Darkside you said:

“But, on the other hand, acceptance is absolutely needed for healing.”

I immediately thought “Yippie, finally something I can disagree with you on ;-)

Then I decided I needed to look closer at your wisdom. I’m far guiltier than the next guy for looking for a reason to separate myself. It takes the slightest hesitation from someone and I make the assumption I’m being abandoned. Crap!!! How many times, when I felt shunned, it actually was only the other side slowing down to take a breath or needing to pull away for a bit to regroup? I’m beginning to grasp that rejection, to be an act of shunning, must carry with it a desire on the part of the shunner/shunners to be asserting power over another to force change or more accurately, to capitulation.

This form of rejection is not as common as I like to think. I’m willing to wager the pulling away I feel often times is a movement based on a mutually felt distrust. It’s not shunning to retract from someone or ones in order to protect one’s self. The fact that the need to protect may or may not be real is unimportant to this conversation I’m talking about the perceived need to self-protect which is understandable in hyper-alert status with sexually assaulted persons. Rejection feels awful when it happens but most likely to all persons involved for neither side feels morally superior over the other as they do when one shuns another.

Time to go check out nature and see if it can give me some answers. Earlybird

Yes brother ...you have healed sooo much, but those inner defense mechanisms are still there...

I'm proud of you for recognizing this about yourself, as well as recognizing the need of others to pull back for their preservation ...Great Work!!!