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There has been a focus in our culture of late on the problems caused by what we did not receive as children—unconditional love, nurturing, support for our development, etc. But equally, if not more important than receiving is giving.
Our natural inclination as humans is to give. Unfortunately, many of us received religious training which focused on giving but created the impression that giving was a sacrifice that somehow impoverished us. Couple this with another common religious view that feeling pleasure is “wicked” and you have a heck-of-a dilemma: Give into the pleasurable feeling of giving and be bad or stop the feeling and give as a duty.
So what is the way out? It is simple, but not necessarily easy. And it can be subtle.
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Healing is all about allowing what we have been trying to avoid. We fear pain so we fight against it. This may be hard to believe at first, but what hurts the most is the pain we cause ourselves by fighting against the original pain and not the original pain itself! Pathworkers will no doubt be familiar with this wonderful quote from lecture #190:
I will terminate this lecture by telling you that the fear is not real. It is truly an illusion, but you must go through it by feeling it.
Through the gateway of feeling your weakness lies your strength;
Through the gateway of feeling your pain lies your pleasure and joy;
Through the gateway of feeling your fear lies your security and safety;
Through the gateway of feeling your loneliness lies your capacity to have fulfillment, love and companionship;
Through the gateway of feeling your hate lies your capacity to love;
Through the gateway of feeling your hopelessness lies true and justified hope;
Through the gateway of accepting the lacks of your childhood lies your fulfillment now.
When you experience all these feelings and states, it is essential that you do not delude yourself into believing they are caused by anything you experience, or fail to experience, now. Whatever the now brings forth, it does so only because the past still resides in your system. This, too, is redundant, but it needs to be said again and again.
So how can we do this? We generally can’t just order ourselves to feel something we don’t want to feel. Here are some steps that will inexorably lead you there:
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Healing relationships--any relationship |
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Shocking rule #1: When we are triggered by someone else’s behavior, the problem is never their behavior; the problem is always our reaction to it!
Have you ever noticed that some behavior that you think is egregious, your friend or your spouse kind of shrugs their shoulders? Or vice versa? You are both experiencing the same behavior, but you are reacting differently to it. That’s in large part because we live from our history—that is, the current behavior reminds us (consciously or not) of something that happened to us when we were small. If it was an unpleasant incident then, it’s an unpleasant incident now.
Now don’t get me wrong. . . I’m not saying that the other person’s behavior is necessarily ok. If you are not triggered by it, you can objectively evaluate it and you may want to address it with them if it is hurtful or not appropriate. But if you are not triggered by it, then if you do address it with them, you will not be hostile, judgmental, angry, etc. The person is likely to be able to hear you better. If you address it while you are charged, even if you have a legitimate concern, the person is likely to get defensive because of your attitude which will then just escalate into a full-fledged bruhaha.
So what do you do when someone is “being really annoying?”
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Living from your divine essence Finding what prevents you from fulfilling your innermost longing The Pathwork Guide says that we are entitled to fulfill our deepest longing, so if we long
for something and we don't have it, we need to look for a hidden part of ourselves that is
obstructing it! Here's one way:
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Self-Healing Tools