Home→Forums→Share Your Truth→Old Journal- things that pierce the human heart
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anita.
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January 22, 2025 at 6:17 pm #441738
anita
ParticipantDear Peter:
I am (!) Looking forward to read, process and and reply Thurs morning.
Anita
January 23, 2025 at 11:52 am #441753Peter
ParticipantLast night I happened upon the following.
From Youtube channel – Like Stories of Old – Interstellar’s Hidden Meaning Behind Love and Time
“Listen to me when I say that love isn’t something we invented, it’s observable and powerful, it has to mean something…maybe it means something more, something we can’t yet understand. Maybe it’s some evidence, some artifact of a higher dimension that we can’t consciously perceive. Love is the one thing we’re capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space.” — Dr. Brand, Interstellar.Then book I’m reading at bed time – ‘A Soldier of the Great War’ – by Mark Helprin
Old man: Do you know why you walk slowly when you’re old?
Alessandro: No
Old man: Because with age you receive the gift of friction. The less time you have, the more you suffer, the more you feel, the more you observe, and the more slowly time moves even as it races ahead. (a good description of how I’ve been experiencing time lately)
Alessandro: The less time, the more friction, difficulty, and viscosity. Time expands. Is that correct?
Old man: Yes
Alessandro: At the end, when no time is left, it will pass so slowly that it will not pass at all.”
Old man: Correct
Alessandro: Then, at death, time stops?
Old Man: Old men on their deathbeds call for their fathers not because they are afraid, but because they have seen time bend back upon itself… When I was your age I was skeptical and quick. I made fast work of the myths of heaven and hell and of the vastly deficient idea of nothingness. As I’ve grown older, I’ve seen that the world is made of perfect balances and exact compensations. The heavier the burden and the closer you get to the end, the more vicious time becomes, and you see, in slow motion, intimations of eternity.Then this morning as I woke I had the intuition to step back and let these notions we’ve been exploring go for – their is a time to think and analyze and a time to treasure up and ponder in ones heart.
That said looking back at some old journal entries I noticed that I’ve struggled with my relationship with the notion of hope so I might explore that in my next posts.
January 23, 2025 at 12:30 pm #441754Anonymous
InactiveHi Peter
Sorry for the late reply. The kiddo started walking and I’m exhausted.
Haha I can believe it! 😊 I hate when that happens.
I think I was just lost in my own thoughts and memories to be honest. That quote reminded me of an old friend who used to believe that people were not meant to be happy. It makes sense that you would perceive it in a different way.
I guess it depends on how you define joy? Or maybe people just experience it differently? I’m a quiet simple person. I would perhaps describe it as contentment, peace or serenity.
And from the perspective of Traditional Chinese Medicine, the goal is to simply be calm. Strong emotions good and bad are both seen as harmful.
I’m curious about your experience of joy, if you would like to describe it?
For me, it was just a side effect of meditation. My thoughts slowed down until there were gaps between them, and within that space I noticed all of the beauty in the world I had missed before.
I do think that personal development is really important though. It is good to like yourself and it reduces suffering.
I believe it is possible to be still and content with a busy life. I think that as a parent, it’s teaching me a lot about patience. The amount of self control that is needed to raise a child in a healthy way is wild. Even under the most extreme circumstances. You learn to let go of stressors until you see something of actual consequence.
Today my son learned to walk and with that came absolute chaos. Rolling with it is important. But sometimes you just need to stop and breathe for a bit.
What happens to the moment when the sun sets? I don’t think I understand the question, I will take a stab at it though. Some moments are forgotten (lost to the sands of time), some are preserved in pictures, some are burned into our memories. But every day the moment repeats itself whether we watch it or not.
Yes, I would agree, in the moment there is no need to label these things.
Thank you for letting me ramble!
Love, peace and forgiveness! ❤️🙏
January 23, 2025 at 12:49 pm #441759anita
ParticipantDear peter:
I will start with processing what you shared at the end of your second, recent post:
“Then this morning as I woke I had the intuition to step back and let these notions we’ve been exploring go for – their is a time to think and analyze and a time to treasure up and ponder in ones heart”-
– your intuition prompted you to step back and let go of the intellectual exploration and analysis we’ve been engaging in. This implies a shift from active thinking and problem-solving to a more passive and reflective state.
You acknowledge that there is a time to think and analyze, which involves actively engaging with ideas, breaking them down, and seeking to understand them logically and intellectually. Conversely, you recognize that there is also a time to “treasure up and ponder in one’s heart.” This suggests a period of reflection and contemplation, where the focus is on deeply feeling the ideas rather than dissecting them. It’s about allowing the insights to settle within and resonate on a more emotional and intuitive level.
I agree that there needs to be a balance between intellectual analysis and emotional reflection. While analyzing and thinking are important for understanding concepts, it’s equally crucial to take time to step back, reflect, and let these notions resonate within the heart. This approach allows for a more holistic and integrated understanding of the ideas, connecting both the mind and the heart.
“That said looking back at some old journal entries I noticed that I’ve struggled with my relationship with the notion of hope so I might explore that in my next posts.”-
– The act of looking back at old journal entries indicates a period of reflection and introspection. It shows that you are revisiting your past thoughts and experiences to gain insights and understand your current state of mind. You acknowledge that you have struggled with your relationship with the concept of hope, that you found it challenging to understand or maintain a positive relationship with it.
The struggle with hope implies emotional complexity, as hope is often intertwined with expectations, dreams, and uncertainties about the future. You expressed an intention to explore the notion of hope in your future posts. This indicates a proactive approach to understanding and addressing your struggles with hope. It shows a willingness to delve deeper into your feelings and thoughts on the subject.
The desire to explore hope further suggests a commitment to personal growth and self-improvement. By examining your relationship with hope, you aim to gain clarity and possibly find a more constructive way to engage with it.
“‘Love is the one thing we’re capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space.’ — Dr. Brand, Interstellar”- I feel it right now, an Eternal Now kind of right now. I feel it. And indeed, as I feel it, I don’t feel a need for labels and measurements. There is no problem in the feeling of it, therefore, nothing to solve, nothing to think about.
My thoughts: generally, we live in the Eternal Realm and in the Temporal Realm. it is not possible to live, as humans, in one or the other. Our brains label for survival just like any other organism (trees label sunlight as desirable- without the thinking- and grow toward it, seeking it; a unicellular protozoan labels acidic water as dangerous, and actively moves away from it). Living solely in the Eternal requires a non-functioning brain on our parts, as humans.
It’s about living in both, letting go of attachment to one or the other. Not labeling either one as superior to the other.
I want to reply further later, Thurs morning. But before I leave your thread for the day, about hope: the image that comes to my mind is that of little kid, me as a girl, you as a boy: we wouldn’t have any trouble stating what we hope for back then, would we? I mean, before fear took too much place in our hearts and minds.
If you ask peter the young boy: “what do you hope for?” What will he say?
I am asking anita the young girl: “what do you hope for?” I answer: LIFE! I want to LIVE! I want to LIVE!” (interestingly, I didn’t say “I hope to live”. I said: I want to live).
Back to you tomorrow.
anita
January 23, 2025 at 3:04 pm #441761Peter
ParticipantHi Helcat
I enjoy your ramblings 🙂 and happy that you tolerate mine.
I’m curious about your experience of joy, if you would like to describe it?
For me the experience of happiness is fleeting, a gift of a moment while Joy or Bliss goes deeper and is more durable. Its not lost when the sun sets.
Where I tend to try to cling to happiness for Joy that urge isn’t present…
I’ve been using the words ‘Bitter Sweet’ to describe it, for me, Joy has a taste…
Where happiness has a giddiness about it, joy has a somber yet content note. LOL Like a good wine…. Happiness is like a sweet wine easy to drink, enjoyed in the moment, but easily forgotten. Where Joy is a complex wine with body, various notes (emotions), presently lingers, where just a sip is enough for you to remember for a life. (I imagine that to be so as I’m not a fan of wine – but metaphor works, maybe…
“What happens to the moment when the sun sets?”I tend to see language as metaphor….
There is for me a difference between Meditation on a sunset and when the sun has set.
Meditating on a sunset, feeling calm, content maybe even happy verses Meditating when the sun has set, and you find yourself in the dark – metaphorical dark – where the world and fears swirling around you. In “darkness” I imagine I might be able to maintain a calm stillness… maybe, but not happiness where if I succeed in remaining calm and still in all that motion, I may even experience as Joy.I had a teacher say that its easy to be calm and happy sitting quietly by a lake with no one around, not so easy in the middle of rush hour and being honked at. Its good to practice by a lake but a point of the practice is learning to take the lake with you wherever you find yourself. Or something like that.
😊 As a parent you’re going to get a lot of practice
“Today my son learned to walk and with that came absolute chaos. Rolling with it is important. But sometimes you just need to stop and breathe for a bit.”
The image that created for me made me smile… and I image that this moment, when remembered years from now will bring a smile to your face. Joy and or happiness…
January 23, 2025 at 3:14 pm #441762Peter
ParticipantHi Anita
“My thoughts: generally, we live in the Eternal Realm and in the Temporal Realm. it is not possible to live, as humans, in one or the other… It’s about living in both, letting go of attachment to one or the other. Not labeling either one as superior to the other.”
Well said. I agree and sometimes imagine it as the yin yang symbol in motion. I know when I’m in anxiety mode both feet are firmly in the temporal (the spinning image goes all wonky) as I’m measuring/labeling like “crazy”. In those moments I need to notice bring myself closer to the Eternal, centering and slowing the spinning image.
“If you ask peter the young boy: “what do you hope for?” What will he say?”
Funny Sad that just reading that question I feel a tightness in my lower abdomen as my hope as a young boy came from a place of fear and anxiety or you might say discomfort and the Hope was to for comfort because discomfort was not only bad but ‘sin’.
I’m afraid my Hope was not for Life but to change what cannot be change. In other words as a young boy I was unknowingly saying a big NO to Life while believing I could fix it by being good and following all the rules. ( I think you had a similar experience with taking on the label of bad, if for different reasons? I wonder if most children do?)Krishnamurti made an argument that most of our hope really represented a fear. And that one hoped when one was in despair.
“Hope means you are in despair. Being in despair, you look to something to give you hope. Have you understood the nature of despair, why you are in despair? Have you ever looked at your despair, why it exists? It exists because you are comparing yourself with somebody. It exists because you want to fulfill, become, be, achieve…” – KrishnamurtiYears ago I determined that if one was to hope unskillfully it was best not to hope at all which I still think, only I didn’t give up on the notion of learning to hope skillfully.
Its why I want to revisit my relationship with Hope – Krishnamurti not wrong but surprising myself, my gut says there is a Hope that, yes, we might turn to in times of trouble, but isn’t about fixing that trouble, or comparing, or even becoming…. Though I feel such a hope would bring one closer to a ‘true self’. Kind of the Joy and sorrow relationship? Maybe? Language is going to get in the way, but think I’m in a space to explore it.
January 24, 2025 at 11:11 am #441786anita
ParticipantDear Peter:
I want to review our valuable communication on this thread before I reply to your recent posts, so to better integrate what I processed so far before moving forward with the conversation. I expect to do it by Monday. I remember that you said that you take a break from the computer on weekends. I wish you a good Friday and a restful weekend!
anita
January 24, 2025 at 2:30 pm #441787Peter
ParticipantHi Anita
Rereading my last post it might sound like I had a horrible childhood which it wasn’t. As it comes to hope as a child I doubt I gave it much thought. Life happens so fast at that age that memory hasn’t had enough time to get its hold into you.
The think when were young even unskillful hope can act as a band-aid for the moment, even as they may sub-consciously reinforce the fear that the hope was called upon to relieve.
It is in hindsight that I realized where much of my future anxiety came from – I hoped unskillfully, unintentionally reinforcing the not quite conscious suspicion I was wrong/bad.
January 26, 2025 at 12:17 pm #441823anita
ParticipantDear Peter:
I intend to dedicate all of Mon morning to your thread, but for now, in regard to this part of your recent post: “As it comes to hope as a child I doubt I gave it much thought. Life happens so fast at that age that memory hasn’t had enough time to get its hold into you”-
– from my experience, life in childhood happens so fast only in the context of an adult looking back at it, remembering it. In childhood, time has a different quality, a timeless quality, and when tragedy hits, there’s a forever feel to it.
We forget how it really was when remembering as it truly was is overwhelming.
anita
January 26, 2025 at 3:07 pm #441828Anonymous
InactiveHi Peter
I enjoy your rambling too. 😊 I just don’t always understand immediately. I will try to ask more questions, because you explain things well when asked.
It is always interesting how people experience things differently. Thank you for sharing! 🙏
Thank you for explaining! I have never tried to meditate on a sunset. I think that was part of my confusion.
I hope you don’t mind if I share an experience of happiness?
Well, I think that we choose to accept or reject reality based on personal rules. When we want to be happy we can reject difficulties. When we want to be unhappy we don’t.
This is just my experience. It is very hard to do and something that I’ve been working on for years. During meditation I learned to stop my thoughts and I have practiced controlling my thoughts outside of meditation too.
Basically, my life was falling apart a few months ago. My husband was falling apart and he couldn’t help. I had to keep everything together, take care of the baby, take care of him. I was miserable. And then I rejected reality. Or more accurately, the rules for how I believed I should feel. I needed strength. I needed peace. Not to be miserable and struggle. And so I decided to be happy instead of being miserable. I took care of myself and did small things that brought me joy. Taking pleasure in the little things.
Hope. I like what you said about hoping skilfully. It is difficult to find a balance.
I don’t necessarily agree that hope comes from despair. I feel like hope comes from a place of strength inside. Despair often comes without hope. I have seen plenty of people experience that. Hope can occur at the same time as despair and be used as a source of strength to cope with difficulties.
I would also suggest that the motivations for hope can be different too. It can be simply born of a desire to escape suffering. Or even choosing not to suffer. Often I feel like we have a choice. We can hold onto the feelings and thoughts that prologue suffering or choose to let them go.
Sorry, I hope that doesn’t count as trying to help. Please feel to disregard. I was just thinking out loud.
I’m glad that talking about my son made you smile. 😊 There will be many fond memories to smile over.
Love, peace and forgiveness! ❤️🙏
January 27, 2025 at 9:39 am #441840anita
ParticipantDear Peter:
I asked you: “If you ask peter the young boy: ‘what do you hope for?’ What will he say?”, and you answered: “Funny Sad that just reading that question I feel a tightness in my lower abdomen as my hope as a young boy came from a place of fear and anxiety or you might say discomfort and the Hope was for comfort because discomfort was not only bad but ‘sin’. I’m afraid my Hope was not for Life but to change what cannot be changed. In other words as a young boy I was unknowingly saying a big NO to Life while believing I could fix it by being good and following all the rules”-
– Processing: you described your childhood hope as stemming from fear and anxiety. This implies that your primary motivation for hope was to escape and prevent discomfort (fear, anxiety) rather than to seek positive experiences.
You linked discomfort with being “bad” or even “sinful.” The use of these terms implies a moral judgment. It indicates that you viewed discomfort not just as an unpleasant experience but as a sign of personal failing or moral inadequacy, believing perhaps that any discomfort you felt was a reflection of your own shortcomings or wrongdoings.
Generally, these beliefs in children are shaped by external expectations or teachings by caregivers, authority figures, or cultural and religious norms. Examples of how such a message is sent to a child by a caregiver: (1) the caregiver dismisses the child’s fear or anxiety by saying things like, “Stop being a baby”, “There’s nothing to be afraid of”, or “Why are you always so scared? You’re such a coward”. This can make the child feel that their emotions are invalid, that experiencing them is wrong, and that feeling fear is a personal failing.
(2) the caregiver rolling their eyes, sighing, or showing impatience when the child expresses fear, sending the message that the child’s emotions are unwelcome or bothersome.
(3) the caregiver Ignores the child’s expressions of fear or anxiety, making the child feel that their emotions are not worthy of attention or support.
Some religious teachings emphasize the idea that fear is a lack of faith or trust in a higher power. For example, messages like, “If you truly had faith, you wouldn’t be afraid”, associating fear and anxiety with sinfulness or moral weakness, leading the child to feel guilty and a failure for feeling fear.
In cultures that value emotional restraint, children are taught that showing fear or anxiety is a sign of weakness. Phrases like, “Real men don’t cry” or “You need to toughen up” reinforce the idea that fear is unacceptable.
Cultures that emphasize success and perfection convey the message that fear and anxiety are obstacles to achievement and should be overcome or hidden to maintain an image of competence.
Portrayals of fearless heroes in movies, TV shows, and books create an ideal that fearlessness is a desirable trait, leading children to feel inadequate for experiencing fear.
Role models, such as parents, teachers, or public figures, who emphasize courage and downplay fear, may inadvertently make children feel that their own fears are unacceptable.
Back to your words, Peter, your reflected that your hope as a child was not directed towards embracing life but rather towards changing what could not be changed, and that you believed that by being good and following all the rules, you could “fix” your discomfort. For you, following rules became a control mechanism, believing perhaps that if you behaved perfectly and met all expectations, you would avoid negative emotions such as fear, anxiety, or guilt.
Generally, rigid conformity involves a lack of flexibility in behavior and thinking. It means strictly following rules without considering context or personal needs. This mindset leads to suppressing one’s true self and emotions to fit into a mold of what is perceived as “good” or acceptable, and it reflects a misunderstanding of the nature of emotions, which cannot always be controlled through external behaviors. Over time, this suppression can lead to resentment and frustration, as the individual’s authentic self is not being acknowledged or expressed.
Believing that one’s worth is tied to rule-following leads to conditional self-worth. This means feeling worthy only when meeting certain standards or expectations. Failure to meet these standards can result in harsh self-criticism.
Using rule-following as a coping mechanism is ineffective for managing emotions in the long term. It does not address the root causes of fear and anxiety and can prevent the development of healthier emotional regulation strategies. It can also lead to avoidance of situations that might evoke negative emotions, limiting personal growth and experiences.
“Krishnamurti made an argument that most of our hope really represented a fear. And that one hoped when one was in despair… Years ago I determined that if one was to hope unskillfully it was best not to hope at all, which I still think, only I didn’t give up on the notion of learning to hope skillfully. It’s why I want to revisit my relationship with Hope – Krishnamurti not wrong but surprising myself, my gut says there is a Hope that, yes, we might turn to in times of trouble, but isn’t about fixing that trouble, or comparing, or even becoming… Though I feel such a hope would bring one closer to a ‘true self’. Kind of the Joy and sorrow relationship? Maybe? Language is going to get in the way, but think I’m in a space to explore it.”-
-Processing: Krishnamurti argues that hope often stems from a place of fear and despair. When individuals are in despair, they look for hope as a way to alleviate their suffering. This aligns with your earlier reflection, Peter, on your childhood hope being rooted in fear and anxiety.
You acknowledge that unskillful hope, which is rooted in fear and the desire to fix external circumstances can be unhelpful, and you now seek to explore a different kind of hope— one that isn’t about fixing trouble, comparing, or achieving. Your desire to revisit his relationship with hope indicates a shift towards acceptance and finding meaning in life’s experiences without the need to control or fix them. This aligns with the idea of moving away from rigid conformity and towards a more authentic and self-accepting approach.
“As a young boy I was unknowingly saying a big NO to Life while believing I could fix it by being good and following all the rules. (I think you had a similar experience with taking on the label of bad, if for different reasons? I wonder if most children do?)”-
– a lot of people can relate to this, and so can I. I believed that if I followed all the rules, I would become good and worthy of a good life. For a long time after I started my first quality psychotherapy in 2011, I was still compelled to make rules for myself. I used to type rules and print them on papers titled “Rules 4 Life”, then sign them. I believed, every time I typed, printed and signed 10-20 rules, or more, that I would follow them perfectly and that I just started a good life, being a good person worthy of a good life. Each such time ended with a new Rules 4 Life, a new effort. Talking about the futility of Rigid Conformity.
My Hope now is to say YES to me being me, a person who is no longer primarily suppressed and repressed, but expressed according to the values I believe in (do-no-harm is one), to undo the difficulty in processing my own feelings of conflict and despair: to let life live through me, as Hokusai Says (the poem)- to let my emotions (energy in-motion) flow through me, unrestricted by labels or rules.
My whole life I wanted to be good and worthy of that peace of mind that evaded me. As a way of life (a non-life), I was holding my breath literally (restricted inhaling & exhaling) and figuratively, following rules (and breaking them) until such time that I can breathe again, inhale, exhale, all the way, comfortably.
I wrote above: “Using rule-following as a coping mechanism is ineffective for managing emotions in the long term. It does not address the root causes of fear and anxiety”- the root cause of my ongoing anxiety has always been the devastating belief that I was a bad person waiting to be good.
Yesterday, I wrote to you: “In childhood, time has a different quality, a timeless quality, and when tragedy hits, there’s a forever feel to it”- the tragedy that hit me and stayed persistently for decades, is the accusation that I was a bad person, and that I was a bad person from a time before I had a chance to have a say about it: a chance to correct any (what?) bad deeds. The accusation just fell from the skies (my mother= god) and crushed me for so very long.
I will go over your thread from the beginning and connect it to Hope- in a later post.
anita
January 27, 2025 at 9:44 am #441841Peter
ParticipantHi Helcat
Reading your comments I didn’t feel you were trying to fix me. I see this kind of dialog as an exploration. Both you and Anita have shared thoughts that brought me back to earth 😊 and push back. (we need tension to become conscious)
I like how your meditation helped you pause and notice the small things that reconnected you to your true self, and how that help you though the chaotic times. (I suspect that in a dialog on hope we could, and maybe even should, end here…. But I’m going to type 5 it and confuse things. 😊)
“I don’t necessarily agree that hope comes from despairr” – I wrote that badly. In the present moment of the experience I agree while in detached hindsight I think there is a connection.
The connection to hope and despair is the idea that in times of discomfort or despair, when where ready and able, we turn to hope to help us pull through. In the exercise of looking back I think we can trace a hope to the experience that called it forward. (Language is going to get in the way…. I view hope as a something exercised in the temporal realm of experience which means it has a opposite from which it is intimately connected. Sadly the ‘needle’ between opposites can be one sided. As you mentioned balance is a key. Happily, if skillful, this tension of opposites creates greater self awareness and consciousness. )
This had me asking the question:
At a sub-conscious level is it possible that an unskillful hope unintentionally reinforced the experience I was seeking relief from? I’m leaning towards a yes.You may recall the number of times I’ve written the question – ‘
- How will you respond to Life as it is?
’, only to get lost in a secondary question – Am I seeing life as it is?
I agree that we can choose to accept or reject reality… though at the same time I’m not sure we always see/know reality as it is. My own experiences shows how I fill the space between the observed and the observer with my expectations, the trickster that is memory, fears, discomfort, hopes…. which often distorted reality and in hindsight, leaves me wondering about choice. (though not responsibility).
Question: Can a distorted view of realty fool us into believing that we are choosing happiness or despair?
(I have wondered if sometimes I weren’t happy being miserable.)Looking back in my journal its clear in hindsight how among other things unskillful hope hid and distorted my reality which I don’t feel was a ‘conscious’ choice. As Anita noted – childhood happens so fast only in the context of an adult looking back that we begin to see clearer. This is where I see the exercise of removing measuring labels from our stories as being helpful as it allows the space between observer and observed – that I now realize are both me – smaller.
Looking back I note a tendency of getting stuck in the retelling of stories of something that happened where in hindsight I see a nu-articulated thought or hope that if I repeated a story enough times the outcome could be different. Writing that I also note the tendency to mistake a wish for hope. (“That trick never works!”… “This time for sure!” – LOL a memory of a carton i would watch over and over as a young boy. A lesson on never learning the lesson… unskilled hope or healthy optimism??? 🙂 – 10 points if you get the reference.)
From that I note the following thoughts about unskillful hope
– it’s not fully conscious – perhaps the reason it can unintentionally reinforce its opposite, though in the moment
provide relief.
– a desire to change what happened in the past, a hope to change what can’t be changed and is not ours to change.
– a desire to control the future and create what is not ours to create.
– a desire that life be other then what it is…
– a desire to avoid and or hide from reality.Humm… the word desire is showing up quite a bit.
January 27, 2025 at 9:53 am #441842anita
ParticipantDear Peter: we submitted posts 5 min apart. Maybe you didn’t notice my recent post.
January 27, 2025 at 11:28 am #441843anita
ParticipantDear Peter:
Peter, Jan 10, a quote (I am adding big case letters): “We must renounce our childhood vows. They TRAP OUR HEARTS… we BELIEVE the LIE and make the VOW. It is important to break the vow so it may not have a strong hold on our hearts”- my childhood vow: From now on, from today on, I will be a good girl!
What TRAPPED MY HEART was the LIE that yesterday I was bad, and if I am not careful today- if I don’t follow the rules or in the absence of external rules, make my own rules (“Rules 4 Life”)- I will be as bad today as I was yesterday.
It is important for me to break the vow because it traps my heart in the desire to be good.
If I know that I am good, I no longer desire to be good. What other desire may take the place of the-desire-to-be-good?
The desire for the experience of life beyond the trap of waiting-to-be-good. A sigh of relief. Running through an imaginary field of green grass, the gentle sun above, a child running, falling, lying on the ground frozen in time for decades, then getting up, an older woman resuming the run across field of green grass. Perhaps briskly walking across, don’t think I can run, not like a child ca run. Too hard for my aging knees.
I am so very tired today, Peter, feeling a bit depressed. Be back tomorrow.
anita
January 27, 2025 at 1:56 pm #441856Peter
ParticipantHi Anita
That was a very thoughtful reply. I noticed how the word ‘fix’ has for me been revealed as having ‘arisen’ from an unskillful (I was going to label bad) past association. I understand better now why in the orignal post I wrote I wasn’t looking to fix something.
– the root cause of our ongoing anxiety has always been the devastating belief that I was a bad person waiting to be good… the tragedy that hit me and stayed persistently for decades, is the accusation that I was a bad person, and that I was a bad person from a time before I had a chance to have a say about it – we both arrive at the same place if by different paths.
I suspect a notion that most children have of being wrong is behind most of our struggles. Mine came from religion. I see in my journal quite a few attempts at trying to come to terms with the notion of ‘original as my understanding of ‘original sin’ was and is firmly connected to disobedience. (As I write that I notice anger – all the times I was told I could fix by obeying and didn’t question so much. FYI telling a type 5 not to question is telling them not to be.)
Today I reject that theology of ‘original sin’. If I were to think in terms of original sin, defining sin as in missing the mark, I will argue its ‘shame’. The undeserved shame of believing our ‘naked’ True self is ‘wrong’ even ‘bad’ and needing to be covered up. If you think about it were born naked and then will spend most of our lives trying to get back to being ‘naked’.
“In childhood, time has a different quality, a timeless quality, and when tragedy hits, there’s a forever feel to it” – Were so impatient to grow up time seems to stand still yet because everything is felt so intensely meaningfully new time flies by. As I get older, I experience the opposite. Each day feels as if time has stopped and a struggle… than perhaps because of the space between intensely meaningfully moments time flies – it often feels like the montage scene in the movie ‘Groundhog Day’…
What is a skillful hope that does not try to change, become or fix what isn’t ours to change, what cannot be changed, that isn’t a wish or a desire that Life be other then what it is?
I think we are coming closer to a skillful notion of hope as you identified the destination where such hope leads – A YES
And perhaps this YES is the Skillful Hope and nothing more needs to be said?—————————————————————————–
“If I know that I am good, I no longer desire to be good. What other desire may take the place of the-desire-to-be-good?”
The first thought that came to my mind, was if I really believed ‘I am good’… and if I could not just believe it but know it, that who we are, as we are, even as we work to grow… is OK and is ‘good’. Notice if we remove the label all were left with is ‘I am’
The second thought was, do we need another desire to fill the void, is ‘I Am’ enough? I know the correct answer yet can’t give it.“The desire for the experience of life beyond the trap of waiting-to-be-good. A sigh of relief. Running through an imaginary field of green grass, the gentle sun above, a child running, falling, lying on the ground frozen in time for decades, then getting up, an older woman resuming the run across field of green grass. Perhaps briskly walking across, don’t think I can run, not like a child can run. Too hard for my aging knees.”
This resonates and pierces the heart! ….
I think once wounded, even in the hope of YES, we don’t forget. Bitter… Sweet is all that comes to mind… and if honest its sometimes wondrous but also tiring.
I’m sorry to hear your feeling tired and depressed… my first impulse is a wish/hope to ‘fix’ it…
Instead I’ll sit quietly as it pierces the heart… -
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