I’ve read several of these popular modern self-help meets
spirituality type books. While I did find them fun and entertaining, they were
no more than a light sitcom to me, a cheesy chick flick if you will. I tended
to roll my eyes at half the stuff I read and skipped over the exercises. Since
this is a challenge, I decided I would approach it with an open mind and take
it more seriously. So this morning I
read my first chapter of A Course in Weight Loss and did the exercise
Williamson asked of me. Out of a list of negative emotions, I had to pick the
ones that I felt applied to me and write about a time when I felt that way. Once
that was done, I had to ask God to take the pain away from me. Like I said, I
don’t believe in God. I do, however, believe in some sort of universal divine
power that has a hand to play in all occurrences and that there exists within
each of us a place where we can connect on a deeper spiritual level to
ourselves and to the world. I also believe that our need to mold ourselves into
all the things modern society wants us to be in addition to the feelings of
guilt caused when we fail to do so are what cause this disconnect between our
outer layers and our inner ones. By layers I don’t mean the physical and
metaphysical layers of us. More our emotional and mental layers that we are
made up off. The top layer is the most rational, the most reserved, the
strongest, the protective force. As you go deeper within you are more prone to
hurt, but that does not mean weakness, it means you have more ability to feel
yet at the same time it is stronger because it is where your power to
understand and deal resides. On the other hand, when the outer shell “feels”
and is “hurt”, it crumbles and thus we need to call on the inner to make sense
of this and come out of it. Our resistance to it, I think, is what tends to
lead to neurosis, tic, binging, anger…This was a point where the author and I
agreed.
Therefore instead of speaking to God as we know Him, I spoke
to the Universe, these cosmic powers that surround us, and to this inner being,
this part of me that I had shut out for so long, to help rid me of these mental
poisons. I spent over an hour detailing the guilt I felt when thinking of how I
let my self go, the moments of shame from my binges, the anger I felt at myself
for what I believed were my failures and my lack of will power, but also anger
and resentment at my friends. I saw them as part of the cause. To them I was
the tiny girl with the big appetite and I couldn’t resist and just say NO! The un-forgiveness towards the boys I hold
accountable for my pain and lack of self-confidence. The unfairness of having
to work so hard and struggle for anything I want while other people seem to get
it so easy. I asked myself to let go of regret, the past would not change,
instead chose to learn from it, chose to find the positive in this negative.
Eject that poison! I asked the universe not to take it away, but to meet me
half way, help me see the beautiful, the positive, the wisdom I could take from
it. It was exhausting! But what do you know?! My mother called me less than an
hour ago to talk to me about one of my tumblr blog posts. I spoke about a woman
from the refugee camps here in Nablus (Palestine) who has desperately trying to
befriend me. Her life is rough, 11 children, pregnant with twins (one of which
is dead in her womb), abusive and jobless husband, all living in a one bedroom
apartment. Instead of finding compassion I chose to judge her. I saw her
dishonesty and manipulation as she tried to coerce me into buying things for
her children. I saw her anger in the way she dealt with and treated her kids.
And I saw her self-victimization as she vented about her situation while her
kids ran around looking like they grew up in a jungle. My mother scolded me.
She told me that I was judging her through the spectacles of anger instead of
compassion and because of that I regarded her with disdain and ignored any
sense of humanity. If I were to look at this woman’s situation from a different
angle, I would find that she is fighting to survive and protect her kids in the
only way she knows how and can. This is not the west. Her kids might get
bullied even more if she became a single mom. There aren’t day cares and baby
sitters. Her parents will not take her in!
One of the words I had chosen on
to describe myself with was disdain. While I like to pride myself on being
open-minded and accepting, there are moments where I could look down on others
whose life choices I don’t believe match up to mine. In regards to this woman,
I failed to see that yet again I had done just that.
At first, I was angered by the
call. I wanted to tell my mom that she was always looking at what I did
critically, if only she would look at it from my perspective, would she stop
making me feel guilty all the time. But then I realized that she was proud of
my work, who I am and what I do. However, she was looking at this situation
from a place of love while I looked at it from a place of anger and fear. A
place where I did not want this woman to depend on me, where I was so afraid
that I would feel pain by her situation, get attached and stepping out of my
comfort zone to spend time with her and her kids that I chose to see her as a
lousy mother and conniving bitch. In other words disdain.
Tonight, I have to do a meditation
exercise; I’ll let you know what I got from that tomorrow
Today’s events might be a complete
coincidence, but I chose to ask for help and open up my heart and a hand was
handed to me. All I had to do was crack a whole in the wall and listen!
Obviously my issues aren’t solved, but it’s fun to think that there is some
power willing to work with you
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