On the fallacy of holding grievances

Love holds no grievances. 

You who were created by love like itself can hold no grievances and know your Self. To hold a grievance is to forget who you are. To hold a grievance is to see yourself as a body. To hold a grievance is to let the ego rule your mind and to condemn the body to death. Perhaps you do not yet fully realize just what holding grievances does to your mind. It seems to split you off from your Source and make you unlike Him. It makes you believe that He is like what you think you have become, for no one can conceive of his Creator as unlike himself. 

Shut off from your Self, which remains aware of Its likeness to Its Creator, your Self seems to sleep, while the part of your mind that weaves illusions in its sleep appears to be awake. Can all this arise from holding grievances? Oh, yes! For he who holds grievances denies he was created by love, and his Creator has become fearful to him in his dream of hate. Who can dream of hatred and not fear God? 

It is as sure that those who hold grievances will redefine God in their own image, as it is certain that God created them like Himself, and defined them as part of Him. It is as sure that those who hold grievances will suffer guilt, as it is certain that those who forgive will find peace. It is as sure that those who hold grievances will forget who they are, as it is certain that those who forgive will remember. 

Would you not be willing to relinquish your grievances if you believed all this were so? Perhaps you do not think you can let your grievances go. That, however, is simply a matter of motivation.

from A Course In Miracles 


Credits
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Roger's parting gift - The Big CLICK!

 

Forty years ago, three very pleasant acquaintances - Lach, Roger & Rob - gave me a personal insight that was my first AH HA! moment, my first-ever, full-conscious awareness that life as I was then living, as I'd lived all my life to that moment, featured some serious malfunctions.  That personal insight took a lot of courage & deep friendship on their part to share & my hearing it, recognizing its truth, marked my first quantum leap out of what was into what finally is.  


Roger left us - at least physically - earlier this month.  In his parting, he left me a gift, the big CLICK! that marked the final end of the first part of my Big Quest for a sense of my true self.  What a quintessentially Roger thing to do, one last treasure on his way out the door!

In tribute to Roger, last week friends gathered in our community kitchen for a mega cook-off, making food to distribute to people who needed a little TLC for other reasons.  It was something he loved to help out with, so a great way to give thanks for his life.  I wanted so much to go.   Cooking?  For a greater good?  Right up my alley.

But I didn't go.  Had the time, had the desire.  But something held me back, as it typically does.  But this time, the desire was so great & the deterrent so strong, for the first time I could actually FEEL it, a rough hand barring me from heading to where my conscious self wanted to go.

And in that moment, a great truth about myself that's eluded me for decades hit like a ton of bricks - I am a participation-phobe.  Yes, my soul rings with the desire for wholeness, for a sense of belonging, for community.  But way way way down deep is a heretofore undetected FEAR of participating.  A fear that squelched my desire from growing into more.

I am a participation-phobe.  Even in my own life. 

A zillion lights clicked on with that realization, along with a HUGE sigh of relief.  Vast swatches of my life never made sense.  Now, they do.  

Praise be, participation-phobia is just a fear which can be faced & overcome.  But first, it had to be made visible.  My body totally balking at joining into the Pay It Forward cooking event paying sweet (& tasty) tribute to Roger turned out to be the long sought for, sorely absent MEGA reveal.

For the past ten years, maybe more, have marveled that in spite of strides made in getting a better sense of who I am, something major eluded my awareness.  It felt like a switch that just wouldn't turn on.  And then Roger left us, I could FEEL the force deterring my desire to join into a tender farewell, and all of a sudden - CLICK!  The switch was thrown, the light turned on, and by jove I think I got it. 

Thanks, Roger, for the great parting gift.  Now that I know, can move past it.  Now that I know, can let go of the fear & see how I am already part of so many greater wholes, can embrace even more.  And I will do so with joyful deep awareness, in tribute to you.

Credits:
SARK

wanted: DREAM WEAVERS

The Universe gave me a great & fabulous present yesterday, delivered as I dug into Be Well's awesome Eggsparagus.  Was talking with a friend - around my age, someone whose opinion I value - about a pet project that evolves from connecting seniors with their here & now values to composing a vision statement to connecting them with their present-day dreams.  

As I finished, my friend looked at me with perplexed disbelief - "But, Deev, when you are old, what you dream about are your days of youth, your days gone by.  That's their dreams." 

What a gift!  Two sentences summing up the woeful attitude about & expectation of aging that needs to be scuttled so our fresh, invigorating anticipation & experience of growing older can be rebooted.

FYI - the getting-up-there & flat-out elderly aren't the only ones that need to reinvigorate their relationship with dreams.  We ALL do, from youngsters to adults, middle age to young old, elderly to ancient.  

My belief is that dreaming is meant to be as natural as breathing.  sigh...  All too often, seems it's left behind, somewhere in our twenties.  Life settles in & we seem to settle, to.  In too many ways.

My best friends in the universe are lifelong dreamers.  They embody George Bernard Shaw's, "You see things; you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say 'Why not?'"  Not Dave & Candy - they say something closer to, "WOW! Let's go for it!!!"

For over forty years, I've aspired to be like them, to be a dream weaver.  My spirit feels downright tickled to realize that being a dream weaver is what my life has always been about - look at the title of this blog!  But I slipped into a weird but apparently all-too-standard human quirk - am gung ho to help others connect with & realize their dreams; haven't been so diligent about my own.

 

Those days are gone, baby, gone - am gettin' down with my dream boogie!  

Armed with Live Happy's story about Mary Miller & the dream work magic she brought to her family's janitorial service, with Matthew Kelly's The Dream Manager (which builds on the Millers' inspiration) & all things SARK, am ready to become the master dream weaver that's been my forever destiny.

Wanted:  DREAM WEAVERS.  Care to apply?

 

Credits:

100% SARK!

Passing up fritters

Not this kind!

The more my brain sets an intention to increase my moment-to-moment productivity, the more it seems my heart sets a corresponding intention to NOT, defaulting to fritter, not to act.  I knew that, could experience that, but it made no sense.

Now, it does.  Learned last week that our heart drives our brain waaaay more than our brain effects our heart.  Yes, that's what it felt like, but didn't realize it is rooted in reality - our heart actually does send way more messages to the brain than the other way around.   We feel, then we think.  Which means that when experts say, "Change what you think to change what you feel," have it only partially right.  

Viktor Frankl was the first to explain that there is a brief moment between what stimulates our feelings & our thinking response, a priceless moment  where we can choose to have a different response.  The feelings still come first, except we USE it as a trigger to think differently, letting us respond differently. 

I absolutely adore my husband, am grateful to the gills to be married to him.  But one thing that drives me up a wall with John is that he CANNOT do this.  He is often not aware of what he is thinking, is clueless about what triggers a response, so he is incapable of wedging in that priceless moment allowing him to experience the emotion differently.  He wants to improve the few behaviors that rip me apart, but it's impossible because he can't insert that all-important different experience.  For me, it's easy.  For him - impossible.  It would be as impossible for me to stop being self-monitoring;  it came with my original operating instructions.  It's not in John's.  He can fervently wish & even want - just not in there.

But it is for me.  And now I know that my heart really & truly does more or less call the tune. Now that I know it's rooted in physiology, can see a path forward.

My nurture is fritter, my nature is not.  My nurture is procrastination.  It's where my heart goes to when given a task, whether it's grunt work or connected directly to accomplishing my dreams (seems to kick in strongest with dreams).  

But now I know.  I can see in John someone who would love to be able to step aside, experience whatever emotionally triggers an undesired response, and change his action.  Not in him.  It is in me.  There is no reason for me not to turn things around.  

In elementary school, I was notorious with both teachers & fellow students for not doing assignments.  It wasn't that they were late - didn't do them.  Naturally, the teachers identified me as beyond procrastination - lazy, willfully unproductive, duplicitous.  They didn't realize that, for whatever reason, my heart felt compelled to stop my brain from taking reasonable, rational next steps.  In many ways, at many times, it still does.


What I finally realized is that my wretched behaviors set out to serve me, in some warped but made-sense-at-the-time way.  Am sure they protected me somehow from the shock of Ian's death, when he was 11 & I was 7.  They served as a cushion around my heart.  This past week gave me the impetus to tip my hat, thank them for their efforts on my behalf, send them on their way with my gratitude for doing their best to keep me whole.  

In Living Juicy, SARK looks at procrastination, a mild form of held me back.  She notes that we CAN unlearn procrastination, just as we learned it; that learning to identify procrastination is an excellent first step, followed by accepting that if you procrastinate, it has served you; we should weigh the gifts & negative qualities of procrastination;  should study procrastination, begin to read & speak about it, because it thrives in isolation; finally, we need to release procrastination to fly through our very own dream sky.

Like SARK, I discovered that my version of extreme procrastination was a form of self-medication.  Like her, I needed to address & lift up my sense of low self-esteem before I could knuckle down to working on my persistent, pernicious frittering.  She labels herself a "recovering procrastinator" - her inclination didn't disappear, but she has in under control.  Am working to get there!

In order to better understand it, SARK advises we "weigh the gifts & negative qualities of procrastination.  Here are the negative qualities & the gifts, as she experiences them:

Negative qualities - not starting things, not finishing things, hiding, feeling self-anger, frustration & paralyzing inertia (sounds like me, on any given day)

Gifts:  continuing to have excuses, not feeling challenged, having a ready explanation for not living your dreams, having more time, basking in the glow of denial, all of which feed & foster areas of low self-esteem which flourish until WE believe in our own abilities to fly.

Once we can see procrastination in an illuminating light, then we are ready to bid it farewell, part ways.  I love SARK's description, "To release procrastination is to fly through your own dream sky.  Once I learned how to let go of procrastinating behaviors, my creativity soared to new places that seemed unreachable before.  Letting go happens in layers & increments & is definitely a process.  I am looking forward to the new places I'll travel as I continue to let go.  Releasing procrastination can produce euphoria."

After reading SARK's wisdom, was aware that my extreme procrastination never meant to still be with me in my 60s.  Its use was to help a little girl retain some semblance of something that resembled wholeness in the midst of her universe being ripped apart. It was meant to be temp help, but was kept on full time. I can think of no better way to show my gratitude for what it set out to do for me than to show off that I am the whole human it hoped to nurture. 

Last week, I learned that my heart sends significantly more messages to the brain than the brain does to the heart.  Up to now, it's felt safest with procrastinating.  I need to feel the first inklings of emotions that trigger procrastination & wedge a different, empowering message into that space.

On Monday, for the first time in over 15 years, I did a thorough review of Living Juicy, seeing it in a new, uplifting & empowering light.    

In this moment, from the bottom of my heart & the prefrontal cortex of my brain, I thank the sense of extreme procrastination that stepped up to the plate when no one else did to protect a little girl who was devastated by her brother's death, by the dissolution of her family.  Well done!  I release it, with gratitude.  And I pledge to pass up the fritters, to make it proud of what its efforts made possible.  Time for euphoria!

credits:
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SARK, SARK & SARK