Tuesday, February 02, 2010

92: But I don't want to forgive. Ah, to be human and stuck, welcome to the LIfe on Earth show




But I don’t want to forgive

Don’t. Until it happens not by decision but by ease.

You have someone bothering you. Oh, well.

Keep playing with question #3 and question #4 (of the Byron Katie work): Who are you and how do you react and how do you feel when you believe and attach to the thought?

(Can almost all the inner agony thoughts be boiled down to a “should” or “shouldn’t” thought? Yes.)

Compare and distinguish who you are and how you feel when you don’t believe the thought, don’t attach to it, don’t “buy into” the “should” or the “shouldn’t” about the other person.

Just go back and forth and realize the choice is yours.

It’s not about “forgiving.”

It’s about choosing where to put our attention: on the “should” or “shouldn’t” we attach to another person, or on the present where we can experience our experience right now.

Without words.

Even if the “bad” other person is right in the room, snarling at us. We can just look. No “they shouldn’t snarl” words.

They can be yelling at us. We can step farther away, so as not to hurt our ears, and watch them go through whatever they are going through.

Obviously something is bothering them.

Maybe we hurt their feelings. Maybe they don’t feel loved. Maybe they have old issues they are acting out.

Doesn’t matter. Just watch, and if it looks like they need a hug, ask if they’d like one. If it looks like they need an enemy, and you don’t feel like being yelled at anymore, bow and walk out and go do something else.

They are who they are.

It’s not forgiveness that matters. It’s the freedom to follow our breathing, and sense ourselves and look at them without demands or complaints, the freedom to be a real human being. This is what matters. Keep up living this way, today.



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Friday, September 19, 2008

uncondtional love

ginger at mom's

ah yes,
unconditional love,
my
my
my

it
sounds good doesn't it?

unconditional love.

and it feels good.

really good.

but, only if we are really doing
it:
loving the other just the way
they are
all the warts
and nasty looks
and complaints
and unfair remarks
and demands

the total them:

when we are there,
we are loving What Is,
and we are free

and maybe you can jump there

usually I can't hop right over
when I find myself miserable
and annoyed by someone else

sometimes coming into
the total present
will spring me lose
and let me look, hear and allow
the other to be exactly as they are

usually, though,
it takes the Work of Byron Katie
which by encouraging me
to go to my crap first,
with its

easy/ hard/ amazing path:

Judge Your Neighbor (or Reality)
Write it Down

Ask four questions
Turn it Around


First two steps
judge,
and then
write down the thought that I think
blames
the world
for my suffering
and then examine (ask four questions,
turn it around)
what's really happening.

That,
if I follow on through,
can get me to the other side,
on over to unconditional love.

(Since this site
is partially the place I want people to end up
who are wish to discover the "work"
I offer,
I'm moving the in detail Work on the Marlie and Chris thing
over to another blog
which is called Testing Some (Reality) Two,
but for click over purposes I'll call it
108 Days


So there, in
108 Days
I'll keep up my public examination,
of how to love
and leave
and learn
and undo
all at the same time


and in this blog
good old ongoing
SlowSonoma.com
I'll roam between the four places I think I
have most to offer:

Loving Nature
(including healthy eating,
being outside
gardening
permaculture,
all that good stuff)

Being Present

The Byron Katie Work

The Anat Baniel Method and
Feldenkrais work.

Please keep up
with this if you want,
and let me know
what, if anything you are learning,
and how this is helping you,
and how it could be of more help.

Thanks
Chris


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Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Serenity and parenting

serene and balanced

children like
to challenge our serenity

this pose
above can be one to regain
our serenity

and children
usually don't go out
to drive us crazy
until later,
maybe high school age
when they might
plot to drive us crazy

why would they possibly do that?

all those years we drove them
crazy:
revenge

this isn't a very cheery set of
ideas
is it

or is it:
old wounds,
fine.
and possibilities:
serenity
or going along with the
trouble

the work might
come in handy
when they are getting unruly

but basically
the old slow down
idea:
sit down
watch them

slow down
listen to them

take a breath
and then
follow the breathing
and wonder what
the world
is like
from their point of view

wonderful challenges
that would help us with any friend
or lover

and we can't escape the necessity
if they are our kids

well, actually, we can:
but we'll wish we hadn't

so
it's the same wonderful
story:
our being present
is the best present

in good times
or bad
happy
or sad
busy
or dull:

just to be there
with them
watching
listening
no books to read no TV to watch
no things to rush off to
forget preparing dinner even
for five minutes
just sit,
ask them to talk,

listen


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Sunday, October 07, 2007

Choices

water beauty

In life,
we have lots
of choices:

Above the line or
below the line:

as in
proactive or
reactive

intelligent
or stuck

free and seeing the other
a slave and trapped in our "stuff"

clear
or confused

now
or distracted

free
or conditioned

spontaneous
or compulsive

learning
or knowing it all

we are the same as others,
or
separate from others ( feeling above or below)

loving what is
or
fighting what is

happy
or
unhappy

happy
or
right

happy
or
controlling

free
or
stuck

human
or
?????, machine

fun
or
dull

growing more alive
or
becoming stale



and so on


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