Wednesday, July 20, 2011

the sun and the north wind

I can't get the color and other settings to register. I guess this will be another black and white good enough blog. I am tempted to give up and do it tomorrow. Yet the cretive urge is here and my muse hasn't been visiting very often lately. Turning her away because the appearance of my blog doesn't fit my pictures seems so rude. My muse doesn't take well to rejection. When I'm not available to answer her call too many times she feels abandoned and shuts her heart down. I do the same thing when I feel abandoned by Gary. I shut down my heart and start making him wrong and think I need to leave our relationship. I am learning that my ambivalence is really a symptom of my unwillingness to be emotionally vulnerable. That has been the next step after accepting that I am ambivalent. I hate feeling needy. Gary has been out of town for 2 1/2 weeks and rather than allowing myself to miss him I have been plotting my case against him. Tonight I told him what was going on with me and he listened. He is getting very good at hearing my process and just getting it. He has had a lot of practice. When I am feeling abandoned and have shut my heart down it really helps for me to make myself vulnerable and tell Gary what I am feeling. It's hard to feel close to him when I am feeling flat and pissed. I am learning that bringing my attention to feeling abandoned and comforting myself heals the pain of abandoning myself when I feel abandoned by Gary. I can soothe myself for noticing what I am feeling and comfort myself that it is OK to feel it. When I can comfort myself it makes it safe to talk to Gary.
Today I read a story about the north wind and the sun. They were trying to see who could make a human take his coat off. The north wind went first and blew cold wind round and round the person trying to blow his coat off with blasts of cold. The man shivered and drew his coat around him tighter. Then the sun gently warmed the man until he opened his coat and then gradually took it off. The story is about how much better warmth works than cold blasts of wind. Bullying ourselves seems to me to be like cold blasts of wind. Comfort and compassion feel like the warmth of the sun. I think it is important to treat ourselveds with the warmth of the sun if there is something we want to change. I want to learn to go under my ambivalence to the insecure little girl crying for attention and bring lovingkindness to both of us. It is easy to make up a story about Gary and not get the benefit from looking within. As Michael brown says in the Presence Process, " Dissmiss the messenger and get the message." My message is to show up for myself and for the little girl inside me who feels neglected and be with myself with all that I am feeling. Is there a little person inside you who feels neglected? Would you be willing to slow down and give her or him some focused attention? Would you be willing to bring that little child the warmth of the sun?

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Warts and all

Ah, I am up in Boulder this week. I am doing whatever I want. Gary is out of town and I decided to come up here and spend some time alone settling in. Living in two places I sometimes feel scattered and have difficulty focusing. Other times I am filled with gratitude to have two comfortable and lovely places to live.
Spending time with myself this week I have been very aware of my pattern of noticing what is missing and judging myself for it. I went to an enneagram class last night taught by Rene Rosario on core beliefs. Core beliefs get instilled in early childhood in an attempt to adapt and survive our family of origon. Core beliefs color our perception of the world and paint themselves over and over reinforcing themselves. They are usually an unconscious and automatic filter we overlay onto our world. The healing that is available is to begin to be aware of the core belief when it is proving itself true, and stretch to recognize it and open to other options. For example according to Rene who gleaned it from Helen Palmer,the core belief of the four is:
A painful loss of original connection leaves a terrible feeling of deficiency and a sense that something vitally important and special is missing which must be regained. Hence, my walking through life feeling like I am doing it wrong. Moreover, I am doing it wrong because there is something wrong with me. I don't have the (Fill in the blank- creativity, intuition, intelligence, strength,) to do what other people can do.
The good news is that when I notice how true this core belief feels and how my life seems to be proving it to me I can use that to acknowledge my suffering. If I can be kind to myself about my suffering it breaks through the haze of the core belief and reveals the shining present moment where I am free to chose. One thing that has been helpful is when I am bullying myself about doing it wrong I can use Byron Katie's question" Do I absolutely know this is true? " I have been bullying myself about my ambivalence about my relationship with Gary. Today I noticed how I use noticing that to judge myself as a loser and think there is somehing wrong with me. "Noone else has these kind of doubts after six years." Do I absolutely know it is true that noone else does that? No. The truth is I do. I held myself in love about hating myself. When I brought compassion to my suffering I could see that my ambivalence doesn't mean there is something wrong with me. It does mean that I am very challenged to accept another human being for who they are. It makes complete sense when I can see the pattern as a reflection of what I feel about myself. So, when I am lost in making Gary wrong and myself wrong for being with him I can see my suffering and show up for myself and chose myself warts and all. I do chose myself warts and all. I want to use my awareness to bring kindness to my perception of my own warts. What if my warts are the secret healers to my idea that I have a fatal flaw? What if I could start a practice of everytime I discover an unlovable wart I love myself for not loving it. I notice the judgement that I have excessively used the word "I" billions of times in this blog. I notice that I exaggerate and have a need to be dramatic. I see the path to self-hate looming as I decide whether to go down it or not. It is so well-worn and familiar. I pause, and ask for help. A gentle spirit wrapped in diaphonous purple robes meets me at the trailhead with a glass of cool water, a smile and a warm hug. She is so happy to see me and has been waiting for a long time. I allow her to hold me and I feel my heart begin to fill up with her love. It is contageous, much more than warts and I begin to feel my own love for myself slowly spreading out from the center of my heart. The colors green and violet, of the feeling I call "Thank you God" come into my field of vision. I feel them in my body. The salve of gratitude is a heart opener which leads to a wart melter. I am ambivalent and I deserve great love. I actually have great love from my partner Gary. His love for me has been so strong and solid. Although his preference would be that I am consistently rooted in undying admiration for him he loves me ambivalence and all. I can learn from him. We are committed to learning and growing together. What a blessing. I chose to use my ambivalence to love myself and Gary. Why not?
Do you have a wart that you have deemed unacceptable that you could use as a vehicle for bringing conscious kindness to yourself? Have at it! I send you love for the journey.