In the next blogs I am going to walk a point within my relationships with women.
My personality with women.
I had a memory come up during a conversation about women and how it is more difficult for me to talk with other woman then it is with men.
As I talked about the memory, I could feel my eyes begin to fill up with water, with tears. Though I felt somewhat calm about this memory, my eyes and the tears welling up told another story.
I had a friend in elementary school. We would hang out and, as I remember it, laugh with abandon, as though just being together was a joy and this joy expressed itself in laughter. I specifically remember sitting on a wall, legs dangling, the two of us laughing, just looking at one another being enough to laugh.
It came to pass, that my father, a journalist, wrote an article about my friend’s mother, one that was not well received by my friend’s mother.
From that day on, I never saw my friend again, we were no longer allowed to be friends, to visit with one another. I remember calling and being told that my friend was busy. This friend even started to attend another school, so the separation was sudden and complete.
I remember being very upset and saying to my father that it was not fair. How could I be deprived of this friendship?
I remember feeling like I lost something that was irreplaceable.
I remember wanting to blame my father for writing such an article.
I remember wanting to blame my friend’s mother for keeping my friend from me.
I remember wanting to understand why my friend could not stand up against this, as though this was something she had to do as well.
I remember getting angry at my mother for being told that I needed to get over it and that another friend would come along, and that sometimes things like this happen. I really did not want to accept that I could not be with this friend based on what an adult had said about the other adult.
I became very spiteful towards everyone around me because I could no longer visit my friend. It was like I went into a tantrum after being sad about losing my friend. As the memory is charged with emotion, with the loss of my friend, with the loss of my laughter with another person that was of ease and had no value other than just being together and laughing I have to slow down and forgive this memory, the sense of loss, the association of loss to the joy of laughter, the ensuing justifications and anger into blame and spite towards the adults in my world and the system, and the questions as to why that were never resolved, as there is a lack of understanding of how values have defined us in a game of survival based on ideas about who we are instead of realizing the value is simply being here, and in the process of self expression, which demands becoming aware. And yet, within the present system of competition, there is going to be not only constructive criticism but also spiteful remarks and reactions from a lack of remembering that growth in awareness and development takes time and requires mistakes as a natural part of the learning process and that what one person says about another does not define them, it is just a point made, thus the point must be cleared instead of the limitation of seeking punishment based on an idea about something that was said, when what one believes someone had said, may have nothing to do with what was said.
Here it is easy to see how we become so limited, and that “ storm” is one of emotion, which is an energetic emotion, that squirms and spites and blames, spinning around and around, going nowhere, creating a good and a bad, where self becomes a personification of spite and blame projected outward and self carries no real responsibility as creation, this responsibility being the stead of moving into solutions once such a division has occured, that resolve the divisions into judgements, those acts of diminishing those around us within behaviors of limiting comments about another, where the solution is to do that which allows self expression in understanding what is here practically as creation to move in respect of all life, as this being-ness with creation is much more directive and fulfilling.
I forgive myself for allowing and accepting myself to feel sad about the loss of my friend.
I forgive myself for allowing and accepting myself to believe that something was lost in the loss of my friend
I forgive myself for allowing and accepting myself to believe that the world came to an end with the loss of my friend.
I forgive myself for allowing and accepting myself to believe that if I feel laughter, the joy to want to laugh that the world of laughter will inevitably be taken away, where it is to realize that this is a memory, a past event, one that only defines me if I accept and allow it, as I realize that it is an act based on beliefs of what defines oneself .
I forgive myself for allowing and accepting myself to blame my father for writing something that took my friend away.
I forgive myself for spiting my father for writing something that took my friend away.
I forgive myself for allowing and accepting myself believe that something that was written took my friend away
I forgive myself for allowing and accepting myself to spite my mother for saying that I would get over losing my friend and that new friends would come along to take the place of this friend, as though everything was disposable and replaceable.
I forgive myself for allowing and accepting myself to believe that the world was a cruel and mean place to live because of social politics, because an adult extended what was said about one aspect of their life onto other aspects of their life, using the people around them to fight battles they believed were an onslaught against them, when it may just have been constructive criticism, and if it were not, then it was not something to define them, because in the end nothing defines us but what we accept and allow.
Within this I forgive myself for allowing and accepting myself to believe that the loss of my friend was a spiteful act, when it was an act of self defense in a world where criticism of another is taken as fact and not investigated to see if it is constructive or just plain spiteful, because if it is constructive criticism then it is a gift to accept, and if it is spite, it is something to let go of, and as such, criticism of what someone does is not something to take personally and react to in using extended family as a means of retaliation, as just as I write here, that spiting and blaming my parents and the parents of my friend and my friend is not the solution, as the solution is to look at what was said, assess it and take that which is good, as that which might give insight in developing and expanding awareness, and/or to realize in practical common sense as being spiteful, and not something to take personally, which, in looking at both possible scenarios, one is self empowered to assess and then stand addressing the issue instead of going into acts of retaliation and revenge, of vindictive behavior to protect an idea about oneself based on the words of another, as protecting ideas about oneself in a state of being in protection and self defense instead of looking at what supports self in standing in ways that give self direction and the strength of self honesty.
Within this, I forgive myself for allowing and accepting myself to believe that losing my friend meant that I lost the capacity of myself to enjoy the world around me, because I had placed laughter within a limited context as being something with this friend only.
I forgive myself for not allowing and accepting myself to see, realize and understand that despite losing my friend, and even if this loss was based in the accepted and allowed societal behaviors of spite and blame, on a lack of self honesty and ability to realize constructive criticism and competition, fear of the words being a belief that the words of another defines the receiver of the words, does nothing to build a sound character who can withstand emotional storms of judgement, taking that which is good and does no harm and letting go of what is a consequence of believing words define us instead of words being the way and the means to communicate insights to allow us to expand in the understanding of life being the value.
When and as I find myself with water welling up in my eyes, I stop and I breath and I see, realize and understand that I was a child, caught in a world of competition within limited beliefs that what another says about us defines who and what we are, in all a separation from and of the value being life, so why do we believe that words can define us, when they can change and are the way and the means of change as words are how we communicate and describe what is here, thus words are tools more than weapons, words are insight more than label, words are units to show us where we came from and where we are and where we can move to, that movement being what expands our awareness and understanding, movements that allow transformation, as this is life in formation from one expression to another, which is how we learn to become equal and one to being the creators that we are as being the very substance of life, were we not, then we would not be. Thus, it is to be here, and to realize that spiting and blaming as word formations/expressions, which is a sound formation, is a limitation of self being life in expression which is creation which is accepting change and development and discerning what expands realizing that spite and blame and fear of being defined by words of another, is self in abdication of life, here.
When and as I become sad at the loss of a friend based on a politic of belief that what another says defines me/us, I stop and I breath and I slow myself down and I see realize and understand that this belief that what another says about oneself when believed to define us, is a self feeling threatened and a fear of losing some standing within the community which is a behavior of survival instead of a behavior of being self honest, a behavior of looking at what another says and assessing the constructiveness of it, or lack thereof.
When and as I find myself believing that I lost a friend, I stop and I breath and I slow myself down, and I see realize and understand that though this might have been an instance where the adults in the wold around me allowed what was said to threaten their self definitions, this act cannot define who and what I am here.
When and as I find myself becoming sad, within and as the loss of my friend, where tears well up in my eyes , I stop and I breath and I slow myself down and I see realize and understand that I was a child in an adult world, and as such I am now the adult, so this past can only define me if I accept and allow it.
When and as I find myself becoming tearful based on a memory of the past about the sudden loss of a friend, I stop and I breath and I see realize and understand that I can laugh and be here, that I do not need one specific person to determine my ability to laugh, as life is here, in this moment, and that I can only be here, in this moment as this is where life is lived.