Leading Meditation
I like the story about Mother Teresa being once asked by a young journalist to describe her daily prayer and meditation practice.
„I simply sit in silence and pray“, she answered with clarity.
„What do you say?“, asked the journalist, intrigued.
„Oh, I say nothing. I simply listen to God.“ she replied.
„And what does God say? “ asked the journalist, sniffing a sensation…
„God doesn’t say anything, either,“ responded the old nun with a smile. „God simply listens also.“
„If you have never had the experience, nobody can explain it to you,“ she then finished, bowed courteously, and went on her way…
Being „Good“
„A miracle is a shift from fear to love,“ states Marianne Williamson in her commentary on „A Course In Miracles“. That shift, and the awareness of how it can be achieved, is now spreading through recovery communities like wildfire. By recovery communities, I mean the movement originally spawned by a bunch of alcoholics in New York City and Akron, Ohio in the late 1930’s which eventually spread around the world as Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, with membership in the millions, there are over 200 fellowships dealing with the plethora of addictions which plague humanity, such as Workaholism, Food Addiction, Gambling, and most recently, Media Addiction, to mention but a few…
Shyness
Whenever I find myself alone among strangers in a dance class for couples to learn something like foxtrot, a feeling of distress begins to arise, with accelerated heartbeat, increased sweating, and light nausea, such that I generally leave before the real action begins. I console myself with the thoughts of how much I like dancing solo in a crowd, and even with fantasies that, one fine day, a beautiful partner will have sufficient patience and loving kindness to be able and willing to bear with me as I gradually master the moves, the rhythm, and the coordinated steps…
Aloneness
The abused become the abuser. An inability to identify and grieve the losses of our early lives leads to the immense pent-up energies coming out sideways, almost always with destructive consequences. The generational chain is ancient, powerful, and has embedded itself in every cell of our bodies. Thankfully, we are now developing a consciousness and associated healing modalities which is helping us in breaking this chain, for the good of humanity as a whole. For more on this, the Twelve Step Programme of ACA (Adult Children of Alcoholics – designed for anybody wishing to recover from growing up in a dysfunctional family) is highly recommended…
Inner Power
Insight does not always lead to integrity. Charisma does not usually mean honesty. Even respected philosophers or spiritual guides can struggle with the ordinary demands of daily life — relationships, parenthood, commitment, and even basic truthfulness. Sometimes people can be disingenuous in a very charismatic fashion. As Shirzad Chamine, the founder of Positive Intelligence (PQ) and developer of the PQ Mental Fitness modality points out, transformation is made up of 20% insight and 80% practice. We must walk the talk if we are to heal, grow, and thrive…
Grieving Revisited
Even those obvious losses were impervious to my efforts to grieve. My heart felt numb. Nothing stirred, but for an inkling of rage deep down inside. Like many in such a predicament, I chose the solution of self-medication using the drugs, – legal and illegal – which were freely available to us as teenagers in the 1970’s, and the process addictions of the False Self such as workaholism, co-dependency, and ego inflation which are so lauded in the culture of today’s global, post-modern, consumer society. I became convinced that I couldn’t grieve because I didn’t know how to “do” it. Only much later, after years of living in addiction recovery, did I come to the realisation that grieving is not something we “do”, but rather something we “be”…
This Time
Even the most articulate and hard-working of us may find we cannot erase the imprint of a parent who was too busy or depressed to notice us or who seemed to consider us a burden. We then interpret this as our caregiver wishing we’d never been born. When we internalise such stances, our shame, if it could speak, would repeatedly tell us that “the world would be a better place if we were dead”. Our lives change only when we reconstruct the missing inner maps that should have been formed in safety and attunement…
Violence
Down on all fours, searching in vain, he hears the voice of a policeman who has happened upon the scene.
„Good evening, Sir. How can I help you?“
„Thank you, Constable. I have lost my keys.“
So, the policeman also gets down on all fours, pulls a flash light from his pocket and joins the search. After ten minutes, they both stand up, perplexed and disheartened.
„Are you sure you dropped them here, Sir?“, asks the policemen.
„Oh no,“ says the man. „I dropped them in that dark side street across the road over there.“
„Well, why in heaven’s name then are you searching here?“
„Because it is bright here, in the lamplight,“ was his laconic answer…
Generational Grief
My new friends in AA suggested placing my focus on what was needed in terms of new behaviours in the light of this discovery. The first, of course, was not to take the first drink. Much more was to come later, in the form of a new design for living as described in the Big Book of AA and summarised in the Twelve Steps. That work is still ongoing today, one day at a time. I also had a bizarre hunch in those first months, one that has been recently confirmed in my heart and soul, without solid external evidence: That I am the grandchild of one or more alcoholics.
Family Matters
From the child’s perspective we could apply the Zen proverb: `We never step into the same river twice.´ It is not the parent, per say, that determines the experience, but the relationship between the child, at any given moment, and the parenting at that same moment. Each interaction between a parent and any one child is a reprise of stepping into new waters, and for each parent-sibling combination there is a different river. In the overall picture, my impression is that our parents always acted with the best of intentions. Like all human beings they had their good days and bad, and sometimes their actions were determined by inner Saboteurs of which they had little awareness…
