3 Amber Strikes - Rita R (Previously Red Strike)

[Nicky]

Hi

I have felt it appropriate to change the RED STRIKE I originally issued to Rita R to 3 AMBER STRIKES due to a number of recent considerations following feedback that was received by myself, Lena & Eloisa from Jesus & Mary. I will share the reasons why I have made this amendment in my following post on this strike thread.

The interaction resulting in these strikes occurred between Rita R and Maureen in the below thread:

viewtopic.php?f=37&t=749

I felt that Rita R was in breach of the below sections of the terms of use:

1)Personal attack of another forum member (Maureen) in terms of character and nature
2)Condescension, arrogance, belittlement and/or humiliation towards another participant
3)Projection of anger and/or rage towards another participant


Rita initially created a thread on desire and how addictions may affect them. I feel that part of the reason she shared some of her stories was in an addictive way to "show off" to others.

I feel there was arrogance in her desire to share things such as:

In my young adult years that addiction was easily fulfilled because I was quite pretty so I rarely went unnoticed even though most of the time I dressed in a way that didn’t accentuate my sexuality.

I’ve been working on the children’s book since 2010. Everyone who sees the drawings or hears a synopsis of the story loves it, wants to get a copy when it’s published

I’ve spent my life building my skills in painting, illustration and recently I’ve been learning the craft of writing screenplays and children’s books. I’ve had some success and become known as a realist landscape painter over the course of my career (“work” and “career” always feel like strange words to describe what I do).

Oddly enough, I’ve had more fine art sales this year than in the last 10 combined even though I’ve spent very little time painting or connecting with the public

In addition to the above, I feel there is a lot of facade present in many of her statements such as:

Once I faced up to that fear and practiced talking with strangers, making friends in unfamiliar settings, that desire to wow people took on different, less recognizable manifestations but it still lingers — more like just wanting to be noticed, stand out. (I was overlooked a lot as a child as the youngest of 4 kids and completely unplanned/unwanted.) However, I don’t want to be loud, demanding, or overtly show off but the desire to be noticed is still there.

Here Rita says "I Don't want to to be loud, demanding or overtly show off" but in writing this post out, and sharing the details that I mentioned above, she has done that.

AND

I notice the feeling even in small things like meeting a new group of people online. I don’t want to “burst into the room” and say, “Look at me!” so I underplay myself. I notice that I didn’t reveal much about myself in my introduction to this forum. I feel that had to do with this addiction and I suppose it’s actually false humility. I didn’t get that until now.

The bolded section in this quote above is made in facade. This is not a true statement. I do not feel as though Rita underplays herself.

Other quotes taken from Rita's post:

So, my art became part of a fight, something to prove I was worthy of… and that’s when the desire started to wane. Then the lack of sales created a sense of worthlessness, making it impossible to prove much of anything.

So, since then, I’ve been trying to reconnect with why I love to create, why it does make sense, why it does have purpose after that feeling of intense hopelessness and uselessness.

The injury which has come to light this morning is a deep sense of unworthiness.

There is a common theme in the majority of Rita's post in that she feels as though she is worthless however I do not feel as though Rita truly feels a sense of worthlessness. I feel as though Rita currently sees herself more superior to others and projects a strong expectation in wanting to be treated as "special" by them. When the addictions did not get met in this interaction with Maureen, Rita become abusive/attacking, angry, condescending and dismissive.

I feel that when Rita says she is "worthless", it is her facade's way of remaining in control/denial of the real issues and a way to reinforce the unloving behaviour towards others. I feel Rita mistakes an actual feeling of worthlessness with the tantrum when her addictions do not get met.

At the end of her initial post, Rita wrote:

I would appreciate any feedback or insights you kind souls can provide.

I cannot agree with this statement for a number of reasons. There is a feeling here of wanting others to agree with her current feelings rather than being sincere in wanting to seek the truth.

To me, all of the above is pretty clear when Maureen responded. I feel she somewhat accurately shares some of the things I have highlighted in this strike thread, and due to remaining in facade, Rita dismissed a lot of what Maureen shared with her initially.

Rita later said:

I’m confronting a fear right now in posting this response because I tend to believe other people’s assessments and discount my own. This is due to experiencing a lot of attack for contradicting other peoples’ opinions with my own interpretations, feelings and opinions. In other words, I’ve been told often and angrily how wrong I am, so I’m risking that outcome here. Also, I see people deflecting feedback all the time, so I am always trying to absorb what I hear… but sometimes it just doesn’t apply no matter how hard I try to integrate it.

Here Rita was being pretty manipulative towards Maureen (whom I feel was providing a great gift in helping uncover some addictions) and in response, Rita shut her down.

Later on Rita said:

That’s a big lesson for me, to be discerning about the feedback I receive and the condition of the person giving it.

This is a very condescending and attacking comment made towards Maureen. I feel this displays some of Rita's own current injuries of arrogance and superiority quite clearly by putting herself higher than Maureen.

In your response to Maureen, you spoke a lot about the dynamics in your relationship with your ex-husband. I feel there is a lot of denied anger here for you Rita. You are placing all of the blame on your husband in a way in which abdicates your own responsibility for things - again Maureen pointed this out to you but you responded to that in a manipulative, attacking and dismissive manner by turning it back against her as seen below:

but my main point is to suggest you look a little further at what might be yours to take full responsibility of.

I wish you all the best Rita in deconstructing your facade, there is quite an amount of work for you to do here but I feel you have a great platform to do this. Hopefully at some point in the future, you will want to re-engage with the rest of the forum from a more loving space. I feel muting you at this time is the most loving decision for yourself and to all the other participants on the forum.

Thanks
Nicky

[Nicky]

Hi

As mentioned above, I have amended some of the initial strike thread towards Rita R due to receiving some direct feedback from Mary & Jesus. After reflecting and feeling about what was shared, I have come to a decision about what is the most loving way to correct my previous action.

There were a number of factors that I did not take into account/was not humble to during the process of striking Rita R which I will now explain in more detail.

1)Time delay in issuing the red strike

The first issue raised was that it is extremely important that forum moderators provide either feedback to a person on a thread OR issue warnings/strikes in a PROMPT manner. Jesus & Mary mentioned to us that God acts immediately whenever we take an action in or out of harmony with love and it is very important that we try to do the same in addressing issues of love on the forum to the best of our abilities.

I want to make it clear to everyone that the issue here was not with the red strike itself as such because the behaviour perpetrated by Rita R towards Maureen was definitely a red strike offence and, If I acted swiftly in issuing this strike when I first observed the behaviour, this action would have been in harmony with love.

However, in this situation with Rita R, there was a time delay of 5 days between when she initially acted in an unloving manner towards Maureen to when the strike was issued. During this time, it appeared on the thread itself that Rita R became more self-reflective about her own unloving actions towards Maureen earlier on in the thread and by the time I came around to issuing the red strike to Rita, it was almost "invalid" because of this.

I will be honest here too. I based my original red strike purely on Rita's initial attacking and abusive response to Maureen without taking into account her later heightened sense of self-reflection that she appeared to display on the thread itself so I do apologise to Rita for that.

The reason why there was such a long delay in issuing the red strike was due to a direct result of my own current injuries towards women (particularly demanding, oppressive and potentially angry women and my fears of pointing this out to them in a prompt manner). There was procrastination and hesitancy in dealing with the situation promptly due to fear of what I may get back in response. I ended up over analysing the whole situation in my head rather than just trusting my own gut instinct and taking the necessary action swiftly.

2) Mistake in taking the appropriate disciplinary action towards Rita R

When I initially issued Rita R with a red strike, I mistakenly muted her account rather than BANNING her from the forum as per the terms of use which state that if a person is attacking/abusive towards another member of the forum/forum staff OR they act anonymously on the forum, they are to be banned. All other red strike offences result in an instant muting of their account.

As per these two posts in this thread, it is clear to see that Rita R's behaviour towards Maureen should have constituted a red strike & a BAN from the forum as it fulfils the criteria of being attacking/abusive to another member. Again, this mistake of mine was due to my own women related injuries as stated above in wanting to be "softer" towards them, when really love and truth dictates that I am more firm when such unloving behaviour is observed.

Conclusion

After taking into account my own errors in this particular strike, as described above, I have decided to change the initial RED STRIKE I issued Rita R with to 3 AMBER STRIKES which I feel is the most fair and loving outcome for Rita herself, Maureen (who was affected by this), myself and everyone else who uses the forum.

Although yes, her initial behaviour towards Maureen was a red strike offence, and if it was dealt with promptly, it would have resulted in a ban. However due to the timing delay and the fact that Rita appeared to be more self-reflective later on, I feel it is appropriate to issue her with 3 amber strikes instead which means that her account will REMAIN muted so that she still can still make use of the provision to visit the forum and read posts in the hope that it will help her further with her own emotional work.

Since receiving the initial red strike, Rita R has sent me a private email acknowledging the inappropriateness of her actions towards Maureen. I would just like to express that I feel this does not constitute a true apology and I am not doing this on her behalf here, it is just something that I felt I'd like to add to this post. I hope that she continues in this more self-reflective manner going forwards so that she may be able to re-join in posting on the forum at a later date.

Thanks
Nicky