Love in an Imperfect World

Hola Everybody,
I was at a second interview today and I keep getting asked the same question: “Why are you applying for this job.” My experience and resume sometimes works against me and it’s really frustrating.

Perfect Love/ Imperfect World

Neurosis is the avoidance of legitimate suffering.
Carl Jung, Psychology and Religion

We are all manifestations of perfect love living in an imperfect world. And as I rant constantly, love is openness. When you are open -- when you allow yourself to be open -- the love flows and you can communicate with your lover and anyone else. Whether you are sexing or having an important discussion, you can open and come together as one love expressing itself through two bodies.

I know what you are thinking. You are thinking that opening up in that way sounds good, but in the real world, it is not practical. You have tried being open and it hurt and you are not going to be burnt again – ever. Too many hurts and you close in order to feel less vulnerable. So you walk around encased in your shining armor, walking awkwardly through this terrifying terrain. Sometimes the armor rusts and you can hear the squeaks.

Yet you still desire love. Underneath all that armor, behind all those walls, your yearning backs up into frustration and anger. So you punish the world by closing your heart off. You are safe now, but so alone, so very alone. You open, you get hurt, and you close. You lash out, the world lashes back, and you close.

I know that what I am about to say will make you roll your eyes, but the only way out of this cycle is by learning to practice love. I have a client who once came to me and before I could say anything, promptly informed me that she wasn’t opening anymore because it wasn’t working. I had to smile at that and I loved her honesty. The fact remains that there is an issue here and the issue is you. Or rather your ego -- your mini me.

You can practice remaining open even when the reflexive, knee-jerk reaction to close your heart appears. You hear about this knee-jerk reaction all the time. People often describe it as “keeping the negativity out” as if one could spit out a cocoon and choose what life brings about. I find this entirely unrealistic. Do you honestly think you can keep negativity from your life? I don’t know, maybe I’m living in a parallel universe, but there’s at least about as much negativity as there are positives around here, so you want to shut out half of your reality, huh? Look around, if you keep doing this you are going to end up on an island somewhere all alone. Even then, some fuckin coconut will bonk you on the head, or you will step on a seashell, and those goddamned negative mosquitoes will bite and you will bitch about that too. 

There is no escaping you, dearie.

There is an easier way out of all this. You can choose to feel the hurt and practice staying open. The choice is quite simple. You can chose to close when you are hurt, but that is like cutting off your nose to spite your face. I was hurt world, so now I’m closing this ma’fucca down. Eventually, that leads to more problems. It makes you numb and chokes off vital energy. The other choice is instead of closing in anger, you can allow yourself to feel the deep sorrow, the raw yearning, the wounding slashes. 

In response to the hurt, you can practice love, or you can practice hate. Instead of tensing your body, you can relax into it, breathing deeply and fully, and feeling the deep hurt. Believe me, this will save you from a lot of unnecessary pain because when you confront your lover’s closing with openness, you will begin to see more clearly. And if what you see clearly that you have to move on, you will do so with an open heart. Your heart is your strongest ally and it only becomes stronger when you open it. Your heart is not a liability, it is an asset. It is an asset that you have consciously chosen to put in a cage.

Life is a lesson of love. Your life feels full in every moment you stay open as love. Too many people do not know what love is and wait to feel alive only when they experience a chemical reaction they attribute to another individual. That is not love, that’s ego looking for attention. Love is a state of being, not a feeling. The irony of all ironies is that you are, and always have been, love.

When you close, even for a moment, then you are creating suffering for yourself and pain in the hearts of those who would open in love with you. Your body is literally a neurological feedback loop and too many of us are starving for connection. To be fully aware and embracing of all that is within us and consciously seeking develop our full potential is our quest as human beings.

If you desire to live a full life and feel the profundity of love’s power, practice opening at all times, including times of hurt. Feel and breathe your heart’s deep hurt, and the hurt of others, without closing. Offer this openness to yourself and others, even those who are hurting you. The only alternative is to close and live an unfulfilled life. While I understand that a broken heart hurts, even worse is a heart that has no life. In the end, neurosis becomes a poor substitute for the noble suffering it takes to become a person of real character

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

Kindness...

Hola mi Gente,

If you’re impacted by the current big-assed snowstorm, I hope you’re safe and warm.

Today I offer a poem (not mine) on a topic we don’t seem to talk about enough…

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Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth. What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved, all this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness.

How you ride and ride thinking the bus will never stop, the passengers eating maize and chicken will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness, you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho lies dead by the side of the road. You must see how this could be you, how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow. You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore, only kindness that ties your shoes and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread, only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say it is I you have been looking for, and then goes with you every where like a shadow or a friend.

 -- Naomi Shihab Nye, from The Words Under the Words: Selected Poems

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My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization… 

What Really Matters, pt. I [The Inner Holidays]

¡Hola! Everybody...
If you’re sad or stressed do some service. It's better than any medication known to humankind...

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-=[ The Inner Holidays ]=-

The holiest of all holidays are those… Kept by ourselves in silence and apart… The secret anniversaries of the heart.

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The holidays are an opportunity for us to set aside our work and routines -- to give ourselves permission to put away, for the moment, our problems, and burdens. They are a time for joining with others in the celebration of life. However, this is not such an easy thing to do. Maybe together we can learn from each other how to do it.

Perhaps our holidays are clouded by sad and painful memories of the past. We miss loved ones who have passed on, or with whom we have cut ties or have lost contact. For me, the holidays are a mixed bag because they are the firmest reminders of my past excesses. I have come to understand that, if anything, the holidays are more about excesses rather than a celebration of life. There is the excess of consumption, of giving in to attachments whether in the form of food or material things.

This emphasis -- this obsession on getting and giving can become quite stressful: our lives are invaded by a mob mentality that can be, well... literally murderous. And, of course, mindlessness is encouraged everywhere, threatening to destroy all that we hold precious. To add to his, the whole message of Christianity is somehow lost in the shuffle of commercialism. It’s not about peace and goodwill; it’s really about -- well, at this point in time who really knows? This can present an even greater sadness for those of us who may be experiencing financial difficulties, adding to the holiday stress. Fact is that the glitter of the holidays is oftentimes an ornamental disguise for quiet despair.

It’s almost obscene.

What to do? Well, I have long ago learned that the holidays don’t have to be perfect. Sure, there is all this commercial crap diluting what is in essence a beautiful message, but I can create my own meaning. Perhaps together we can make that effort to turn within and share, not so much what can be measured materially, but the piece of ourselves that connects us all. A small gesture, a smile, an attempt to reach out, even a small acknowledgment can be ten times more powerful than the latest gadget. It’s all within our grasp. At work, for example, a colleague and I are leaving anonymous notes and simple gifts of candies in the mailboxes. Nothing extravagant, merely gentle reminders that people are valued for who they are. Imagine if you found a note on your windshield one cold morning that said some thing like:

You're receiving this note simply because you're beautiful as you are, and while I don't know you, I believe that as human beings we all have the potential to commit acts of kindness, works of beauty, and that we all have the potential to change lives for the better. This note is a reminder of the beauty and power you possess.

Yeah, I realize that many of us have become so cynical that such a note wouldn't make much of a difference, but don't tell me it would touch in a way your hard-won cynicism wouldn't let you admit. Somewhere inside of you, you would appreciate the the note, corny as it might seem. Try it some day: leave such a message for a stranger, friend, or colleague, watch their reactions...

The real message is that a man -- really an ordinary man, a mere carpenter -- who never owned his own home, who never wrote a book, or invented anything -- a poor man born of a single homeless mother, in fact, was able to change the world with a message of love. Now, that’s some gangsta shit right there.

Love,

Eddie

Monday Madness (Health)

¡Hola! Everybody,
Well, I’m all moved – almost. I still have to get the bed frame a mattress in (ugh). That will be done today. My back is killing me because (of course) I did too much lifting even though I paid two people to move me. Some times I’m too dense for my own good.

I’m taking today off to do a few things. I think it hurts more to reach into boxes than to lift boxes. Bending, or staying bent, while taking things out of a box hurts after a while.

I usually use the first Monday of every month to write on one of the twelve steps, but for obvious reasons, I’m not prepared today. Today is repost time! I wrote this a few years back and I don't think it's here. Have a great day everybody, tomorrow’s not guaranteed…

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“And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the
winds long to play with your hair.”
-- Kahlil Gibran

I'm truly blessed!

Really!

My doctor, an attractive young woman, calls me “her walking miracle.” Of course, this doesn't help me in terms of my trying to date her, but she loves me in her own special way. Indeed, I am a miracle: most people who have lived as I have -- who have been to the hells I have visited -- are not here to talk about it.

Most are dead, or dying…

My doctor finds it hard to believe that I fought the drug wars on the frontline of suffering. But the fact remains that if you would look at suffering as a war, then I was on the frontlines! LOL!!

Really...

Though she’s been my primary doctor for some years now, my doctor finds it hard to believe that I abused myself in the way that I say I did. I mean, I have to let my doctor know about my past lifestyle because she needs to know what to look for. Despite my past transgressions, however, all she finds is a man who possesses the cardiovascular of a person at least ten years younger, a man free of the usual suspects of diseases that plague people who have lived as I have: HIV, hepatitis, and various STDs.

I am blessed, but for a reason… or at least I like to think so.

My blessing comes with a responsibility and I see myself as a messenger. My responsibility is to embody a message of hope -- to live my life as a power of example for those would despair otherwise. Initially, I used to feel guilty about my health -- call it “survivor's guilt.” I didn’t understand it at first, until I realized it didn’t matter why. What really matters is that I’m here and what do I do about it. Therefore, there’s a mission in my life. I guess if I had to put it simply, I would say my mission is to leave this world a better place than I found it.

I have also come to accept my health as my birthright as a human being. I understand that “health” is not merely the absence of disease. Furthermore, there’s no need to worry about my health, eventually it will go away!

LOL!

Health is also a matter of perception and attitude. Suppose you stub your toe. What kinds of energy have you been conditioned to send to that throbbing discomfort? Most of us are taught to send fear and anger, even hatred, to our pain. My question to you then is this: which is the unhealed -- the throbbing toe or the hateful response to the unpleasant sensation?

It’s obvious that both factors are involved in our suffering. Therefore true healing, healing that addresses the whole problem rather than the parts of it, involves meeting suffering with love and kindness, awareness, mercy, and balance, instead of trying to drive it away with fear, distrust, anger, and loathing.

I have seen people struggle tremendously at trying to find healing or wholeness. The reality is that grasping at healing, like grasping at enlightenment, results in more suffering, for all grasping results in distress. On the other hand, to allow ourselves to lighten, to allow ourselves to heal, to trust the process and enter into it without models or preconceptions of how we’re supposed to feel or who we’re supposed to be, seems to me the very road that healing travels. When we remember that we are the path and the we must walk it ourselves -- lightly, mercifully, and consciously -- then we can begin to claim our birthright as human beings, the healing that goes beyond mere healing, and we truly discover ourselves.

This morning a cool Spring wind with an icy edge to it calls to me softly, beckoning to me. It’s the Earth’s way of reminding me that she delights in me and feeling me, playing her hands through my hair, reminding me that I’m truly alive.

EXERCISE: Loving-Kindness Meditation
(Adapted from A Path With Heart, by Jack Kornfield)

The quality of loving-kindness is the ground out of which an integrated whole life can grow. With a loving heart as the background, all that we attempt, all that we encounter, will open and flow more easily. While loving-kindness can arise naturally in us in many circumstances, it can also be cultivated.

The following meditation is a 2,500 year-old practice that uses repeated phrases, images, and feelings to evoke loving-kindness and friendliness toward oneself and others. You can experiment with this practice to see if it is useful for you. It is best to begin by repeating it over and over for fifteen or twenty minutes once or twice daily in a quiet place for several months.

At first this meditation may feel mechanical or awkward or even bring up its opposite, feelings of irritation and anger. If this happens, it is especially important to be patient and kind toward yourself, allowing whatever arises to be received in a spirit of friendliness and kind affection.

In its own time, even in the face of inner difficulties, loving-kindness will develop. Sit in a comfortable fashion. Let your body relax and be at rest. As best you can, let your mind be quiet, letting go of plans and preoccupations. Then begin to recite inwardly the following phrases directed to yourself. You begin with yourself because without loving yourself it is almost impossible to love others.

May I be filled with loving-kindness

May I be well

May I be peaceful and at ease

May I be happy.

As you say the phrases, you may also wish to use the following imagery: picture yourself as a young and beloved child, or sense yourself as you are now, held in a heart of loving- kindness. Let the feelings arise with the words. Adjust the words and images so that you find the exact phrases that best open your heart of kindness. Repeat the phrases again and again, letting the feelings permeate your body and mind.

Practice this meditation repeatedly for a number of weeks until the sense of loving-kindness for yourself grows. When you feel ready, in the same meditation period you can gradually expand the focus of your loving-kindness to include others. However, it is important that you work on yourself first, you can’t love others until you love yourself.

After yourself, choose someone in your life who has truly cared for you. Picture them and carefully recite the same phrases, May he/ she be filled with loving-kindness, and so forth. When loving-kindness for your benefactor has developed, begin to include other people you love in the meditation, picturing them and reciting the same phrases, evoking a sense of loving‑kindness for them.

After this you can gradually begin to include others: friends, community members, neighbors, people everywhere, animals, the whole earth, and all beings. Then you can even experiment with including the most difficult people in your life, wishing that they, too, be filled with loving-kindness and peace.

With some practice a steady sense of loving-kindness can develop and in the course of fifteen or twenty minutes you will be able to include many beings in your meditation, moving from yourself, to a benefactor and loved ones, to all beings everywhere.

Then you can learn to practice it anywhere. You can use this meditation in traffic jams, in buses and airplanes, in doctors' waiting rooms, and in a thousand other circumstances. As you silently practice this loving-kindness meditation among people, you will immediately feel a wonderful connection with them -- the power of loving-kindness. It will calm your life and keep you connected to your heart

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Love,

Eddie