The Power is Yours

“You cannot solve a problem from the same consciousness that created it. You must learn to see the world anew.” Albert Einstein

A memory loop. 

A feeling of being “stuck”. 

You're struggling with an emotionally-charged issue and your own thoughts are screaming over any solution. 

Your mind pulses with old messages.

Thoughts run in circles. 

Insecurities scream. 

To avoid facing the pain your mind perceives, it moves into protection-mode. It tries to convince you the problem is unsolvable. It tells you you can't handle it. It says anything it can to get you to move away from the issue. If you believe these lies you bury your emotions under another layer of denial.

But the issue hasn't been solved. You become aware of your inability to take right action—or any action—and become frustrated. This added emotional charge convinces your mind that it was right. You can’t handle this, it says, and the cycle begins again. 

The rut becomes deeper.

It's time for a new perspective. Here it is:

You are so much more powerful than you've been led to believe.

You are so much more powerful than your mind can conceive. 

Like a computer, your physical brain follows preset patterns. It's working exactly as it's meant to. The problem isn’t your mind. 

It's what you're storing in it. 

Your brain is clogged with a plethora of emotionally-charged messages. You've been putting them in there your whole life. What you need is a good cleaning—a defrag and then a reboot.  

Don't forget:

You are so much more powerful than you've been led to believe.

You are so much more powerful than your mind can conceive. 

Your brain is cluttered with the refuse of your life—with every old message and emotion you haven't released. Like any good computer, your brain is equipped with a program to remove this clutter. You can run this program anytime you want. Yes, Dorothy, you've had the power all along. If you find yourself slogging along in slow circles, it's time. 

Oh, your mind may tell you it’s not possible. 

It may try to stop you. 

If you let it, your mind might self-protect you into permanent inaction. 

But, if you’re ready to go back to the kind of clarity you were born with—if you're tired of Oz and you want to go home, try this:

Close your eyes. 

Tell your mind to be quiet. 

Tell it again.
Keep telling it. 

Override the messages and images that blare forth until your mind finally gives in.

Now sit in stillness.  

And breathe.

That's it. 

Does a fish have awareness of the water it lives in? 

You live in an energy field. Light waves… sound waves… millions of bombarding bits of energy constantly envelop you. You're just so used to it you don't notice it anymore. But here, behind your closed eyes, in the stillness, you can become aware of that energy. 

Open to it. 

Feel it tingling on your skin. 

Pull it in with each breath. 

If your fear comes up again, let it. Give it a color. Step inside the fear and allow it engulf you. Notice the thoughts that feed it. Notice the thoughts that try to keep you from it. That's just your brain trying to protect you from your feelings. It doesn't understand that your feelings are normal—that you can handle it. 

Comfort your mind. 

Let it know that you have feelings—they don’t have you. 

Study your fear. 

Discover your rage. 

Let the tears come. 

There’s nothing else you have to do. 

Just breathe and let it happen. 

It really is that easy.

How long have you carried these feelings and thoughts? 

Years? 

Decades? 

Lifetimes?

It may take that long again to remove it all from your system. 

Don't let that discourage you. 

With each little bit you release, your mind becomes clearer. As you gradually come to trust the process, it will get easier. You will come to know that you are safe even in your strongest emotional state. 

You are always safe. 

Then, as new emotional issues arise, you can walk right through them instead of storing them away. You can take them in stride without judging them. They are not good or bad, they just are and you don't have to carry them around with you. 

Your mind is amazing. It can do so many things but it isn't completely aware of it's abilities or it's limitations. It is a wonderful tool but it isn't you. 

You can take charge.

You can handle it. 

You can use your breath and the calm voice of your own inner wisdom to guide you through the painful parts of life. 

The power has always been yours. 

Unconditional Love

I’ve been reading “The Five Levels of Attachment,” by don Miguel Ruiz, Jr. At the same time, I’ve been working to understand the concept of “unconditional love”.

My understanding of the message from the book is that our attachments to our beliefs get in the way of our following our own, best path. The more strongly we are attached to a belief, the less likely we are to challenge it, even if it becomes almost impossible to make that belief work with what we see around us.

People kill and die because of their beliefs. That belief may be that only their religion is right, that their country is the best, or that their physical body’s shape, size, or color is somehow better than another.

The Dalai Lama, the well-known Tibetan Buddhist teacher, explains the difference between attachment and unconditional love:  “Attachment and love are similar in that both of them draw us to the other person. But in fact, these two emotions are quite different. When we’re attached we’re drawn to someone because he or she meets our needs.[…] On the other hand, the love we’re generating on the Dharma path is unconditional. We simply want others to have happiness and the causes of happiness without any strings attached...” He neither accepts nor denies that unconditional love is possible, but he does explain it quite clearly.

People harm each other because of attachments to a belief that there is a limited way to love. I’d bet on the fact that you know someone who believes it is wrong to love outside of your race, your religion, or to love someone of the same gender. Those same people may tell you that God doesn’t want you to love in the ways they believe are wrong—and they may also tell you that God loves unconditionally. 

Perhaps they explain this as a paradox—that God loves unconditionally, but with a few conditions.

A Yoruba priest, Kalila Borhgini says, “God’s love is unconditional, but God also has expectations and requirements.” She accepts this and, a little later, calls it a paradox.

Baptist Rev. John Piper writes, “There is such a thing as unconditional love in God, but it’s not [...] for everybody. Else everybody would be saved, since they would not have to meet any conditions, not even faith.” What I get from this is that God loves us unconditionally, only if we have faith—which is of course, a condition.

I don’t believe in paradox. My feeling is that when we see something as paradox, it’s because we are seeing part of the equation incorrectly. 

2+3 will never equal 4. No matter how attached I am to the number three, as long as I hold it in that part of the equation, I am going to come up with a paradox because the only thing that logically fits, is another two.

Consider this statement: God is everywhere. 

At first, I took that to mean that God was here with us, all the time—that God was always present, right along with everything else. In time, I considered the possibility that God was neither another dimension superimposed over what we see and feel, nor a presence far away that was somehow aware of everything else.

Maybe God isn't here WITH everything, but AS everything. Maybe God’s presence “everywhere” really means that everything and everyone is God. 

Einstein and other physicists tell us that all matter is actually energy. Slow down energy's vibration and you get what we call matter. This means everything we see, feel, know or imagine is energy. Our thoughts and feelings, our movement through space, and even our bodies. 

Everything is energy. God is everything. Therefore God is energy. This equation makes sense to me. 

Perhaps God slowed down bits of that energy in order to experience what we think of as the physical realm. 

In the Law of Attraction teachings (also called the teachings of Abraham) it says, “Unconditional love is staying in the vibration of Source regardless of the condition.” To me, this says that we can only love unconditionally if we are in alignment with the vibration of the Universe (God). In a way, this is saying the same thing as the Baptist Reverend--that faith(or alignment with God) is a condition of unconditional love. 

One could look at it to mean that only God can love unconditionally, but if we did accept the premise that God is all, then God is us, and we are God and therefore, we should be able to achieve unconditional love.

I will make mistakes and you will make mistakes, yet God is perfect. If we are God, then mistakes do not take away from our perfection. How can that be? 

If I am God and you are God, then the concept of ‘loving thy neighbor as thyself’ has a different flavor. Thy neighbor IS thyself and both of us are God. We are meant to love ourselves and others and God constantly and equally, because they are one and the same and Divine—and therefore perfect. It’s like saying God has unconditional love for us because we are Divine and perfect aspects of God. That equation seems to ring as true as 2+2=4. Both sides are equal and the same. 

Catholic Fr. Vincent Serpa writes, “God does love us unconditionally in that he loves us even in our sins. But he cannot love our sins.” This is the “love the person not their actions” version of “unconditional” love. It represents an attachment to the “good and evil” concept. 

But maybe the way we choose to manipulate the energy around us (the way we choose to live our lives) is not good or bad. Maybe that judgment is irrelevant to God. Maybe God does not have any expectation of how we will use our time in this physical realm, but instead, has a knowledge that all aspects of God will always be aspects of God regardless of how we shift that energy—that no matter what we do, we are still perfect.

We would not put the three in the 2+3=5 equation unless we had a really good reason to believe that the three belonged there. If we were to accept that this paradox of expectations and unconditional love is a faulty equation, what attachment would have caused us to create it?

I think it’s an attachment to conditional love that moves me—and others—create the paradoxical equation. 

In my most rational moments, I don't actually believe God loves one person more than another. I accept that everyone and everything is an aspect of God, and that God loves all aspects of the Universe equally. Therefore, what I do here has nothing to do with how much God loves me.

The first time I considered that idea, I was surprised by a wave of fear. Why would that be a scary thought?

As a small child, I wanted to be loved unconditionally but I learned that love was conditional. I believed my parents were not capable of giving me unconditional love because I was not capable of being "good enough". If I believed unconditional love was possible, I also had to accept that my parents chose not to give it to me. This is harder to accept than to believe there’s an unknowable paradox—which would allow me to never have to look at the situation too closely.

In order to imagine this need for unconditional love being fulfilled, I personified God. I gave God the quality of requiring a condition for love, a quality that actually belonged to my parents. Like many (as my examples above display) I developed an attachment to the belief that "unconditional" love would be given to me if I followed a certain set of rules.

An attachment to this belief has several benefits.

For one thing, I can solve the greatest dilemma of my childhood. With God, I can finally be "good enough" to receive “unconditional” love. 

But also, by believing that God’s unconditional love actually has some conditions, it gives me an illusion of power. If I do “God’s will” then surely God will love me more. I will become one of the chosen, the beloved, the saved—whatever name you’d like—by fulfilling the conditions imposed by my belief system.

If I give up the attachment to the concept that I gain God’s love by following certain rules, does that mean I have to believe I can’t gain God’s love?

Yes. That's true. I can’t gain God’s love because I already have it. We can't ever lose it.

If we have to follow rules in order not to lose God’s love, we live fear-driven lives. There is constantly the possibility that I might lose the love I need, so my actions are driven by the set of imposed rules in my belief-system.

If I truly accept that God's love is unconditional, then I am no longer driven by fear of losing that love. It is that fear that seems to hold us to the rules of society—the things our society has decided are "moral” or “right”. Without that fear-driven base, It seems I would no longer be governed by the laws of man. I would be free to act exactly as I'm called to act. The moral "dilemma" would not exist. 

Our attachment to the concept of "good and evil" may be the hardest one to release. How many paradoxes would be wiped out of existence if we saw that this is really a societal concept, not an actual law of the universe? We would not have to hold ourselves (mankind) to a different standard as the rest of nature, for one. We would not have to judge ourselves or others harshly for "making mistakes", for another. We all know we are going to "make mistakes" yet we live in resentment, shame and guilt. 

If we were going to release our attachment to societal morals. We would have to raise our children in an entirely different way. When a toddler first experienced rage and struck out to show it, we would not tell him what he was doing was wrong. Instead, we would teach him that everything and everyone IS God, just as he is, and that when he strikes out against the world, he is striking out against himself. 

Of course he would not understand this as a toddler, but neither does a toddler understand “wrong”. We drive that into children until they believe it and then expect them to accept the "paradox" that God loves unconditionally—with some conditions.

Vera

As eleven-year-old Vera walks home from school, she passes a convenience store in which all kinds of candy is sold. Assuming a casual attitude, she strolls down the candy aisle. Stealthily waiting until the clerk behind the counter is busy, she slips a candy bar into the pocket of her coat. Hands in pockets, she heads out the door without a backward glance.
A few days go by before she is once again perusing the wares of the small store. When it seems the coast is clear, she turns down the candy aisle, spots the sweet she wants, and grabs it. She never even slows down on her way to the door.

A third attempt at stealing candy doesn’t go so smoothly. Vera is feeling pretty confident in her abilities, by this time. Before she even reaches the store, she’s imagining gooey caramel and chocolate melting in her mouth .  When she enters the store, the man who works there is restocking the shelves behind the counter. Since he has his back to her, she heads straight for the candy.

Just as she's sliding it into her pocket, she hears, “Hey!”

Terror rushes through her veins and nearly from her bladder. She never realized how big this guy is. As he makes his way around the counter and closes in on her, she sprints towards the door. It's very close, but she reaches the door first. She opens it, turning to watch her assailant, and throws herself backward through the doorway.

She hits something soft but solid. She turns to see a stocky - and thankfully sturdy - old woman  who has met Vera’s flying form at the door. A loud and breathy “Hhmmmff” erupts from the woman as she hits the ground, hard. As Vera watches, the woman's stunned expression darkens to fury.

“Oh-my-God-are-you-all-right?” the store clerk blurts from right behind Vera.

She runs.

He yells, “Don’t you ever come back here, you little thief!"

She turns the corner and blasts past two more blocks before slowing down. Blood pounds in her ears and her red face as she catches her breath. She studies the squished, half-melted candy bar in her trembling hand, and then surveys a scrape on her elbow she’d been too frantic to notice, earlier. She eats the candy, feeling her fear dissolve into relief.

For a day and a week and a month, she takes a different way home from school. She completely avoids the street on which the convenience store is located, even though it means going three blocks out of her way. She isn't happy about the longer walk she has, and as the days go by, anger flourishes.

It's that horrible man. 

Vera sees the store clerk's large and looming form in her mind.

It takes me twice as long to walk home, now, and it's all his fault.

Weeks pass, and winter arrives. At the same time, the seeds of fear and anger grow into an icy crop of hatred. The cold wind inside and out make Vera's walk home nearly unbearable.

Come on, it was only a candy bar. What's the big deal?

Even so, she takes the long way around for another week, and then another. Each day is colder than the last, and with each frosty breeze resentment builds.

Does he really think he can stop me from walking by the store?

He can't do anything to me. I'm just a kid.

I can go there anytime.

I'll prove it!

The day comes when she is heading down the familiar street, once again. She slows down when the storefront comes into view, despite the whipping wind. A young mother and her two children cross the street in front of Vera and hurry towards the warmth of the store. Vera rushes up, smiles at the mother, and pops into the store between her and her children, as if she was part of the family.

It takes a few moments for Vera to get the courage to glance at the counter. When she does, she sees someone new, there. It’s an older man, someone she’s never seen before, and he takes no notice of Vera. Why would he? He doesn’t know she’s a thief.

Smiling to herself, Vera peruses the candy aisle, taking her time before pocketing her selection. She heads nonchalantly to the door. Before she can open it, a firm hand holds her shoulder. She squirms with fear and fury, but a second hand grabs her other arm and there's no escape.

When the man turns Vera around, she is ready for battle. She glares up at his face, but to her great surprise, the man smiles.

Her breath catches in her throat. She's speechless.

“I know you took that candy," he says.

Her eyes dart back and forth between his, but no sound will form in her throat.

"It’s wrong to steal, but I forgive you.”

And then, he lets her go.

For a moment, Vera is too astounded to move. She stares up into his eyes, confusion and adrenaline mingling in her mind. Finally, she gets enough hold of herself and takes off into the snowy afternoon, with all the speed she can muster.

Behind her closed bedroom door, Vera looks at the candy bar. She could eat it, now, but for some reason she doesn't. She hides it in her sock drawer and tries to push the whole incident out of her mind, but she has a whole weekend to think about it and that's exactly what she does. Over and over she pushes the pairs of socks aside to view the dishonorable secret nestled at the bottom of the drawer.

Why did he let me go?

Each time, she buries the evidence but always she knows it's there.

Monday afternoon is the coldest this winter has presented, so far. As Vera heads out of school, sleet pelts her cheeks and her icy fingers tingle in her pockets. She wants to go the short way, but walking past the convenience store seems almost impossible. What if that new guy was there, again? What if he saw her? She isn’t afraid of him. She isn’t angry, either. She's... well, she's not sure what she is. This feeling is something entirely new.

She knows it's just too cold to walk the long way. Mustering all the courage she has, she heads towards the convenience store, her heart beating fast. She has her head down against the wind as she approaches the store's entrance, but she can't keep from looking in as she passes.

He looks right at her.
He smiles.
Awkwardly, she smiles back.

The next day, she puts the candy bar in her backpack, before school. All day, she's aware of its presence, safely tucked in a front pocket. All day, she wonders if she will be able to do what she's thinking of doing. When the bell rings, she swallows hard and then pushes her way through the snowy streets, straight to the welcoming warmth of the convenience store.

At the counter, she can't look at the clerk as she pulls the candy bar from her pack and places it on the counter. It takes a moment or two, but finally she whispers, “How much for this?”
He scans the candy, tells her the cost. and takes her money. As he hands her the change, she finally looks up, into his eyes.

He says, “Come back soon."

And she does.

Being: Part Two

 

What do I mean by “Being” as opposed to “Doing”? I don't always do well with abstract concepts, so even though I have an overall impression of what this means, I have a very hard putting it into words. As I struggle to find a way to express these thoughts, one comparison I keep coming up with is this:

Doing is a one-night-stand while Being is a long-term relationship.

Last month, I wrote a blog about a class I attended on forgiveness. This class touched on many different aspects of forgiveness, but one I found very interesting was that apparently there are measurable physical changes that take place in the brain - an actual chemical response in the pleasure center - when one contemplates revenge.

Think about that, for a moment. When you are hurt by someone, you feel like crap, but then your brain lights up with the idea of revenge and the promise of a chemical high if you act on that impulse.

Why not take that little boost? Why would anyone want to feel anger, hurt, or despair when these feelings could be quickly replaced with a nice rush of adrenaline and dopamine?

An example

I’m hurt. My bruised ego cries out for proof of my worth and value. It wasn’t me! It was the other person who caused this! My brain is firing away, calling for revenge, and it is very tempting. I don't want all these feelings - anger, pain, grief...

This sucks!

I need to do something!

Again and again I think about getting back at the other person because I want these feelings to go away. I need to do something and taking revenge is the reaction that seems the most obvious…

Reacting:

Ah! I've taken my revenge. The pleasure center of my brain glows bright and I am washed in it’s warmth. I feel good.

But then, the rush wears off.

Have I actually proven my self-worth? Have I shown myself and the world that the other person is evil and deserved to suffer at my hands?

I start to wonder if I've actually brought myself down to the level of one who hurt me. I don't want to consdier this because I've already defined them as "bad".

I'm not like them!

The need to prove my self-worth is stronger than ever. In addition, now I have to live with the fear that the other person may exact revenge on me. I want everyone around me to see my side. Everytime someone tells me I'm right, I feel justified in my actions and relive a subtler version of the revenge-high.

Some time later, I'm still carrying around the fear and self-doubt. My own self-worth is wrapped up in the opinions of others and, like a junkie, I am craving that chemical rush. How far will I go to keep getting it?

The other possibility is Acting Consciously:

I say, No. I’m not going to let the other person control my life like that. I’m not going for that one-night-stand, even though I feel like crap.  

I'm so angry I can hardly breathe, but I look consciously at the feelings. I pick up a rubber bat and swing it at a big pillow, all alone in my basement. I yell out my anger,  all but demolishing that pillow, until I can't lift my arms, and then I sit on the floor and cry until I can’t cry anymore..

Now, with my body weary and my mind calm, I carefully consider my options. What steps do I need to take to be safe from this person in the future? I take action in the way that is in my best interest.

When I wake up the next morning, I remember the hurt, but I know I’m okay. I’m really okay… and I find I can let it go.

When I am reactive, it's just like a one-night-stand. I'm going to wake up in the morning and have to face the consequences of my actions, and any short-lived reward I got the night before is not going to seem worth it.

When I am acting consciously, I'm walking the life-path I'm meant to travel. It's going to have ups and downs, but I'm able to hear my inner guide, and therefore never feel alone. I'm peacefully enjoying the comfort of a long-term relationship with myself.

Reacting (doing) brings a momentary high, which we can come to crave, but acting consciously (being) brings serenity and self-love.

Buzzword Writing Exercise Submissions

I was struggling yesterday, and so I didn't get a post up. I'm still struggling but I'm making myself do what I need to do, so that's an improvement. There are still things I'm avoiding and I still feel very overwhelmed, but the hopelessness is a little less intense, today.


Anyway, Here are the submissions to Sunday's writing exercise. The assignment was:

Think about what you are most striving to learn, do, complete, or accomplish, at this time of your life. It can be a life-long goal or a simple daily task. Come up with a word or short phrase to sum this up. This word or phrase becomes your “Buzz Word.” Write the “buzz word” on a piece of paper. Next, write one sentence beginning with each letter in your "buzz word".

And here are the submissions:




ClinicallyClueless said: "Here is a quick one on my goal of becoming a psychologist."

Prepare for GRE
Stay focused on my goal to earn my doctorate
Yes, I can!! Yes, I will!!
Choose to just be me
Husband and my therapist are 100% behind me
Other people's responses are not a relection of my self worth
Let go of eating disorder
Other people's responses are not a refection of my ability to succeed
Gary, my T, believes that I will sail through school and make a great psychologist
Increase my EGO strength
Stay committed to therapy and getting better
Therapy will help me meet my goal

Gail chose SELF PRESERVE as her buzz word.

S - IT IS IMPORTANT TOS TAY TRUE TO MY VALUES
E - EXERCISE IS FREEING AND REMINDS ME OF MY STRENGTH
L - LAUGHTER IS A MUCH NEEDED EXPERIENCE AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE
F - FORGIVENESS IS CLEANSING AND LIFTS BURDEN AND BAGGAGE
P - PRAYING IS HUMBLING AS IT TESTS FAITH AND PATIENCE
R - REMEMBERING DAYS GONE BY IS BITTERSWEET
E - EXCITEMENT FOR LIFE IS A REAL MOOD UPLIFTER.
S - SADNESS IS A PART OF LIFE. IT ENHANCES THE HAPPIER TIMES.
E - ENERGY EBBS AND FLOWS.
R - RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS DO MATTER
V - VACATION FROM ROUTINES HELP RESTORE BALANCE AND SANITY
E - EVERY DAY IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO LOVE, AND LOVE MORE.

Dawn said, "I was kind of stretching it a bit finding a word to begin some of my sentences!" (I hear that, Dawn! It wasn't easy...  but it seems you did very well.) Her buzz word is PHOTOGRAPHY
Photos, as a means of expressing oneself, has always fascinated me.
However, I have never explored this interest much.
Opening my camera's manual and studying it would help!
Taking a photography class is something I would like to do.
Often, I look to nature for inspiration.
Good photos are sometimes subjective to a person's interest.
Recognizing what makes a good photograph is something I would like to learn.
Attracting people's interest in my photographs would be cool.
Panoramic photos are interesting to me.
Hopefully I'll make the time to explore this interest.
Yellow is a pretty color in photographs.

Desiree  had a free-and-easy approach to this exercise. (I love that - nice when we can cut loose and have fun). She decided to use Buzzword as her buzzword, only she did it backwards. Here's her explanation and submission:

"OK, Shen! Slept on it...still BLANK! So, what does that mean? I am a 56 year old woman, living my life without a BUZZ WORD! Does this mean I'm directionless? (OK, I just used the 'd' in "word"...perhaps I'll continue in this vein, going backwards through the letters that make up buzz word...my word can be "drow zzub" :) So, continuing now, with 'r'...am I guilty of...
Rarely taking the time to ponder my situation?
Or am I so caught up in the moment, that I give little thought to yesterday or tomorrow?
Would that seem to be a good enough explanation?
Cheating now, I'm combining the two 'z's...ZZ is an acronymn for sleep...perhaps I'm passing through life too drowsily?
Until you prodded me into being aware?
Bingo! That's it...I need to make time to focus on the areas I still need to develop! :)

Although this started out as a bit tongue-in-cheek, Shen, it seems the old saying 'never a truer word than one spoken in jest' may well apply! I really did try to come up with something profound and meaningful to dispel any notions that I might just be simple-minded, but at the moment, my days are taken up with puppies and I don't seem able to think beyond their next meal or my next trip into the garden to clean up after them ;)

Maybe this was my 'wakeup call' to remind me that I need to be more balanced? Not to become so immersed in the here and now, but stretch my mind to think about what comes afterwards? After all, these puppies are going to grow up, just as my children did and then I have to find other things to fill the gaps...I think you've got me on to something here, Shen ;
Either way, I had fun not complying strictly with the rules of this exercise!

From middle child I received this submission about the Buzzword Clean house.

Cancel extra magazines.
Learn to keep busy.
Eat three meals a day.
Appreciate what I have.
Notice how good I feel when something is clean.

Honor my husband by keeping a nice house.
Observe his reaction to what I have done.
Understand that this mess depresses me.
Serve the Lord with gladness.
Enter into a clean home.

And finally, here's mine. Originally, I was going to write about Forgiveness. I even had it roughed out, but I felt like shifting that just a little bit to “self forgiveness” because of how this week has gone.

Shame is an out-of-control vehicle with no one at the wheel.

Erratically, it overwhelms me and sweeps me away.

Love myself?

Fear and anger come together.

Floundering, I think about how easy it is to be gentle when it’s someone else.

Overwhelming hopelessness, a traveling companion I thought I’d left behind, once again joins the wild ride.

Reaching out to others for help, I await responses I can already predict.

Giving in to worthlessness is more than I can stand, so I hide from it all.

I need to do something, but I can’t make myself do anything.

Vacantl.y I check my email, again and again and again.

Eventually, gentle replies appear but they can't ease the angst.

Nothing seems to help.

Each word and phrase I read I could have written myself because I've had the answer all along.

Sneaking a look at the little child inside, I know she doesn’t deserve to be treated this way.

Slowly, I acknowledge the truth: Accepting all that I am is the only escape.

That's it for this week. Thank you all for the great submissions - wonderful distractions and each one a reflection of an individual I feel privileged to know.

I have a lot of other stuff I want to post... but I haven't been very productive this week. It's bound to get better.

In This Moment

When you look at yourself, do you see what God sees?
When you speak to yourself, do you say what God would say?
When you hear yourself, do you hear God’s voice and words?
When you love yourself, can you love absolutely as God does?

What if this moment was not one in a line, stuck between others like the filling of an Oreo?
What if this instant stood alone, without the regrets of the past or the worries of the future?
If you close your eyes, can you push aside this time and place?
What would God want for you, right now?

Unconditional Love and Forgiveness

Last night, I went to a Forgiveness Workshop, facilitated by Mary Hayes Grieco. I learned of this workshop in January when one of the women from the Wild Souls Retreat saw that Ms. Grieco would be giving the free workshop in my area, and sent me an email.

The woman who sent the email, said she had been able to attend a lecture given by Dr. Edith Stauffer, years ago. Dr. Stauffer was a spiritual teacher who developed an Unconditional Love and Forgiveness workshop, and when she retired, she passed it on to Ms. Grieco.                                     

Creating Space by Shen

The first hour of the free, two-hour workshop was full of entertaining anecdotes that made me understand Ms. Grieco as a real human being. There was no preaching-from-the-pulpit feel to this presentation. Everything she said came from a place of honesty. Yes, she seemed to say, I am not perfect, but I am learning and I am getting better all the time.

                                                     
During the second half of the workshop, she talked about the Eight Steps to Forgiving Another. There are also Five Steps to Self-Forgiveness. These were not new concepts to me - I have been an active student of "how to forgive" for some time now - but hearing her real-life examples and seeing everything outlined so succinctly, helped to clarify and solidify the ideas in my mind. I know the steps to forgiveness are going to be extremely helpful to me, not just next week, but for as long as I remember to use them.

These phrases particularly stood out to me, as she spoke last night.

Spirituality is a state of presence
Master your life
Remember, but forgive
Aim for alignment – spiritually, physically and emotionally
Be present in the moment
Resentment and unresolved rage are toxic to the soul
Shift the energy
Anger is an emotion. It can’t be resolved mentally – it must be resolved emotionally
Look at yourself as God sees you - perfect and whole; a cherished child

The other really important thing I got out of hearing Mary Hayes Grieco speak last night was clarification of an idea that has been growing inside me for some time. I know that C has said almost this same thing to me. I know others have, as well, and I've read things like this in books and blogs. Sometimes it just has to be the right time and place, and I think I am in that time and place, right now.

So, here is my “wisdom of the day”:

The resentment you carry is the connection between you and the one with whom you are angry. When you release that resentment, the connection is gone. Your anger is literally holding you to the one who has hurt you! Dissolving that attachment can unblock the flow of energy and love in you and make space for all the good things you want.

Could the timing of this workshop have been any better, for me? As I said, I heard about this five months ago and had nearly forgotten about it until an email reminder came out a couple weeks ago. To me, it is just one more thing that points to my Awareness Ceremony being exactly the right thing at the right time. So many things are coming together. Everything feels as if it is in alignment.

I brought my copy of "Be a Light" for Ms. Grieco to sign. I was a little embarrassed when she opened it to sign it and it was already signed. I had bought it online, and it came as a signed copy. It really is not the same as having her sign it in person. I explained, she smiled, asked my name and signed my book to me.

I bought two of her CDs, last night. One of them is called A Woman’s Ways. It is about developing intuition. The other one is called, A Peaceful Heart. This one I will be putting to good use, next week. It is “A practical guide to unconditional love and forgiveness”.

I will be using the CD on Wednesday, along with her Steps to Forgiveness, and some other tools I've collected along the way, to guide me through the rest of the emotional baggage I am still carrying. When I sit down for my ceremony on Thursday, I want to be completely ready. I’ve done a lot of work, and I feel very certain that this will be a final piece of release, for me, about much of what I am carrying around from the past.

I don’t want to carry it, anymore. It’s heavy and dirty and ugly and I have much better things to do with my life. Somehow, I know that releasing all of this old clutter from my soul is going to make room for something really wonderful. I know that the space I am creating is necessary and I have such a strong sense of anticipation.

I can’t wait to see what will fill me up.

Grace in My Garden

From people in the meetings, and in books on Co-Dependency, three terms seemed to be used as synonyms:
Acceptance,
Letting go,
and
Forgiveness.
When I first came to CoDA, I heard people speak these words and my heart would immediately close. I would hear that these things were things we needed to do.
It was explained that forgiveness was not for the person who had committed the offense.
Forgiveness was for the victim.
I’d think, “How is that possible? It makes no sense!”

Over time, I began to object to the way people used these terms interchangably.
Acceptance seemed like something I might be able to achieve. Letting go was still out of reach, but the idea that I could accept that my life was how it was and move forward from there was very different from forgiving those who I blamed for putting me on the course I'd been following. To me, it felt like forgiving was the same as saying what had happened to me was okay. It was like saying, “I’m not that important. It’s okay if you hurt me.”

I told my sponsor, last summer, that I would never forgive my father. A defiant child inside me screamed, “You can’t make me!”

In the garden of our lives, the wounds of the past are barren places. Many of us avoid looking into these dark deserts of despair. Fear of these bleak, infertile spaces haunts our thoughts, dreams, actions and aspirations. No one showed us how to care for our garden. We allow ourselves to be victimized and avoid the things we need most. As the sterile darkness spreads, we find ourselves in smaller and smaller cages of denial, but still we refuse to face that which is preventing us from becoming what we can be - what we are meant to be.
It feels hopeless.

In our hands, we hold the seeds to Acceptance, Letting Go, and Forgiveness, but until we take the time to step into the barren places, push the dirt aside, and place the seeds in the ground, there is no hope for them to grow.

For me, I believe I began to bury those seeds in March of last year.
If I had a bottom, that was it.

I recently heard this question asked at a CoDA meeting:
When does one hit bottom?
The answer: When one stops digging.

I looked at the holes I’d been burying myself in and decided, instead, to plant those seeds I’d been hanging onto. Continuing my Inner Child work in therapy has let sunlight in my garden. Working the steps in CoDA has been the much needed rain. In the last year, I believe the seeds have grown into something tangible, something I can almost taste, but still there is something missing.

Acceptance.
In my garden, acceptance is a tangy, not quite ripe orange. It is hard to peal, but I have been working at it for some time. The sections I have free are not as sweet as I would like, but I can get them down without too much discomfort.

Letting go.
With the first sections of orange inside me, the green limes of letting go have become thin-skinned and ripe. I can open them up and breathe in the citrus smell, but the tartness puckers my mouth before I can swallow a mouthful.

Forgiveness.
Yellow lemons grow in my garden. They are forgiveness; beautiful to look at, but impossible to digest. Just opening them makes my eyes water.

I am writing out my eighth step, this weekend. This step is:
“Made a list of all persons we have harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.”

The timing on this seems perfect. My “Acceptance Ceremony” is only ten days away. What better time to begin to take responsibility for my part in it all?

I have not been perfect. As Melody Beattie says in “Codependents’ Guide to the Twelve Steps”:

“It is hard to be nurturing, loving nonshaming and present to...if we have never been nurtured or if all we know is control and shame, and if we ourselves are doubled over in pain. Being without boundaries, not being able to set appropriate limits… is doing harm.”

I could continue to play the victim and relieve myself of all responsibility because of what has happened to me in the past, but does that really serve me? Even if it did, wouldn’t this kind of attitude mean that I also have to relieve those who have harmed me of responsibility? Surely their behavior has stemmed from unmet needs and abuse in their own lives….

As suggested in the Beattie book, I am taking breaks to “find peace” when it feels overwhelming. I wrote the first part of this blog post during the first break, and now I am coming back to finish it.

I think I understand what was once missing in my garden.

I believe there is more to creating life than sunlight, water and earth. For my seeds to grow into something I can ingest, something nourishing and sweet, I need divine intervention.

As I said, I have not been perfect. How unbelievably lucky I am that there is a thing called “unconditional love”. If there is anyone who can love unconditionally, it would have to be God. Since I feel the presence of God in my life anytime I sincerely look for it, and since I believe in unconditional love, I know that God loves me unconditionally.
I am not meant to live in shame, anger and fear.
I am not alone.
I have been forgiven.
This kind of presence, forgiveness and unconditional love has a name.
It’s called Grace.

Grace is the final ingredient I need to make my garden flourish. Grace is like sugar, sprinkled generously on the tart and tangy fruit I am finally harvesting. Sweetened, watered and warmed by the sun, what was once impossible to swallow is becoming something too sweet to resist.

Door in the Floor

This video is short and powerful. The person who shared it with me called it, "The door in the floor", which of course I had to look into. Doors have been an integral part of my healing recently. I swear I saw that title somewhere when I first went to see the video, as well, but now I can't find any word around it except "forgiveness". So, if you can clear that up for me, I would appreciate it!

I suppose there are a multitude of possible doors, and my goal is to open them all.

Daddy's Girl

There are things that never were
Things I'll never see

How do I forgive the things
That can never be?

The Shadow of That Which Never Was