start where you are

no no samo samo

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“Perhaps the biggest tragedy of our lives is that freedom is possible, yet we can pass our years trapped in the same old patterns...We may want to love other people without holding back, to feel authentic, to breathe in the beauty around us, to dance and sing. Yet each day we listen to inner voices that keep our life small.” ― Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha
“Perhaps the biggest tragedy of our lives is that freedom is possible, yet we can pass our years trapped in the same old patterns…We may want to love other people without holding back, to feel authentic, to breathe in the beauty around us, to dance and sing. Yet each day we listen to inner voices that keep our life small.”
― Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha

 

one thing i have come to know closely this last onth is that when i make efforts to change and the universe responds, well then thing are going to be different. damn! it is not easy to be different. it is easier to grow into being different. and of course that’s what happens when we change. we grow. and there is a death. and a dirge. and a birth.

tara branch’s quote is precisely reflecting my conundrum du jour. if i am to change, how best can i do this with true healthy change in view? how can i not make emotional decisions?

 

This entry was posted in 12 step, earnie larsen, emotional sobriety, empathy, employment, event of a thread, faith, faith hope and courage, forgiveness, giving and receiving, Recovery, stage 2 sobriety, start where you are, Uncategorized and tagged , , , , , , .

start where you are

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image credit.. mark zibert
The slogan “Be grateful to everyone” is about making peace with the aspects of ourselves that we have rejected. Through doing that, we also make peace with people we dislike. More to the point, being around people we dislike is often a catalyst for making friends with ourselves. Thus, “Be grateful to everyone.”
If we were to make a list of people we don’t like–people we find obnoxious, threatening, or worthy of contempt–we would find out a lot about those aspects of ourselves that we can’t face. If we were to come up with one word about each of the troublemakers in our lives, we would find ourselves with a list of descriptions of our own rejected qualities, which we project onto the outside world. In traditional teachings on lojong it is put another way: other people trigger the karma that we haven’t worked out. They mirror us and give us the chance to befriend all of that ancient stuff that we carry around like a backpack full of granite boulders.
“Be grateful to everyone” is a way of saying that we can learn from any situation, especially if we practice this slogan with awareness. The people and situations in our lives can remind us to catch neurosis as neurosis, to see when we’re in our room under the covers, to see when we’ve pulled the shades, locked the door, and are determined to stay there….Pema Chodron Start Where You Are



Read more: http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Buddhism/2000/11/Be-Grateful-To-Everyone.aspx?p=1#ixzz1vHK0hieO

i haven’t had much time lately to write. besides, i have been un-numbing from the news that my financial situation has become clearer and more focused. if i really look, i see that my many roles in my lives seem to all be shifting. it should be comical.

if there was a situation for the practice of faith, i might be finding myself in the middle of one. my nature revs up and i feel compelled to pull out a packet of dried drama and steep it in my world. this urge beckons me like the spirit of barnabas collins to let it live in my world once again. i am in zones of unknowing on several levels and i am pausing.

this in and of itself is a short miracle. i honestly don’t know if i will see it through without recidivism- not substance- just behavior. but i am gonna work at it. it is very much like wearing a new pair of shoes. they feel great, but foreign none-the-less.

it’s all nutsy and new, but i am certain that i am moving in a direction i need to go. i move forward in faith not certainty. and with hope.

the 5-points jazz festival is tomorrow and i am going with a friend to see this local band. i have a full day of training new peer coaches at work and then off to the neighborhood next door for some tunes. the funny thing is that my friend thought we would be going to see a european techno-chillout ensemble, but we will be seeing a local cover band. ah well- it’s a saturday night..:)

This entry was posted in 2nd stage sobriety, life on life's terms, pema chodron, start where you are, the jakarta band.