Acceptance

Comments/Correspondence to:
sunfoof
(C) MMIV

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I'm really struggling with this right now. I find it very difficult to accept who I am and where I'm at in terms of learning how to be the best me I can be. I know I can't ask, "Why," because there are too many myriad answers to this question. I do want to know what it is that I'm stuck on. It seems like some people have no problem with this concept of acceptance. I find envy when I think of that. I'm in a dangerous spot in my thinking because I'm teetering on the brink of a downward spiral.

Since about 9:00 am I thought I was in a good place in my learning to be me. By 11:00 pm I was made fully aware that I'm not exactly where someone I care for deeply perceives I can be. I want to be there so badly it hurts. And it hurts to be reminded of how much farther I must go to be there. I know there's a better Me deep down inside, but I spent many years covering that Me up. I can be aware that it'll take time to uncover that Me, but it doens't change the fact that I want to be that better Me right now.

That's the essence of acceptance, maybe. I say maybe because I'm finding out that I really don't know jack about the world I live in. I feel so far behind. Sometimes, like right now, I feel like I'll never catch up. It makes me want to feel like it's not even worth trying. It makes me want to give up. But I've come too far to give up now. But then again, what's it worth? I made so much of what so many people who care about me say is progress, then receive a supposedly well-intended appraisal of my ability to be a caring friend. Now I question whether I've really made any progress at all.

Now, I know that my friend didn't mean for all of these thoughts to spawn this cascade into the depths of my self-pity. But for right now, that's exactly how I feel. Goddamnit! All I've done for the last 20 years is to let people down, to let myself down. I thought that I was really making headway with progressing from those awful, destructive behaviors. Now, I don't know. After talking I can't shake this feeling of failure. I will pray on it and sleep on it. I will surrender these feelings of doom and gloom to my Higher Power. I can't handle it. I can't handle it. I can't handle it. I can't handle it. I can't handle it. I can't handle it. I can't handle it. I can't handle it. I can't handle it. I can't handle it.

Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now. Please, God, take it from me right now.

I need Your Love because I'm not loving myself right now. I am afraid. I didn't mean to hurt anybody, I really didn't. I feel like I'm doing the best I can. But I cannot handle feeling like this right now. I do not want to lose what I have. I do not want to lose myself again. I know she didn't mean it to hurt me like this but I can't stop crying. Please take my pain away...I don't know what to do and I hurt so badly. I didn't mean to let her down, I really didn't. God, I'm trying. It's not that I don't care. Maybe I cared too much.

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To live is to wonder.
To wonder is to live.
sds

Will

Comments/Correspondence to:
sunfoof
(C) MMIV

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The easiest lesson about Will is the hardest to learn because it is another lesson that cannot be taught. In no uncertain terms, my own Will has been the root of my pending demise since the day I first believed in it. Do not mistake my words, it is not wrong for me to believe in my own Will. It is wrong to believe that my Will prevails over the environment I exist in. Any thought like that requires the essential, "Mwahahaha," insane laugh of utter dominion behind it.

I am slowly learning how to turn out my Will. I'm not so much turning it out against itself, rather turning it out to the light of Reason. I guess what I mean is, I'm sharing some of these (formerly) inner thoughts and beliefs with other positively-oriented people around me. My most recent experiences are showing me that people other than my Mom do care about me. The ironic thing is, they actually choose to care about me! Out of all the other things these people could care about, and they choose to care about me. When did I become somebody worth caring about?

Apparently, I've been worthy of this caring treatment my whole life, I was just refusing to be aware of it. Chalk it up to stubborness, whatever, I just cannot recall a time in the past 20 years when I actually recognized I was truly worth it. Again, don't get me wrong. There have been times when I 've imagined that I was "care-able". [Ed.- I didn't want to take the time to find a word that meant "care-able".] But I've already admitted to the fallibility of my imagination.

I think what might have happened, at least for me, was that by thinking so lowly of myself I began to rely more and more on this shaky belief in my prevalence of Will. By doing this, I weakened my spiritual contact with the Universal Will which actually knows what is best for me. It's not that the UW stopped trying to get its message across, it's just that my own Will had sent up a wall of interference so it couldn't get through with as much signal. So I was hearing less of the UW's plans for me. And boyoboy did I ever lead myself astray!

I'm not going to sit here and tell you that everything's perfect now. I am still struggling to let go of my Will. I realize that's normal, especially for very willful people, but it's also very frustrating. Heck, I didn't know that I was so willful. It almost doesn't seem to add up: low self-esteem and high willpower. It definitely didn't add up in my favor most of the time. The high, misguided energy of low self-esteem can sure send well-intentioned willpower way off course.

More and more, I am beginning to see tendrils of hope, like new growth in a garden in the Spring. I am being shown that by lowering my resistance to the UW, I can have faith that the UW's plans for me are to my benefit, for my highest good. Though I still struggle with it today, I don't think I'm a freak for doing so. I realize that many people struggle with their Will versus UW. I realize that I'm not as absolutely unique as I thought. You don't realize how comforting that is.

Thanks for reading. Namaste.

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To live is to wonder.
To wonder is to live.
sds

Truth

Comments/Correspondence to:
sunfoof
(C) MMIV

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Truth is a funny thing. I think the most amazing thing about truth is that it usually happens when you least expect it, or when you have least prepared or planned for it, or when it comes from a direction you could not have possibly imagined. I am pretty sure that most of you, who have thought seriously about truth, have already come to this conclusion.

Another thing I realized about truth is that I am definitely not privy to some sort of truth that the rest of you don't know about. I used to think this. I used to believe that the truth I thought I saw in my mind was so different than the truth I witnessed around me. I won't berate myself too much for this misinformation, but I do wish I had seen this so clearly at a much earlier time in my life. Truth.

"If I knew then what I know now." How many times have we heard that haunting refrain before? Oh my God I thought I would strangle the next person I heard say that, when I was 18 or so. Now it is on my mind so much sometimes I think I might strangle my self. [Editor: Note the spacing in "my self;" author is no longer suicidal.] But sadly, it's so true. Truth.

Actually, if I had known then what I know now, the magnitude of the mistakes I could possibly make is so great, it's mind-boggling. The truth there is that we know what we're supposed to know when we're supposed to know it, and not a moment sooner. Tough s**t, that's just the way the cookie crumbles. There is another truth: we know what we're supposed to know for a specific reason, likely only for that reason alone, and we aren't supposed to know why we know something until the time comes for us to reveal what we know. This I know. Truth.

Hmmm. I think I just heard the world mutter, "Duh!" Or was it you all?!? Either way, call me late for this E-ticket ride on the "Train of Truth," but don't call me late for dinner. And don't call me Shirley, either.

Well, I've been hung up about the truth of my diagnosis for the better part of a decade and I just simply must get over it already. I've been so afraid of letting people know "the real me" that I've kept this "dirty little secret" tucked away in my favorite mortuary of personal revelation ever since I've received the knowledge. The day I received diagnosis I felt like the most depraved, felonious convict as had ever existed. From that moment on, I assumed many things, mostly false of course, and I proceeded to drive myself to the brink of extinction for the next ten years. Truth.

Where did I get such a skewed perspective about this disorder, anyway? I certainly cannot accept it as a truth, logical or otherwise. Was I force-fed these erroneous conclusions, or did I just delude them up all by myself? [Editor: "Myself."] In either case, or from whatever etiology, I am glad to be able to, today, begin shedding my baggage. It's been a long time coming, but I can finally feel the vestiges of my "Decade of Dearth" slipping away. I am feeling an emergent freedom beginning to envelop me in its warmth with womb-like familiarity. Truth.

You know what I have to call this feeling? I have to call it coming home, really. I am coming back to myself after having stepped outside of my self so long ago. I am no longer being the snake that eats itself, but am becoming merely the dog that chases his own tail. I think that's much more appetizing, proverbially. It is a much more comfortable place to be, too. It's alot easier to be yourself if you're not trying to destroy yourself. It's also amazing how crowded that lonely road can be.

I trusted someone with my truth today, the truth of my self as I've come to inter it. It was ironic that I made so much of a big deal of it, as it turns out. Apparently, as I had come close to outing myself during a conversation, my subconscious (or super-, really) decided that close wasn't close enough. My self shared with this person a piece of paper that had nothing to do with my little secret, or so I believed. Turns out that this particular piece of paper had my diagnosis written on it. So my friend, in reading the paper for a totally different reason, had advertently read about my diagnosis - AND I HAD NO IDEA!

Well, tonight I hemmed and hawed all around the subject, not consciously knowing why I felt it was so important that I reveal my self tonight. Man, it felt like I was mentally trying to birth a 20lb baby! All that strife and struggle and the truth was already in my friend's hands and heart. Apparently, God had already decided that this person was someone that I could truly trust to not subject me to ridicule, defamation, or otherwise demoralize my self. Truth.

For this experience I am eternally grateful, for the first and foremost reason that the truth is now undoubtedly known about me, between my friend and myself. There is a fresh sense of freedom that I almost don't know how to contain. I am starting to see my self (and myself) in a much different way! And in this way, at least for today, I can look at myself in the mirror and say these words:

I like myself, I love myself, I accept myself, and I respect myself.

I don't ever want that to change again, not ever, no-sir-ee Bob! Thanks for letting me share, and thanks for reading. Namaste

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To live is to wonder.
To wonder is to live.
sds

Been a while...Sunday Thoughts

Comments/Correspondence to:
sunfoof
(C) MMIV

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"SUNDAY"

Life is two times hard and today is all-out bangin'.
Feelin' like my sorry ass is ready to be hangin'.
I been swung at from the left,
I been swung at from the right,
I been swung at from the middle,
And I think I've lost my sight.

But I listen to Big Papa,
Sittin' way up in the sky.
And I find out pretty quick,
That He wants to fix my "I".
Homey knows that I ain't playin',
'Cuz He made this livin' tough.
And I know He knows I manage,
'Cuz He made me strong enough.

So now that I done wrote it out,
And left myself expressed.
I'm feelin' light and clean again,
'Cuz I got shit off my chest.
.sds.20040919.

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To live is to wonder.
To wonder is to live.
sds