Love is my Religion.
Action is my Gospel.
Following the Feather of Peacefulness.
Speaking of that, two mornings ago, I hugged my girlfriend and felt/saw a rainbow of light flowing from her body as a large crystal. I know it sounds strange, but that's what I experienced. Then this morning, I was reading in the Christos about two types of people, one of which luminesces light (as a crystal-bearing its (own) light from within).
We have a while before Easter is upon us, but here is my preamble for it this go around. It’s an odd mixture of serious and humorous, ironic and dry. More will be revealed. Lots of quotes and references will be only partly attributed.
Earliest attribution I found to this ‘misery’ quote.
IN RE the Bob Marley Quote, "The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.": Everyone is worth feeling pain over, but suffering/misery is optional. Pain & suffering are just words; interchangeable words, as are the words ‘guilt’ & ‘shame’. People bicker about silly things. If you do or don’t like anything I say, credit or blame God. God is the only reason I’ve survived this long.
The gravity of our addiction to judgment can clutch us, almost like a Black Hole, where even light itself finds itself captured. If we go through the Black Hole willingly, we get squeezed, birthed, and plop out a new person on the other side, slathered with primordial ooze and blood. It ain’t easy, but it’s worth it. Simple, not easy. Let Go Let God.
If that seems too daunting for rebirth, I get it. Try the softer, easier way. Be angry, fine, but don't let anger’s aligning plots swallow your spirit. Say NO! Anger can fuel wrongdoing; becoming the person you are mad at (or worse) may result in hating the hater. Deal with anger before it becomes rage, and it deals with you. Problems caught while they are still small are usually quite manageable. Let that stuff go, lest at night you lay your head upon your pillow with an unquiet mind. Anger is the dubious luxury of normal people, but for some among our ranks, it is fatal. Restlessness, irritability, and discontentedness foreshadow relative proximity to that Black Hole. But I’ve found in life that if you run from it, and avoid your Dark Night of the Soul, it will come around again. You’re orbiting the thing in ever concentric oblong circles. Most of our problems share the same center or axis point: Death…and New Life. If you have not learned to see the beauty in pain, life will refund your misery (and multiply it, too). It’s all up to you, though.
If you’ve read the Big Book, you’ll get the following, maybe.
Twists and Turns of Human Nature.
"Being convinced that self, manifested in various ways, was what had defeated us, we considered its common manifestations." (Big Book pg 64).
The Big Book also reads at least twice that "...our troubles are of our own making...".
We begin veering off course when we get this backward by saying "our troubles are of others' making."
As I heard Mark L. describe Alcoholics, Addicts, and Codependents in a Hazelden Alumni event:
An Alcoholic is someone that crashes their car into an oak tree and afterward says, "I gotta quit...driving.
An Addict crashes into an oak tree, and gets out of the car laughing, saying, HA! It wasn't MY car!
A Codependent crashes into this same tree, and a few hours later is back with a chainsaw cutting the tree down, saying, "It's YOUR fault!"
Anger, oh, anger, for where art thou, anger? IF anger erupts from our hearts, whether aloud or a silent explosion, THEN we risk a self-imposed abyss swallowing us whole, body, mind & soul. I wonder if Jonah and the Whale came into your mind as it did mine? Hmmm…
We built pedestals in hell. We blamed someone else for the fire that we ourselves stoked. We lived close to that fire, sweat pouring from our brows in the furnace of our self-undoing, like an eternal run-on sentence.
Resentments and anger can fester and generate pollution that perpetually creates freight trains of misfortune in its logical course. We generate fear in and around us, fashioning our existence through free will. Do you remember that the door to hell is opened only from the inside?
"The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for." Bob Marley
There is a way out of this bubble. Who will have time to trip on pain, suffering, guilt, and shame if we are busy loving God and others as we love ourselves? Let's quit playing the self-sabotage and blame the other guy for the victim-mentality thing.
In Aikido, one guiding principle is to work on seeing things from the other person's point of view. 'The customer is always right' addresses this paradigm. This choice, an attitude, helps one avoid merging with the seeming problems of life and at least allow breathing room to not exacerbate the glitches in the matrix.
Bob Marley still affects us today, as do many other excellent role models that we fondly quote. These role models had shortcomings. Who among us is perfect to cast the first stone? But we become ‘Quoters’ of those who have risen above severe life challenges, even to the point of resurrection. Check out the following Slide Show (I hope you laugh a little):
Focus on solutions, but don’t force solutions; don’t quit before the miracle happens. Keep plugging away until 'accepting life on life's terms' becomes your mantra. Having a profound alteration in our reaction to life is a bold way of living. When a problem arises in life, have a long series of automated responses (response-ability) to select from and utilize. This habit is acquired, sometimes quickly and sometimes slowly, but repetition as the Mother of All Learning eventually morphs the entirety of our spiritual experiences into One spiritual awareness. There is One who has all power. That One is God. May you find God now.
Written by Gerald May
The Universe sings One Song and is as patient as Eternity. The Universe is conspiring to give us the best life possible at all times and in all places. Happiness is a choice, and peace defies reason.
“ “If you care enough, you’ll find a way.””
Few people place a candle in its holder, light the candle, then carry it outside, in broad daylight, then set it down, and walk away. The will to win is not as important as the will to prepare to win. “To light a candle is to cast a shadow...” is an assumption that candles are only lit when it is dark. That's part of our real issue in society today.
Someone recently asked a question on a chess page while showing a chessboard position, saying that it was a foregone conclusion that black would lose the queen, and I answered that they were mistaken. I was taken to task for two days over my answer. I proved that black didn't have to lose the Queen. No matter what moves were illustrated against my contention, it stood true. Black would lose the game in two moves if black did what I suggested, but black lost the game...WITHOUT losing the Queen. People change the question or try to, and then gaslight those who are not fallible in their reasoning along the lines of the question at hand. Go Focus Yourself.
Spirits seem to always be within distance
they hear when I weep and can sense the danger
around the corner when I am blind to it
what are their names?
I want to know so much about them.
Time after time, they rescue me from the steel jaws of death
even when his teeth are in the very mirror of my existence
why me?
Who am I to deserve such guardians after creating so much chaos
and living in so much deceit?
I have lived with that question
hanging from the cobwebs of my mind for so long
hardly even giving thank
I'm in so much fear of it because I never could grasp
an understanding of it
but today, I had no choice but to know they exist
and are at work carrying me through life
and loving me even when I'm hating myself.
Today I can no longer take it with a grain of salt.
today I want to know those spirits
so I can talk to them
embrace them
sing to them and give them thanks
so much thanks
To believe we can't walk on water is to create a desert of the ocean.
When we are ready, we hear, we see, we feel, we intuit, and decode meaning in everything.
Not everyone is Left OR Right, Black OR White, Religious OR Spiritual, and the many other divides that are fabricated by the ego. Seems as if in today’s divisive world, everyone is on stage and no one is in the audience…unless they are the sizable minority seated invisibly because of fear of being lambasted or worse by the intolerant.
Live & Let Live I equate with true equity for all: Freedom of Speech and the pursuit of happiness.
If you know me at all, this poem elevated my life and consciousness, and I’ve mentioned it in many of my speeches.
I send several Newsletter per month (3 max at this point). I talk about recovery and philosophy or odd topics, like someone I interviewed for my Podcast.
My Podcast is about hearing, in big part, marginalized opinions/voices, whatever they may be.
Peace Out~
Feel free to donate to my business. Your email is required, and the secure pages will ask the typical information for purchases/donations like any other site.
Thank you.
Many years ago, I was interviewed by Minneapolis police on their radio show. I wish they still had that show. I remember feeling grateful that this contact with police differed from The Bad Ol’ Daze. But I want to offer a heartfelt word for cops.
Police themselves need MI help and should have On Call help. Being a cop is almost as stressful as being a cashier. Dealing with the crazy side of humanity is what many fields contend with, and the incidence of mental illness in such fields is relatively unmeasured, probably due to fear of stigma. If a cop or anyone admits having MI issues, they risk losing their job (or fear losing their job). Realizing one is human while under extreme, long-term stress should not be stigmatized. Cops should have 24/7 access to psychological help without anyone knowing the details of their issues (except for perhaps supervisors with an ROI).
It seems like people that need help the most get it the least. Every American should take de-escalation training, irrespective of their area of expertise. Even experts can struggle. A peaceful, easy feeling is a choice that many people have no idea how to access. I frequently witness people making excuses for the poor treatment of their fellow, i.e., marginalizing offenders, cops, homeless, alcoholics/addicts, etc.
I've met MANY people in my 31-years of sobriety that are sober. Judges included. The judges are working intelligently to give offenders REAL help with issues like drug courts and creative sentencing. I've spoken to many LEAs and see the utter look of disdain on some of the audience member's faces. Conversely, I've also seen the look of relief and gratitude on some of the faces. The point of my saying this last piece of information isn't about who did or didn't like what I said. It's about my discovery that the one/s I THOUGHT were mad at me… wasn't. Seriously considering points of new information that impact their future course of behavior is challenging for anyone.
Apprehending a mistaken course of conduct is tough. Sure, perhaps a conscience was punk-slapping the inner critic. I thought these very same people couldn't wait for this piece of their training to end but would sincerely thank me after the speech. I was at first surprised. Now I know people are not what they appear. Give them a break. I suspect they were glad to learn that some offenders do change. I was living proof.
Put compassion first; lead with trust that 'change is possible' and that people are doing the best they can with the tools they have. Don't be part of the Hate Boat. Let's give each other the tools we need. Sure, we're not all in the same boat, but we're on the same ship.
An addendum thought. It seems like many people forget who they are (forget their humanity). I remember how many police officers would scowl (after hearing someone complain about how their handling of a situation was hurtful), saying they are not social workers. Such responses are what untreated MI issues sound like. We are all prone to Compassion Fatigue. Especially cops.
Make your wounds your wisdom. There's still time.
“When we are anxiously attached, our inability to trust the intentions and behaviors of others will often lead us to escalate situations and then reject attempts to reassure us. It is a painful and dramatic spiral.” ― Mary Crocker Cook, Awakening Hope. A Developmental, Behavioral, Biological Approach to Codependency Treatment.
“People understand me so poorly that they don't even understand my complaint about them not understanding me.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, from The Journals of Kierkegaard.
The good news is that it's none of my business what others think of me, just like it's none of my business what I think of myself. When I get out of my own way, life goes great. For me, God-Esteem goes farther than Self-Esteem. When I surrender, I align with my Higher Power and we become One.
I posted the following on facebook last year:
The mainstream media keeps people stupid and docile because 'bread & circuses' are where the money is. Follow the money. It's not a new idea. Presidential elections are circuses and the team you vote for feeds you YOUR bread. Feed yourself. The bread is already yours and the people in power are middle-men insurance agents and media prostitutes 'protecting' you (for a fee) to keep you from taking care of yourself.
Think for yourself. Let freedom of individual rights be your platform. Individual rights are the only means to guarantee the Greater Good. Collective rights emanate from individual rights.
Community Standards come from Individual Standards, not vice-versa. Forcing solutions, imposing harmony, and all the outside-in stuff is useless.
Ancient Greece made its greatest strides when they were free to do both good and bad things. My greatest single regret I see coming from Ancient Greece is how they made the human psyche divided against itself. They over-focused on the mind and left the heart out of balance with the mind. One manifestation of this illness came from the idea that "Feelings are not facts." Truth is, the mind and the heart are One.
The mind is the thinking part of the heart, and the heart is the feeling part of the mind.
Einstein said imagination is more important than knowledge and pointed out that his leaps of higher ideas came suddenly, intuitively.
The 'dictionary' of Einstein's life exploded like a bomb in a printing press office, and the letters of the dictionary flew everywhere BUT came back together in a beautiful order.
After all, the dictionary and the Bible both contain the same words, albeit in a different order. The EGO exists as an illusion in the mind. The heart is not so deluded, and that's why the battlefield is in the mind and not the heart.
The mind is supposed to protect the heart, for once the heart goes, our destiny goes. A poisoned heart is a most tragic state of affairs, with forgiveness and peace defying all explanation and knowledge rushes in to save the day (if we surrender to the Holy Spirit).
My Sponsor used to say, “When I wanna make God laugh, I just tell ‘em MY plans.
God’s Plan. The is One who has all power, that One is God...
Seeking/researching without an agenda is an intuitive art of discovering the Invisible. No one is more invisible/anonymous than God. God hides in the Atheist, the Agnostic, but hides even more succinctly in the religionists. I've seen God in prison, as there's no prison wall so thick that God can't get through it.
I've seen God in the eyes of an Atheist and have seen God living most vibrantly in the eyes of the Agnostic who is willing to question everything. Being teachable is being open to questioning everything.
I loved God beyond reason and still do, and in so doing have released a peace greater than all understanding. Lean not unto your own understanding. Don't make everything all about you, your loved ones, or your enemies. Human reasoning is laughable. Rule 62. Forgive everything until forgiveness becomes the laughable joke that it is. If I am unoffendable (I'm not surprised there is no word as "unoffendable" in the English lexicon), there's nothing to forgive.
Yet, cast not the pearls before swine; be as wise as a serpent. Forgive everything.
If there is nothing to forgive, who is your enemy? The enemy disappears into the illusion that ego gave it to hide in. EGO seems more real than God, but with ego, there is no truth in it at all. Ego is a liar, and can only dance in duality and the addiction to knowledge (eating from the tree of the ego of duality or the ego (knowledge) of the duality (of good and evil). Forever learning, but knowing nothing.
Only in the human mind can ego subsist itself. Humans are the only ones that can talk about something that doesn't exist. Maybe that's why Existentialism resonates in my life like the echoes of God crying from the wilderness. Truth without paradox is dead.
Truth, like God and Love, is One. God, Love, and Truth have no opposites, for they are not of duality. Sure, sometimes I hear and don't object to 'My truth" and "your truth", but it's kinda chicken shit. It's childish to do my truth/your truth game. It's childlike to met in the realm beyond good and evil, like the field that Rumi mentioned.
I have experienced many miracles in my life, have witnessed the Hand of God, and heard the Voice of Christ; from these spiritual experiences have come spiritual awareness. Sometimes I describe Sponsorship as the practice of making the Comfortable uncomfortable, and the Uncomfortable comfortable until the Sponsee is (equally) at peace with everything. It makes the burden light, the yolk easy.
My Bible in prison.
When I chose to not work on the Sabbath in prison, I kept getting thrown in The Hole. It was a number of lovely mini-vacations because at the time 'The Hole' was the only place in prison that had adequate heating, (thanks to the federal courts).
Eventually, the problem of my not working when they told me to work on the basis of religion was starting to annoy the administration, until one fine day the Associate Warden called me and my Cellie into his office and asked/demanded to know why we were not working on Sundays. I said, "Because God said not to" (in the Bible). The Ass War slammed his tightly clenched fist on his desk and yelled, "In this prison, I'M GOD!" I simply said, "No, you're not."
Art by Bruce Hong
Magically, I was removed from any job that required Sunday work. I was not at war with the prison. It was genuinely my belief. It was not my ego, but my willingness to obey what I understood as a commandment.
Oh, by the way, about a year or so later, God died of a heart attack.
Look, I ain't pretending to be all that. I fall short every day in many ways, but I do my best to echo God's Love back to God in the form of a broken heart and a contrite spirit, and trust that if God thinks I have a defect of character that requires removal, I'll get some help. In the meanwhile, I suspect that shortcomings might be God's way of reminding us who God is and who 'ain't' God.
Sought through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with God, seeking ONLY for knowledge of God's will, and the power to carry it out. Thy will be done...even when I am clueless about how to make it happen.
Your mind is a very strange thing. As soon as you give something a name, logos, and a genuine aim, it’ll reconfigure the world in keeping true to that aim.
It’s actually how you see to begin with. We don’t see the world as it is, we see the world as we are. If you set the intention of aim as a task, as best you have to be genuine (integrated) about the aim as a task. Bring your thoughts and emotions together, then make your actions match your words. Then you have to get them in your body so you’re acting consistently. To be genuine about the aim is beautiful. Once you aim, the world will reconfigure itself around that aim, which is very strange but it’s technically true. Perhaps the best exemplification you’ve no doubt seen is the video where you watch basketballs being tossed back and forth between members of the white team versus the black team. While you’re doing that, a gorilla walks up in the middle of the video and you don’t see it.
If you thought about that experiment for about five years, that would be the right amount of time to spend thinking about it, because what it shows you is that you see what you aim at. The maturity of intention stops colliding with expectation, and then you’re able to see things you’ve never seen or imagined before. Maybe this is why Einstein said that imagination is more important than knowledge.
TRUST has no agenda, even when it aims.
Before I sobered up, alcohol was like a rope or noose around my neck. Steeped in Learned Helplessness, I was powerless over alcohol. The addiction to drinking made my ‘problem thinking’ run riot. Alcohol in my bloodstream became an insidious saboteur, infecting my thinking.
I experienced a profound alteration IN MY REACTION to life. Pre-sobriety, over and over and endlessly over again, ODAAT, I sold my freedom for a drink. Post sobriety, spiritual awareness grew in my consciousness.
Sure, I had spiritual experiences as a drunk, but the power of spiritual awareness came later, as did the ability to do something useful with the spiritual experiences. It’s like the joke about knowing one has the right to remain silent but not being able to keep one’s mouth shut.
Consider how we coerced ourselves by broken beliefs that served as self-made prisons. Others did not constrain us; the Big Book reads that our problems are primarily of our own making. A prison psychiatrist told me that it is a foregone conclusion that I would spend the rest of my life in prison. NOTHING CHANGED until I got honest about the noose called alcohol that was strangling my life.
Here’s one illustrative lesson that explains ‘Learned Helplessness’ well that I would like to pass on for your consideration. It describes what happened and what we thought happened in our lives—the newfound freedom and happiness rest in awareness. Unlearning is key to that awareness. Step 4 was the Virus Scan, and Step 5 was the delete key. For me, Step 6 was one of the happiest days of my entire life. I still had to work on other things, like Steps 7, 8, and 9, but I was amazed even though I was barely halfway through the Steps.
Elephant Training
When elephant trainers catch a baby elephant, they tie one of its legs to a post with a rope. The baby elephant struggles and struggles, but it can’t get free. For days the elephant pulls and strains at the rope. Gradually it learns that struggle is useless, and it gives up.
When the elephant grows up, the trainer keeps it tied to the same rope in the same way. And even though it can now break the rope and get away, it stands passively and waits for the trainer to come and get it. It has developed what is called Learned Helplessness. It has learned that the struggle is useless as a result of repeated failure experiences earlier in life, the elephant has learned a self-imposed limitation.”
So how does Learned Helplessness affect humans?
It’s a condition where a person has the power to change their unpleasant situation yet does not attempt to use that power because they have learned to feel helpless in that situation. No one is perfectly free from the trap of learned helplessness; the point is to grow along spiritual lines. Not even the most successful people with long-term sobriety find themselves free of all character defects. But the difference is those who are successful have surrendered their willpower and embarked upon a simple, straightforward plan of action to overcome their most significant limitations in life.
Alcoholism is a LOSS OF CONTROL. Essentially, learned helplessness is a practical feeling of lack of control. A lack of control over one’s prevailing circumstances ensues when we drink, sometimes called a trainwreck. In the worse cases, learned helplessness leads to clinical depression in individuals, and alcohol depresses the brain even more into a downward spiral. You often hear people say who relapse: “It’s useless…”, “There’s just no way out….”
Learned helplessness limits people’s belief in themselves, while Steps 2 & 3 DELIMITS people. Sobriety leads to confidence without conceit, healthy self-esteem through God Esteem, and an attitude of gratitude that we thirst to pass on. Alcohol-induced limitation leads to a lack of self-confidence and self-esteem, which leads to a lack of self-worth, which leads to procrastination and finally settling for mediocrity at best, and insanity, prison, or death at worst.
Given any particular situation, a sober individual would have a fair idea of how to get out of problems. Yet most are afraid to take any action. How many of you feel that you’re stuck in a stagnant, unsatisfactory, unchallenging job? You know you could be much happier and earn a lot more, but the fear of change that things could be worse on the other side has kept you from taking massive action toward your desires. This is ‘Stinking Thinking.
There are thousands of stories of individuals who have risen above unimaginable circumstances to live extraordinary lives and become people of prodigious influence since 1935. A few great examples are Lois Wilson, Bill Wilson, Dr. Bob, and maybe the person you look at in the mirror every morning. These people all took enormous strides and were willing to go to any lengths to overcome their ego limitations, freeing themselves from the trap of learned helplessness.
Take the noose from around your neck and free your life! Or, as they said in The Matrix, UNPLUG! Never believe any story that doesn’t empower you. Take what you like and leave the rest; kick out the angry renters that live rent-free in your head.
“...one of the primary differences between alcoholics and nonalcoholics is that nonalcoholics change their behavior to meet their goals and alcoholics change their goals to meet their behaviors.”
Release the blocks, drop the rocks, and fly free!
Truth is not ‘relative’, but the perspective on it differs for everyone.
I heard a speaker say some people stay in their shit because it's warm(er than the people around them).
Shit is like a blanket. People' just call it like it is' or callously say, 'It's the truth! You can't handle the truth!' 'Calling people on their shit' reminds me of snatching a blanket away from someone who, in their consummate wisdom (because they know precisely what the other person does and doesn't need), kicks their crutch or snatches the blanket away (and they freeze as a result). I think it was Melanie Beattie who told the blanket story in Codependent No More. It's been a long time since I read it, but it made sense to me.
I remember someone's Sponsor (venting?) in a meeting, saying he finally told his Sponsee to quit calling him because he doesn't do anything he is told to do anyway, and he's going to die from drinking. Yes, the Sponsee kept relapsing, calling from Detox, jail, and wherever. But our prescription is almost a prayer. When anyone, anywhere, REACHES OUT FOR HELP...we know the rest of it.
I mentioned in that very same meeting a metaphorical story about an obese man who was having a heart attack that called out to someone for help, but the person told him to F-off, saying he was warned for years that overeating might kill him and that he should have put down that last hamburger. Yes, the Sponsor was obese. I ain't judgin', I'm jis' sayin'. Another saying I heard in early recovery, was BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD, THERE GO I.
A saying I once heard in a meeting opened my heart. 'We don't shoot our wounded.' The Big Book generally reads that we should be hard on ourselves, not others. I also heard Oprah say that we should make our wounds our wisdom. Beating people over the head with truth is not why we are here.
It's a hard pill to swallow, but there is not anyone residing on Earth School that couldn't turn into a purely evil, toxic person, totally willing to kill or injure others. We can kill a person with a word if we aren't careful. It takes a lot of work not to be an asshole when we are upset, and the irony is that many of us don't know any better. But the "I didn't mean to" argument is useless if you drive drunk and kill someone. You have to mean NOT to do something. Given the worst life scenarios, maybe anyone could grow up to be a serial killer. Wounded people wound people. Healed people heal people.
Truth without compassion is cruelty. Attraction, not forcing solutions, is critical. If you like something I say, don't give me any credit. There is One who has all power, and it ain't me. If you turn your will and life over to the care of God, then you'll see and hear God everywhere. If you DON'T like something I say, take it up with God because God is why I'm still kicking it on Earth School. Thank God life ain't fair because if life were 'reasonable,' I'd still be in prison, be in a nuthouse, or be 6-feet under your feet and forgotten long ago.
Like the line of a 70's movie, "Hang up the blame thrower." I LOVE THAT THIS SAYS GROWTH STARTS WHEN WE TIRE OF OUR OWN SHIT (we're taking our own inventory). I got sick and tired of being sick and tired and quit drinking. People in The Rooms loved me back to health. Go where the love is.
Once in a while, a person should say what they really think. This world of which compassionate people dream is not about Sigourney weaving an enemy’s birth for us all to hate and destroy like any other coldblooded challenger of another’s flag or book. Forgiveness of our own and others’ shortcomings is flagged as an idealization of neo-inconformity. Nor is purity a dualistic lacky of a road whose multifaceted divisions polishes like diamonds (mistaken for disassociation of) making own wounds our wisdom, or even diversity masked as acceptance. Separation Consciousness should never be capitalized, but since humans alone can discuss what doesn’t exist, we think that which does exist can fathom prayers that have pieced together over the millennia’s selfishness. Is purity selfish? Focused on one thing, or is it more like the many joining as One? The One cannot be reunited, for it was never always.
Human life is like a jigsaw puzzle, I supposed, comprised of bricks formed and dissolved into and out of the penitent’s desire for perfection that already precedes the desire and heralds the longing. A word here, a sentence there, a cumulative impact perceiving snow upon one’s moonroof as cloud formations. Rorschach’s Test with no highlights, underlining, or sidebar notations. A pure book. An unread Blog. And so we meet death to live beyond both. Quit kicking yourself out of the Garden of Eden.
There seem to be times when we know we need to be ruthless with someone else and to just allow the holy witness (those who love us enough) to trust deeply enough to listen to when they were from our path. Rare souls.
I'm hesitant to I want to ask you to reveal and to show me in advance the consequences of this. Deep down, maybe we all know we must commence ‘not yet determined.’ So now that you already know (both true and that mystical way) in which contradictions in our human world blend beautifully together, then maybe you can intuit purity. The cost of choice is not the same as surrendering Freedom or Unfreedom. The cost is the illusion itself.
Hate is hate, but ironically, it starts SMALL and gets masked and labeled in a hundred different 'acceptable' disguises.
Any problem can be easily resolved if it's caught while it's still small, but the truth (honesty) without compassion is often migrated into cruelty.
I've noticed in life, my life at least, that if I am listening with great sensitivity, I will hear that still, small voice saying a thing is wrong before I act on it. It grows when we first notice it, depending on what we do with it. It can grow into compassion, or it can grow into that historical thousand points of superiority.
Love and G-D have no opposites. I love you. Against Love, there is no law.
What Do Boundaries Feel Like?’
This is a question I often see posed on codependency websites, pages, or groups. Afterward, a bullet point list generally presented that does little to
nothing to describe ‘feelings.’ The question itself has always left me feeling a little
unsettled, nervous, and even a bit fearful. I believe in Live and Let Live, so it’s none of my business what others think or feel on an educational platform. But I do have an opinion on the matter that might make me look iconoclastic. That’s not a bad thing, per se, but I don’t want to be judgmental about it. Hence, my apprehension. Geez, why does anyone say, What Do Boundaries “feel” like, but then go on to say what they ‘think’? What is the dictionary definition of a feeling?
feel·ing
/ˈfēliNG/
Noun:
1.an emotional state or reaction. Exp: "a feeling of joy."
2.a belief, especially a vague or irrational one.
Exp: "she had the feeling that she was being watched."
Adjective:
showing emotion or sensitivity.
Exp: “She had a warm and feeling heart."
Now let’s get back to the bullet points attending the question “what do boundaries feel like?” They typically go on to describe rules for relationships, AKA “boundaries vaguely." Here’s my disclaimer: The way I view topics in recovery life is probably best described as the Minority Opinion. Having revealed that, I would like to tear apart and reconstruct the bullet point descriptions.
First of all, I think what they mean is, “What Do Healthy Boundaries Look
Like? “Boundaries” can be good or bad, healthy, or unhealthy; if they want to talk about what healthy boundaries ‘feel’ like, the list would have to be drastically altered.
Okay, here we go:
·“It is not my job to fix others.” Agreed, unless one has been assigned that task in agreement, such as with a therapist. While we might protect someone, such as a child or someone vulnerable, it is still not our job to “fix” them.
·“It is okay if others get angry.” What does “okay” mean? For me, it’s okay to stay peaceful, centered, and grateful even when others are exhibiting feelings of anger. Their feelings of anger or joy are none of my business to judge, so their anger is not “okay" or “not okay.” Taking someone else’s inventory without being asked to do so is a can to gossip, and is an unhealthy boundary.
·“It is okay to say no.” Agreed, if the thing we are saying ‘no’ to is an illusory reflection of our healthy sensibilities. Even if our “no” is unreasonable, we still have a right to be irrational from time to time. When we realize we made a mistake and hurt ourselves or others, that’s what amends are made for. It is hard to say “no” to people who are demanding, narcissistic, or who are in positions of authority. But sometimes we have to say “no” anyway. It takes courage to say no.
·“It’s not my job to take responsibility for others.” An over-inflated sense of responsibility often obscures a person suffering from codependency from seeing what their responsibility for others is or is not. My responsibility “to” people with healthy boundaries differs from my responsibility “for” people with healthy boundaries. One can be responsible for a vulnerable adult or child, but being accountable to others or for others is contingent upon the mutual spoken or unspoken agreements into which they have entered.
·“I don’t have to anticipate the needs of others.” Agreed, in healthy relationships, people are capable of self-advocacy. Focusing on one’s own needs sets the stage for healthy relationships. If one is healthy, for example, one can contribute healthily within any given relationship, professional or personal. The proverbial plane going down comes to mind. When the oxygen masks drop down from their compartments, an unhealthy person would go about helping others affix their oxygen masks before attaching their own. Riding a sick horse is not wisdom.
·“It is my job to make me happy.” Now here, a lot of people would probably disagree with me. While I do believe that happiness is a choice based on willingness to be happy, the dynamics of choice in my life emanate from my willingness to be in a healthy relationship with my Higher Power. It is none of my business what others think of me, and it is not my business what I think of myself. My only business is what my Higher Power thinks of me. My Higher Power always thinks and feels in connection to my (our: HP & Me) highest good. For me, choosing to be happy amid difficulty and choosing to be satisfied while everything seems to be going well are equal propositions. “It’s my job to make me happy” is to turn my will in my life over to the care of God as I understand God. Being happy with my defects of character happens when I surrender my shortcomings to my Higher Power. That is when I become willing to let God remove all of my defects of character, and choose to be happy when the deficiencies remain. I trust that their presence is required in my life. Why my imperfections are required is none of my business; it is my business to trust that it is so. Forgiveness always runs deeper than the offense which requires its presence. Without an offense, there is no forgiveness. Therefore, I should celebrate the offense through forgiveness, just like grief is proof of praise for a thing I love.
·“Nobody has to agree with me.” Agreed. Nor do I have to agree with anyone else. I don’t even have to agree with myself. I have a right to change my mind, just like everybody else. As the poet, W.H. Auden wrote, “If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving one be me.”
·“I have a right to my own feelings.” I agree with this one. Love is a feeling, a noun, and a verb that made peace with one another. People erroneously say that “feelings are not facts.” It would be hard for me to disagree with this more than I do. “Since feeling is first, who pays any attention to the syntax of things,”
e.e. cummings wrote, “will never wholly kiss you.” I feel, therefore, I think I Am.
· “I am enough.” Always, even when I don’t feel or think I am at any given moment! Even in times of despair, bear in mind, ‘This Too Shall Pass’. The real question is, “Who am I?” If I am a person who ‘know(s) thyself’, and I am a person who can be myself no matter what, then it is time to remove my shoes because I am treading on Sacred Space. Find out who you are, then be precisely who you are.
I want to leave you with a quote by Marianne Williamson.
Who am I? Who are YOU? Who are WE?
