Achieving Peace and Serenity

I was reminded today that my experience is that it is not possible to skip over the unpleasant emotions like shame, guilt or hurt, often associated with past events, and move straight to peace and serenity.  It is clear to me that in order to achieve higher levels of communion and deeper levels of peace, it is necessary to completely resolve and integrate those feelings first.  For me, the first step in the process of resolving my past issues was breaking down my denial and becoming aware that I was carrying around feelings of hurt, guilt and shame, an unpleasant realization.  The next step(s) involved several years of shedding light on those feelings, understanding where they came from and recognizing the truth about them, that they were lies or misunderstandings.  The final result has been a sense of freedom I did not know was possible and a deeper love for myself and others.

Joy in Simple Things

One of my friends has a “special needs child”.  She is profoundly disabled and has a lot of pain.  She also finds great joy in the simple things in life, as do I.  Pain and disability has a way of stripping away a commonly held grasping toward the unimportant things in life, transient things like material possessions, money, power and prestige.  It then becomes more possible to see and feel joy in simple, basic things, like feeling a breeze, being with family or a hug.  In general, children have not yet gotten lost in the meaningless aspects of our culture.  They can teach us much, if we adults can listen.

Looking for Love

During the recovery meeting tonight the speaker mentioned what he described as a very strong and indefinable and powerful feeling in his home group that he found very comforting and supportive.  The others, including me, in the meeting believed what he was describing to be love and connectedness.  There was a general acceptance of its importance in recovery, a recognition that we are all seeking that feeling.

Love and Faith

A day of rest.  I did my exercises, paid some bills, went to a movie and relaxed.  The movie, “The Croods”, was all about the consequences of a life based on fear versus a life based on love and faith, very touching.  I cried several times due to the truth expressed in the movie about the confining nature of a fear based life versus the freedom and power of a love and faith based life.
Two things that I practice on a daily basis are gratitude for my life and staying within my physical limits.  The fact is that because of my age and disability, I have relatively little endurance.  I try, successfully, to be grateful and not do very much and, as a result, I end up tired, but not exhausted, at the end of each day.  Recently, I also became aware that any resistance I had to experiencing the events of my life also made me tired, any resistance to “what is”.