Colleton River
“Getting rid of most of
your resentments, guilt, shame and fear is like getting most of the rocks out
of your shoe. It still isn’t all that
comfortable.” - Anon
“Holding on to anger is
like holding a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else. You are the one who gets burnt.” -
Buddha
Why do we nurse old grudges? Why do we insist that there are things about
us that are so secret we are willing to take them to the grave with us? Why do we harbor prejudices against other people
based upon religion, race or other criteria?
When we don’t know or incapable of doing something, why do we try to
hide that fact and pretend otherwise? Why do we hold hidden agendas with
people? Why do we exaggerate, flatter,
mislead and look for ways out of our responsibilities? Do we insist on constantly preparing for future
catastrophe when our whole life’s history shows these “catastrophes” never come?
Facing ourselves is hard. We justify and rationalize behavior that we
would never tolerate in others. We lie
to ourselves, convince ourselves of the lie and then act on the lie as if it
were fact. But if we are ever to know
true freedom and effectiveness we must take the time to honestly assess
ourselves. We have to have someone else
to work with us – someone who we trust and has some wisdom, and also someone
who does not have a motive to keep us emotionally sick. We cannot do this alone. Think about it – if I
focus all my attention on observing myself, what am I really observing? The only facet of my life I can examine is me
examining myself – because I am the one doing the examining!! But most of the work is ours alone. If we are going to find the flaws within us
that continually sabotage us without our knowing we are going to need to take a
hard look at how we have gotten where we are.
Doing this honestly is a daunting task – we are all too willing to look
at everyone else’s mistakes and neatly ignore our own. But if we want to walk a spiritual path, if we
want to truly understand and connect with our fellows, if we want to have a
full and rich remainder of our lives, we need to take the time to go back through
our life and list every grudge, resentment, thing we feel guilty about, thing
we feel inadequate are anxious about and put them on paper. When we put things on paper we are forced to
put them in a bit of perspective, and we gain some detachment from them.
And this is where we need the trusted other
person. We need to go through it all and get
it out of ourselves. By doing so we gain
some detachment from our negativity and thus can get a bit of perspective on
it. We see the patterns emerge where we
continually shoot ourselves in the foot.
Is it easy? Absolutely not. Is it worthwhile? Making the commitment to see it through will
be the most worthwhile thing we ever do for ourselves. The growth and effectiveness we gain from it
is only overshadowed by the freedom and peace we obtain. We can finally learn what it means to be true
to ourselves.
Today, may I
be honest with myself - and someone else.
Have a great
Tuesday !!
David
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