° I’ll do it later.
° I’d be happy if only_________. (insert person, place or thing in the blank)
° I’m disabled.
° I’m too _________ to find love. (once again insert person, place or thing in the blank)
The truth is in THIS moment. NOW is all I really have and in the now I am perfectly me and all is as it should be.
I am back on track once again.
Namaste
Christine.
My mom was being a grump last night and tried to pick a fight with me. As usual, I took the bait and bawled her out. I REALLY need to stop letting her suck me into drama by picking at me. I’m really not even sure that she’s aware of the fact that she does this.
She picks at me until I snap at her or I become annoyed and bitch at her to defend myself, and then she acts like a victim and basically assassinates my character. I suspect it’s because she (unconsciously) feels more in control when she can blame whatever it is that is wrong with her day on someone else rather than having to struggle against her own negative thinking/self talk or whatever.
I know that if I stop taking the bait and reacting in the way she expects me to (by defending myself from her sneaky attacks) I will be free of the rest of this pattern (the resulting character assassination and blame placed on my shoulders and the guilt and shame that follows it) and can leave her to deal with whatever feelings she’s trying to evade.
I spent most of my life believing that I am abusive and mean and that I’m just generally a bad, lazy, foul-natured creature I am only just now learning that much of this negative self-image is false and was gathered into my heart/mind through buying into games which my parents play/ed to distract themselves from their own feelings/issues.
The point of this post: I am learning to be self-aware enough to be able to define my own reality. I love my mom enough to realize that like all humans (my self included) she struggles with false perceptions and at times tries to draw other people into those perceptions.
I no longer need to react the way I always have as I am no longer held captive by my ego. The awareness that I only really have “now”helps me to evade the old traps and to walk down the path of my life without nearly so many emotional pitfalls.
I am me, and I am not defined by other people’s expectations.
I’ve been reading so many blogs lately and I keep coming across people who really judge and hate on fat people, and well – pretty much anyone who isn’t “beautiful”, “successful”, and who doesn’t measure up to the average hip-hop video/sitcom ideal of what a satisfactory human being is.
My life has not been “successful” by modern standards. As a result of being raised by a family with issues I wasn’t released into the world free of baggage. This has been both my blessing and my curse.
My parents were children when they had me. Soon after my birth my mother developed schizoaffective disorder and my father began a long and torturous battle with heroin, cocaine and alcohol. I spent the vast majority of my early years in and out of foster care as my mother was bouncing in and out of psychiatric care. I encountered both abuse and love during these years.
I was a semi-ferile hippy-child when I entered grade school and I coped with not fitting in the world by making myself as invisible as possible. Part of this invisibility was achieved through becoming fat. It’s amazing how quickly people ignore your existence (in between the jeers) when you aren’t seen as attractive or energetic, or athletic.
At age fourteen my mother sent me to live with my father (they had divorced when I was 18 months) as I was out of control, angry, not attending school (mainly due to extreme social anxiety) and abusing alcohol and drugs.
My father did his best but he was abusive and terrorized me into losing weight by calling me names, punishing me for eating and basically helping me to create a serious and life-long eating disorder. I was on the honour role, was my ideal weight, had an after school job and seemed successful to the world around me at age 16 when I finally stood up to the emotional and physical abuse which came with living with an addict and left home for good.
By age 19 (1992) I had tired of nurturing my own drug and alcohol addictions and of living on the streets off and on and entered a treatment centre. This was the turning point at which I realized that I actually can change my life, how I live it and how I feel about myself.
Over the years I have substituted one addiction for another, gradually overcoming:
drugs
alcohol
cigarettes
relationship addiction
rage
shopaholism
compulsive gaming
depression
and well the list goes on and on.
I believe I have finally found some healthy ways to deal with my fears and insecurities and am actively rebuilding my life. I’ve learned that a lack of balance as well as a lack of self-love and self-nurturing are major components in the mistakes I’ve made and I am working very hard to keep myself centred and on track.
I still struggle from time to time with compulsive eating and really negative thinking but I’m growing and changing daily and each fall backwards is a lesson in learning to keep walking forward despite set-backs.
So yeah, I’m that fat lady with the loud little dog that you see walking down the street and snicker at for being “white trash” and “obese”. Have some compassion for me as just like you, I have my battles picked and am fighting them on a daily basis – just like you are fighting yours.
All humans want to be loved and strive to be happy and at peace. All of us have walked through carrying our own burdens and trials. Wouldn’t it be beautiful if people treated one another with compassion rather than condemnation? Casting judging glances at one another and preaching about how we “should” be living our lives does nothing for any of us really. It just causes more feelings of separation and aloneness for everyone involved.
“LOVE IS UNCONDITIONAL (fear is conditional)
LOVE IS STRONG (fear is weak)
LOVE RELEASES (fear obligates)
LOVE SURRENDERS (fear binds)
LOVE IS HONEST (fear is deceitful)
LOVE TRUSTS (fear suspects)
LOVE ALLOWS (fear dictates)
LOVE GIVES (fear resists)
LOVE FORGIVES (fear blames)
LOVE IS COMPASSIONATE (fear pities)
LOVE CHOOSES (fear avoids)
LOVE IS KIND (fear is angry)
LOVE IGNITES (fear incites)
LOVE EMBRACES (fear repudiates)
LOVE CREATES (fear negates)
LOVE HEALS (fear hurts)
LOVE IS MAGIC (fear is superstitious)
LOVE ENERGIZES (fear saps)
LOVE IS AN ELIXIR (fear is a poison)
LOVE INSPIRES (fear worries)
LOVE DESIRES (fear Joneses)
LOVE IS PATIENT (fear is nervous)
LOVE IS BRAVE (fear is afraid)
LOVE IS RELAXED (fear is pressured)
LOVE IS BLIND (fear is judgmental)
LOVE RESPECTS (fear disregards)
LOVE ACCEPTS (fear rejects)
LOVE DREAMS (fear schemes)
LOVE WANTS TO PLAY (fear needs to control)
LOVE ENJOYS (fear suffers)
LOVE FREES (fear imprisons)
LOVE BELIEVES (fear deceives)
LOVE “WANTS” (fear “needs”)
LOVE versus fear: what do you feel?”Sarah Nean Bruce is a storyteller and filmmaker. Read more from her at sarahneanbruce.com
Quote stolen from Tiny Buddha by me.
This really spoke to when I read it and it’s really helped me with rethinking how I see myself and the world. I hope it’s of use to you.
——–
Part of loving and accepting myself is working on and improving the weaknesses I find in my body, spirit and mind.
I’m currently working really hard to overcome my negative relationship with food (earned through a lifetime of not loving myself enough to nurture myself correctly) and being physically active.
I’m gaining muscle and losing fat at a safe/sane rate but for me part of this process is loving and accepting myself as human, flawed and worthy of growth.
I’m not going to make a big deal about losing weight, but I am going to make a lot of noise about getting healthy, strong, and happy.
I’m going to die at a ripe old age knowing I’ve made the world a better place, even if the only thing I’ve really changed is myself.
About a month ago I was walking (my usual walking route) around the lake with my dog and a group of teenaged boys decided it’d be funny to bark and moo at me. I didn’t respond and continued to enjoy my evening walk with my beloved dog, shrugging off their “insults” with a reminder to myself that the only person I really need approval from in this lifetime is me.
I’ve come to realise that I have allowed the rude kids to get under my skin although at the time I hadn’t realised it. Each time I hit that area of my walking route my head starts chattering on angrily and defensively about how “this time I’ll say something mean to them and make them feel small”. I’m amazed by the fact that my head can take such an insignificant moment in my life and make it into such a lot of noise and emotional discomfort.
Since realising that this is just a case of my mind trying to hold me in the past I’ve learned to talk myself out of sitting in those thoughts and to move on a little quicker each time. I know that eventually I will stop even having to have these 2 second arguments with myself and that little strip of the path will once again be peaceful for me. I’m learning bit by bit how to quiet my mind and stop fucking with my emotions. Those silly boys didn’t do anything other than be who they are and do what they do, I on the other hand chose to carry that brief moment with me twice daily for the past month.
I wonder how long it’s going to take me to learn how to just stop picking up the baggage so I don’t need to go through these utterly silly inner struggles to learn how to put what I’m carrying back down?
———
In case it isn’t obvious – the book “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle is really a strong influence in my life and thinking at this time.
If you’ve had me on Melo or on Facebook you know that I post this song frequently. It’s special to me and it’s bittersweet and reminds me of my relationship with my now deceased father.
We loved each other deeply and truly but were never able to trust that love. My father and I were similar people (eerily so especially when you consider that we had no relationship until I was 14).
We were both always searching for peace of mind and a place where we fit. We both struggled with addictions to drugs, alcohol, solitude, insecurity. He taught me that I had a mind and that it was ok to live outside of society’s boxes/coffins and that life IS beautiful. He taught me that to question authority was not only my right, but my responsibility and he taught me that I don’t need a man (or woman) to make myself complete.
My father had a brilliant mind and a broken heart and cancer, hep c, booze and needles took him from me before he was able to become the person he always was (and never realised he was).
He never knew that he was my Jack Kerouac, but he knows now, and our relationship is at peace. I am not repeating his mistakes anymore. I will grow old and happy and we’ll both know peace when our souls cross paths again.
I hereby declare my dedication to meeting my own needs for nurturing and love.
I no longer need to search externally to fullfil my desire to be nurtured. I am the best mother to myself that I could ever desire.
I am whole, complete and self-contained. Emotional neediness is something I no longer need to hold on to.
I hereby abandon my fruitless quest for external fullfillment (but not myself). I have everything I need within myself and connections with other humans are just an added bonus.
I’ve been reading “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle as well as a book called “How to Live in the World and Still Be Happy” by Hugh Prather. In addition to this I’ve grown really interested in the Dog Whisperer tv series and have been studying Buddhism. All of these have led to my being more aware of what and where my head wanders off to throughout the day and I’m finding this to be both enlightening and somewhat scary at times.
I’ve known for years that I hold quite a lot of repressed anger as well as anxiety but it’s only recently through listening to my own mind rambling, reacting and generally hopping around that I’ve become aware not only of how much, but also of how easy it really is to let these moments of craziness go.
Enlightenment is now officially on my to-do list. It’s really not a new thing for me so much as an “only recently acknowledged to the rest of the world” goal. I’ve been trying for years to “fix” myself through intellect and therapy and honestly, I’ve always sort of known in my gut that what I really need is to learn to live in the here and now.
Golden Chain
I am a link in Amida Buddha’s golden chain of love that stretches around the world.
In gratitude may I keep my link bright and strong.I will try to be kind and gentle to every living thing and protect all who are weaker than myself.
I will try to think pure and beautiful thoughts to say pure and beautiful words, and to do pure and beautiful deeds.
May every link in Amida Buddha’s golden chain of love be bright and strong and may we all attain perfect peace.
Promise
We thank Amida Buddha for showing us the way of Freedom,
We will endeavour to walk in his Noble Path everyday of our lives.Namu Amida Butsu
Namu Amida Butsu
Namu Amida Butsu
I have tasted perfect peace for brief moments and I believe that in time I will be able to live there.
It’s really nice to be able to walk through a crowd of people and catch my mind chattering on negatively about what people are or aren’t thinking about me and to just laugh at how silly the thought is and move back into the present and just smile and mean it.
Actually, since I’ve started to work on my thinking in this fashion my face muscles are often tired from smiling by the time sleep rolls around. Peace is possible.
Life is Perfect as are We.
I’ve really been doing some major growing as a human being recently. I went through a couple of weeks where I was struggling but I managed to find my balance and recover my footing rather than panicking and allowing myself to fall off the edge of the precipice; quite probably for the first time in my life.
What did I come out of this experience with? Well, the knowledge that I am capable of making the changes in my thinking which I’ve always struggled with and, the knowledge that what I really want out of life is true inner peace.
I’ve begun working on myself from a spiritual stand-point and am going to join the local Buddhist temple. I’ve been researching the style of Buddhism which they practice and frankly, it’s exactly what I’ve been looking for. I’m scared of stepping into a new set of experiences and meeting new people, but I’m also really excited and eager to begin.
A lot of my recent thinking, soul-searching, praying, reading and exploring has been pointing toward Buddhism as the “right fit” for me for a long time and in fact, the Children’s Meditation Golden Chain has been my morning meditation for a very long time, and hangs above my desk. It also happens to be from the Jodo Shinshu Tradition, which is the path I am choosing to study and eventually follow.
This evening I was singing the Beatles song
while I was out walking with my dog and just generally loving the light, the smells, the sounds and just loving my life and the fact that I realise I CAN have the life I want. I thought it might be nice to post the lyrics here as they just seem so apropos with everything I’ve been going through recently:
Blackbird – By the Beatles
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to ariseBlack bird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
all your life
you were only waiting for this moment to be freeBlackbird fly, Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.Blackbird fly, Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise,
You were only waiting for this moment to arise,
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
Almost every time I go for a walk lately I find a marble laying in the dirt somewhere along my path. I now have 5 random sized and coloured marbles by my bed which I think is a neat visual metaphor for my return to sanity, this is of course what inspired the title of this post.
Nothing is more beautiful than hope.
