Sunday evening? Yes, I'm free!

For a year and a half, I have been doing weekly events at my home every Sunday evening. They have been a joy, have attracted wonderful, close people into my life, and have challenged my skills as a facilitator.

Lately, I've noticed that the evenings have started to be a struggle, and I catch myself thinking what can I do that will please the people who come, instead of what can I do that will feed my desire to give. Perhaps it is burn out, perhaps it is a natural ending, perhaps I just need a break.

The decision to end the series brings sadness, wondering, but also relief. I am someone who, when given enough rope, will manage to bind myself so I can't move, so I lose the very freedom that let me aquire the rope in the first place. I stayed in my marriage three years after I realized I was miserable in it, because I had committed myself, for better or worse.

But I am learning. I am learning to look inside, to listen to the whisperings of the angel bending over me, saying, grow, grow, and to be willing to follow its direction, even when I don't know what I'm growing into.

I fear losing my friends and community. I grieve the possible passing of an era in my life. And I am learning to let go of grief, when it is complete, and look up to the beaming sun again, and fill my lungs with the fresh air of spring.

A child has not yet learned expectations, nor has fear made it cling permanently to the familiar. The child is delighted with every new nuance of life, and does not ask, "Why isn't it this way instead?" At some point, when dualism crept into a world where there was no distinction between "I" and "you", I saw the other as separate, and therefore worthy to be blamed for the things I did not like, and I became a victim.

Today, I am learning to let go of my demands that the universe conform to my expectations, and I find peace - and surprisingly, I also find life. New life springs up, not from demanding, but from yielding, and as I let go, I find I have more.

Comment posted by Gene
at 4/9/2006 8:39:00 PM
(I moved your comment, assuming it was meant for this post)

I do feel more free - right now, I'm just enjoying Sunday evenings, and the preparation time the days before, without any specific plans. But plans are slowly forming in my mind. I'm a bit tired of leading - but I think I would like to form a peer group, where everyone takes responsibility for helping make the event happen. It would be a smaller group, most likely, but would let me step down from a leadership role and just be a member for a change.

But, it's still too early to say much definite. I really enjoyed creating the gatherings, and now I'm really enjoying not creating them!

Comment posted by Anonymous
at 4/9/2006 8:31:00 PM
Hi,
We would love to hear your freedom choices since you've been liberated!

A Reason for Resentment

I woke up this morning with some sore muscles, probably from some exercise I got the day before, and thinking about the retreat I had to cancel. I'd been struggling with resentment over an imaginary number of people who felt the retreat was too expensive, repeatedly proving to myself why they were wrong, feeling like I was a victim of their stinginess.

However, I know better. I know at this point in my life that all resentment is illusion - that it always points back to me, to my expectations, to my demand that others act according to my beliefs, to my insistance that the universe please me as I demand. I know full well intellectually that the existence of my resentment has nothing to do with its content.

But as I nursed my sore muscles, wondering what purpose it all served, something came to me. The soreness in my body was a message to me of parts of me that needed attention - a bruise served to let me know that there was a need for my care of my body. The pain did not mean someone was hurting me; it meant I needed to bring my loving attention to the hurting area and take care of it.

Likewise, my resentment has nothing to do with the people I am resenting. Rather, it is a bruise on my soul, a pain that tends to separate me from others - it is a call for me to look at the part of my soul that is hurting, the part that carries expectations, demands of others, the habit of feeling like a victim. It is a call to turn my attention to that part of my soul, and bring lovingkindness to it, so that it can heal.

Learning to Love Myself

When I'm observant, I inevitably see things about myself that I don't like. I observed the other day that I'm very serious most of the time, instead of taking more time to have fun, being more care-free, etc. Today I noticed that I was grumpy in the lunch line at the slow people in front of me.

But something has changed for me over the past few months. Usually,when I notice one of these characteristics, it is accompanied by a familiar sinking feeling, a disappointment in myself, maybe a frustration that I haven't learned this lesson yet, or perhaps some shame. That hasn't been happening lately. I noticed my grumpiness, and immediately I knew that I didn't have to be that way. I wondered a bit about where it came from and why I was feeling it. But it was simply who I was at that moment, and it was okay. And, the moment I had awareness, instead of using it to humor an old fantasy about how bad I am, I used it to build a new fantasy of what it would be like to be cheerful instead of grumpy.

There is hope, after all!

Fatal Attractions

We are often attracted to people - lovers, heros, groups, etc. - because we see something in the other that we want. Something within us responds to the energy we see, and we realize we want more of that energy in our lives, within ourselves. The energy we are attracted to is already latent within us, or there would be no attraction.

A vital attraction is one where we change because of who we are with - we learn and take on the characteristics we desire. A fatal attraction is one that has resistance as well as desire, an energy we both want and which we forbid ourselves.

Suppose through some early circumstance, we do not allow ourselves to be happy and spontaneous. We meet someone of the opposite sex who is carefree, easygoing, playful, and something deep within responds. We want to be able to go there, yet our internal rules say we can't.

If it is a romantic attraction, we may become deeply involved with this person, loving, even worshipping that characteristic we so much wish for ourselves. We bond and start to become one with them, drawing them into ourselves so that we can have that energy, and start to merge our identities.

But then the inevitable happens. The force within us that won't allow us to have that energy, now starts to direct itself to the one merged with us, the one who has become a part of us. The force demands that everything that is a part of us suppress that energy. So the things that used to delight us in the other, now annoy us, seem silly, unnecessary, even annoying or cruel. The attraction becomes fatal, stimulating the destroyer within us, who has not yet been recognized as the killer of our own vital energies.

We can never get from another what we resist within ourselves. Our desire keeps us emotionally distant, because we see the other as different than ourselves. And our resistance suppress the very energy we desire in anyone who gets too close, because we have not yet acknowledged our own shadow.

This is one of the meanings of that phrase, "The answer lies within." We desire another's energy because it is our nature to have that energy ourselves, and it is we ourselves who are resisting the energy. Until we see our role in it, we will continue to pull others to ourselves, only to push them away when they get too close.

Think of the passion we feel for someone apparently different than us - "She's so beautiful! She moves with such grace! She's so lively, so charming!" The deep attraction we feel is actually our desire to allow those same characteristics within us to come forth freely. This is how deeply we want to be our true selves. If we realize we are attracted to our own true potential, we can let go of the desperate fantasy that we will not be whole without them, and begin to appreciate them as someone who embodies our own true characteristics.

Comment posted by jackie
at 3/27/2006 6:53:00 PM
Gene,

I have lately felt that the people I am with are like mirrors of my self. Some of them reflect aspects that I yearn and others reflect aspects I deny, or reject. The difference is that a mirror is static and a person is dynamic.
It is this energy in another that spot lights my shadows, making my shadows invisible, that which makes shadow remains there but to notice it with interest and acceptance the shadow is enlightened.

So I consider an encounter with another an opportunity to get to know about the stranger that I am.
I invite those qualities in people to merge with mine. I know you and you know me.

Old Age

I visited a friend last night who is old, and is perhaps dying. His condition shocked me, even though I had been warned - a few months ago, he was fully capable - intellectually, physically, emotionally. After several falls and medical complications, I found him in a chair, thin, sunken eyes, the voice weak and slow. Several times during my visit, he had to go through the long and exhausting ritual of shifting forwards in his chair so that he could get a urinal under him to pee. I had to stand in front of him, ready to catch him if he slipped off the end of the chair, and help him get his underware down and back up.

I found myself scared, not wanting to be there. In the past, I recall visiting old people in nursing homes, and going into that trance that most visitors seem to have - How are you today? What did you have to eat? Do they treat you well? Good to see you, I'll come back again soon. They felt like an alien creature that I could not relate to. Especially as a child, they seemed so different than me in their actions, looks, and speech, that I did not relate at all.

But this man was a close friend, someone who had been a mentor to me, someone whose thoughts and feelings about life were deep and poinent to me. I struggled with the superimposed images of my mentor with this weak skeleton of a man, and shuttered. I could relate to the friend I knew. But if I related to this man, I would have to face that I could be here someday, having friends undress me and giving me sponge baths, giving up the idea of ever driving again, watching my mind fade until I could not remember what I was watching.

My internal reactions were not nice. I wanted to leave. I resented him talking so long, making it hard to leave a sick friend. I resented having to get him some food. I felt scared, almost sick. My mind shut off, and I found myself treating him like an old person, being polite, but distancing myself so as not to feel my own vulnerability to the fragility of the human body.

I pretend I will live forever, and that old people somehow have fallen from the path, rather than seeing old age as part of the path. I still cling to the notion that I have yet to accomplish my mission on earth, and if I become old and die before I do, my entire life will be worthless. And I am aware that at any moment, a car crossing the line, an anorism, a terrorist act could end it all. I feel a panic.

It is experiences like these that challenge me to look at my life, and ask, who am I really, and what am I doing here? And those are ultimately good questions to ask.

My Father's Death

I've been thinking lately of my father's death. My dad lived a mostly unhappy life. Dealing with depression and a childhood history of abuse and neglect, he had little skill at relating to others or expressing his needs. A car accident when I was a child left him with disabilities that became a badge of wounding he proudly displayed and used to avoid responsibilities. He lived with dreams that he could never fulfill, and left my mother bitter and lonely.

He lived into his eighties. The last few years of his life were spent in bed with progressive diabetes. As the powers of his body waned, his fantasies grew, and he would talk about going into to New York soon to ride the trains, while his legs deteriorated. He refused to exercise or do the physical therapy the nurse prescribed for him, or follow the diet he needed - instead he would sleep and dream.

I had struggled with this shell of a father and the needs of mine as a child had not been fulfilled. He had found sexual excitement in my child's body, and like an innocent without conscience, took his pleasures from me when he wanted. Years of therapy helped me wrap my mind around what had happened and lessen the shame and confusion I felt. And yet I wanted to confront my father before he died - to tell him what I remembered, maybe ask him why he did what he did. I wanted to hear an apology - no, more than that, I wanted to know he loved me, and somehow did not intentionally hurt me.

Three days before his death, something odd happened. His nurse told me that for the first time, he became serene, peaceful, and his lifelong troubled face and spirit let go of their distress. He asked to see his two children - something he had never done before in my memory. The only times he had ever played with me were when my mother urged him to "spend time with the children". But at the end of his life, for the first time, he wanted to see us. My mother, in her bitterness, never delivered the message until after his death, telling me she thought we wouldn't care.

I still wonder deeply what happened in his spirit - someone who lived his life in self-pity, fantasy, and loneliness, who apparently suddenly became capable of love in his last days. What happened as it finally sunk in to his soul that this was it, that the end was near? It seems that the stages of regret and longing were already past - that in his silent revere he must have already forgiven himself for the way he lived his life and the things done and undone. Somehow, the self-pity and self-absorption were apparently gone. And when all the human failings of his life were stripped away by the immenence of death, it seems like something else showed through - something deeper than the scars left on him from the abandonment and pain he had experienced, something deeper than the self-pity, the blocks to really caring about anyone else but himself, the absorption with pleasure that was a relief from the pain of his soul. Somehow, a deeper being that I had never known spoke from a broken body, and sought to touch me and my brother, this time with love.

I think of those who come close to experiencing death, and experience light and love, and they lose all fear of death. I have never heard of anyone coming close to death and hearing the screams and smelling the brimstone. No, hell is here on earth, and is of our own making. My dad lived in hell most of his life - yet, in those three final days, perhaps the curtain was pulled back, and he saw a different truth, a truth where the time wasted no longer mattered, a truth that required no preaching or condemnation for not believing.

What would life be like if we could fully see that truth today?

Comment posted by Anonymous
at 5/21/2006 8:37:00 AM
I want to live in knowing the preciousness of every moment and knowing what is important and not living in fear. this is a beautiful reminder. I wish that you would have had the opportunity to hear what your dad had to say before he died.

A Use For Shame

In our New Age, "shame" is the only bad emotion. It's called useless, destructive, unnatural, and the only thing to be done with it is to get rid of it. Yet consider that we, the modern human being, has been voted "Most Likely To Succeed" by evolution, of all the varient creatures that could have made it to the top through survival of the fittest - and we have this amazing innate capacity for shame. Why would evolution see fit to build this capacity into us if it did not have a positive function?

What we call shame often is not shame - it is anxiety over anticipated negative reactions of others - fear of rejection, or punishment, or abandonment, because of who we are or what we do. This kind of reaction would not exist in an accepting environment - it is caused because of a threat, real or imagined, of not being accepted as we are.

True shame is rather the belief that we are not okay - that who we are, or what we do, is not okay. Believing that we not okay means that there is an authority whose standard we have failed to reach. Often, that authority is society, or other people, or those close to us - we hand over our personal authority to them, and believe them when they say we are not okay.

However, there is one other kind of shame that is not dependent on fear of retribution, nor on the disapproval of others - that is when we discover we do not live up to our own values. The authority is now internal - we have values we believe in, ways in which we want to act because they make us feel proud to be ourselves. Yet, we all have times when we act contrary to our own values. When we do this, we feel shame.

In this situation, shame becomes healthy, even useful. Shame is the indicator that we are violating our own values, disregarding our own beliefs, violating our own integrity. It is a red flag telling us that we need to look inside to see how we want to live, and then model our actions accordingly.

True shame does not revel in our failure - how bad we are, how much we fall short, how poorly we measure up - true shame is a spur to action, to decide what we believe and to live by it. Think of a time that you were caught doing something that *you* knew was wrong, by your own standards. Think of the shame you felt. The next time you are inclined towards that same action, the memory of shame will give you more strength to act differently.

Primitive? Yes. But then all the emotions are. They were developed long before the cerebral cortex. But they also have a power that mere thought can't equal.