Shinay Meditation

The subject of meditation has come up a few times over last week within my circle of friends and loved ones. I believe it is the key happiness in that it connects you with what is truly “you”. That is to say that when you learn to quiet your mind, letting it wear itself out with all it’s clinging and wondering like a toddler you’re only supervising, you will find out who you actually are. In these moments, in the quiet dark you’re left with only you. If you manage to do this, regularly, you begin to solidify. That part of yourself, that deep consciousness begins to have room to move to the surface in your everyday life. I know of a few techniques to manage the only type of meditation I believe in.

First let me give you my position on Meditation. The only form of meditation I’ve been able to be honest in is Shinay (Shi’nay meaning Calm Abiding). When ever I have done guided meditation or the meditation I found along my journey, where an end is the focus of beginning, I have manipulated it. That is not to say it’s invalid because I don’t know. I wasn’t honest during my experiences with them. I became honest through Shinay, and so it’s the form I support.

Shinay means calm abiding and it is true on a fundamental level. If you’re familiar with the phrase “grounding and centering” it applies also, though more so than I had ever experienced when “grounding & centering”. I am going to explain Shinay with a support and Shinay without a support as it was explained to me, though paraphrased. My experience in this comes from my involvement with the Dharma Path program at the Kagyu Thubten Chöling monastery in New York. I studied there and attended a four day silent retreat there. During that time I practiced Shinay Meditation for more than a hour each day (2 hours on the weekends).

To begin you can sit crossed legged on the floor or in a chair if that is uncomfortable. I recommend sitting in the proper posture, but it is getting harder and harder for me to continue this way. I use a zafu & zabuton but any small pillow which supports your back is fine. 

 

Zafu & Zabuton

The point is to sit with your spine as vertical as possible, square your shoulders, drop your chin a bit and lower your eyelids about half way. Sit with your hands folded in your lap or palms down on your knees. If you search for meditative postures you can find illustrations; the point being that if your hands are in your lap don’t lace your fingers, just place them left hand first, palm up then right hand also palm up on top then fold both thumbs in and touch the tips together. This is the posture you will use every time, it will not change.

Shinay with support means with an object to focus your mind on. It can be anything; it doesn’t have to be a Buddha statue or anything sacred like that at all. I used a sphere of lapis lazuli when I used a support. The point of the support is to give your eyes and mind something to occupy them in this reality instead of going on a happy trip through your imagination. You red flag in that moment are your eyes closing; keep them open.  Now your mind is going to want to fixate and have many thoughts about the object. Let those thoughts flow like water to their end. Do not attach to those thoughts. An example of that would be you in the right posture, using a statue (just an example) and noticing all the dust on the statue and allowing your thoughts to move to how you should first wipe the dust and so forth. The dust doesn’t matter, the thought about the dust doesn’t matter, the thought doesn’t matter and you cannot stop it. Lama Jinzang (at KTC) gave me the best explanation on this for my mind. She said thought is energy and you cannot stop energy, you must simply let it pass. My mind works in metaphors of water and it was instantly changed into flowing; let the thoughts flow but realize you are the witness, not the flow of thoughts.

Breathing is importing, obviously, right? It is helpful to breathe in and out through the nose. You may say “But, I have allergies” and I would say “so do I, it actually helps”. So try it: use deep regular breaths in and out nice and slow. The object is to calm yourself, and your mind.

Trust me that the thoughts will slow. You may not reach Shinay on your first attempt. We’re not wired right for that here in America. We’ve been taught growing up to pay attention, to think, to analyze everything. This is the practice of letting be. When you have mastered Shinay you will be aware of your surroundings instead of witnessing yourself be aware of your surroundings. There is a subtle but powerful change in your perception. You will know when you can remove the support and simple sit and meditate Shinay. Wanting to remove the support because it means you’ve advanced is wrong; wanting, for that matter, is often wrong. Wanting, like wanting new clothes for your Barbie, like wanting the vehicle for your GI Joe guy, wanting is an attachment which drapes your “self” in identification.  In this instance wanting to remove the support means advancement in meditation. It is then a symbol that means you’ve advanced. It is a symbol you use to identify yourself, which means witnessing not being and so is wrong. When it’s time it is time and you’ll know. 

When you remove your support focus your eyes in the middle of the room. This will be the completion of this practice; being without attaching to anything physical. You’ve let all the thoughts about the support go and then it was time to remove it. You now sit in a deep peace and breathe.

Start out in fifteen minute intervals. I searched meditation chimes in wav files to burn to a CD to use and then realized it would be much simpler to send it to my phone and use an alarm or something similar for the desired time period.

In the height of my meditation (two hour intervals) I preferred to make some tea in the middle. I wouldn’t speak or interact with my family or housemates during that time. Luckily I had a house full of respectful and understanding people. Though I have experienced what I referred to my “guerrilla meditation” days which occurred as everyone in the intentional community was going their separate ways. As with any group of people packing and moving it was tense and personal conflicts arose. Yet I was able to meditate quite successfully during these times and I was able to stay unattached to the cycles of energy. This means it kept my mind stable and I didn’t react to anyone having a bad day and attempting to draw someone in as a distraction from their own issues. After we had moved and the distractions were less present I continued to use this meditation along with other meditative techniques while on retreat to sleep only three to four hours per day yet feel no ill effects.

I will post another blog on the other techniques I am aware of and have used to further your meditation if there is an interest.

Namaste

How much do you commit for the fairytale marriage?

Married life, or more to the point happily married life has been, what could be called a passion of mine. Interpersonal dynamics, the way we work together has always fascinated me. It has been the focus of my day today as well. I thought about a toast I made recently as my friend's best-man at his wedding. I gave that toast to them so I cannot repost it here but I can certainly speak to my vision of a marriage.

The world right now is all a buzz about bullying and how to stop/prevent it. Believe it or not, it relates directly to our interactions in marriage. I've long said that we teach our children not with what we tell them to be but with what we show them to be. Bullying starts at home, take it from a bully. I'm going to lay out the framework, as I see it, for a happy marriage and then, if you're still with me at the end I'll tie it in to bullying.

You meet your sweetie, they are everything you could want and you make them your own, so to speak. The problem has started already, you see we attract someone by being what we believe they want, which is other than our selves. Then, surprise, surprise, we aren't what they thought we were and the game is afoot. The same thing is happening to them. They're (& we are also) terrified that you'll:
a) find out
b) hate them
c) leave or
d) all of the above

Why didn't we simply be ourselves? We aren't taught to, that's why. From "reality" tv to main stream media we are all taught how to fake it properly. So if you haven't found that special someone, find yourself first. It will make the next thirty to sixty (maybe more) years pleasant and not filled with what could have been or what should be. But what if you're just like me, married and tired of playing the part you enticed your partner with? You can only experience real happiness by being real. How do you find that? What if you, again, are like me and so confused with the different masks you've worn that you don't know which way is up? Find yourself. There are many ways to this destination, I'll tell you of the one which found me:


Into the nothingness: Mine was fortunate enough to coincide with a period of great aloneness (not loneliness) where I had a vision on my couch of who I was. It was unflinching and brutal. It had to be though, I'd looked away so many times before. I'd put my excuses on it and "reasoned" away my responsibility but this time I was shown me as though I was looking at a stranger, it was a lens of truth. I saw myself as though a strange would see me. I saw all those moments in which, from the inside, I believed no one saw the cracks, no one saw the manipulation, the facts not spoken, the perspective skewed; but I saw it all in blaring detail showing all my shame and embarrassment. I wouldn't be my friend because I used those people to prove my existence. Their reactions gave me the information I needed to calculate who I was. I was operating from the inside of myself with a sort of broadcast delay filter to react as the person I was portraying. That person didn't have a solid home life and didn't know how to be a husband with only the examples provided through failed marriages. However, none of us are informed that we can think outside the box. It happened for me in that moment on my couch, I thought outside the cave. If you haven't read any other of my blogs: the cave is the secret place inside of you in which you hide from reality, gauge your acceptance, plot your revenge and... formulate your bullying. Think outside the cave to find yourself. I found myself to be a person who would completely erase himself if he could, to erase the tendrils of bullshit I had contaminated my family with. I could see it within them, forming their choices, hurting their spirits... I had told them they were stupid! They started to believe it. It was my energy, the forcing of my will upon them; contaminating them. I wished for myself to cease to exist so they could be sparred of this. I saw how this same bullshit seeped into me from the human beings which were my parents. Their lessons bled over onto me, just as mine did to my children and my wife. I hold no ill will to either my Mom nor my Dad. They are beautiful beings in the middle of their own lessons. We're all having a hard time at life, so give people a break whenever you can.

A strange thing happened in that pit of despair. A light started to shine. As I was looking at my "self" and seeing his actions and how they hurt others I accepted them, those actions. I heaped them onto my shoulders and vowed to carry them myself along with any negative energy they caused within my family. Call it karma if it helps you to picture it. I took up the negative karma of my being and all the karma I created within others through their reaction to my negative self. I decided that since all I had was myself that I was going to the man who I had always known myself to be. Initially, as a young man that sort of semi-opaque future "me: didn't cut it. He wasn't strong physically, flashy, powerful or rich though I wished him to be many times. I found that man in this pit and he was a hero. I hadn't seen it properly before. This man who would take responsibility, who was the essence of stability was who I needed and, fortunately, exactly who I was. There was, and still is, nothing flashy to me really. I'm still not rich nor powerful, but I know who I am and I am a good man. That good man could never have become without him first accepting that he wasn't a good man. It's a strange sort of paradox but it makes perfect sense to me. To be who you are, accept who you are; down to the depth of your soul; in truth, accept who you are. Accept that in that "what else could I do?" moments you chose a weak path. Then, and only then, can you be. That light was coming from my heart, coming from me. As I saw myself again, stripped of the clunky items of dress I had stacked onto me and I was so thin, like a vapor and I was light. If I was going to be light, my light would be truth.

So how does this make for a good marriage? Do we need sunglasses? I was just me in this reality. The pit was my hell and I dind't chose to run from it, I chose to face it and become. To do that I stripped away all those indiscretions, those weak moments when I was less than myself, when I felt my own heart sink at the words coming out of my mouth. There I was naked in essence and there for my wife to love me, and I mean really love me. I gave to her my true self, my heart which wished for love.  She is in the process of stripping herself. It's so painful to watch and at the same time beautiful in a tragic sort of way. There we are, children blinking at the light, the dream with it's darkness fading and we hold each other, truly hold each other and we can't help but weep at the moments lost. But then that crying is just a step back into the dream...

When you're with your lover only they exist, so why cry at what is not happening now, be now, be with them with your heart truly open for them. You find you exist just for them. This is base camp. This place you exist in is the anchor of your marriage. You walk out of your cave as nothing more than that inner child which has no real shape, raw and tender from the layers being peeled off revealing nothing more than the spark of life who turned away and allowed those weak choices made. You are simply you, you just exist. You're not attaching to your partners approval to define who you are; no, you're simply being. They are there with you and you love them, for the person they are not the approval they give. Then love isn't a ball passed back and forth; it's the very air you breathe and every particle of reality. it's as though the first part of your marriage (in my case anyway) was like dating on-line then finally meeting. Again, in my case, I was nothing more than my exposed soul and I gave  myself to her. It is really all I have to give. I can give you a pencil and it will be lost, taken, used up or maybe broken but it was never really yours it was just in your possession for a time. When you give your love you give your self. The way I see it, I ceased to be, for myself, in that moment and I became. It's odd but you can think of it as sacrificing Single-Ryan for Married-Ryan, or more to the point shedding the scaly selfish skin of single-me to emerge as real me. Another metaphor? Sure! When I cared for only myself, when I twisted my family to reflect favorably upon me instead of respecting them as people, as people I loved! I was then the caterpillar, I went within (not an accomplishment, a happening) and when I emerged I was the butterfly. My being is the compilation of my choices and I chose my family. I chose to be the best example I could for my boys.  I chose love.

She chose me too.


That attitude of forcing others into actions we want is the mode of the bully. They might use the threat of physical force, or pain. They might use a secret about you to threaten you with exposure. They might use guilt or your dury pulling on the strings of your honor to play you. However you look at it when you force someone for your own gains, you're a bully. "It's for their own good" - you're a bully. "You made me do this!" - yeah, you're a bully. "How can you leave your_____ in this condition? Don't you care?" Yup, manipulative and a bully. So maybe you start to see, we're all bullies, all of us.
We live in a civilization in which to have for me I take from someone and pay less than it's worth. I'm always forcing my way, at the water-cooler, in the meeting room, in the bedroom; I know when I'm being insincere, shallow, hollow; when I've made this choice to show you something which isn't me so that I might get what I really want but can't ask for. The ones called bullies are just the ones who got good at the one style. Sure we all have our limits and you might say that you could never do what had been done to you, that you saw that one guy do, but they are subjective and meaningless unless actually in that moment. We all have within us the capability of being evil beyond imagine. It's our choices which define us though, isn't it? Not what we say we'd do, but what we actually did. So why are our standards set just above everyone else? Why don't we do what's right instead of what's easy?

It starts at home. It starts with who you choose to be. What you chose to give your soul to. You can choose some religious path, and I'd say if it makes you a good person, then it's a good thing. Sadly, so often we use that "doing of right" which always comes with someone else's explanation of how to do something, as our club of righteousness to bully some more, only with a fancier wrapper. Don't be that guy. Live and let live and if your cause is noble enough to fight for, then realize that the "fight" is really just appealing to someone's heart, to the best of them, so they can choose. Either way, if they agree or disagree you haven't manipulated them so you can trust, you haven't made them choose out of fear, so you can trust, you haven't subverted, coerced or outright robbed them so you can trust; you can trust that their heart, like yours, is true. You can experience true happiness then. It comes from letting go, becoming and being.

That is just the opinion of one former bully. We were only ever trying to be loved.

Find your basecamp and live the full tale of your own legendary life. Do it honestly and bring the light of truth with you where ever you may go. Be humble, be a good person, what will be, will be.

Namaste :-)

Misanthropy

I only feel so misanthropic when I've let myself become myopic.

 Misanthrope, like a lycanthrope infects with it's bite because misery loves company.

  It is a mindset, absalom asked "who are you?", you get to choose y'know.

 Missing hope, but like a dope I look where it's not / missing hope, misanthrope, myope 

Like a "pig-pen" of negativity, carrying that cloud around with me. 

 

Then I found hope, in my heart where it has always thrived and bloomed so fragrant in the light of truth all along.

To myself (& anyone else who finds this entertaining or useful): Don't let the views of others skew your take on life. Find it for yourself and be the source of light in this world; radiate from within.

A prescription for Goodness

I was thinking about my medication this morning and how much I really dislike being on prescription medication. I spent my youth choking down more pills than I like to think about along with the inhalers, breathing treatments, allergy shots and even those rare times when I needed a shot of straight adrenalin.  At that time we were aware of “side effects” of medication but it’s different now, the commercials for the different medications have their side effects listed at the end.  I understand being sick and having the side effects be worth the relief but I got to thinking about goodness; being a good person and acting in such a way. The thought started with the feeling you get when you do something good, just because it’s the right thing to do. That made me think of the other end of the spectrum and how bad feelings usually follow something we like, or might call “good”.

It seems like we hide the “side effects” of the ways in which we lead our lives. I remember doing this exact same thing when I was young. You know, when those contrasts stood out the most. It was before I became jaded. I would do something I either was told not to or I just knew not to. The exhilaration from the moment would always be followed by that pang of guilt. I would bury that guilt down deep and try to erase it how? By doing the exact same thing again! Pretty soon it became a pattern and those pangs became less and less noticeable. That started a whole pattern of behavior I carried into adulthood. As time passed the “good” feelings which preceded the guilt, anger or other “side effects” became less and less noticeable also. It had hardened into a persona and became quite normal. I never saw just how far I had strayed from my true self. When one persona became worn out I’d change to another and it was easy because the foundation I’d laid from walking away from my true self made it easy. When the guilt, which was now just an uneasy feeling in the back of my consciousness, became too much to ignore I’d make a symbolic change and then go right back to the same way I was before only playing a new character now. I changed my dress, my musical likes and dislikes, my patterns of speech and so on. I never faced the real reason, though it loomed like some specter always pursuing me.

Then something happened which changed my perspective back to myself. It was like a spiritual chiropractor aligning my spirit back to where it is supposed to be. I could see, clearly, how those personas were puppets. I controlled from the safety of the insides of my head. What happened was my whole world came crashing down upon me. I had pulled enough bologna with my wife that she left me and took with her our children. There is nothing sadder than a child’s room, toys scattered on the floor, with no child to fill it. I was left with just me and I saw how big an a-hole I was, truly, with no lens of persona softening the blow. I was sitting on my couch and I could see the tendrils of crap I pushed out and how they twisted my wife and children. I saw my faults, all of them, and how they hurt the people I loved. Pretty soon that faded away and I was left with just me. I saw my physical body as though I was floating above it. Everything else went black, or more to the point, void of anything. I was just floating in nothing and then I faded away too, or at least my body did. All that was left was me, the spark of life, the consciousness. There was no longer two people, I was shown that all there was to me, was me; which was really nothing but a consciousness animating a body and I didn’t really care for that guy. I didn’t like me at all; I was all I had left and I was an asshole, pardon the language. I was a guy who would cut any corner, make any excuse, always point a finger, and never take responsibility. I made peace with myself by accepting all that I had done. I took all that unsightly junk and placed it squarely upon my shoulders. I liked myself, just a bit, again. At least now I was a man who wouldn’t put his bologna on you and expect you not to notice. I was, at last, standing on my own two feet. I had broken my addiction to the drugs of improper action and in so doing freed myself from the side effects which drove me away from who I actually am.

I’ve talked of this moment, and written about it, in many ways. I’ve used many metaphors for it in hopes others could reach this perspective out of choice rather than consequentially. I’ve come to understand that when it happened to me I was in a place where I was able to be honest with myself because I really had nothing left. I suppose these circumstances could be recreated but I doubt it would hold the same power it had originally, consequentially. I wanted to share this event with as many people as I could. It helped me so much to find myself and to live each day as myself; to drop the act, the puppets and to finally take into my heart all the goodness I deserved. I had side-stepped this in the past, feeling so very alien and alone “why should I contribute?” I would ask myself. I never realized it was all a great big show my ego had been putting on for me. It felt like, “The Truman Show”. So I could explain it completely here but if you’re starring in your own show you’ll never understand it. The biggest part of why it helped me so much is that I reached it through events which were specific to me and my path. What I am explaining are my signposts, my map which is my path; my life. The object is to find within yourself the same truths and examine them from your own perspective and see if they reflect what you know about yourself. If you can’t, if you’re unsure, if you’re on the fence, if you’re looking for something to believe in; I have a suggestion. Call it a prescription for goodness if you will. We’re all in this together.

We should all do the right thing, we know this. Every religious path tells us this. Every religious path has a list of good actions and a list of bad actions. Usually each bad action has it’s polar opposite on the “good” list. It’s what we’re told when we’re young. Our parents would tell us how we need to live up to this list and we became jaded as we witnessed the general public fail to do so. Witnessing our parents fail to uphold this list, item by item, only gave us anchor points for our own delusional behavior later on and the answers to “Why should I contribute” my answer was “I shouldn’t, we’re all crooked”. I know mine were rooted in those moments when I witnessed one of my role models fail me. I know that puts a lot of pressure upon them, but this is just from my perspective as a child. It is valid however when we, as adults, view our impact upon the children in our lives. We must understand the weight of this behavior as it grows upon them and each year as they contribute to it; it becomes harder and harder to cast off. We must understand that we teach through our actions, not our words; our words only tell the child if they can trust our actions or not. We can create quite the internal conflict within them when we lead through hypocrisy. What we teach is it’s ok to do what we want so long as we act good.

So if you can’t find your way there, and you agree we should actually be what we’re asking our children to become then I suggest this: a prescription for goodness. First we need to understand a simple concept: Innate Perfection. If we’re going to be “good” we should probably decide first what that is and that starts with you, unencumbered by relation or desire. If you could stop time and just be; without action, you could see that there is nothing in your past to feel guilt or embarrassment about because it has already happened and that those feelings are generated by not accepting it fully. You could also see that without a future which feels like it’s looming there is nothing to feel anxious about, nothing to worry about; to fixate upon. You could see then that in this frozen moment there is nothing to fix about yourself, you’re innately perfect; you are simply you. You may not like what you see, but that is due to past actions or future expectations. There might be something physically about yourself that you do not like, but you also know the route to taking care of this, you’ve just been avoiding it. If it something permanent, why fret over it? Adapt and move on, because only you know for sure what is true. From this place, having compassion for yourself and your misdeeds, you can see how every one else is exactly like you. We’re all messed up. We can see how some of the things we do, the ways in which we behave, aren’t fair. For instance, if we tend to get overly emotional and expect others to set us right, then we have to accept that in fairness every single person around us has the same right to throw a fit. So we either correct ours or accept theirs, either way we reach balance in a situation. Sooner or later our conscience will let us know the right answer but only if we keep to this ideal, if we stay the course of being a good person. We will fall, we will fail and we must pick ourselves up, throw what ever action tripped us up onto our shoulders with the rest of our bologna and get back to right.

When you stop to see if the broken down car needs help (while staying safe yourself) even though it is going to make you late, just because it’s the right thing to do, the feeling which fills your heart full to overflowing is goodness. When you behave in such a way, when you “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” and you smile at the thought; it’s like nothing you’ve ever felt before. You’re doing it from an adult perspective when taking the easy road is so seductive and that makes all the difference. It seems such a simple thing but you can’t measure the rewards of it. Then when you think of the lives you touch, both young and old, you can finally feel the pride you used to take a short cut to, and you can feel this right down into your soul. You finally understand “being good, for goodness sake” because you’ve taken the banner you usually carry which had “Selfishness” printed upon it and replaced it with “Goodness” and you hold your head higher. You’re a good influence now; you’re someone people look to as a role model for themselves and their children.

So I prescribe to you this: three hundred and sixty five days of goodness and see who you are then. Begin this January first, commit to being a good person and I can promise you that as the next New Year draws close you won’t feel alien, lost, or sad because you’ll be that person you always wished you could be. It was never a matter of a job, car, house, spouse or anything tangible anyway, was it? Wasn’t it always just about becoming a person you could be proud of? It seems that which held us back was what was filling our heads with the thought that possessions would lead to happiness and keep us running on that hamster wheel. It had side effects we didn’t see or understand. It’s time to break the habit and feel what it’s like to be good. For when we dream of a bright future for ourselves or for our children all which we wish for them springs from the goodness of another. I believe it’s time we all be the best we can be, be good for the sake of goodness in this world.  It’s a faint glimmer right now and I believe it could be ablaze with light. It should be the light which guides our way.

Let my being be of goodness because this is a change we need to see in this world.

Let my being be of honesty, fairness, patience, gentleness, tolerance, and the like because they are the ways of goodness.

May I be humble, be a good person and let what will be, be.

This is just one man’s perspective; take in all the perspectives of the world over and find for yourself what the ultimate truth is.

The truth is...

You want to know the truth?

The truth is I hurt today and it's no surprise. 

The truth is I'd like to just go home and rest. 

The truth is I don't feel like smiling. 

The truth is I don't want to talk to anyone, I want to be alone. 

The truth is I could lay down right now on my office floor despite all my neuroses and sleep, but I wouldn't rest. 

The truth is if I went home, put on my favorite sleepwear, listened to the ocean on my noise machine and drifted off to contented sleep I still wouldn't rest. 

The truth is I'd wake up from that sleep like I wake up from a nap on the couch, like I wake up from sleeping for 14 hours, like I wake up every time; tired. 

The truth is my aching body and ringing joints are never off my mind. 

The truth is half the time my kids hug me I want to scream out in pain, but I don't. 

The truth is I don't want to clean, do dishes, pick up or anything. 

The truth is I'm tired and sore and I can't escape the pain even in sleep because I don't rest and the pain is waiting for me when I wake up and it's charging interest like some collector for a ruthless loan shark. 

The truth is I have anxiety now, though I've seen some hairy situations. I've held a boys nose on his face until the paramedics arrived. I've forcibly removed semi-automatic handguns from suspects. I've taken the flying knees and elbows while holding a man in the throes of a diabetic seizure. I have anxiety now.

The truth is loud noises startle me and leave me incapable of controlling my body. 

The truth is that when I'm stressed the Tourette's is so bad I'm not safe with sharp instruments. 

The truth is I make noises now, clicks and grunts and stutters. When it's bad I shout at inopportune moments.

The truth is I sweat through two t-shirts a day when the pain is bad. 

The truth is I "cooked" my back because my heating pad numbs me and I feel "better". 

The truth is I can't really play with my kids.

The truth is I get headaches; migraines, sinus headaches, tension headaches, cluster headaches and so on. 

The truth is often I choose to relieve a headache even though it means insomnia from the caffeine.

The truth is my memory is shot. 

The truth is I could not function without my phone aka daily planner. 

The truth is I forgot this last one. It wasn't in my planner.

That is my physical reality each and every day. Right now I sit here with feet like ice but still sweating and I also have this to say:

You want to know my choice?

I choose to keep going, it's really all I know. From my youth plagued by asthma to present day all I have ever known is that I must keep going.  Nothing in my childhood contrasted against this as an option. We moved all the time, I went to a different school almost every other year. All the while all I knew was to keep going, to adapt and to continue.

I choose to smile because my being here is a gift and I won't waste mine in despair. 
I choose to hug back and cry later because I want to give you the best of me. 
I choose to surround myself with people to love. 
I choose to get up and keep going no matter how tired I feel. 
I choose to scrape the ice off my car even though it means I won't be able to write with a pen until after lunch.
I choose to take care of myself and take it easy when it would be unwise to push too hard. 
I choose change my sleeping patterns, to sleep on the couch for a while so Rose can get good sleep before I get in there and toss & turn. I choose to medicate myself so even if I don't sleep well at least I won't move so Rose can sleep. 
I choose to find positive things to fill my mind with when the pain sets in bad and all I can seem to think about is how much I hurt. 
I choose to meditate even if this condition makes it so much harder to do so.
I choose to work with my anxiety not to fight it, because that's how it wins, so I choose to go with it, go easy but stay me. 
I choose not to fight my Tourette's, though it's hard. I try not to be embarrassed when I act strange in public though I'd rather crawl under a rock and hide. 
The truth is I choose cooked back so I can sit and watch an entire movie with my family. 
The truth is I choose to pace and keep cleaning & picking up instead of doping myself to sleep when the pain sets in.  
The truth is I choose to adapt and use a device because my memory is so poor. 
The truth is I choose to read when I have insomnia instead of tuning out to the television.

The truth is I fight this for you and my goal is to not let you see it. I do not want any special treatment

The truth is I have fibromyalgia, and anxiety, Tourette's syndrome, arthritis, dyslexia, IBS, among the other oddities of my body.


The truth is that the more we know about each other the easier it is to see how we're all alike and hopefully that can lead to compassion, acceptance, patience, gentleness, understanding, care and love in all of us.

Only the Sunflower

I don't normally post my poetry here, I have a special folder where I hide that stuff :-)
I thought this was worth sharing. Sometimes words just come to me, sometimes it's images and I write what I see (like with this poem) and sometimes I see relational dynamics and write about what I see. That is what usually gets posted here, the way I see our relational dynamics. So I thought it would be nice to take a break from seriousness and post this piece. Read it from the perspective of the Sunflower.

Only the Sunflower

Outside my window a sunflower rises

I watch it day to day

I see it's beauty and its necessity

I see bees come and take its nectar

and spread its pollen

I see it feed the squirrels before its seeds have fallen

I see its perfection before I ever knew the word sunflower





I hear some pronouncing it differently

I hear the heated arguments as each say the other is wrong

I hear the cries for mercy as the wars wage to be right

I hear the somber music played for those who died

and those who remember

I hear those who say their flower will return, that it is December





I feel a wrenching pain in my chest

I feel an insurmountable lump in my throat

I feel my tears streaming down my face

I feel the tangible electricity leave my every hair on end

and my heart in despair

I feel my spirit fill with a need to take care



We could all look upon it and smile, though we may call it something different

Because a flower with no name doesn't realize this

It is here, then it is gone

Its gift is immaterial, primordial, the essence of life and the force which takes it.



I watched the sunflower with love, from above and I gave no more love to it than to those fighting the wars, those who cried and those who begged why, but only the sunflower grew.



Ryan Kenneth Nikkel 12/02/11

I have a problem with the "American Dream"

I have a problem with America, and with the carrot known as the "American Dream". I believe it used to be a truth and I know it still is from certain perspectives, but for me, living here, it mostly feels like a hamster wheel which is powering the machine. The more I run, the more I chase it, the more power I'm adding to it.

Our focus as a country changed, it was changed by the elite for the elite and it sacrificed the common man. That's me. The slope which brought Corporations to count as a person and given the right, essentially, to vote didn't happen overnight. This was an erosion which began long before that act; the final nail in the coffin as it were. This country, in which healthcare is a booming business, sacrificing our nutritional & health needs in order to be able to copyright a plant is looked favorably upon, dirty energy is clung to and gone to war for, the power of the people to come together and protest is stripped and met with brutal force, the rights of the people to form unions is attacked, this country is not the country of my youth.... the American dream is dead and the elite killed it, or rather stole it from us all so that only they may have it.

That is where I disagree; you see I believe that we are the United States of America. We are united, or we are supposed to be. That means we succeed when we all have the equal opportunity to succeed. This country was built on the backs of men and women who gave to this country in the spirit it was founded upon; freedom. This is a free nation, though you can't tell from living here. Sure I'm free, I'm free to work, and shop and buy, and consume and spend and pay taxes to a government which doesn't care for me. I'm free to never get sick, or pay the price of what can only seem Spartan in its rigidity. You tell me, does getting too sick to continue working scare you? Are you scraping to get by? Are you taxed and charged ridiculous "fees" by banks, phones, gas & energy and so on? Only the richest are making money, moving forward. This doesn't look very United to me. We've got religious fanatics trying with all their might to infiltrate the government to turn the country to their interests. Will we be United then? I won't be. I'm not Christian, I'm Buddhist. Big Business has already slithered it's tentacles up the chapped and broken sphincters of our "elected officials" by way of lobbyists and special interest groups and this has gone on for years. Money buys the vote now, our leaders are puppets; don't be fooled. Is this United?

Why can't we cast off the wrongs of the past and emerge truly United? Why? Because our government blacks out cell phone coverage, limits media coverage and covers its shame, it doesn't deal with it. This is country whose President spoke out in favor of the free people being able to change their governments; from Egypt all the way through the revolts in Libya he supported the will of the free people; that is until it was happening here. This country is taking plays from China's playbook. Is this were you want your country heading? We wanted a government we could trust. We wanted a government that actually looked out for the interests of those who elected them, the people. We wanted to be able to relax and rest assured that what needed taking care of was getting taken care of in a manner in line with the wishes of its people. The sad truth to this is that it was a dream. When we stop paying attention, there is no reason for those in power to avoid corruption. The power of that corruption is too much to ask of any of us, and we know it. I don't know a single person with the morals or ethics strong enough to survive the gauntlet of corruption which is American government. So, tell me, why are we expecting of those who serve what none of us could be strong through either? Answer: we are not United, yet we are not yet broken either. We perpetuate the US vs THEM dynamic which we see in our government today. It used to be they listened to us and tried to take the most careful approach and stay popular, now they feed us the news they want and tell us what to think.  Neither approach seems very honorable to me.

There is an assault on the American people being waged by its protectors. We see it in the response to the Occupy-Movement. We are a free nation allowed to peaceable assembly, yet this right is taken from us. You may not say "us", you may not believe it, but this country is made from all of us, every man & woman and yes, WE are having our rights stolen. There is an assault on our education by way of our textbooks. In the long standing Republican state of Texas, where the majority of textbooks are printed, the religious right (which is neither) managed to sway the way our children are taught by changing the content of our textbooks. How about that for a long stretching plan for control? If we don't raise free thinkers all we're raising are sheep. Those sheep are bred to conform. Do not take my word for this, research it yourself and come to your own conclusions.

There is an assault on our health by making sick people a commodity to be counted on for revenue. Health-Care is a business; it's a business for doctors and for pharmaceutical firms as well as the insurance business. We're paying imaginary dollars for inflated service fees. Yes, there are medical advancements; to health problems caused by the change in the focus of our country. Think of is as a company spending capitol on R&D to sell a new product, because that is really all it is. Insurance has tied our doctor’s hands, how did they manage that? How could they supersede in a matter of health over a trained doctor? How? It's business, that's how. For every new advancement they make they keep obsolete machinery which has the highest ROI, such as the CTscan. Again, do your own research as I'm writing my opinion and not citing sources. 

There is an assault on our food people! If nothing woke us up before, this should. Monsanto is creating GMO foods solely so they can copyright them and force out the small farmer. They sued a farm because an adjacent, Monsanto farm, grew crops which spread onto that farmers land. He didn't take it, he didn't even want it, but he's being sued by Monsanto. So tell me, who has the money to fight this ridiculousness in court? Monsanto does. So tell me how is this fair? How is this right? How is this the action of a country which touts itself as “the land of the free and home of the brave”? This doesn't smack of either to me. You may think this is an isolated problem with a single company in the country, you'd be wrong. The rest of the world knows of our shame and recently President Sarkozy stated "The French government keeps and will keep its opposition against the cultivation of the Monsanto 810 maize on our soil,". Another country has the strength and resolve which we lack? Why don't you do a little googling for yourself and see how the government has mandated the use of Monsanto seeds for all government subsidized farms.  So unless you're buying from a known small farm, with known seed source, you're on the GMO folks. So let's get this straight, GMO crops are NOT grown for its nutritional completeness. No, they're genetically engineered to not produce viable seeds (can't lose THAT money), fast growth (screw Mother Nature, we know best) and appearance, because a bright and sharp looking fruit or vegetable is more important than feeding our people the nutrition they need. Think of this though, these are only the reasons we can infer by the actions we’ve seen, what do you suppose are Monsanto's long term plans? You know one hand washes the other and it's time for Monsanto to pucker up. What do you suppose our Government  Big Business will want in return? Well, all it has been after since its beginning is control.

What I'm saying is we cannot trust the regime which has power now, their main focus is, and has always been, staying in power. It’s the elite using the Dems and Repubs like puppets, it doesn’t matter how you vote.  Don't believe it? Just scroll back through our political history as watch as each side has brought doom by in-fighting and vying for popularity by using every disaster as a spin tool to make their party look better. Now, to me, that's treason. It's treasonous that they have neglected the good of our country and its people for their own gain. I'm saying we can't trust us. That's right, it's US or it's nothing. If we don't stop the damned in-fighting we already have we're going to sink and cease to be.

We need to face it; we are not heading in the right direction. There is nothing noble in the leaders of our country anymore. Our rights are being taken away and all we seem to care about are the antics of “reality tv” stars. We have not faced our energy crisis, at all. Our educational system is not any kind of focus in our country. How are we to perpetuate this beautiful country when we don’t produce learned people? We all know our healthcare system is a huge problem and we’re not fixing it. Our political parties fought that one to death, but we aren’t even trying to keep ourselves healthier. We don’t fight the destruction of the nutritional value of our food. We raise our kids on fast-food and wonder why we have an obesity problem and a diabetic epidemic. We want change and our government isn’t doing its job.

We are the people; we make the change by demanding it, by settling for nothing less than the honor and integrity called for by our founding fathers. We can argue, squabble and dissect all of our founding fathers and say they didn’t live up to this ideal… well that’s a great excuse for us not to and while we’re at it; don’t punish your kids for anything you’ve done since that’s how we wish to proceed forward. I say it’s time to shoulder the responsibility of the fabric of this great nation and walk forward, proud and United.

I would propose a few changes, while acknowledging that I am no politician, no maker of policy, no learned person. I’m just your average Joe who wants it fair for all of us.

I propose we start by enacting a clearer definition of the separation between church and state. We need to make all religious paths equal, none higher than the other and none of them as any grounds for political movement. If a politician uses their personal religious belief in any campaigning they forfeit their position and return to the private sector where religion belongs.

I agree with this, which is attributed to Warren buffet: "You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election.”

I propose shorter term limits for all Congressmen and Senators. I think that four years, like our president, is enough. Term limits should start out two years into a presidents term.

I propose we enact the United States of America act which unites ALL people by eliminating the designation of marriage (A U.S. legal contract in which is separate from any definition by religious means) as a union between a man and a woman and rewrite it as a union between consenting adults. It should also eliminate the wage discrepancy between men and women and simply be about doing the job at hand. There should be no preferential treatment for either side. It should truly be equal.

I propose that, in the interest of a strong country, taxes should be assessed equally and that tax-breaks be eliminated while the entire taxing system is brought up to ethical standards befitting the country in which we live.

I propose that infrastructure, health-care, education should have their budgets increased while the entire budget is analyzed by an unbiased third party accounting firm made up of one representative from each major accounting firm in the country with supplemental people brought in from the next tier down according to number of clients and complexity of accounts should more man-power be necessary. All frivolous budgets, as named by the unbiased board, should then be prosecuted as criminal for the politician which enabled it as "misappropriation of funds"

I propose that a constitutional amendment be enacted which requires the federal budget for Military spending (defense) be equal to, at all times, the budget for Education.

I propose a cut to federal pensions. Service in our government, "for the people, by the people", used to be a sacrifice, where as now it's profitable to be a politician. That was put in place for a noble reason which we no longer understand. You see it is by the people, which means us in the private sector sacrificing our own interests to run for office. It leads to political decisions which come from the very roots of us, as our politicians came from us, not "career politicians" whose only concern is staying in power. That is why our highest offices have stringent term limits.

I could go on and on about what I believe would help our country, and you may disagree with what little I've written here, but that's the point. We all must think freely and take an active interest in the affairs of our country lest it be taken from us forever.

I genuinely fear a civil war. I fear the atmosphere in our government right now isn't about returning this country to its place by adhering to the ideals laid down by our founding fathers, but rather making money, reaping power and exerting control.

Take a look around folks, take a real hard look around with your own unbiased eyes and see. Is this the land of opportunity? How can it be when all you have built can be taken, taken, by imminent domain. How can it be when the most ruthless of all loans you can take is for education? That means those that have money move forward and those that don't run the hamster-wheel and power the country all while chasing an ever elusive dream which once was.

And if you don't believe any of this, take a look at our future, here and now:

Top 10 in Mercer Quality of Living survey

1 Vienna Austria

2 Zurich Switzerland

3 Auckland New Zealand

4 Munich Germany

5 Duesseldorf Germany

5 Vancouver Canada

7 Frankfurt Germany

8 Geneva Switzerland

9 Bern Switzerland

9 Copenhagen Denmark
http://www.mercer.com/qualityoflivingpr#city-rankings

There aren’t any cities in the U.S. on this list.

Are we paying attention??? This is our country, here and now, and I'm sick of what's been done to it.

Who am I?

Who am I? Everyone, I believe, has asked themselves this question a time or two. So how do we find the answer? Most often we "echo locate" who we are by who our friends are. Who the "popular kids" are, who is in power and so on, determine who we believe ourselves to be. We're taught to feel this way by our media. Reality television only serves to bring out the worst in us. The internet,”social networking" sites, and especially online forums, provides an air of anonymity and removes our embarrassment by disconnecting it from us personally. We're all capable of becoming a keyboard cowboy and typing bigger than we talk if it were to take place in person. They say that familiarity breeds contempt and I would agree.

Why does familiarity breed contempt? I believe it is because as we get to know someone we see them take the same shortcuts we do. We know that their outward personae is just like ours, faked. When we watch someone from afar we see nothing but the beautiful or engaging façade they put up front. We can start to believe in it, use it as motivation to better ourselves; even if all we do is get close enough to them to associate ourselves with them. Just like the slightly less popular kids in school gravitate to the most popular to be associated with them and therefore be “cool”. Then as you get to know them you finally see their darker side. We all have one and the fastest way to help it grow, it seems, is to ignore it, run from it, or delude ourselves by associating with someone whom we wish to be or be like. Then as we take our own shortcuts, just as they did, we see how many people we step on to get there and suddenly it doesn’t seem to shiny or perfect.  We watch them delude themselves into putting up this false front and see it in ourselves too. Then we take the easiest step to correct it, we blame them. The contempt begins to build. Funny how we never blame ourselves for acting like someone we knew all along to be false.

There is this sense of familiarity on-line as well. Yet it isn’t really us, it’s only on-line. We want everyone to be passionate about what we are passionate about and ignore what we feel must be ignored. It’s really all about me when I go on-line. My social media page shows everyone what I like about me, be it true or false. I post photos, but only the ones which cast me in the light I want to be seen in. I post my carefully thought out status updates to put myself in the proper light. In all aspects on line I’m manipulating the truth to make everyone see me in the light I want. They can’t see my face which can’t hide my lies. This is on a social networking site where I know almost everyone who is going to see it, not an on-line forum which will hide me. Maybe I’ll post comments on photo blog sites, or on news articles, or some on line forum, but you can bet that since no one there really knows me that my true perspective will be shown. If you sift through it, any of them, you’ll see the ugliest side of us which shows no guilt about calling someone a horrible name, or threatening violence if they don’t see it our way. This is probably the truest view of the people we are. It is who we are when no one is watching. We act this way from the anonymity of our computer, but is it slipping into our everyday life? Does it affect the mask we’re wearing?

How do tell if it is slithering into how we behave is tricky and if we’re already so smooth about deluding ourselves do you really think we’ll be able to tell by looking at ourselves? This is especially true when we consider that we don’t actually look inwards, we view ourselves from the outside, from the part of ourselves which witnesses it all. We choose a comforting perspective and force it upon that witness. We are puppet masters who only look at our puppets, never seeing that we built them specifically for that purpose. Everyone is supposed to see this puppet. Just look at any “reality” show and you’ll see. You can watch as they interact with each other one way and behave differently when they’re alone. We see how everyone has an agenda and it helps us comfort ourselves when we do the same thing. We watch as they build their puppets, change their personae to adapt to the situations at hand. We learn to do the same thing and then we wonder why we can’t find real happiness. Those “actors” on those shows help us by giving us an excuse to act worse, so long as we’re a shade better than them. They’re bringing the curve down and we’re all following them.

They say art imitates life, but I’m with Oscar Wilde when he said "Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life” in his essay “The Decay of Lying”. That is, of course, if you consider modern media art. I do because it sure isn’t truth.  We’re watching so we move steadily onward towards the lowering of the curve of us. The characters on television inspire us to act like them. They’ve got it going on, their life is full of drama and action and we all want it. We are preprogrammed to emulate what we see as “right” We’re taught from an early age to adapt to, conform to, a specific mindset and our culture dictates what we are to conform to. That is; we are shown a set of behavioral patterns which we are to conform to.  Many of these are for our own safety and all of them early on are from our parents. Politeness, for example, is defined by our parents and if you think about it every behavior we have is related to what we were taught in our youth unless some dramatic life experience has caused us to examine our behavior again. My life had been all bout me. Sure I had children, but they were a reflection of who I was, not their own beings. I was taught this by my parents; everything they did for me was because they wanted to be good parents. There seems to be nothing wrong with that except that it really had nothing to do with the child. It was all about them being “good parents” which is a view from the outside and they were taught this by their parents. The definitions of this are almost always what they’re against. Be a “good parent” because there are enough bad ones out there; “bad” according to whom? Do the “right” thing, but “right” is determined by opposing what isn’t right. I believe we were all taught how to be by being shown how not to be. How many of us were taught by positive reinforcement? How many of us were taught only when we did something wrong?  What is “wrong”? It is all subjective and all of it comes from our popular culture. So take a good long look at our pop-culture right now. I could go on and on about this but then I’m doing the same thing I’m writing about; trying to get you “against” something and “for” what I believe.

I only have one person’s perspective, I am only one person. I make my choices by what I believe to be right. I broadened my perspective enough to see the big picture, just as I said earlier; by some dramatic life event. I realized that I’m not the star of the show; that life isn’t about just me. I realized that we’re all equal when you take away all the physical things which can so easily be taken. I realized that every person, every being is essentially equal. I realized that what I see is colored by who I believe myself to be. Take a person from the country and drop them in a big city. Leave them there for a year or two and then take them back and see how their values, ideals and essentially who they are has changed. I believe this is because we simply echo-locate who we are. I believe so few of us determine who they are by themselves. So we end up being a copy of a copy of a copy and so on. The morals and ethics get diluted by simply being better than the most wrong among us. There is nothing noble in that, nothing worth passing on.  So who am I? I mean really who am I? If I am what I am against then I am always living in the past and never living here and now. To live forward, to be in the moment and move forward in your life; be you, be what you believe in. Take the time to examine yourself and discover who you are. Those moments when you looked away and did what was easy, not what was right; really examine them. Take a good hard look at it and come out the person your heart knows you to be. You see those moments are jewels, though they may not seem like it. They hurt to look at, but they are jewels for the recognition of a moment where you witnessed yourself making an excuse to yourself for your own bad behavior is the call to enlightenment by establishing the source, action of and only escape from your own karma.

It determines your own starting point, it contains who you are and it maps the road to happiness. If it doesn’t make sense, then we should really sit down for tea.

Namaste

Perspective

 I saw this quote today in an "inspirational" picture/ quote gallery.


"In life we do things. Some we wish we had never done. Some we wish we could replay a million times in our head. But they all make us who we are and in the end they shape every detail about us. If we were to reverse any of them we wouldn't be the person we are. So just live, make mistakes, have wonderful memories, but never ever second guess who you are, where you have been and most importantly where it is you're going."

I thought to myself "What a destructive thought pattern, it's all about the single person". This quote is uplifting and empowering to a person and it is also wrong. Let me ask you this; If this were my perspective my life would be all about me, and only me would you want to be in my life then? It doesn't talk about shared memories. It doesn't talk about where we have been, no, it speaks only in the first person and so it is dangerous and destructive to a persons life. This single perspective is the one we must adopt while looking inwards, not while we live our life outwards.

This perspective, the one taken in this quote, is of one persons view point, which is all well and good unless you share your life with someone. The old saying "there is no I in team" holds true here. No one wants to commit to a team in which there are prima donnas. That is the destructive force within a team which will destroy that team. We've all experienced this situation, whether it was in a class where we had to work in a group, or a job we held in which we saw how just one person not working, not pulling their weight, eventually caused everyone to adopt the same attitude and the team fell apart.  It could no longer function.  No one wants to do the right thing while everyone else is taking it easy. No one wants to feel taken advantage of. This perspective doesn't work when it's taken from theory to practice.

If we can be honest with ourselves, we can see how we bring this attitude, however minutely, into our daily lives and we can see how destructive it is. Everyone wants to be the star, that is what movies and television and all marketing has taught us, we all want to be the star. If we look at the dynamics of that what it really is we will find that it's really a want for others to be supporting cast. That is how it works. When everyone is a star no one is a star, so what we're asking of the people in our lives, our loved ones, is to sacrifice their life to be our supporting characters. I would never agree to that. I would never say "Ok, you be the special one and I'll just support you".  We were taught that when the television became our babysitter. We were taught that when those who learned it fast put it to use in Junior High school and became the popular kids. We were taught this when we made it to the "real world" and had this technique, because it's been mastered by this point, used against us because we were a threat to someone's  position. We all perpetuate it daily and our actions are what teach our kids, not our noble words, the words our actions don't reflect.

Yet I'm surprised when someone tries to put me in this dynamic and I react in a volatile way. Why? Because I see in them the same bullshit I'm trying to pull in my life and I don't like it. I don't want any light shed on my own crap, what I want is for someone to tell me how to delude myself from other peoples bullshit in a way which makes me feel better about myself. Hell it is such a need anymore that we have built a market for "self-help gurus" which really only give me a bridge of the river of shit I have crapped out into my life. Real happiness, real tranquility, comes from cleaning up the shit. It is a thankless and tiring job that takes the whole of our lives if we don't take it seriously.  We may peek at it during those dark times in our life when things come crashing down and we always seem to find some other thing to focus on instead of just getting to the job of clearing out the skeletons in our closet and actually being a good person instead of finding new way to fake it or new shiny things to take the focus off the person we are, the person we now feel is unworthy. We hide that person inside and so if we fool someone into loving us we can't believe it because we know who we really are. Who are we fooling? "Three things are not long hidden; the sun, the moon and the truth." - Buddha. The bible taught us "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". If I am a fake, I have to assume they are fake too and it will all be illuminated eventually. So why go through that when it is so much easier to be real?

This attitude of "me & mine" is really only useful when examining our true selves. But how can we do that when we've been a different fake version of ourselves for such a long time. It's like trying to remember your original hair color when you've dyed it for so long. My answer is meditation, but all boils down to introspection. The key point to that is how honest we are prepared to be with ourselves. Have you ever been drunk and said "I'll never do this again, and this time I mean it" haha, no you don't, none of us do when we say that, if we meant it we would do it instead of saying it aloud so we can fool ourselves. Because really? Why say it out loud like that instead of simply doing it? That is what I'm talking a bout, how honest are you prepared to be? because if you're only going to take a brief peek at only the surface stuff, why bother at all? To illustrate the point I'm talking a bout I'll share my moment of clarity. You see my wife left me and took my kids. I don't blame her; I was an asshole to put it mildly. There I was my life had been yanked from under me like some cheap carpet. I was all alone on my couch contemplating just giving up when I saw it. I saw myself and all the jacked up ways I manipulated the people in my life so that I was the star. I saw all of that fade away and it was just me, alone in darkness, in nothing. I was experiencing this, not simply observing it. Then the thought occurred to me that I was really all I had, everything else could change and go away. Then I realized "I'm an asshole, I don't want to spend eternity with an asshole!" I reached a point where I could be honest with myself because I saw how serious the situation was. Then something someone told me when I was young came back to mind. I can't remember who it was but I remember the words clearly "All you have is who you are, all you own can be taken away; even your life so all you have is your character". I realized the full weight of those words in that moment and I saw the inky tendrils of my own bullshit slither into the lives of those I loved and I saw how my tendrils of manipulation caused reactions. Then I saw it, like a field of dominoes falling and how I was responsible for it all. I saw how I could simply be honest with myself, clear out my own crap and then show compassion to those who were still fooling themselves. It is all me going inwards, and all US coming out. I don't want to be taken advantage of, so I won't take advantage. I don't want to be lied to so I won't lie and so on.

So I reach a point where I realize that I can only be happy when I'm being fair and equal, so I search for it always. None of us want to be less than, condescended to, taken for granted, taken advantage of. I say to you this: Fix yourself first, because just like the example we just worked though, no one wants to be first when it means carrying all the weight and expecting them to is the first step to the destruction of that team. I've experienced it so many times in so many settings, I'm sure you have too. So look at this example, take it in intellectually and really turn it over in your mind. Think critically about it and see if it uncovers the truth within your heart. Then you own it, it was your thought. It was simply inspired by other words on a page. Nothing matters unless you believe it for yourself. I mean really believe it, because the difference between believing and wanting to believe is action and the action makes or breaks it. At the end of the day all we want is to relax because we've been on guard all day. We've had out mask on all day and what we want is someone to love us for what is underneath. I find it so absurd that in order to get this what we do is build such a contrast. We make them believe what we are not, what we cannot be, what we wish we were.... what we want to believe.

Happiness is living in harmony with everyone all the time and we always seem to want to find that place by echo-locating them to find out who we are. We start with the solution and attempt to work backwards when all along all it took was a slight shift in our perspective and it was there all along. I went within and cleared house. I owned what I needed to and it saved my marriage, provided a happy home for my children to thrive in and it brought to me immeasurable happiness because they love me for who I actually am because I uncovered it and shared it with them. It's all about your perspective; is it ME? It is US vs THEM or is it simply we? I believe in the power of we, which is essentially love. What do you believe?