Self Care

A day full of exercise, quiet introspection and sorting.  I have felt, but fortunately not expressed, some mild irritation in the last few days, a typical sign that I needed some “self care” days.  I cannot truly listen to others and be present for them unless I pay attention to my own needs.  My feeling is that the others I work with are worth more than that.  I need to be complete for them.

Internal Versus External Changes

During the earlier part of my life, perhaps the first forty seven years, I kept making changes in the externals of my life, in an attempt to feel better about myself.  For example, I got very good at fishing, went fishing a lot and made my own fishing equipment or I learned about raising fish and started a small business by raising African Cichlids.  Another good example is that I read a lot of books, got a Ph.D. and kept moving up the academic ladder.  These changes, and a whole host of other things, were supposed to make me happy.  They did not.
More recently, the last decade or so, I have focused on making internal changes.  For example, I have stopped using guilt, shame, criticism and judgements of myself and the world around me.  Another, related, example, is that I have increased my internal feelings of love, compassion, acceptance and gratitude.  These internal shifts required that I change my world view and view of myself, but also resulted in profound changes in the way I felt about myself.  I now love and enjoy myself and my life, which is still notable to me since my external situation is not very good.  I am disabled, can no longer do many of the things I used to, am sixty-four, getting older, in pain much of the time and a recovering alcoholic.  I am also extremely happy.

Pass It On

Before the lodge tonight I read an e-mail that asked who my first teacher was and I was immediately transported back to sitting and talking with Randy, a poor, sixty-ish, gay, black man, on the tow path of the canal in New Hope, PA, when I was a young teen.  He was the first person in my life to show me selfless love and acceptance.  There have been numerous other teachers, physical and non-physical, during my life.  I was filled with gratitude over the careful molding, guidance and support that I have received along the way.  Now they are all non-physical teachers and part of my role is to “pass it on”.
The lodge tonight was a strong one, as most are.  Thirteen people of both sexes, various ages and backgrounds all questing after spiritual growth, a beautiful thing to be part of.

Dark Night of the Soul

Between 1988 and 1992 I went through what I now recognize as the “Dark Night of the soul”.  It was a period during which everything on the physical/material plane was either taken away or gave me no solace and I still had no meaningful connection with God.  It was a period of transition from intellectual to heart connection coupled with a transition from a reliance/ dependence on material things to non-material.  The things like intellect, money, power, prestige and physical ability were all stripped away or had no meaning, in large part due to the recent onset of my disability.  I became despondent and felt totally lost.  I did try to kill myself during that period, but was prevented from doing so by the power I was trying to connect with.  I had no teacher to guide me at that point, so it took several years for me to make the transition, but I gradually turned away from my dependence on things of the physical plane and developed a true, heart connection with God.  Having gone through the dark night and made the transition, my life and connection are truly wonderful, and I now know it was well worth it.
When I speak of a transition between an intellectual to a heart centered connection with God, I am referring to a switch from believing in the presence of that force, to knowing of it, or from thinking about God to feeling the presence of that entity.  I had been accustomed to using things like knowledge and information during most of my life.  Without the assistance of a teacher, the transition to using feeling and knowing rather than knowledge, took several years.

Heart Connection

The main activities for the day were that I went to the Medical Intuitive/healer that I have been going to for the last couple of years and then I led a men’s group tonight.  The topic that kept coming up was the importance and difficulty of making a heart connection with others, a true and human connection.  Maria and I made a good connection on the drive to and from the healer, then I made a good connection with the healer, while getting the treatment, which was another form of connection.  During the men’s group everyone spoke of the need for that connection and the ease or tendency to block it with personal fears, facades and intellect, all things I used to do.  The heart connection is a simple direct expression of love and humanity between individuals, a moment of intimacy, a beautiful and meaningful thing.

Love Versus Aggression

I have found that if I approach my personal interactions with love and compassion, that it feels good and makes me stronger, emotionally and spiritually, the antagonism of others tends to dissolve and disappear.  The situation usually ends up being a win-win.  A good example of this idea is when I was rear-ended several months ago.  Rather than being angry and aggressive, I was loving and compassionate.  I kept reassuring the person who hit me that the incident was simply an inconvenience and pointed out that no one was hurt.  He calmed down, we gave the police the needed information and his insurance took care of the damage to my car.  A potentially negative situation did not happen and everyone felt good about the interaction.
If, on the other hand, I approach the interaction with aggression and fear, that is what comes back to me and no one is happy with the outcome.  It also weakens me.  In the example above I could have gotten angry and upset at the time spent or the damage to my car.  I could have gotten angry and defensive and the person that hit me could have gotten defensive and continued to feel bad.  It would be nice if the decision makers understood this simple approach, and acted accordingly.  Aggressive conflicts would go away and the freed-up resources could be used for more productive things.

Simplicity

Simplicity came up as a topic again today in the recovery meeting.  Several people commented that the enjoyable part of life is really pretty simple and that their brains complicate things.  A few people commented that their brains find ways to argue with themselves.  I could certainly identify with both.  I still hear whispers of my brain trying to take me out of the moment and complicate life with fearful thoughts.  I use a lot of mindful meditation in order to notice my thoughts and then gentle laughter to not take them seriously.  I then return to the simple truths of living in the moment, love and compassion.

Achieving Harmony

Today I am happy and at peace with my life.  I lead a life immersed in love and service to others and feel that my externals are harmonious with my internals.  Externals like possessions, money, power and prestige are not totally absent from my life but minimal, and they definitely take a back seat.  I encourage others to do the same, and that kind of life works for them too.  For me, the absence of physical health and the presence of physical pain certainly demand respect, attention, acceptance and effort, but apparently do not prevent happiness.  In reviewing how this came about for me, I would say that I made a lot of internal changes in attitudes and beliefs, followed by changes in my externals in order to achieve harmony.  Both sets of changes required a good deal of help, guidance, courage and perseverance.

The Importance of Love

I had two clients and one phone interaction with some parents today.  I made a very strong loving connection with each of them.  The parents are well off and very conservative, while I am quite a bit left of left and decidedly not well off.  It was quite apparent with the parents that my socioeconomic status means nothing in the presence of love and compassion, especially when it comes to their son.  My clients were young adult males and they too listen to me because they know I love and respect them.  I am not the person I used to be, this would not have happened to him.

Levels of Change

I have gone through a lot of personal changes in the last several years, and I certainly realize how difficult some changes are, particularly changes in deep, core values.  The toughest changes for me have been around supposedly “incurable” health issues and my own power to heal them, using love and the healing power of God.  Through the process, I have come to realize and take part in, an immense source of power.  I now use that power and am with it daily.
I have encountered three “levels” that all need to shift if a change is to take place.  I have found that I can influence each of the three levels, using love, understanding and compassion.  If I try to force my will on any of the levels out of fear, which I have done, I fail.  The three levels are; the personal level, the level of what is usually called the collective consciousness and the karmic or soul level.  They all need to shift for a change to take place.  At the personal level there are beliefs such as unworthiness, incapability, attachment and need that have caused me to stay stuck in old patterns of behavior that cause me emotional or physical pain and difficulty.  For example, my believing what the doctors say or depending on medication.  These beliefs are actually comforting, but they also hold me back, and are very difficult to change.
The level of the collective consciousness is, in many cases, the easiest level to change but it does require a lot of patience, forcing it does not work.  I have found this level to be less “gut wrenching”, than the other two.  Basically, if the collective consciousness is that the desired change is totally out of reach and a matter of denial or fantasy, then the force of that collective belief will make the change impossible or very difficult or impossible.  For example, in my case, I need and needed to change the general belief that I will simply deteriorate and die.
The third level that needs to change is the soul or karmic level, which, I have found, can only be addressed through meditation and/or intuition.  There are issues, at a soul level, that I am trying to learn or transcend.  I have found that I need to address these issues, before I can move on to the next set of issues.  For example, in my case, I needed to accept my alcoholism and the fact that my body was not perfect, that I was not “less of a man” because of either of these factors.