I spent the better portion of the afternoon, yesterday, counseling a client, whom I've worked with for a couple of years. I won't go into detail, except to say that I was reminded of how sadly common it is for people to feel feelings of love, longing, need, and passion, yet not express those same feelings to the ones they love.
Sure, sometimes there is an accrual of crummy stuff in a relationship that makes one feel less than inclined to be loving. Sometimes the non-disclosure of how one truly feels is predicated upon a laziness or even a self-interest, "What's in it for me?" Or, sometimes, as was the case with the client yesterday, the timing just doesn't feel right. More often than not, choosing to not express one's true feelings, desires, and passions is rooted, one way or another, in fear: Fear it won't be reciprocated; fear it will be overly reciprocated; fear of giving away too much power (as if power concerns are helpful in an intimate relationship!); fear of pain, somehow.
So many of us go through life not just choosing to not express what we feel about others, but choosing to not express what is in us -- who we are, what we want, what truly stirs our souls.
And the irony is that those same people then ask, "Why am I not happy? I just can't seem to get happy in life."
How, exactly, do you plan to become happy if you are not expressing to others, to yourself, to life itself that which makes you happy?
If you don't have the courage to state to life what you need to be happy, how exactly do you think you're going to become happy?
See the problem?
It is far too easy to jump onto someone else's agenda for happiness or someone else's plan for life, assuming that will bring joy, peace, hope, and laughter. It is sooooo much easier to get on someone else's life plan than to extract from one's insides who one really is and then push it out and lay it out before the world for all to see. It is so much easier to just get on someone else's life plan than to let others see what YOUR life plan really is, or at least some of the elements that would at least make you really happy.
I can still remember back to 9th grade when we did Finian's Rainbow for our spring musical. I was, predictably, cast as the villain (Senator Billboard Rawkins). I raise it here simply because the chorus of one of the songs, which was sung to a young woman, was, "Follow the fellow who follows his dreams." Hitch yourself to someone else's star, then you'll be happy. And, considering that Finian's Rainbow was written in 1947 (and starred Fred Astaire in his last major movie musical), such a message comes as no surprise.
But, I think the social unrest of the 50s and 60s helped us see, among other things, the ultimate no-joy of tying your happiness solely to someone else's plan for life. It's a message conveyed so brilliantly in the TV series Mad Men (about an advertising agency on Madison Avenue in NYC in the 60s), which I've been renting past seasons of and watching on DVD. Brilliant show! And one of the themes is that old saw of women tying their joy to the lives and pursuits of their husbands. Just doesn't work. Didn't work then. Doesn't work now. Yet, it is shocking, really, how many women still subscribe to that theory and attempt to live that life.
So many women still do it, though, not just because societal and Christian :( , programming are such that it is something women should do, but because for many women it is the "safe" route. It is soooo much safer to live someone else's dream than to stick their own necks out there and tell the world what they want for their own lives. Many women (men too!) have, at earlier times in life, stated what they want in life or expressed who they really are, only to get shut down by parents, teachers, clergy, friends, spouses, kids, or what have you. And nothing will more surely stifle self-expression than getting gunned down by someone else earlier in life.
So, again, rather than state to life what I want, I'll just live YOUR dream and do what YOU want, cuz I'm scared as shit to be who I really am and express what really makes me feel happy and how I really feel.
I am not dogging anyone who chooses this option. We all have our own lives to live and it ain't always easy. I'm simply encouraging you to begin to realize that you'll never have the joy you seek until you begin to more and more fully stand up and state what you truly want in life and state who you truly are!!!
It takes courage!
It takes real courage!
But, truth be told, there will be no joy until you do. For life cannot give you what you seek until you have the courage to state it and live it!!
Peace and laughter to you today!!!
I'M BERRY HAPPY!!!......and I hope you are too!
Trust me when I tell you, life just gets soooooooooooooo much better when we just live honestly, live inside-out (just expressing on the outside what we really feel on the inside). It ain't always easy, but it is sooooo damn happy!!!! I can't even begin to tell you how much happier your life will become!!!!
Keep following your heart and you will be ever more so!!
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Saturday, January 30, 2010
47b (3rd post of the day): Great quote!
I flipped open a book at the store, by Carol Adrienne, entitled Find Your Purpose, Change Your Life, in which I found this quote by the master that I just had to share. Powerful stuff!
For the unconscious always tries to produce an impossible situation
in order to force the individual to bring out his very best.
Otherwise, one stops short of one's best, one is not complete, one does not realize oneself.
What is needed is an impossible situation where one has to
renounce one's will and
one's own wit and
do nothing
but wait and trust
the impersonal power of growth and development.
When you are up against a wall, be still and put down roots like a tree,
until clarity comes from deeper sources to see over that wall.
-- Dr. Carl Jung
47: Tim Baker and Mirrors
Seeing the number for this post (47) got me to thinking about Tim Baker. Tim was my college roommate, my senior year at Gustavus, before I dropped out of that college, one semester before graduation. We also played football together and were both starters on the only undefeated team in school history, a year prior. Tim was a corner; I an O-lineman and occasional tight end.
I think of Tim on this post, because his jersey number was 47. And, just a year or two after graduating from Gustavus, Tim committed suicide, shortly after our former Team Captain died in a plane crash in Colorado.
Tim was a sarcastic, tobacco-chewing, womanizer, whom I think of as sort of wiry. Angles. Sharp features physically, and sort of an angular disposition. Quite honestly, I don't even know what I mean by that, exactly, except that it fits him. Playing the angles -- onfield as decent cornerback, with women, at cards, and just...well...generally.
Tim had the very odd past of being raised by deaf parents, as well as having a brother who, in a freak childhood accident with under-sink chemicals, ended up blinded for life.
I have no idea why Tim killed himself. Except for one or two post-graduation (his graduation, not mine) times of hanging out, we fell out of touch, which is far more my fault than his.
What's my point in bringing up #47?
Nothing, really, except that death reminds us, or it's supposed to. I don't think of Tim often, but I do sometimes. And, oddly, sometimes I'm startled simply by how non-startled I am by the reminder of death. I mean, we were college roommates! But secondhand death doesn't jolt me in the ass like it's probably supposed to. It doesn't make me want to live harder, be a better person, attack some bucket list, or even really contemplate my mortality.
All it really does when I think of Tim, whom I genuinely did like, if for no other reason than he tolerated me at a period in life when I was near-completely intolerable, particularly to myself (spiritual depression can be f-ing consuming and so sucky, for lack of a better word; forgive my laziness), is to make me think, "Man, he's dead." And, "And he wanted to be dead" (please go away you suicide-is-always-bad numbskulls who think every suicide is someone who really wants to live; why can't some people just actually want to die and there's sometimes no damn way, despite your messianic impulses, to keep them alive? [Dr. Thomas Szasz (I think I got his name right.) writes interestingly on this topic])
I guess those rare times of remembering that Tim is dead (which is far more often the occurrence than a remembering of his life, at least for me) simply bring an infusion of gravity, a simple reminder of the heaviness of it all; that death is real.
And yes, that does provide a mirror effect. Look at your life, even a little, Sven. No.....no, not 'look'. Feel. Feel it's heaviness. I guess it's only in feeling the heaviness of death's possibility that I am simultaneously set free by death to live lightly and carefree-ly.
Mirrors.
Tim gives me a mirror on my life.
I've been going back into Shakti Gawain's Living in the Light. She sums up my life philosophy almost perfectly in that book, which I first read 20+ years ago, right about the same time Tim died and I was beginning my spiritual journey. Makes me wonder why the hell I even went on the spiritual journey when where I would end up was already right there in front of me, even then.
Perfect testament to the notion that some of us just need to learn for ourselves, right? I just needed to really feel the truths and truly know the truths that were to be my truths. I had to own it, live it, know it, and truly feel it. Otherwise, it's just a put-on coat woven by someone else, be it a pastor, parent, or some other.
Anyway, she talks about how the only true relationship anyone is ever in is the one with oneself. Everyone else is simply a mirror of what is going on inside oneself. We most attract and are most attracted to those who unwittingly have the most to teach us, and visa-versa. From friend to lover, favorite teacher to mentor -- all those who resonate with us inside are teaching us, often not in the friendliest or happiest of ways. For example, I learned far more from my first divorce than I have from almost any other experience in life -- more about myself. Painful as hell and at times downright nasty, but sooo utterly instructive, as I was committed to making sure I didn't "have the experience but miss the meaning." As Joseph Campbell riffs so beautifully on that age-old maxim, "Love thine enemies......for they, far more than your friends, are the instruments of your destiny."
Yeah, so while "Bakes" is a bit of a remote example, having long since died, I do find myself reflecting again, nowadays, on those people I've attracted into my life right this moment and this past year, as well as those I've excised from my life. I find myself wondering what it was I was supposed to learn.
The rub -- the angst -- in relationships, Gawain asserts, is created not by something wrong in the other person but by that wrong thing bringing to your attention the essentially same (or related) problem in oneself.
It's interesting and inducing of deep reflection, which hopefully yields fruit in the upbuilding and evolution of one's psyche and character.
Just more thinking out loud than anything, today.
Ruminating on Tim.
I think of Tim on this post, because his jersey number was 47. And, just a year or two after graduating from Gustavus, Tim committed suicide, shortly after our former Team Captain died in a plane crash in Colorado.
Tim was a sarcastic, tobacco-chewing, womanizer, whom I think of as sort of wiry. Angles. Sharp features physically, and sort of an angular disposition. Quite honestly, I don't even know what I mean by that, exactly, except that it fits him. Playing the angles -- onfield as decent cornerback, with women, at cards, and just...well...generally.
Tim had the very odd past of being raised by deaf parents, as well as having a brother who, in a freak childhood accident with under-sink chemicals, ended up blinded for life.
I have no idea why Tim killed himself. Except for one or two post-graduation (his graduation, not mine) times of hanging out, we fell out of touch, which is far more my fault than his.
What's my point in bringing up #47?
Nothing, really, except that death reminds us, or it's supposed to. I don't think of Tim often, but I do sometimes. And, oddly, sometimes I'm startled simply by how non-startled I am by the reminder of death. I mean, we were college roommates! But secondhand death doesn't jolt me in the ass like it's probably supposed to. It doesn't make me want to live harder, be a better person, attack some bucket list, or even really contemplate my mortality.
All it really does when I think of Tim, whom I genuinely did like, if for no other reason than he tolerated me at a period in life when I was near-completely intolerable, particularly to myself (spiritual depression can be f-ing consuming and so sucky, for lack of a better word; forgive my laziness), is to make me think, "Man, he's dead." And, "And he wanted to be dead" (please go away you suicide-is-always-bad numbskulls who think every suicide is someone who really wants to live; why can't some people just actually want to die and there's sometimes no damn way, despite your messianic impulses, to keep them alive? [Dr. Thomas Szasz (I think I got his name right.) writes interestingly on this topic])
I guess those rare times of remembering that Tim is dead (which is far more often the occurrence than a remembering of his life, at least for me) simply bring an infusion of gravity, a simple reminder of the heaviness of it all; that death is real.
And yes, that does provide a mirror effect. Look at your life, even a little, Sven. No.....no, not 'look'. Feel. Feel it's heaviness. I guess it's only in feeling the heaviness of death's possibility that I am simultaneously set free by death to live lightly and carefree-ly.
Mirrors.
Tim gives me a mirror on my life.
I've been going back into Shakti Gawain's Living in the Light. She sums up my life philosophy almost perfectly in that book, which I first read 20+ years ago, right about the same time Tim died and I was beginning my spiritual journey. Makes me wonder why the hell I even went on the spiritual journey when where I would end up was already right there in front of me, even then.
Perfect testament to the notion that some of us just need to learn for ourselves, right? I just needed to really feel the truths and truly know the truths that were to be my truths. I had to own it, live it, know it, and truly feel it. Otherwise, it's just a put-on coat woven by someone else, be it a pastor, parent, or some other.
Anyway, she talks about how the only true relationship anyone is ever in is the one with oneself. Everyone else is simply a mirror of what is going on inside oneself. We most attract and are most attracted to those who unwittingly have the most to teach us, and visa-versa. From friend to lover, favorite teacher to mentor -- all those who resonate with us inside are teaching us, often not in the friendliest or happiest of ways. For example, I learned far more from my first divorce than I have from almost any other experience in life -- more about myself. Painful as hell and at times downright nasty, but sooo utterly instructive, as I was committed to making sure I didn't "have the experience but miss the meaning." As Joseph Campbell riffs so beautifully on that age-old maxim, "Love thine enemies......for they, far more than your friends, are the instruments of your destiny."
Yeah, so while "Bakes" is a bit of a remote example, having long since died, I do find myself reflecting again, nowadays, on those people I've attracted into my life right this moment and this past year, as well as those I've excised from my life. I find myself wondering what it was I was supposed to learn.
The rub -- the angst -- in relationships, Gawain asserts, is created not by something wrong in the other person but by that wrong thing bringing to your attention the essentially same (or related) problem in oneself.
It's interesting and inducing of deep reflection, which hopefully yields fruit in the upbuilding and evolution of one's psyche and character.
Just more thinking out loud than anything, today.
Ruminating on Tim.
46: The Burning Heart: Part Two (R-rated; not for the faint of heart)
There is that great story in the Bible about Jonah and the whale. We've all heard it. Yeah, I know, none of us actually believes it literally happened, but that's not the point. The very best stories -- those with the powerful ability to teach us and move us -- are often those which are utter fiction (think Shakespeare, Poe, and so many great movies we fall in love with). This is why I'm turning my attention to this story.
Before I do, however, I want to do a brief declension on the history of the Jonah story vis-a-vis present-day mainline Christianity.
Okay, it's the 1960s and Pope John XXIII convenes the Second Vatican Council, which meets, off and on, for a few years ('62-'65). We're all familiar with the fact that the Mass got taken from Latin and put into the language of the people, whatever that might be in any given country. However, what few know is that another great piece came out of Vatican II: The Common Lectionary (later The Revised Common Lectionary), also known in the Roman Catholic Church as Ordo Lectionem Missae.
Essentially, the Common Lectionary is a 3-year cycle of Bible readings to be used in the Mass. Each of the three primary Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) gets a full year; the Pauline and other epistles get chopped up and distributed (in part, not in toto) throughout the 3-year cycle; each Sunday is also given a Psalm and an Old Testament reading. The goal is to basically cover the primary elements of the Bible in that 3-year cycle, even though the entire Bible cannot be covered, because it's just too large and unwieldy -- i.e. not always suited for public reading (go read one of my books for more on that juicy stuff).
Well, a short time after Vatican II some of the Protestant wings of Christianity got onboard with the Lectionary, primarily the "high church" or "high liturgy" traditions: Anglican, Lutheran, some Presbyterian and Methodist, as well as scattered others. (Eastern Orthodox Christianity stuck with an annual lectionary.)
Blah blah blah. To make a short story long, and get to the essence of where I'm going with all of this (as related to Jonah), because it's only a 3-year cycle, as mentioned, not all of every Biblical book can be used. So, a funny thing happens in the case of the Book of Jonah. It actually does get used (not all of the 'minor prophets' of the Old Testament do get used in the Revised Common Lectionary [RCL]), but what's interesting is what does and doesn't get used.
In the Book of Jonah the story is basically divided into two parts -- the whole Jonah getting swallowed by a whale and then going to Ninevah to do what God originally wanted him to do; and then this tiny piece at the end where Jonah is basically pissed at God and goes and pouts and we're given an object-lesson by God toward Jonah, using a vine that God causes to grow up to shade Jonah.
Fascinatingly, in the RCL the story of Jonah and the whale is NOT used! Instead, the RCL uses only the tail end portion of Jonah, God, and the vine. One of the single most fascinating (and outright preposterous) stories in the entire Bible is completely avoided, turning the whale into the proverbial elephant in the living room. Everyone knows the story of Jonah and the whale, but the lectionary seeks to do a little sleight of hand and take your eye off the ball, hoping you'll forget all about it.
Why?
Simply put, no preacher/pastor/priest worth his salt (in mainline Protestant Christianity or even most of Catholicism) is going to get into the pulpit/ambo and presume to sell a story of a man-swallowing whale. The snickers and guffaws, if not audible, would be rabidly present at the mere mention of the story. And every preacher knows it.
However, that's the problem, really. Most Christian preachers are either cowardly or utterly devoid of brilliant creativity. For the story of Jonah, read metaphorically, is one of the most powerful the Bible has to offer. But, clergy generally don't know how to preach metaphor, or think they must preach literalism, or don't know how to preach metaphor while not disavowing literal interpretation for those who prefer that. It's a helluva quandary for a lot of clergy and cuts right to the core of why most preachers utterly blow at really giving people spiritual food for changing their lives.
If you want to know how it is easily, easily resolved, go to Amazon and pick up one of my books, such as Rescuing God from Christianity.
Okay, while that was one helluva digression, I think it's damn fascinating; offering insight into what I believe to be the innate theological cowardice of the Christian Church. But, what do I know?
So, back to the story of Jonah and how it relates to the burning of your heart. The story simply goes that God called Jonah to do a particular job, an ugly job: Go to Ninevah, tell the large city that all the people were being bad, and that they needed to ask God's forgiveness and turn from their ways. God stuck this job inside Jonah. Well, Jonah gave a hearty "Hell no! I won't go," because he hated the Ninevites, and turned to go the exact opposite direction. Boarding a ship to Joppa, he goes down into the hull and sleeps. God, pissed, causes a storm to rise up and toss the ship about. The sailors get scared, believing they've offended the gods. They waken Jonah. He tells them, "It's not you; it's me," and proceeds to have them throw him overboard. They do. Storm stops. Jonah sinks down into the sea and this is where our elephant in the living room enters, stage right. Jonah gets swallowed and encamps in the viscera of the leviathan. Finally, his spirit broken after three days, Jonah gets spit up on shore by the whale. He journeys to Ninevah, preaches the Bible's shortest sermon (eight words: "Yet forty days and Ninevah shall be overthrown."), then goes off outside the city to do the aforementioned pouting thing (cuz God ends up saving the city, much to Jonah's chagrin).
Okay, where am I going with all of this?
It's that damn calling from God/gods/life/universe. I don't really care what word you use for God or the gods or inner calling; nor do I care how you think God speaks to you. The point is that God/universe puts a calling in the hearts of each one of us. Some get it when quite young, some later. But the point is that there is always a calling in the heart of each one of us, put there by the Divine (whatever you conceive the Divine to be: spirit, being, energy, or what have you). It is the creative/Creator impulse deep inside each one of us. We all have some kind of calling. And as the late Frederick Buechner pointed out, God's call to you is always where your greatest joy and the world's greatest need intersect (though Jonah might argue the joy part; God kicked his ass and helped him see the beauty in it).
What we learn from Jonah, however, is that when the call is denied, resisted, avoided, and run from it eventually catches up to us. Basically, life goes to shit. Jonah tried to run from his calling that he frickin KNEW was from God (whether it came via an actual voice from heaven or an inner knowing is irrelevant). He ran and sailed the exact opposite direction of what he knew he was called to do. Then it all falls apart: a storm comes up and tosses his boat, the men toss him over board, he gets swallowed by a whale then the whale eventually tosses his manly cookies onto shore. The gods had their way with Jonah. They erupted chaos into his life!
Sound like anyone you know? Ever avoided that calling inside and watched your outer life go into turmoil (as a reflection of the inner turmoil you experienced as you tried to suppress the call)?
I also think it's an amazing metaphor that, while trying to run from his call, Jonah went DOWN into the hull of the ship, DOWN into the dark deep of the sea, and DOWN into the belly of the whale. Perfect metaphor for the depression that happens when we're not being who we're called to be and doing what we're called to do. It is the depression that happens when you are not being you. Your life goes down, down, down. It becomes not only chaotic but dark, lonely, and ever-deadened.
See, essentially, that call inside IS YOU. It is not some alien invasion of your being anymore than God's call to Jonah was some foreign thing that had corrupted his body. Jonah was a firebrand by nature who lived to speak badass truth. His going to Ninevah was hard for his ego, sure, cuz he hated the sons of bitches, but it was in perfect alignment with his very nature. He lived for this shit! He lived for the killer, hardcore call to do the shit no one else had the balls to do. Jonah was MADE for this call. (Again, whether you believe this story literally happened isn't the point and is totally up to you. Just looking at the story as metaphor, we learn a great deal about ourselves.) Jonah's call to go to Ninevah was in utter alignment with his true nature, indistinguishable from his truest essence.
And by avoiding, denying, or resisting his true essence he creates chaos around him and depression and misery inside himself.
Sound familiar?
Ever tried to not be who you really are?
Ever tried to not say what you knew you MUST say?
Ever tried to avoid doing what you just knew you HAD TO do?
In essence, have you ever denied your truth?
Chaos outside. Depression/anxiety inside.
It's a simple formula.
And I really don't care if you think the call, the chaos, and the depression/anxiety come from God, the gods, or SpongeBob Squarepants. The point is that they come! As assuredly as the sun rises in the east and the Vikings inevitably lose in the playoffs, every one of us gets a call in life. And when that call is either completed or exhausted, you get a new call to consume your life. (NB: The call may not end with the final product looking as you wish [as Jonah discovered]. Letting go of the results is a bitch, sometimes. You are called to fulfill the call, not control the results. That's where trust in the gods comes in.)
And if you resist or deny that call that rises up from deep within you, your life will go to shit. I guarantee it. It is an indisputable, unavoidable, absolute fact of life, without exception. It doesn't matter if you're religious, atheist, or vegetarian. We all get called inside....and most people either lack the quiet in life to hear the call, or lack the balls to truly follow it.
That is why your life has gone to shit, or semi-shit. That's why you are so damn busy...trying to avoid the call to that dream, that path, that person, that truth, or what have you. That is why you feel sooooo unfulfilled and incomplete. That is why you have that nagging thing inside you that won't go away. That is why you always feel pulled to do more, cuz you know the call is stretching you. That is why you have anxiety, depression, unrest, and/or a general malaise.
Your life blows because you're not bein' who you is. There is a call deep inside you -- a call from the universe, from life, from the gods -- that you insist on avoiding.
But the gods will rape you. They will bury you. They will tear your life up. Freewill my ass. Sure, you can say 'no' to the call inside you, and, by extension, say 'no' to the gods. You sure can. But don't think the conversation stops there. If they want you, they will OWN your sorry ass. The conversation will only become heightened. They will raise their collective voices, making themselves heard through chaos, depression, anxiety, and severe pressure on your life.
Oh, I assure you, my freewill little friend, if the gods want you to do something, you will do it....or you will simply die. No joke. No exaggeration. It may be the lightning fast kind of death or, more likely, it will be the long, slow, deadening kind of death. Death from the inside-out is nasty, nasty shit. As I talked about in my post #45, your eyes slowly begin to gloss over; your life gets ever more shallow and pointless (unnecessary and aimless activities from shopping to excessive exercise to excessive drinking [if there be such a thing ;)] to just a dumb, stupid, wasted life of nothingness.....AND YOU LIVE WITH THE SHITTY FEELING THAT YOU KNOW YOUR LIFE HAS BECOME ONE LONG STRING OF NOTHINGNESS!! And THAT is the most painful part!).
Ever been fucked in the ass by the gods?
Well, avoid that call inside and you will be, plain and simple. Run from being who you truly are called to be, run from doing what you are truly called to do, run from the path/person you KNOW you are supposed to be on, and your life will get brutally f-d in the anus by the gods. I guarantee it. I've seen it a billion times if I've seen it once, not to mention experienced it. Nasty!
Just follow your fucking call.
Choose fear, instead, and you invite the gods to have their way with you. And they will. Choose the path of fear and security and you will know chaos, anxiety, depression, sorrow, loss, and every other manner of violence on your being. And no one will know except you, cuz it all happens inside you.
Again, I don't care if you believe in God/gods or not. This is simply a truism writ large on the very fabric of life. It is incontrovertible fact.
But the upshot is that if you do have the
A. Silence in your life to hear the call; and
B. Courage to heed the call rising up from within
you will know an adventure, a vitality, a 'filling-up' of that hole inside like you have never, ever known. You will know a pervading sense of purpose, a deep joy, a new sense of power, a rush, a hope, and a peace as you have never, ever known.
Follow the call!
For there is no other life!
Follow the call!
And truly come ALIVE!!! Finally!
Before I do, however, I want to do a brief declension on the history of the Jonah story vis-a-vis present-day mainline Christianity.
Okay, it's the 1960s and Pope John XXIII convenes the Second Vatican Council, which meets, off and on, for a few years ('62-'65). We're all familiar with the fact that the Mass got taken from Latin and put into the language of the people, whatever that might be in any given country. However, what few know is that another great piece came out of Vatican II: The Common Lectionary (later The Revised Common Lectionary), also known in the Roman Catholic Church as Ordo Lectionem Missae.
Essentially, the Common Lectionary is a 3-year cycle of Bible readings to be used in the Mass. Each of the three primary Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) gets a full year; the Pauline and other epistles get chopped up and distributed (in part, not in toto) throughout the 3-year cycle; each Sunday is also given a Psalm and an Old Testament reading. The goal is to basically cover the primary elements of the Bible in that 3-year cycle, even though the entire Bible cannot be covered, because it's just too large and unwieldy -- i.e. not always suited for public reading (go read one of my books for more on that juicy stuff).
Well, a short time after Vatican II some of the Protestant wings of Christianity got onboard with the Lectionary, primarily the "high church" or "high liturgy" traditions: Anglican, Lutheran, some Presbyterian and Methodist, as well as scattered others. (Eastern Orthodox Christianity stuck with an annual lectionary.)
Blah blah blah. To make a short story long, and get to the essence of where I'm going with all of this (as related to Jonah), because it's only a 3-year cycle, as mentioned, not all of every Biblical book can be used. So, a funny thing happens in the case of the Book of Jonah. It actually does get used (not all of the 'minor prophets' of the Old Testament do get used in the Revised Common Lectionary [RCL]), but what's interesting is what does and doesn't get used.
In the Book of Jonah the story is basically divided into two parts -- the whole Jonah getting swallowed by a whale and then going to Ninevah to do what God originally wanted him to do; and then this tiny piece at the end where Jonah is basically pissed at God and goes and pouts and we're given an object-lesson by God toward Jonah, using a vine that God causes to grow up to shade Jonah.
Fascinatingly, in the RCL the story of Jonah and the whale is NOT used! Instead, the RCL uses only the tail end portion of Jonah, God, and the vine. One of the single most fascinating (and outright preposterous) stories in the entire Bible is completely avoided, turning the whale into the proverbial elephant in the living room. Everyone knows the story of Jonah and the whale, but the lectionary seeks to do a little sleight of hand and take your eye off the ball, hoping you'll forget all about it.
Why?
Simply put, no preacher/pastor/priest worth his salt (in mainline Protestant Christianity or even most of Catholicism) is going to get into the pulpit/ambo and presume to sell a story of a man-swallowing whale. The snickers and guffaws, if not audible, would be rabidly present at the mere mention of the story. And every preacher knows it.
However, that's the problem, really. Most Christian preachers are either cowardly or utterly devoid of brilliant creativity. For the story of Jonah, read metaphorically, is one of the most powerful the Bible has to offer. But, clergy generally don't know how to preach metaphor, or think they must preach literalism, or don't know how to preach metaphor while not disavowing literal interpretation for those who prefer that. It's a helluva quandary for a lot of clergy and cuts right to the core of why most preachers utterly blow at really giving people spiritual food for changing their lives.
If you want to know how it is easily, easily resolved, go to Amazon and pick up one of my books, such as Rescuing God from Christianity.
Okay, while that was one helluva digression, I think it's damn fascinating; offering insight into what I believe to be the innate theological cowardice of the Christian Church. But, what do I know?
So, back to the story of Jonah and how it relates to the burning of your heart. The story simply goes that God called Jonah to do a particular job, an ugly job: Go to Ninevah, tell the large city that all the people were being bad, and that they needed to ask God's forgiveness and turn from their ways. God stuck this job inside Jonah. Well, Jonah gave a hearty "Hell no! I won't go," because he hated the Ninevites, and turned to go the exact opposite direction. Boarding a ship to Joppa, he goes down into the hull and sleeps. God, pissed, causes a storm to rise up and toss the ship about. The sailors get scared, believing they've offended the gods. They waken Jonah. He tells them, "It's not you; it's me," and proceeds to have them throw him overboard. They do. Storm stops. Jonah sinks down into the sea and this is where our elephant in the living room enters, stage right. Jonah gets swallowed and encamps in the viscera of the leviathan. Finally, his spirit broken after three days, Jonah gets spit up on shore by the whale. He journeys to Ninevah, preaches the Bible's shortest sermon (eight words: "Yet forty days and Ninevah shall be overthrown."), then goes off outside the city to do the aforementioned pouting thing (cuz God ends up saving the city, much to Jonah's chagrin).
Okay, where am I going with all of this?
It's that damn calling from God/gods/life/universe. I don't really care what word you use for God or the gods or inner calling; nor do I care how you think God speaks to you. The point is that God/universe puts a calling in the hearts of each one of us. Some get it when quite young, some later. But the point is that there is always a calling in the heart of each one of us, put there by the Divine (whatever you conceive the Divine to be: spirit, being, energy, or what have you). It is the creative/Creator impulse deep inside each one of us. We all have some kind of calling. And as the late Frederick Buechner pointed out, God's call to you is always where your greatest joy and the world's greatest need intersect (though Jonah might argue the joy part; God kicked his ass and helped him see the beauty in it).
What we learn from Jonah, however, is that when the call is denied, resisted, avoided, and run from it eventually catches up to us. Basically, life goes to shit. Jonah tried to run from his calling that he frickin KNEW was from God (whether it came via an actual voice from heaven or an inner knowing is irrelevant). He ran and sailed the exact opposite direction of what he knew he was called to do. Then it all falls apart: a storm comes up and tosses his boat, the men toss him over board, he gets swallowed by a whale then the whale eventually tosses his manly cookies onto shore. The gods had their way with Jonah. They erupted chaos into his life!
Sound like anyone you know? Ever avoided that calling inside and watched your outer life go into turmoil (as a reflection of the inner turmoil you experienced as you tried to suppress the call)?
I also think it's an amazing metaphor that, while trying to run from his call, Jonah went DOWN into the hull of the ship, DOWN into the dark deep of the sea, and DOWN into the belly of the whale. Perfect metaphor for the depression that happens when we're not being who we're called to be and doing what we're called to do. It is the depression that happens when you are not being you. Your life goes down, down, down. It becomes not only chaotic but dark, lonely, and ever-deadened.
See, essentially, that call inside IS YOU. It is not some alien invasion of your being anymore than God's call to Jonah was some foreign thing that had corrupted his body. Jonah was a firebrand by nature who lived to speak badass truth. His going to Ninevah was hard for his ego, sure, cuz he hated the sons of bitches, but it was in perfect alignment with his very nature. He lived for this shit! He lived for the killer, hardcore call to do the shit no one else had the balls to do. Jonah was MADE for this call. (Again, whether you believe this story literally happened isn't the point and is totally up to you. Just looking at the story as metaphor, we learn a great deal about ourselves.) Jonah's call to go to Ninevah was in utter alignment with his true nature, indistinguishable from his truest essence.
And by avoiding, denying, or resisting his true essence he creates chaos around him and depression and misery inside himself.
Sound familiar?
Ever tried to not be who you really are?
Ever tried to not say what you knew you MUST say?
Ever tried to avoid doing what you just knew you HAD TO do?
In essence, have you ever denied your truth?
Chaos outside. Depression/anxiety inside.
It's a simple formula.
And I really don't care if you think the call, the chaos, and the depression/anxiety come from God, the gods, or SpongeBob Squarepants. The point is that they come! As assuredly as the sun rises in the east and the Vikings inevitably lose in the playoffs, every one of us gets a call in life. And when that call is either completed or exhausted, you get a new call to consume your life. (NB: The call may not end with the final product looking as you wish [as Jonah discovered]. Letting go of the results is a bitch, sometimes. You are called to fulfill the call, not control the results. That's where trust in the gods comes in.)
And if you resist or deny that call that rises up from deep within you, your life will go to shit. I guarantee it. It is an indisputable, unavoidable, absolute fact of life, without exception. It doesn't matter if you're religious, atheist, or vegetarian. We all get called inside....and most people either lack the quiet in life to hear the call, or lack the balls to truly follow it.
That is why your life has gone to shit, or semi-shit. That's why you are so damn busy...trying to avoid the call to that dream, that path, that person, that truth, or what have you. That is why you feel sooooo unfulfilled and incomplete. That is why you have that nagging thing inside you that won't go away. That is why you always feel pulled to do more, cuz you know the call is stretching you. That is why you have anxiety, depression, unrest, and/or a general malaise.
Your life blows because you're not bein' who you is. There is a call deep inside you -- a call from the universe, from life, from the gods -- that you insist on avoiding.
But the gods will rape you. They will bury you. They will tear your life up. Freewill my ass. Sure, you can say 'no' to the call inside you, and, by extension, say 'no' to the gods. You sure can. But don't think the conversation stops there. If they want you, they will OWN your sorry ass. The conversation will only become heightened. They will raise their collective voices, making themselves heard through chaos, depression, anxiety, and severe pressure on your life.
Oh, I assure you, my freewill little friend, if the gods want you to do something, you will do it....or you will simply die. No joke. No exaggeration. It may be the lightning fast kind of death or, more likely, it will be the long, slow, deadening kind of death. Death from the inside-out is nasty, nasty shit. As I talked about in my post #45, your eyes slowly begin to gloss over; your life gets ever more shallow and pointless (unnecessary and aimless activities from shopping to excessive exercise to excessive drinking [if there be such a thing ;)] to just a dumb, stupid, wasted life of nothingness.....AND YOU LIVE WITH THE SHITTY FEELING THAT YOU KNOW YOUR LIFE HAS BECOME ONE LONG STRING OF NOTHINGNESS!! And THAT is the most painful part!).
Ever been fucked in the ass by the gods?
Well, avoid that call inside and you will be, plain and simple. Run from being who you truly are called to be, run from doing what you are truly called to do, run from the path/person you KNOW you are supposed to be on, and your life will get brutally f-d in the anus by the gods. I guarantee it. I've seen it a billion times if I've seen it once, not to mention experienced it. Nasty!
Just follow your fucking call.
Choose fear, instead, and you invite the gods to have their way with you. And they will. Choose the path of fear and security and you will know chaos, anxiety, depression, sorrow, loss, and every other manner of violence on your being. And no one will know except you, cuz it all happens inside you.
Again, I don't care if you believe in God/gods or not. This is simply a truism writ large on the very fabric of life. It is incontrovertible fact.
But the upshot is that if you do have the
A. Silence in your life to hear the call; and
B. Courage to heed the call rising up from within
you will know an adventure, a vitality, a 'filling-up' of that hole inside like you have never, ever known. You will know a pervading sense of purpose, a deep joy, a new sense of power, a rush, a hope, and a peace as you have never, ever known.
Follow the call!
For there is no other life!
Follow the call!
And truly come ALIVE!!! Finally!
Thursday, January 28, 2010
45: The burning of your heart won't stop! It is your calling! Follow it....or you will slowly die inside!
Feelings don't leave. They possess us, day after day, until we give them the attention they are asking us for.
Got a past lover you still think about every day? Got a dream you didn't pursue?
It will haunt you. It will stay with you. You will be in your next marriage with this woman/man or the next, and you will still be thinking about the One....
You will pursue the other path (forgetting about your dream path), and you will always be nagged by shoulda, woulda, coulda.
See, we so often -- foolishly -- choose safety and security instead of that which moves our hearts. The gods present us with that person, that dream, that path we always wanted.....AND WE CHOKE, because we want it to be safe and we are scared that it is not perfect in every way imaginable.
If you think about it every day, it's love. Period. Serious, serious love, no matter how hard you try to deny it, avoid it, or resist it.
Whether it is a person, a place, a dream, a life, or what have you. It's not just love, it's "in love", it's "missing" it. That which consumes your thoughts is that which consumes your heart. And it won't go away by simply trying to avoid it. In fact, isn't that why you stay so busy, work out so hard, drink so much, stay so caffeinated, stay on Prozac, and run around crazy all the time, and are so go go go.......so that you won't have to think about and feel your sadness over the One (person, place, career, dream) that you really want, even now, a year later, years later, a decade later. And the simple fact that you still think about it every day, despite your best efforts to stay busy and resist it, says that your efforts aren't working; you can't keep a lid on it. It's too powerful inside you, no matter how much you try to deny it.
If you feel it, even now, you will keep feeling it. You will be in the middle of a new career, a new path, a new love, and you will still be thinking backward and missing that which you know was ....and still is..... your true path. The pain does not stop just because you try to force yourself to make it stop. Don't be deluded by those who believe the will conquers all. The heart always, always, always is in control and conquers all.
Don't believe me? Give it a few years and you'll see how right I am. You'll still be dreaming about, longing for, missing, and wanting that One.
The gods don't put something in your heart and let you walk away. If they have a path for you to take, either you'll take it (despite the risks) or it'll burn inside you for a very, very long time.
Your pick.
So, what's the solution?
Follow your heart, not your fears.
There is no other solution. There is no other path. You may crash and burn, but your heart will be free and alive. Choosing the path of safety and security will only bring slow death from the inside. You will slowly feel a rotting and deadness inside. And isn't that what you have been feeling for the past decade, or year, or two decades -- that deadness from having chosen a path that wasn't the real path you most wanted, Option A? Instead, you chose Plan B, and as Chris Foster (I think that's his name; the man whom the movie "the Pursuit of Happyness" was about) writes, "Choose Plan A, cuz Plan B sucks!"
Your heart will not stay quiet, no matter how hard you try to silence it. It will call and call and call to you. And you will do everything you can to keep it quiet. You will stay drunk, stay high, stay busy, stay medicated, stay enmeshed in your kids or your job, or your present crappy life and lies. And the calling will persist and persist.....
I cannot even begin to tell you how many people I have coached, mentored, and counseled who denied and resisted the calling of their hearts and ended up having their lives slowly go to shit.
Security is a sexy beast. It deludes us. It looks so pretty, so soft, so warm, in the beginning. But slowly -- so very slowly and quietly -- it bleeds the life out of you, 'til 2, 10, or 17 years down the road you find yourself living a life you don't even recognize.....and still thinking about the One that your heart sooooo wanted you to follow.
What is that One in your life -- a man, a woman, a dream, a career, a life, a place, a what?
If you choose to not pursue it and follow it and love it -- as your heart truly desires -- you will begin to die, slowly, every day.
To follow your heart -- scary as it might seem -- is to begin to truly live and truly come alive, and finally have the life you've always really wanted, deep down!
Got a past lover you still think about every day? Got a dream you didn't pursue?
It will haunt you. It will stay with you. You will be in your next marriage with this woman/man or the next, and you will still be thinking about the One....
You will pursue the other path (forgetting about your dream path), and you will always be nagged by shoulda, woulda, coulda.
See, we so often -- foolishly -- choose safety and security instead of that which moves our hearts. The gods present us with that person, that dream, that path we always wanted.....AND WE CHOKE, because we want it to be safe and we are scared that it is not perfect in every way imaginable.
If you think about it every day, it's love. Period. Serious, serious love, no matter how hard you try to deny it, avoid it, or resist it.
Whether it is a person, a place, a dream, a life, or what have you. It's not just love, it's "in love", it's "missing" it. That which consumes your thoughts is that which consumes your heart. And it won't go away by simply trying to avoid it. In fact, isn't that why you stay so busy, work out so hard, drink so much, stay so caffeinated, stay on Prozac, and run around crazy all the time, and are so go go go.......so that you won't have to think about and feel your sadness over the One (person, place, career, dream) that you really want, even now, a year later, years later, a decade later. And the simple fact that you still think about it every day, despite your best efforts to stay busy and resist it, says that your efforts aren't working; you can't keep a lid on it. It's too powerful inside you, no matter how much you try to deny it.
If you feel it, even now, you will keep feeling it. You will be in the middle of a new career, a new path, a new love, and you will still be thinking backward and missing that which you know was ....and still is..... your true path. The pain does not stop just because you try to force yourself to make it stop. Don't be deluded by those who believe the will conquers all. The heart always, always, always is in control and conquers all.
Don't believe me? Give it a few years and you'll see how right I am. You'll still be dreaming about, longing for, missing, and wanting that One.
The gods don't put something in your heart and let you walk away. If they have a path for you to take, either you'll take it (despite the risks) or it'll burn inside you for a very, very long time.
Your pick.
So, what's the solution?
Follow your heart, not your fears.
There is no other solution. There is no other path. You may crash and burn, but your heart will be free and alive. Choosing the path of safety and security will only bring slow death from the inside. You will slowly feel a rotting and deadness inside. And isn't that what you have been feeling for the past decade, or year, or two decades -- that deadness from having chosen a path that wasn't the real path you most wanted, Option A? Instead, you chose Plan B, and as Chris Foster (I think that's his name; the man whom the movie "the Pursuit of Happyness" was about) writes, "Choose Plan A, cuz Plan B sucks!"
Your heart will not stay quiet, no matter how hard you try to silence it. It will call and call and call to you. And you will do everything you can to keep it quiet. You will stay drunk, stay high, stay busy, stay medicated, stay enmeshed in your kids or your job, or your present crappy life and lies. And the calling will persist and persist.....
I cannot even begin to tell you how many people I have coached, mentored, and counseled who denied and resisted the calling of their hearts and ended up having their lives slowly go to shit.
Security is a sexy beast. It deludes us. It looks so pretty, so soft, so warm, in the beginning. But slowly -- so very slowly and quietly -- it bleeds the life out of you, 'til 2, 10, or 17 years down the road you find yourself living a life you don't even recognize.....and still thinking about the One that your heart sooooo wanted you to follow.
What is that One in your life -- a man, a woman, a dream, a career, a life, a place, a what?
If you choose to not pursue it and follow it and love it -- as your heart truly desires -- you will begin to die, slowly, every day.
To follow your heart -- scary as it might seem -- is to begin to truly live and truly come alive, and finally have the life you've always really wanted, deep down!
"He not busy being born is busy dying."
- Bob Dylan
- Bob Dylan
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
44: Favre, Club fighters, and willingness to be thought a fool...
Minnesota Vikings.....
hmmmmm.......
Well, I have adequately licked my wounds since Sunday's self-destruction of my Minnesota Vikings. Over 400 yards in total offense, a dominant defense, and still we lost. There is no way in hell anyone can possibly think the Saints beat the Vikings. The Vikings beat the Vikings. And, for the record, somebody in voodoo land hexed that ball, cuz it was just as slippery for the Saints as it was for the Vikes; they dropped it just as regularly as we did.
All that being said, I wish the Saints only the best against the second-boringest team in football (no one even approaches the Lions in that category).
Enough, enough, enough on football, except for one little snippet from an article at FOX Sports by Kriegel. I don't take the whole thing, which is basically his synopsis of why Favre should STAY in MN and keep playing, only an excerpt which dovetails with my work on this blog. Likening Favre to a club fighter/boxer who takes the blows of his sport but keeps pushing forward because that is what greatness is really about, he writes:
He's beat up. And sure, it's a lousy time to make a decision. Still, it shouldn't be as difficult a decision as it was a year ago. He's has an offensive scheme and personnel that give him a legitimate chance at a Super Bowl, which, after all, is all he claims to have wanted. Unlike last year, he doesn't require surgery. He doesn't have to weasel out of a contract. He knows he can play; he'd be returning from what was, statistically, the finest season of his career -- 33 touchdowns against just 7 interceptions.
The guy who threw away the NFC championship on Sunday (and don't forget, with three Adrian Peterson fumbles, he had more than a little help) also threw four touchdowns against Dallas just nine days ago.
Was he contemplating retirement then?
At 41, next season might end with another interception. Might be worse than the one against Saints.
But as any club fighter could tell you, the measure of a man is his willingness to risk humiliation.
Besides, it beats sitting at a barstool, waiting for last call.
It's that line about "the measure of a man" that jumped out at me, today, as I read the article. In fact, it syncs perfectly with an Opinion piece I read in today's NY Times about composer Michael Gordon (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/25/the-accidental-music-lesson/) in which he states that music is an obsession -- a calling -- for those who are truly given life by it; one that takes the possessed into realms and ways of life that others could only consider foolish.
hmmmmm.......
Well, I have adequately licked my wounds since Sunday's self-destruction of my Minnesota Vikings. Over 400 yards in total offense, a dominant defense, and still we lost. There is no way in hell anyone can possibly think the Saints beat the Vikings. The Vikings beat the Vikings. And, for the record, somebody in voodoo land hexed that ball, cuz it was just as slippery for the Saints as it was for the Vikes; they dropped it just as regularly as we did.
All that being said, I wish the Saints only the best against the second-boringest team in football (no one even approaches the Lions in that category).
Enough, enough, enough on football, except for one little snippet from an article at FOX Sports by Kriegel. I don't take the whole thing, which is basically his synopsis of why Favre should STAY in MN and keep playing, only an excerpt which dovetails with my work on this blog. Likening Favre to a club fighter/boxer who takes the blows of his sport but keeps pushing forward because that is what greatness is really about, he writes:
He's beat up. And sure, it's a lousy time to make a decision. Still, it shouldn't be as difficult a decision as it was a year ago. He's has an offensive scheme and personnel that give him a legitimate chance at a Super Bowl, which, after all, is all he claims to have wanted. Unlike last year, he doesn't require surgery. He doesn't have to weasel out of a contract. He knows he can play; he'd be returning from what was, statistically, the finest season of his career -- 33 touchdowns against just 7 interceptions.
The guy who threw away the NFC championship on Sunday (and don't forget, with three Adrian Peterson fumbles, he had more than a little help) also threw four touchdowns against Dallas just nine days ago.
Was he contemplating retirement then?
At 41, next season might end with another interception. Might be worse than the one against Saints.
But as any club fighter could tell you, the measure of a man is his willingness to risk humiliation.
Besides, it beats sitting at a barstool, waiting for last call.
It's that line about "the measure of a man" that jumped out at me, today, as I read the article. In fact, it syncs perfectly with an Opinion piece I read in today's NY Times about composer Michael Gordon (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/25/the-accidental-music-lesson/) in which he states that music is an obsession -- a calling -- for those who are truly given life by it; one that takes the possessed into realms and ways of life that others could only consider foolish.
This, as the Apostle Paul of Christianity once stated, is the essence of spirituality, of faith, of relationship to God/the gods. It is this willingness to appear foolish, this uncaring about whether others see one as stupid and even crazy. It is the club fighter's and the aging quarterback's willingness to humiliate himself, if that's what it comes to, to simply do what the gods have put him on the earth to do -- and he could see himself doing no other -- that marks him as a great man.
My first ex-wife is convinced I'm crazy. She has been for what is approaching two decades. A good woman in her own ways, but one who is utterly bereft of any psychological training, not to mention none in the disease she has ascribed to me (which also happens to be the single most misdiagnosed malady in all of DSM-IV, a neurosis the MDs and PhDs are most frequently confounded by), she has consulted Wikipedia and is certain she has me pegged. And, years of her cant did, for awhile, get others onboard with her. She, and countless others, have been utterly vexed by how someone could be so odd, so utterly queer, so ridiculously far outside the realm of what is even remotely considered normal. "IT HAS TO BE MADNESS!" they raged, for years, so loudly even I considered it for some time.
But then I realized that's just dumb, and a few psychologists/psychiatrists along the way confirmed for me that I am normal, just very odd (and perhaps a few authority issues). I'm just an extremely odd person who lives passionately for the work he believes in.....and the personal and professional prices have been high -- humiliation, being dubbed 'crazy', and all other manner of derision.
And so, with time, those rants of others become not hindrances but, in fact, fuel. For, you begin to realize that, Wait, I actually DO know what the hell I'm doing; and I actually am an expert in my field and DO know what I'm talking about!
You begin to realize that there are other brave souls out there in the world -- from fighters to composers to quarterbacks to lawyers to all manner of people -- who live for a cause that quite simply possesses them; people who live as Martin Luther did, with those immortal words stirring in his soul, "Here I stand. I can do no other."
Such bravery.
Such nobility.
Such honor.
Such foolishness.
Such concomitant humiliation.
Dear friend, the great secret of life is that there is no other path than to follow the calling of one's soul, one's heart, one's very DNA. And just as it will bring your humiliation, it will bring the soaring joy of a heart on fire for a purpose.
You must live for that which possesses your soul and fires your veins.
What is it? What are you willing to be humiliated for? What great calling rises up from within your own heart?
Without sounding derogatory or condescending, I must simply say, I know you are afraid. But I also know that you have a calling in your heart. The gods assign one to each person at the point of creating him or her. It is written on the chip of your being. Your job is to have the stillness to truly hear/read that chip, and to then have the courage to follow it's call.
I know you are terrified, my friend. I have been where you are. I have lived it for well over 20 years, at great personal and professional price. But as surely as your life is empty and generally purposeless now (which is why you stay so busy, so drunk, so fanatical for your fitness, or what have you), it will begin to well up with a sense of fulfillment you have never known.
But you must have the courage, friend.
You must have the courage....
Saturday, January 23, 2010
43: Searing the heart as a spiritual necessity....
Yes, it has been awhile....
But, as my parents always said, "Good things take time," to which I add, "...sometimes."
I've been ruminating, this past year, on the whole Law of Attraction (ala The Secret, Chopra, Shakti Gawain, Wayne Dyer, Seth, Abraham, et al) and how it relates to the Sedona Method, and how they both relate to the great life challenge of letting go
- of jobs (in this economy),
- of friends (when that time unfortunately comes),
- of children (as they age),
- of love (as it invariably waxes and wanes in life),
- of dreams (as Paul Simon sings in "American Tune," "I don't know a soul whose not been battered. I don't have a friend who feels at ease. I don't know a dream that's not been shattered, or driven to its knees."),
- of simply all of 'what was' as we move ever toward what is to be.
As I have aged, I have grown to realize there really is no shortcut to true letting go of 'what was.' I have seen people will themselves to let go, only to have that which was released rear it's head a year, five years, or ten years later, rising up from the subconscious, an unfulfilled duty demanding to be seen -- truly seen, acknowledged, and given due course.
There is no path away from anything until that anything sears the heart, leaving its marks, offering its gift of teaching. The heart, I have learned, MUST be seared. The pain cannot be avoided, denied, or run from.
As we age we become ever more reluctant to walk into that suffering that beckons us, particularly if we have never had to pass through it before, if for no other reason than it is difficult to believe that walking into it and through it will actually do any good. Never mind that the notion of willfully walking into pain is not the most appealing thing to anyone, it becomes particularly less so as we age and our pain threshold diminishes.
Is it any wonder that in some old couples when one spouse dies, the other dies shortly thereafter? What's the alternative? I mean, really, can you blame someone who has been married for, say, 50 years for blowing his brains out or, more passively, simply quitting life when his wife dies?
James Hillman (founder of the field of 'Depth Psychology' and former head of the Jung Institute, as well as lecturer at Yale, Harvard, etc) and John Gray (psychologist, founder of the whole Mars/Venus book series) concur that only true and final way to let go of anything is to hold on as long and as hard as you can. For it is only then that the heart will be, essentially, tortured and every ounce of it all will be felt and finally released. It is only by fatiguing the heart that the heart is finally and definitively able to let go.
Many, as mentioned above, delude themselves into thinking they can will themselves to let go, as one might will a stuck lug nut on a flat tire to pry loose. But the human heart/soul is nary so controllable or even so manageable a beast. It exacts payment on the bearer. It demands a price be paid for the freedom and aliveness that is to be given. There simply is no way around it.
Further, given that the only way to navigate life to one's true calling and true joy is by following one's intuition and trusting one's feelings, there can be no joy without passing through the pain; for the pain of the past will forever cloud the rising up of one's own inner voice.
Truth is, life's just a bitch, sometimes. A whoring bitch.
There is no other way to it. It is what it is. The heart's past demands it's due attention before the future can be allowed. It demands to be felt. It demands to be known. And, for the wise ones, it offers great pearls of wisdom and gems of insight into the very essence of life. As long as the questions are, "Life, what are you trying to teach me through this? What great insights do you offer me in this pain?" and as long as you then postulate answers and see which resonates most strongly inside you, the pain of life becomes your greatest teacher.
I really have no other way to say it. There is no growth without pain. There is no new life without decay and death. It is written into the very essence of life. It is the great truth of nature, itself: things must die for things to live. And death and loss seldom happen without pain.
This sounds a gruesome tale for the uninitiated. But, the more you do it -- this walking into the pain -- the more you understand it and see its value. It never gets easy. Never. Pain blows, always. But as we age we see it for the master teacher that it is and for the fruits and gifts it bears.
To life!
But, as my parents always said, "Good things take time," to which I add, "...sometimes."
I've been ruminating, this past year, on the whole Law of Attraction (ala The Secret, Chopra, Shakti Gawain, Wayne Dyer, Seth, Abraham, et al) and how it relates to the Sedona Method, and how they both relate to the great life challenge of letting go
- of jobs (in this economy),
- of friends (when that time unfortunately comes),
- of children (as they age),
- of love (as it invariably waxes and wanes in life),
- of dreams (as Paul Simon sings in "American Tune," "I don't know a soul whose not been battered. I don't have a friend who feels at ease. I don't know a dream that's not been shattered, or driven to its knees."),
- of simply all of 'what was' as we move ever toward what is to be.
As I have aged, I have grown to realize there really is no shortcut to true letting go of 'what was.' I have seen people will themselves to let go, only to have that which was released rear it's head a year, five years, or ten years later, rising up from the subconscious, an unfulfilled duty demanding to be seen -- truly seen, acknowledged, and given due course.
There is no path away from anything until that anything sears the heart, leaving its marks, offering its gift of teaching. The heart, I have learned, MUST be seared. The pain cannot be avoided, denied, or run from.
As we age we become ever more reluctant to walk into that suffering that beckons us, particularly if we have never had to pass through it before, if for no other reason than it is difficult to believe that walking into it and through it will actually do any good. Never mind that the notion of willfully walking into pain is not the most appealing thing to anyone, it becomes particularly less so as we age and our pain threshold diminishes.
Is it any wonder that in some old couples when one spouse dies, the other dies shortly thereafter? What's the alternative? I mean, really, can you blame someone who has been married for, say, 50 years for blowing his brains out or, more passively, simply quitting life when his wife dies?
James Hillman (founder of the field of 'Depth Psychology' and former head of the Jung Institute, as well as lecturer at Yale, Harvard, etc) and John Gray (psychologist, founder of the whole Mars/Venus book series) concur that only true and final way to let go of anything is to hold on as long and as hard as you can. For it is only then that the heart will be, essentially, tortured and every ounce of it all will be felt and finally released. It is only by fatiguing the heart that the heart is finally and definitively able to let go.
Many, as mentioned above, delude themselves into thinking they can will themselves to let go, as one might will a stuck lug nut on a flat tire to pry loose. But the human heart/soul is nary so controllable or even so manageable a beast. It exacts payment on the bearer. It demands a price be paid for the freedom and aliveness that is to be given. There simply is no way around it.
Further, given that the only way to navigate life to one's true calling and true joy is by following one's intuition and trusting one's feelings, there can be no joy without passing through the pain; for the pain of the past will forever cloud the rising up of one's own inner voice.
Truth is, life's just a bitch, sometimes. A whoring bitch.
There is no other way to it. It is what it is. The heart's past demands it's due attention before the future can be allowed. It demands to be felt. It demands to be known. And, for the wise ones, it offers great pearls of wisdom and gems of insight into the very essence of life. As long as the questions are, "Life, what are you trying to teach me through this? What great insights do you offer me in this pain?" and as long as you then postulate answers and see which resonates most strongly inside you, the pain of life becomes your greatest teacher.
I really have no other way to say it. There is no growth without pain. There is no new life without decay and death. It is written into the very essence of life. It is the great truth of nature, itself: things must die for things to live. And death and loss seldom happen without pain.
This sounds a gruesome tale for the uninitiated. But, the more you do it -- this walking into the pain -- the more you understand it and see its value. It never gets easy. Never. Pain blows, always. But as we age we see it for the master teacher that it is and for the fruits and gifts it bears.
To life!
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