I Thought The Song Went "Respect" Yourself---Not "Reject" Yourself?

So.... there is this very solid and trustworthy and loyal friend you have. This person is always there. You never have to doubt how solid they are as a friend. They are also insufferably stubborn at times. Yup.

They are also a little bit different from that family member is so calm and peaceful---you know the one who never gets upset about anything and is as seemingly as tranquil as a still sea. Not to mention that they also lack a little personal initiative and motivation at times. They just never really get too worked up about anything!

I am trying to recall how many books I have read, and how many talks I have heard, where there is this notion being spread that we can somehow separate the good in us from the bad: that we can have our exuberance for life while throwing out the impatience; that we can be solid without also being stubborn; that we can be still waters without also being a bit limp and flaccid. I used to believe it was possible. Maybe it is. Maybe in some secret fantasy world that I have yet to inhabit there is a magical realm where people are able to only be what is good and true and beautiful about themselves. Maybe there is this special formula that I have yet to come across where the exuberant person who is excited about life and living it to the fullest never comes across as impatient and the loyal and trustworthy friend never has a moment of stubbornness and the calm repose of a family member never leaves them a bit too accepting and unmotivated. Maybe. Or maybe not.

Where comes this nearly universal notion that we can accept the good and reject the so-called "bad" about ourselves, about the world, about each other? When did we become these psychological miners who dig up acres of land, destroying pristine vegetation and wildlife in the process, just so we can filter out a few ounces of precious gold? Yes, we are going to secure the good about who we are in our own unique ways and we are going to turn the rest into mere waste.... trash.... refuse.... so much ugliness and chaff to be discarded.

I used to be both a bit more idealistic---and what I see now as delusion---than I am now. Yes, I still believe in the power of love. I still believe we can overcome tremendous obstacles. I know for a fact that miracles do happen. I also feel that we cannot so neatly separate our the seeming gold of our own personality from the ground in which that gold is embedded in without some serious consequences to our overall ecology of being.

When we look back over the course of our lives, and the people we have known, I am fairly confident that we can sense how the best qualities we admired about these people were always present with some degree of quirkiness: that if someone was as solid as a rock then they also had some gravity to them and they were maybe prone to inertia at times; that if someone was as illuminative as a fire then it was only natural that they could burn you now and then; that if someone was very fluid and flowing they were probably a little wishy-washy, too, and prone to being a bit unreliable.

Now if you read a book on the Enneagrams, or take the Myers-Briggs personality tests, or partake in a little psychotherapy, or even read a popular self-help offering from the your local bookstore you will probably be exposed to the notion that a truly good person has discovered how to separate out the 'good' from the 'bad' within themselves; and that if you are serious about your spirituality you will find out how to do this, too. There is no shortage of these teachings about rejecting various aspects of our person in the hope of accepting and affirming other aspects. The tragedy, though, is that not everyone realizes the high degree of likelihood that those aspects are inseparable. Few if any ever question the assumptions in such a view. So, the result is that we end up trying to do what we would never dare do to others: accept some of them, reject the rest. That very hurtful activity is what is taught, is what is encouraged, is what most of contemporary spirituality is about: reject yourself in the name of accepting yourself. Odd, eh?

Trust Me.... I Am Not Just Going To Stand Here & Wait Forever?

I hate waiting. No, really. I. Hate. Waiting.

I hate waiting more than Joan Rivers hates wrinkles---or signs of life on her face. I hate waiting more than the Pope hates contraception. In fact, I actually have some things in my car that I purchased at Home Depot nearly 2 years ago. I have gone to return them 3 or 4 times. Each time unsuccessfully. What happens is that I end up leaving the store with them because the line to return them has been too long. I will not wait in that line. I figure one day I will show up there and I will have my chance to start a waiting line rather than extend one. :)

In exposing ourselves to the numerous varieties of self-help literature that has flooded the marketplace, or even the well-intentioned advice of yet another self-made Guru who became enlightened on a park bench, we can get the idea that some of our less than desirable traits can be transformed. While this is somewhat true, in part, it also overlooks the distinct possibility that our-less-than-desirable traits (impatience) are wedded with and inextricably bound up with our more-than-desirable traits (exuberance).

Arguably, the most exalted state of consciousness has been purported to be the state of "non-duality." In simple terms, it means that what seems to be in opposition to one another (light and dark, for instance) are really two facets of one reality. There is not a light-Earth and a dark-Earth. Yes, there is day and night. But day and night are not in opposition to each other; they are contending for ultimacy in some all-consuming metaphysical struggle for the soul of humanity. Sorry, Oral Roberts. What they are is more like two shades of a reality that transcends (goes beyond merely being light or dark) them while also embracing and encompassing them.

If we had the ability to extend out into space---and do via satellites and the pictures and images they take---then we could see in an instant that a singular Earth is both light and dark simultaneously. At the same time, a portion of the Earth faces the Sun there is a portion of the Earth that has rotated away from the Sun. This our dance, and not our mortal combat.

Now, what if our own traits and qualities are the same way? What if our exuberance and our impatience are not about choosing which one we want to be more of, and then seeking with all of our might and self-awareness to remove the other? What if the mortal combat in the psyche is just nonsense? What if all the means and measures we go through---and struggle with successfully implementing in our lives--is really just a bunch of half-baked balderdash that literally has us chasing our own tail? What if the notion of transformation is sometimes like trying to make the night day and the day night? What if our traits and tendencies serve a multi-faceted purpose and are, in fact, multi-faceted?

There is so much about contemporary spirituality and popular psychology that I not only do not believe is effective, I also believe it is harmful. I am all for what works. I am a pragmatist. If something is effective, and it has no horrific residual consequences, then I am all for it. I don't care who comes up with it and why. If it works it works. It is that simple. My issue with a lot of the information that is shared in the overwhelmingly "spiritual" climate of our times is that much of it not only does not work it is non-sensical. For instance, this notion that we can parse our qualities and traits and separate our own personal and peculiar wheat from the chaff is a vast notion that cuts across so many diverse areas of human influence that it barely if ever goes questioned. Religious leaders believe it. Gurus believe it and teach it. Educators believe and teach it. Self-help authours believe and teach it. And it seldom if ever really is effective. Yes, it fills seats in auditoriums and Churches, in Synagogues and Ashrams. It sells books. It gets someone a seat on a Talk Show. But is it effective? Can we actually separate our own personal and peculiar night from our own personal and peculiar day? Or.... are we both more-encompassing of either night or day and yet inclusive of them?

What if our exuberance and our impatience are one and the same reality? What if we are impatient because we are so exuberant? What if our exuberance for Life makes us impatient in putting Life off while we wait in line? What if parsing our own non-dual nature as inclusive of both "positive" and "negative" is just a sham. An effective one, but a sham no less?

Slip Sliding Away.... Reflections On The Challenges of Frozen Surfaces

I like ice. Ice is my friend. Not only does it make for nice cold drinks in the summertime it also helps encourage mindfulness in the winter. If you have ever encountered ice un-mindfully then you know exactly what I mean. :)

Ouch, right?

Is it the fault of ice that it adheres to its own nature ends up becoming quite slippery? Damn ice, anyways. You suck. Probably planned on taking my ass down hard to the ground, didn't you? Probably even linger with my for a week or so as I nurse this sore coccyx!?

We are currently in the middle of winter here, and while there has not been much snow there has been a LOT of ice. It covers the roads and driveways that Uriah and I walk. I was smiling so deep and wide yesterday as Uriah and I walked outside in air that lingered in the mid 30's, with bright Sunshine lighting up our world. I smiled because as we walked on the ice I could see how mindful he was. I could see him responding to the slippery surface that his 6 year-old body was walking upon ever so delicately. I could see how quick he was responding to every little slip of his feet and then compensating by shortening his stride. He could feel how a normal stride put him at increased risk of falling down... so he shortened his stride to "baby steps."

I let Uriah lead the way home and I followed him. I could sense how when we make the world completely safe and sanitary we remove ourselves from the influence of being challenged. Oddly enough, we can conspire to make ourselves weaker, less responsive, less mindful, less adaptable, with poorer balance and motor skills, with limited range of motion and slower reflexes. A world without ice is a world.... dare I say it.... of diminished mindfulness.

It is amazing the level of interplay and exchange that occurs between us and the world we live in. As we make the world "easier" to manage and navigate by removing obstacles in our path we may not realize how we are also making ourselves less capable. We need challenges and obstacles in our way to draw out the best in us..... to force us to see if we can rise to the occasion. And no, it does not need to be a monumental effort of dominating willpower that is forever unrelenting. Sometimes it is about being playful by dancing on the ice.... by trusting our bodies ability to respond to a change in surface.... by knowing that if we put ourselves in a challenging predicament we are also putting ourselves in position to grow in amazing ways and maybe even surprise ourselves.

The alternative to avoiding all of that which is seen as a challenge, by forcing us to adapt, is to see our own potential slip-slide away. Sometimes the easy way comes with the highest costs and the least of all paybacks.