Beyond Broken

Self Exploration

My Wanting Has No End

 

This phrase comes to me on a walk to the river.  Why is it so comforting?

“My wanting has no end.”

The first thing I notice is there is no judgment attached to it. If I say it this way, “there is no end to my wanting,” I hear judgment.   Judgments I have heard my whole life — “You are a bottomless pit and you are too needy.” I feel the familiar shame of my needs and wants. And almost before I feel this I feel an even more familiar litany of anger at all those who deny me. To be honest this “why haven’t you, why didn’t you?” plays in my head for a great majority of every day in a constant stream of turmoil and unrest.
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Follow Your Heart

When I took my first serious writing class I learned a startling fact: To write you must read. “The more you read the more you will be inspired to write and the better writer you will become,” my teacher said. I had never linked these two activities.

As an only child I kept myself company with books. The characters became my friends. The children’s book The Lonely Doll, by Dare Wright in 1957 expressed my dilemma. “Once there was a little doll. Her name was Edith. She lived in a nice house and had everything she needed except someone to play with.” I was four when the book was published.

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It Is Good To Be Human Part 2

 

One of the most common problems I hear about is the habitual tendency to turn on oneself or turn on another. Someone has to be blamed in order to avoid feelings.

“Splitting is defined as the failure in a person’s thinking to bring together the dichotomy of both positive and negative qualities of the self and others into a cohesive, realistic whole. It is a common defense mechanism used by many people.”

In the Pathwork, The Guide calls this our dualistic thinking and describes the challenges of being human in a dualistic world where our natural dualistic divisions of good and evil and life and death are not actually the truth.

Recently, I spent an hour with a group of people stumbling around a room with translucent plastic grocery bags over our heads.  Eventually our eyes adjusted and we could see shadows and light. The point? Our human perceptions are so limited and we believe we have the whole picture. From this illusion we take our stances of opinions, cases, judgments – we do our splitting….

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Our Investment In Our Grievances

“Holding on to my grievances give me a sense of power, which protects me from feeling vulnerable. It’s a way of standing up for myself and defending myself from being hurt, disappointed, or rejected again. It keeps me vigilant”

This hardening of our hearts is the ‘beast’ in us. It is the wounded beauty that has lost faith in itself because it was never fully seen or recognized.

“What keeps the wound and hardening from healing is not knowing that we are lovely and loveable just as we are while imagining that other people hold the key to this.”

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