Solitude
A potent argument against eliminating the power of toxic people over our lives is “without them, I have nobody.” Let’s contemplate the true meaning of this phrase. Aren’t we just saying we are frightened of being alone? A lot of childhood fear focuses on things maturity reveals as utterly unthreatening. We used to be afraid of dark rooms, of night, of going to sleep. We learned to “get over it.” Some of us luck ones learned to love the night and to treasure the magic of sleep as a special creative state in which leaps of consciousness an imagination can be made. Some people – I among them – would argue that because of the “collective unconscious” we are never truly alone. Inside our minds is every experience we have ever had, every story we’ve been told, every picture we have ever seen. I personally feel the warm comforts of Pema Chodron, Jesus, Percy Shelley, the Dalai Lama, John Keats, Julian of Norwich, as I sleep. They are the sheep I send jumping over my fences. In solitude we discover who we are, who we have been, and who we can be.
0 Comments
![]() Recovery
The central concept of recovery is that it is actually possible to make ourselves anew. We can change our desires. The first step is to learn ways to behave that are not self-sabotaging. We must disavow the painful and destructive part of our identity. And for that to work, we have to want it. The second step is practice. Practice, practice, practice, one day at a time. Forgive ourselves for our stumbles and strategize work-arounds. The third step of recovery is company. We surround ourselves with supportive, not toxic, people. 10. Peace
Seeing ourselves as distinct from those who torment us is an invaluable source of peace. They are not us, they are not inside us; we can reject them at any time. We choose a mantra: I am health and light I am uniquely joyous; or just this simple one - I am peace Find a comfortable place to sit. Focus on your breath. Reduce your mantra to syllables, one for each breath. If you need to lie down, go ahead. If you need to change mantras, go ahead. Experiment. You are utterly free. If you need to fall asleep, close your eyes and set your mantra to appear in your dream. Focus on a visual of your happy place. It doesn’t have to have actually existed; after all, it may still be in your future! INSPIRATION
Sometimes ideas, intuitions, emerge from the deepest part of ourselves. What happens when we try to share any of these inchoate perceptions with those closest to us? How do they react? Is there a disparagement, however subtle, of our excitement, a dampening of our enthusiasm, any attempt to get us “back on track” i.e. theirtrack? We may not even be aware of the sense of sadness, of discouragement, that results. But it is a wound. Today we resolve to recapture the freshness of those early concepts, and to eliminate toxic people from our lives. Lovers
Sartre said, “Hell is other people.” Heaven, too! Think about it. We need partnerships to achieve anything, to know whether we have achieved anything, and, most importantly to ENJOY our achievements! But the warning about “hell” is still valid. Other people are very scary. They can hijack all our best ideas and impulses and turn them in dark or punishing directions. So for the beginning of the Healing Journey it is important that we be alone and examine ur relationships. What are the most important ones? What was nourishing/destructive about them? Storm
Depression. Mourning. As soon as we have resolved to make a change, contradictory emotions set in to sabotage our goals. Why would this be? What are the secondary gains, the advantages of staying wounded and unwell? First, we are used to it. Habit is powerful. Second is the fear, fear that we CAN’T change, that the disappointment of failed hope will be worse than the suffering we have become used to. We must fight this by firmly saying, “I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.” The impulse to change, to evolve, to be happy, is youthful. As long as we are trying, we are young at heart. It is not till we give up that we begin to die. And why die when we are still alive? Best to kiss our fears goodbye, resolve to weather the storm, knowing it will soon pass and hope will rise again. Look out towards the rainbow. Creativity
Creativity is our key to the healing process, and to the dilemma of duality. We long for satisfaction, yet the world can’t tolerate stasis. We are overwhelmed with visions of the past and dreams for the future yet we find ourselves trapped in the present moment. Weaving together our knowledge, dreads, hopes, fears and ecstasies into a communication for others becomes our greatest joy. Without resolving our pasts we create our own healing. We feel truly alive, and that we have suddenly discovered a reason for our unique existence on this planet. Autumn
Welcome to The Shadow Side. As all “things” have their shadow, their opposite, so do all efforts and all desires. Even as we bask in summer we appreciate the coming of chill. At the very moment we revel in sunlight we are longing for darkness. Unfortunately this also means that something inside of us – Freud called it “the death wish” is sabotaging our life force. We must face this demon squarely if we wish to heal. Our “will” is a poor ally on its own. Consider sleep, not as a “nothing”, a “loss” or an “absence” but as a necessary unconscious pleasure. It’s time of healing. Where would we be without dreams? We came to adulthood learning to “manage” our dreams – we know nightmares aren’t “real” and we have learned how to program ourselves into pleasant dreams. So we must harness the power of he unconscious for healing and not fear that “loss of control.” Summer
In the winter of our lives, we force ourselves to make too many decisions. In pursuit of mindfulness, we climb too deeply into our heads. Leave cold, chilly winter behind and allow the sun to enter your bones and do its work. We have fallen out of tune with the rhythm of the planets. Let’s lie in our beach chairs and try to empty our minds. What comes up? What images, memories, scents persist? When lassitude overwhelms, don your scantiest workout clothes. Sometimes the answer is the blissful unconsciousness of exercise. I’m convinced a brisk LONG walk is the best antidote to dis-ease. Take a yoga class and experiment with surrendering consciousness to “unknown the teacher” for a full hour. It’s like a vacation! We climb back into our heads refreshed. What have we learned? The Goddess
The main reason people “fail” their carefully laid life plans is that we start out as Task-Focused Engineers – we are going to Force, Manage & Design a certain future our limited desires can project. We are not going to just accept the obviously inevitable result of our own sloppy behaviors, all this aging and swelling and drooping. We will be different from everyone else. This attitude overlooks the sacred in all of us as well as our mysterious connections to each other. Here’s another shocker – as we change we CHANGE. We see ourselves actually becoming a Different Person and we panic! Whoa! First, it seems so disloyal to the self we have been for Forever, the Person Who Didn’t Get it Right. Seems so mean to just abandon her (like everyone else, she harrumphs.) Secondly, aren’t we losing our identity? Do we really want to become someone ELSE? We must handle this volatile dynamite humbly. Remember the Goddess. Most people think of her as her most beautiful incarnation, but the goddess is all forms, all shapes, all beings in one. We are not “losing” a self, we are gaining another. We will be always be both our helpless, confused, Unacceptable Past, our Aspirational Present and our Magical Future. We proceed slowly. As the numbness we used to cultivate fades, we allow ourselves to feel the postponed sadness we tried to dodge that got us into this mess. It helps to think of these sorrows as balloons we study – and then we let go. We watch them float away. |
Alysse aallynpoet...playwright... Archives
September 2022
Categories |