human is the ultimate truth and reality, I respect that.  There are many who feel that there is no experience after death.  Some believe when we die, it’s done.  If this is what you believe, then you are human. 

You do believe there is some sort of afterlife?… Alright… what percentage would you rate this belief?  If it’s less than 50%, it will be hard to conceptualize yourself as spirit.  You would then also see yourself primarily as human; with a possibility of a spirit.  Again, I would completely respect this understanding.  No?…your belief is at about 85%?  Then let’s tease your idea of yourself out a bit more.

While most of us believe we turn into spirit after we die, few of us think about what form we were in before we’re born.  I think many of us have a scientific understanding that energy can’t die.  Outside of religious teachings, the permanency of energy can be the primary evidence for an after death experience.  Rarely do we think about where our energy begins in the front end.  If energy never dies, and we turn into something else when we die…then we must have been something before we incarnated.  For me, the spirit is continuous no matter what form it takes.  If you agree, then you are a spirit incarnate in human form. 

Intellectually understanding you are spirit is somewhat easy.  Internalizing this new vantage takes some time.   How about sleeping on the idea a bit…  or if you’d like to ponder more, you might read an article I wrote that expands on this topic…

Who are You?

Hey wait… before you get up… let’s take a cumulative look at who you are based on just these first two evenings of discussion…

You’re not a role or label… instead…

You are a devine spirit incarnate in human form. 

“Crazy, not good, mother, wife, sister, daughter, customer service rep, girl, lazy, undisciplined, failure, unloveable, unattractive, fat.”

Thank you.  You were really honest and I know coming up with this description wasn’t easy.  This is a wonderful first draft, in that this is where most hikers begin in their understanding of themselves.  At the same time it’s all absolutely wrong. 

The first words that we need to take out are all the ones that are connected to roles, “mother, wife, sister, daughter, and nurse.” You can’t be a role because our roles are ever changing.  When our parents die, we still exist.  If we become divorced, we still exist.  Circumstances could present themselves that would cause us to change professions.  And there are some parents who lose children.  Roles are superficial labels, and aren’t WHO you are.  However, the reality is that most of us do define ourselves by what we do.  Our society shapes us to believe this way.   I used to live in Washington DC where the first question you are asked when meeting someone is, “What do you do?”  And there was a tone in that question, that inferred a readiness to categorize.  Based on what you did, you were either deemed worthy of further conversation or a brush off.  When we define ourselves by roles we can be crushed by their loss.  Think of people who lose their jobs.  Think of mothers whose children move away from home.  If we identify with our roles, when the role disappears we are left utterly lost. 

On the flip side, roles can instead give us insight into who we are.  Hopefully they define our passions and inherent talents.   Since your profession is related to customer services…what might that reveal about who you are?… Yes… You are extroverted.  Being around people energizes you.  Now, what does it take to have a real impact with your customers?  Let’s pull who you are out a little more… An ear for the needs of others?  That’s “observant” isn’t it?  Problem solver?  Multi-tasker?

Ok…Let me tell you how we’re going to put your attributes, “extrovert, observant, problem solver and multi-tasker” to the test.  This may sound extreme, but imagine yourself with Lou Gerrigs Disease.  This is a disease that renders you completely, physically disabled, but with your mental faculties still in tact.   If you literally couldn’t do anything, even talk…what would be left?  Would you still have an interest in the details around you? Would you still be concerned about your impact on others?  When listening to issues would your mind automatically move towards solutions?  If you couldn’t move, could your mind still have two focuses? Yes, yes, yes, and yes.  You would also still feel energized by having people around you, rather than being alone.  These attributes within you would still be there.  Hence they are a part of who you are.   Does that make sense?

Good…let me chew some jerky and then let’s get to the next issue with your self definition… Definitions…

Whatever labels you give yourself, they have to be accurate to an official definition.  So, we have to make sure “crazy, not good, undisciplined, failure, unattractive and fat” can withstand the dictionary. 

Let’s put the idea that you are crazy under the microscope.  On Dictionary.com crazy is defined as “1. mentally deranged, demented, insane 2. senseless, impractical, totally unsound.”  So seriously…what evidence do you have that you are crazy?  How can you literally be crazy and hold a professional job?  We’ve hiked 120 miles together and I don’t see it… You slashed someone’s tires and throw plates when your angry?  You feel like you’re going to lose your mind when you get into bouts of perseverating anxiety?  Ok, I’ll attest that in those moments you feel crazy…you most likely even look a bit crazy.  But did the appearance and feeling last?  Are they permenant?  No.  So you aren’t inherently crazy.  Unless you’ve been given a DSM-IV diagnosis by a certified mental health professional with the criteria for dementia and inability to gauge reality on a permenant basis…you aren’t crazy.

See…I told you I’d have an easy time challenging you on your misperceptions.  Let’s take another label.  How about failure?  Dictionary.com sites a failure as “1. an act or instance of failing or proving unsuccessful; lack of success 2. nonperformance of something due, required or expected 3. a subnormal quantity or quality; an insufficiency; the failure of a crop.“  A failure is an instance or act.  That doesn’t fit who you are in totality.  Have you failed?  Of course you have.  We all have and will continue to do so.  It’s a part of our learning and journey.  But that doesn’t make someone an inherent failure.  If they were, then they’d have to literally fail at everything.  Have you failed at everything?…. No I didn’t think so… What? You do feel you match being of subnormal quantity or quality?  Alright… in what specific quality?  You can’t be subnormal or inadequate across the board on everything.  So you can’t be an inherent failure.  However, I am open to hearing about the specific qualities where you feel subnormal.

You believe you are subnormally attractive.  Alright… so first to our Dictionary.com, attractive meaning “1. providing pleasure or delight, especially in appearance or manner; pleasing; alluring; an attractive personality 2. arousing interest or engaging one’s thought, consideration 3. haing the quality of attracting.”  I will attest that there are indeed varying degrees of attractiveness.  Few of us can be considered eye candy.  And actually, some eye candy doesn’t end up being attractive personality wise.   Don’t you agree that attractive is the eye of the beholder?  I’ve dated a couple of men that you probably would have considered unattractive physically, but their humor and personality made them super attractive to me.  So attractive is subjective.  Maybe you truly aren’t the most physically attractive person.  I don’t know.  Maybe you walk into the room and the conversation just keeps on rolling.  I’m fine looking at the worst case scenario…. 

So you might be less than average.   So what?  What is it in your life that you can’t have based on how you physically look?…. Love?  Have you been in a relationship before in your life? Yes?  How many?  Have you been physically intimate?  Has anyone gotten an erection in your presence (men, we women don’t sleep with everyone…so if we’re intimate in any way…we’re attracted)?  I know that sounds like a crude question.  But really, if someone has asked you out, if someone has gotten physically aroused by you, then guess what?  You are attractive enough.  Look around you…go to the mall…a restaurant…there is someone for everyone.   Hally Berry and Sandra Bullock have been cheated on.  It’s ridiculous to think that means they aren’t enough.  The biggest attribute that makes a person attractive is a strong self esteem.  No matter what someone looks like, if they love themselves…people love being around them.  

So what are we left with?….  I don’t know about you, but I’m getting about ready to hit the literal sleep sac.  We have, “not good, lazy, undisciplined, unloveable and fat.”  Let me give you the short order version of where I’d go with these.

Not good - means that you are a bad person.  Dictionary that, and hold yourself to evidence, I seriously doubt you are going to come up that you are immoral and hurting people more time than you aren’t.  We all do “bad” things.  It’s a part of our journey…but doesn’t make us “not good.”

Lazy – Can you really hold your job and inherently be lazy?  If you are a freeloader, who doesn’t work or contribute to society in any way…then you might be inherently lazy.  I think the truth is that you may be unmotivated to do things that aren’t important to you.  I think looking at undisciplined might take us to similar places.   You might be a type B person, and need to accept that you are lower energy… So what?  Like attractive, what can’t you do because of your inherent slower speed?

Fat - Maybe you are fat, but you can’t be fat.  Would a doctor tell you that you are fat?  If they have or would…ok… But that can change.  Weight varies…so you can’t be fat.

And that brings us to unloveable.  That’s what this whole journey is about.  It’s all of the other seeming attributes that give you the idea that you are unloveable.   But now we’ve taken basically everything off the table.  You aren’t a role, you can’t justify your labels, and some of what might be true doesn’t really impact your life unless you let it.  Those are the -so whats?  Trust me…you can shoot me anything else….stupid, loser, boring… and I’d carve those up to.  If there is really a negative part of who you are that is going to pass inspection, we’ll look at it. 

Now, with that all settled, I’m going to send you off to come up with your next idea about who you are…  If you are stumpted, I can give you a question that will provide a hint.  Before you  can think about who you are, you might need to think about… what you are.

Before you go off to bed…I have to share the cliche song that can’t be avoided on the topic… Have a little fun – the drummer is pretty hysterical… Who are You? by The Who.

The reality is, why would anyone who is healthy want to buy a plant with an unattractive label?  By unattractive, I mean one that says, “Low self esteem and undeserving.  Instructions:  Regular denegration and high maintenance ego feeds.”  Yuck!  Think of the people who do want to buy these plants.  Their label reads, “Self Centered Power Monger.  Instructions:  Enabling of control issues, feed through entranced worship.” Again – Yuck!  Most of our relationships are based on some varying degree of these two labels…and it doesn’t lend towards the cultivation of beautiful gardens. 

The reality is that the world around you ripped off the label you were given at birth “Gorgeous Miracle” and replaced it with one that is inaccurate, “Undeserving Burden.”  As we get older, we take over the management of our plant, and fail to recognize the issues of those previously in charge, who knew little about horticulture.  The reality is that everyone, yes everyone, is a perfect plant.  There is perfection even in a cactus.  Think about what crosses your mind when you see babies.  Honestly, there might be the thought that the child is a bit odd looking…but I don’t know anyone who sees inherent flaws.  Babies are fun, innocent, inspiring, and powerful.  When a baby acts out we know it is due to colic or a stage of physical maturation, such as “terrible twos.”  When young children act out, we don’t see them as flawed, but usually understand there is something amiss with parenting.  I think it is somewhere around the age of seven…when children loose their baby preciousness…that their labels get changed out.  It’s also at that age that kids begin to read, and can see what others have written, “slow, annoying, stupid, ugly, inadequate, unsatisfactory, burden.”

Understand that this re-labeling takes place on different societal levels.  When we exist in the world, what is communcated via television, books, advertising, social networks, video games about what it means to be ethnic, tall, short, female, gay, physically not gorgeous, not thin, small breasted, big breasted, out of shape, bald, or poor.  The messages we get about most things that make us unique are subtle, yet powerfully negative.  We are inundated with fear messages that only conforming perfect beauty will bring success and love.  This message financially feeds the wealth and power of a lot of people in our world.

You may or may not come from an overtly abusive family.  Even if not, you most likely received some of the same messages.  The quiet providing father who disappeared behind the paper as soon as he got home gives the message that we are, “uninteresting, a low priority, boring.”  This father has absolutely no knowledge that he is communicating this.  He is many times a good man who learned what it is to be a man and father from his own.  What about the mother who responds to a report card of all A’s but one C with the idea that you are a “disappointment, not smart enough, unacceptable.”  Think of all of us with normal intellectual levels who naturally earn more along the lines of a B level.  The subtle and obvious…the overt and covert messages…come at us from everywhere…including the playground. 

When I tell hikers that the only label that is accurate for them is somewhere in the neighborhood of, “Gorgeous, perfect, spectacular” they bridle against it strongly.  They check out, discount, and get annoyed.   The implications in the reality are not something we want to look at.  If we are actually as gorgeous as people thought when we were born…and we’ve been given a replacement label…then what does that mean about the reality that surrounds us?  We’d rather believe we’re “stupid losers” and remain safe in our understanding of the world. 

Yet understand we can’t have it both ways… We can’t hold onto the safety of our misguided labels and be able to sell ourselves into a higher conscious level of love.   We hide our spiritual perfection in a layer of unattractive low self esteem.  So matter how we superficially try to hide our self loathing, people can still smell it a mile away.  Some of us attract outright abuse.  Others of us attract disinterested disengagement wrapped in beguiling beauty.  If we know ourselves to be inadequate, we will never believe we deserve to be well tended. 

So it’s time.  If you want to be truly loved, it is time for you to find your authentic label.  That doesn’t mean we are all heirloom tea roses.  There is just as much perfection in a succulent.  Just like babies, I’ve never seen a plant that I don’t understand as perfect.  Around the world…there is a multitude of ecosystems.  Within those ecosystems there is a plentitude of varying conditions that will impact the needs of an individual garden.  We will choose the plants that suit our gardens, and our horticultural abilities perfectly.   I need to know I’m a geranium and what I need in order to find someone who will love me just as I deserve.  If I think and show people I’m a cactus, then they will under nourish and attend to me.  As a geranium I would surely whither and eventually die.   If you are a cactus you want to find someone who will be amazed and enthralled with your ability for self sustainance.  They will love being around you each day, observing each nuance of your miraculousness. 

Whether it is annoying to you or not, the truth is that you must love yourself before anyone can truly love you.  Before you can see someone else’s label accurately, you must be able to know your own. 

I laugh a bit in knowing how uncomfortable some of this is for you.  I know, it’s hard to get your mind wrapped around the idea of your own perfection.  Well…bridle way…I’m going to prove my case… as I do with everyone else.  The truth is easy to see once we know how to look…

So with all of this in mind, I have a little assignment for you to do.  As you continue hiking today, I want you to think about WHO you are.  Who are you?  What is your label?  This evening when we make camp, I want you to get your notebook out and write down what you come up with.  Actually, I’m going to give you a couple of days.  We’ll hike through tomorrow as well.  But I seriously want you to write whatever your thoughts are down.  I’m going to take a look at what you have, and we’ll see what is real and what isn’t.  Got it?  Great…

Let’s listen to Hide by Joy Williams…and hike on…