I thought of a very hard situation of someone else's cruelty and felt comforted by affirming I don't have to understand it; I just have to let it go. A big part of me wants to understand why someone would be that way, but I recognize the distancing that that impulse brings. Still, I pictured myself sharing with this person how I am working on changing my own lack of empathy, trying to develop it by imagining how it would feel if someone was cruel to me. That's still a fixit mentality, I realize. But it's very hard to stifle the impulse to "teach" as a way of wanting to stop this person from causing such suffering.
One more thought that helps me: I imagine that I am handing the problem back to itself. I give you back to yourself, I think or pray or say out loud. I imagine myself holding somethign that is not mine and handing it back. Seeing it in my mind's eye helps me feel the release in my body.
I recently went through a situation where I did help a little and then pulled back because it was one which I felt not equipped to handle, and the person ended up dying. She was an alcoholic and an addict, and that is a situation I have to be VERY careful about, having grown up with it and having gone through treatment to understand my own impulse to codependence. Still, I struggle with the miserable quadrangle of 1. Spiritually wanting to be of service to others; 2. Trying to determine where my impulse is coming from — savior behavior/ego or true unconditional love?; 3. "Accepting the things I cannot change, changing the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference"; and 4. Knowing what is mine to do, how much responsibility I have to do it, and how much guilt is mine if I didn't do what I could have and it turned out badly, and why didn't I? Whew!
Yes, we are ALL in that workshop with you right now. I still move first to fix and then, I catch myself (which is a big step in itself.) I stop and I wait and I listen to my own interior - the push to perfect the world. To make everything align with my idea of what should be. And that helps me to exhale a little bit - to let go of placing myself and my 'way' at the center of things. That helps me to exhale a little bit more. It's a steady pulsation - impulse, waiting and observing, realization, exhale.
In module three and four, we address this more fully. We talk about blessing the 'unblessable' - the things we cannot accept. We talk about giving things and people whom we would prefer to fix or improve or educate over to a wider, wiser intelligence. To the angels or the Divine Source. To God. To Love. For me, that's the wider release - allowing that this is not mine. Not mine to fix. Not mine to heal. There is another step, which we can do later. But first the release - take this out of my hands.
Then, the next step, I think, is blessing all of it (including ourself) back into the wholeness of the good. I do this with ho o pono pono. There are other ways.
I have a sacred ache towards goodness, to seeing it all as good. It feels right and true. In the beginning, God said it was good. Maybe part of my work of blessing today will be to say, "It is good" to whoever and whatever I see. Thanks for writing this.
I thought of a very hard situation of someone else's cruelty and felt comforted by affirming I don't have to understand it; I just have to let it go. A big part of me wants to understand why someone would be that way, but I recognize the distancing that that impulse brings. Still, I pictured myself sharing with this person how I am working on changing my own lack of empathy, trying to develop it by imagining how it would feel if someone was cruel to me. That's still a fixit mentality, I realize. But it's very hard to stifle the impulse to "teach" as a way of wanting to stop this person from causing such suffering.
One more thought that helps me: I imagine that I am handing the problem back to itself. I give you back to yourself, I think or pray or say out loud. I imagine myself holding somethign that is not mine and handing it back. Seeing it in my mind's eye helps me feel the release in my body.
I recently went through a situation where I did help a little and then pulled back because it was one which I felt not equipped to handle, and the person ended up dying. She was an alcoholic and an addict, and that is a situation I have to be VERY careful about, having grown up with it and having gone through treatment to understand my own impulse to codependence. Still, I struggle with the miserable quadrangle of 1. Spiritually wanting to be of service to others; 2. Trying to determine where my impulse is coming from — savior behavior/ego or true unconditional love?; 3. "Accepting the things I cannot change, changing the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference"; and 4. Knowing what is mine to do, how much responsibility I have to do it, and how much guilt is mine if I didn't do what I could have and it turned out badly, and why didn't I? Whew!
Yes, we are ALL in that workshop with you right now. I still move first to fix and then, I catch myself (which is a big step in itself.) I stop and I wait and I listen to my own interior - the push to perfect the world. To make everything align with my idea of what should be. And that helps me to exhale a little bit - to let go of placing myself and my 'way' at the center of things. That helps me to exhale a little bit more. It's a steady pulsation - impulse, waiting and observing, realization, exhale.
In module three and four, we address this more fully. We talk about blessing the 'unblessable' - the things we cannot accept. We talk about giving things and people whom we would prefer to fix or improve or educate over to a wider, wiser intelligence. To the angels or the Divine Source. To God. To Love. For me, that's the wider release - allowing that this is not mine. Not mine to fix. Not mine to heal. There is another step, which we can do later. But first the release - take this out of my hands.
Then, the next step, I think, is blessing all of it (including ourself) back into the wholeness of the good. I do this with ho o pono pono. There are other ways.
I have a sacred ache towards goodness, to seeing it all as good. It feels right and true. In the beginning, God said it was good. Maybe part of my work of blessing today will be to say, "It is good" to whoever and whatever I see. Thanks for writing this.
Let us know what happens.
Oh, I love that practice. I’m going to do it myself today. I will walk through the world and whatever I look upon. I will say it is good.😇❤️