Forgiveness and The Politics of Resentment

¡Hola! Everybody...
Today: A little bit of this and a little bit of that...
Is there anything more powerful than forgiveness? Is there anything more difficult than to truly forgive? “An eye for eye,” as one famous teacher noted, leaves everyone blind and is the driving force in many of the world’s political conflicts. In its more insidious form, it drives much of our personal conflict.

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-=[ The Politics of Resentment and the Practice of Forgiveness ]=-

Only genuine forgiveness breaks the cycle of suffering and in practice it benefits the forgiver far more than the one forgiven...

-- Me! (LOL)

First things first: on the same day set aside to honor the victims of the Tucson massacre, Sarah Palin decided to portray herself as one of them. Apparently, only words critical of her hateful rhetoric are deemed dangerous. Ms. Palin, you’re only argument is really against this woman, who today lies in a hospital bed fighting for her life. This is what she had to say about your words before she was shot through the head:

This habit of painting themselves as the victims, even whey they are perpetrators of violent acts and speech, is what characterizes the politics of resentment from the right. Palin had a great opportunity to evolve into a force for unity and healing and instead delivered one of the most despicably politicized defenses in recent memory.

This cynicism plays into the hands of keeping the public apathetic to the political process. Most Americans do not participate in the political process and many are just turned off by the whole bullshit.

It’s meant to be that way. The more you ignore it, the better it is for the hypocrites who claim to be patriotic and who go on incessantly about “real American values, and “real” Americans. In some ways, I can understand why the American public would abandon its vigilance on our democracy.

The other day, I wrote about addiction and I believe we live in an addictive society. One of the hallmarks of addiction is how it erodes the family structure. Addiction is the only recognized medical disease that not only affects the afflicted, but everyone close to the addict. For example, addictive families almost never fully confront the dysfunction wrought by addiction. Shame, denial, and anger serve to keep the “problem” a secret and secrets kill:

Daddy isn’t a drunk, he just likes to tie one on every once in a while.

Junior isn’t a dope fiend; he’s really a good kid who’s strayed from the path.

Moms was forced to spend the rent money, she’s just trying to cope, she’s not a pill head.

In this way, the family plays an active part in maintaining the addiction. No one really talks about it. No one really confronts the lies, the cheating, and the abuse. Most often, the children will tune out in their attempt to find some inner sanity. And if one family member stands up and takes a stand, that family member is stigmatized. Furthermore, all the roles within the family are skewed: the children become the caregivers and the parents become the children. Or the parents co-sign the child’s addiction by indulging him. Oftentimes, the problem is ignored even when there’s a death or tragedy. The ruse that everything is normal must be maintained at whatever cost.

It’s not that these families are bad or evil, or morally bankrupt; it’s how the addictive process works.

I find the same corollary within our political process today. Most of the population has dropped out of the democratic process, turned off as they are from the politics of resentment. The few that do stick around are at a loss and there are no leaders. Finally, no one is addressing the root of the problem which is that the political process has been sold off to the highest bidder. No one is pointing at the burning cross in the room. No one is pointing out that a democracy with a two party system consisting of center-right/ extreme right is not really a true free society. Instead, those with the megaphone are busy demonizing those with solutions and some solutions aren’t even being considered.

You doubt me? Well let’s consider one of the most pernicious of our addictions, the military. Today, it’s considered reasonable to consider closing down schools, dismantling hospitals, and cutting benefits to the most vulnerable. In addition, a coming class war will most likely decimate middle class public sector employees. All these measures are considered “sane.” we spend more money on our military than the next ten nations combined. Most of this expenditure is allocated as sweetheart deals for the obscenely rich -- “wealthfare,” if you will. Try suggesting that we should decrease such unnecessary spending I will guarantee you will have a target painted on your back faster than you can wink and blurt “you betcha!”

Insanity is doing the same actions and expecting different results and tragically, not one of our leaders, from neither party, will stand up and point out the hanging noose in the room.

We live in an addictive society...

Last night, like many of you, I heard president Obama’s remarks on the day set aside to honor the true victims of the Tucson shootings. For me, the most powerful part was the Indian blessing because that was totally about healing. I also loved the way the students cheered when the man doing blessing said, “... a barrio kid like me could get an education and not only that, but come back here and teach.” The audience went wild when he stated his Latino and Yaqui Indian ancestry. And when he evoked his right to be standing there -- generations of Indians who came to the Tucson Valley to escape genocide. There was no anti-immigrant bullshit, no shit about “real” Americans, just being real. For me that was healing. This wasn’t lost on the youth at the university last night and maybe there’s hope yet...

Many of our conflicts, whether personal or global come from an inability to break free from habitual patterns of fear and resentment. the practice that most directly deals with this is forgiveness. Palin failed yesterday because she failed to forgive herself and instead chose the road of resentment and exceptionalism. At a time of mourning, Ms. Palin chose to resent, rather than entertain the potential of openness. Forgiveness is an often-misunderstood practice. Forgiveness isn’t mindless acceptance of wrongdoing by another. Forgiveness is the practice of looking deeply into ourselves -- into our own emotional reactions. The path to forgiveness demands our open-hearted attention to the things that block our way to it.

Last night, President Obama said something that reminded me of the time when I was volunteering at ward for the terminally ill. Me being me, I would ask everyone the same question: “If you knew you had one more disease-free year to live, what would you do?” Mind you, these were people who knew they wouldn’t last past six months, people in pain, many despairing. Their answers profoundly changed my life, how I perceived the process of healing. What mattered most to these people who knew their gift of life was at an end were simple things. Like making sure you let those close to you know how much you loved them. Simple things like making sure to take walks in the park more often, to let go of resentments faster. Not once did I ever hear someone say they would work longer hours, spend more time in the office, or spend more time fighting or feeling resentful. In other words, they taught me that the things that really mattered were the answers to the questions: Did I love deeply? Did I live fully? Did I honor the gift of live?

Make no mistake about it, “feel-good-ism” and pretty speeches will not be enough. At times during his speech, I heard President Obama trying too hard being the “professor-in-chief” rather than the “healer-in-chief.” Too often, I heard comfort instead of healing. The two, though not mutually exclusive, are not the same. Please, I am not saying Obama should’ve miraculously healed everyone. If that’s what you’re thinking, then you haven’t understood what I am writing. The president should set the tone, he points the finger, he leads. I felt he took the easy road. I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think so.

Living life on life’s terms is a bitch and picking up the political pieces of what’s left of our democracy will be a long and hard journey. But before we can even begin that healing process, we must admit there’s a problem first. And the only way we can get there is by challenging the politics of resentment and in its place create a vision of a society where we are all empowered to answer those simple yet profound questions: Did we love deeply... did we live fully... did we honor life...

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization.

Jasmine's Story

Because it needs to be told and they need to be remembered...

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(above: Yemaya)

-=[ Jasmine’s Story ]=-

The power of love to change bodies is legendary, built into folklore, common sense, and everyday experience. Love moves the flesh, it pushes matter around… Throughout history, ‘tender loving care’ has uniformly been recognized as a valuable element in healing.

-- Larry Dossey

When I first started school and beginning the process that eventually led to a career as a “healer,” I went through an experience that would forever change the way I understand healing.

Some years ago, as I was beginning to sort through the wreckage of my life, I received a phone call in the middle of the night. An old and dear friend called to tell me that a former lover was on her deathbed at a nearby hospital. I’ll never forget her words. She said, “Eddie, I know you and Jasmine did a lot of fucked up shit to each other, but she’s not expected to last the weekend. If you have anything you want to tell her, now is the time. They’re giving her last rites as we speak.”

I thanked my friend and as I put down the phone, I didn’t know what to do. Here was someone who had caused me great pain, who had been the object of numerous homicidal fantasies, who now was dying. As I thought of her, it was hard for me to feel the old resentment and anger without a pang of conscience. After all, I thought, I was equally cruel to her. I decided then that I would visit her that very moment.

As I began to get dressed (it was about 2 am), I realized I had several reservations. Her family wasn’t too fond of me. In fact, the joke was that they wouldn’t even mention my name, and when they did, they whispered my last name as if actually calling my given name aloud would evoke me. So, in essence, in that family anyway, I was something of a persona non grata, to put it lightly.

I decided that I would go anyway and that if there were any objections, that I would just leave and in that way I would know in my heart that I attempted to make amends.

That Serenity Prayer actually does come in handy, folks. LOL!

As I rode the bus to the hospital, my mind kept coming up with various scenarios: the mother would curse me, I would make a personal family tragedy worse, or my presence would only magnify the pain.

I finally arrived at the hospital and, after locating the room, I entered the dark room quietly. The room was full of family members all huddled around the bed where a wasted and frail young woman lay seemingly unconscious. No one noticed me, as I listened to the priest murmur some prayers. I waited for someone to recognize me and, as the priest finished his ministrations, the mother turned and looked at me and with tears in her eyes sobbed, “Eddie! Oh Eddie, mi hijo, lo que a llegamo!” As we embraced, she cried. I could feel a stirring, as my presence was made known.

The mother quietly explained to me the situation: her daughter had fallen into a coma after a long bout with HIV and it was expected that she would die soon. I tried to apologize and explain that if my being there was inappropriate, I would leave, but the mother stopped me and led me to Jasmine’s bed. It was hard to look her, lying there now ravaged by disease. Her mother spoke to her as if she could hear her and said, “Mira nena, look who’s here to see you -- Eddie!”

Honestly, I didn’t know what the fuck to do, but something told me to take her hand. Then I bent over and whispered to her, telling her how sorry I was for the things I did to her and how we hurt each other; that I was now living a good life free of my destructive patterns and active addiction. Her hands felt cold so I rubbed my hands together to generate heat and warmed her hands. I kept this up -- talking to the unconscious Jasmine and warming her hands, and then her face, her arms, etc.

When I felt I had said what I had to say, I began to walk away and then I heard her whisper, “Eddie?” Everyone in the room stopped talking and when I turned around, there was Jasmine looking at me, whispering my name. At that point, everyone in the room started doing the sign of the cross and Jasmine’s mother was praying and saying that it was miracle, and people were just running around calling the doctors and there I was in the middle of that whole scene wondering what the fuck was going on.

Jasmine would live for about four more months. I don’t know if I had anything to do with that, but later, Jasmine said that it wasn’t until she felt the heat from my hands that she began to regain consciousness. Before, she said, she felt she had settled into a form of resignation of meeting her fate. It’s hard to describe what Jasmine said, but I now think she had surrendered to death. She had lost all hope for life, she told me, and had deteriorated rapidly. She said feeling the heat from my hands awakened her to the fact that there were certain things left undone, certain personal loose ends that needed tending before she moved on.

During those last few months of her life, I became one of Jasmine’s primary care-givers in that AIDS ward. The nurses called me Jasmine’s “boyfriend” and would arrange her hair in pigtails and her face would beam when I entered the room. Me? I resolved to do what I could -- to give what I could to a person in need. Not only because Jasmine needed it, but because it was what I wanted to do -- what I had to do. I felt there was a larger story being writ and that I had to play my role in it.

And she would often request, especially during times of extreme stress, that I use my hands in the same way I did that first night. I never got it at the time. And when I would ask her, she would only say that my hands ran hot (which they do) and that the heat would lessen the overwhelming feeling of numbness that would attack her body.

The doctors could not explain. Indeed, what I witnessed during those days was that the doctors were often at a loss for answers or “prescriptions.” What I learned at that time was that a healer, whether a doctor, therapist or whatever, must act as a channel, or conduit of a healing entity or force. I don’t care whether you call it, God, Goddess, Christ, The Great Spirit, Qi, or whatever. Furthermore, in order to become such a channel, there are four essential qualities a healer must possess: trust, faith, love, and humility.

Though different healers may channel this healing energy through different techniques, none of them can heal -- regardless of technique -- unless they use it with love and humility. Out of all of these qualities, love is probably the most troublesome because all healers have days when they are not open to love. There are no recipes or formulas for staying open that way. To love also doesn’t just mean loving others, it means loving one’s self too.

I learned in those days that healing does not necessarily mean to become physically well or to be able to get up and walk around again. I came to realize that healing means achieving some kind of balance between the physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual dimensions. For example, Jasmine would never walk again, and her T cells were, like, nil. Doctors were at a loss to explain why she was alive and resolved themselves to minister to her while she was still alive. However, Jasmine became spiritually awake and though she was young (33), sometimes she gave the impression of a very wise, very old soul with far more knowledge than her years. I believe that suffering kicks up the spiritual dimension by quite a few notches.

Don’t misunderstand, Jasmine, like many AIDS patients -- even more so than patients suffering from other life-threatening illnesses -- was lacking in qualities of self-worth, self-esteem, and self-trust. At one time, she told me, she felt these qualities were blocked by a lot of guilt, shame, and ambivalence. There were issues Jasmine never had a chance to address, some she took with her to her grave -- such as her addiction and her deep-seated feelings of guilt. But we did what we could, -- she and I. In some ways, we were like ships passing in the night. I was reinventing my life, starting anew, doing the things I never get a chance to do. Sometimes I would forget this. For Jasmine, this was as good as it was going to get. She was on borrowed time and that sometimes worked to minimize her motivation. Over the years, I have lost , too many friends to this disease. Some emphasized that they were living with a disease, not merely dying. I don’t know if Jasmine ever got there. But we learned to trust one another, one day at a time -- together -- and laughed many times at how easy it was to revert to old patterns. However, Jasmine also had a seven-year-old son she had to say goodbye to.

Jasmine’s “healing” didn’t occur at an individual level, because we are all connected through a vast neurological network of relationships to an infinite number of people and creatures on the planet. The process of healing even one person has consequences for all of us. It did for me: though I didn’t fully realize it at the time, acting as a channel for this healing energy Jasmine’s situation had a healing purpose for me.

As Jasmine began going about resolving the issues in her life, especially with her son, she seemed to become more at peace with her illness. There were days that her smile would remind me of the Jasmine I had known -- beautiful, alert, intelligent and spunky -- someone who took pleasure in challenging me and my interminable teasing. But those days became increasingly rare. Eventually taking care of Jasmine became a job that took priority over everything else in my life, in the process burning me out. A part of all this had a noble purpose, of course, but a lot of that was also my codependency issues. There were times I would forget that I was but a channel through which some of this was happening and I would forget that Jasmine would not get better.

And she took me hostage, Jasmine did. Her greatest fear was of dying alone in that cold, sterile hospital room. One day, after a particularly rough night (Jamsine’s other caregiver, her sister, and I had obtained special permission from the hospital administration), I was irritable and tired. My life had been consumed by Jasmine’s disease and I was feeling spent, confused, and angry -- all dangerous triggers. By then, Jasmine had lost her ability to speak and if we weren’t there doing it, she would not be cleaned in a prompt manner, so there I was cracking jokes about cleaning Jasmine’s ass and laughing about it. Sometimes I swore I saw a grin on Jasmine’s face during those times.

Anyway, I was tired and I wanted to go home, shower, and to re-energize myself. I tried calling her sister, but she could not be reached, so I turned to Jasmine and told her I was leaving and would be back as soon as I could. I hated doing this because she would become agitated if I left the room, let alone tell her I was leaving. Jasmine’s was horrified of the idea of dying alone.

As I left, I turned to look and there was this look of stark fear on Jasmine’s face. I felt so bad about my own anger. I blew her a kiss, my anger dissipated, and promised I would be right back. She was still upset… but I reminded myself she always got upset when I left the room. I took the elevator to the lobby and just when I was about to leave, something almost physical stopped me dead in my tracks. It was as if I had run into an invisible wall. And it hit me...

I knew what was happening.

Jasmine passed away as I was entering her room. When she saw me, the most beautiful smile of gratitude and contentment came over her face. She couldn’t mouth the words, but the look in her eyes -- I’m sure if she could she would’ve said, “Thank you, Eddie.” I stood by her, heard the death rattle, and she was gone…

Jasmine’s Story doesn’t end here, there are other ways that her life impacted mine, but that’s a larger, more complicated story.

The only difference between Jasmine and the rest of us, I came to understand, was Jasmine’s degree of illness. It seems to me that the whole planet is going through what Jasmine experienced with her terminal illness. My conclusion is that there must be a way to for all of us to go through a cleansing process to eliminate the hatred, greed, pain, grief, and rage that we harbor for so long.

I think Jasmine’s greatest gift was to teach me that we must all tap into this healing energy so that we might become whole...

Love,

Eddie

Vincent

¡Hola! Everybody...
Caution: you may not want to read the following story. Seriously.

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-=[ Letting Go of Guilt ]=-

I have written about guilt before. In a way, I believe guilt (along with ignorance) should be considered one of the deadly sins because it’s responsible for so much suffering.

I usually make a big stink about my birthday -- celebrating it and letting as many people as I can know about it, but it wasn’t always that way. Many years ago, my stepfather, Vincent, a man I loved and saw as a surrogate father, committed suicide in the early morning hours of my birthday. He put a gun to his temple and pulled the trigger. Just like that...

I’m asleep in a drunken stupor. I’m vaguely aware of someone trying to shake me awake. I think it’s Vincent, but I’m not even sure if it’s him or a dream. Annoyed I shrug him away and tell him to leave me alone, and I crawl back under his car. He tells me he really needs to talk to me and I tell him, or the dream, that it can wait. To leave me the fuck alone.

It was the day before my birthday and we were living in Houston. It was Friday and my stepfather had picked me up from work and I asked him to stop by the liquor store to stock up for our usual Friday family get-togethers. In retrospect Vincent seemed a little different that day, more pensive, and we spoke on the way home. He told me a lot of things: how he was feeling pressure to maintain the quality of life; he spoke of disappointments -- he spoke about a lot things.

I was surprised because Vincent was the type of man who never complained. He was cut from old school: never let them know how you feel. He was a rock. He was a worker. Vincent was made of the stuff that made this country. He got up in the morning worked very hard, and he provided. That’s what he was taught a man was supposed to do. But he would never really talk about what was going on in his mind. He was a stoic in that sense. He did what he had to do without complaint.

On the way home that day we talked and we explored how maybe we can do things differently. I was working and I could help him financially (he wouldn’t accept money from me) and that he should let my mother know about the financial problems and stop trying to put up a façade that everything was fine.

When we got home that day, there was no one there -- everyone had left to go fishing. My mother’s an avid fisher and it wasn’t unusual for her to round everyone up and go crabbing or fishing. At the time, my sister and brother, as well as myself, were all staying in the house. My sister, had a live-in lover, as did my younger brother. Actually, my sister had only recently moved out, but she was there all the time. My other sister, lived nearby and was always around. We were a tight-knit extended family that spent a lot of time together.

That day, when I got home and went to wash up, I found a bloody pair of panties that had been left in the wash basin by my brother’s live-in girlfriend, whom I couldn’t stand. I showed this to my stepfather, who was outraged and it just fueled the whole conversation about letting people know there things were going to change, blah, blah, blah.

And we drank…

Towards the end of my drinking, I became what’s called an “ugly drunk.” I could get confrontational and say and do and say spiteful, hurtful things, and start shit, and that day was no different. By the time the rest of the family showed up, both Vincent and I were well into a quart of Bacardi and I was in rare form. Before the night was over, my brother and I almost came to blows (he took exception to me calling his girlfriend a pig), and Vincent argued with moms. Finally, my mother threw me out of the house because, “ I was acting like a garbage can.” Actually, she tried drop-kicking me but I was too fast for her. I don’t know where she found the strength, but she picked up this huge potted plant and threw it at me, barely missing my head.

I went to my sister’s house which was nearby in the same sub-division and started talkin’ shit there until, mercifully, I went to sleep under my brother-in-law’s car in the garage. No one knew I was there.

I am awakened by a cousin. “We’ve been looking for you, Eddie! Something terrible has happened! It’s Vincent! Hurry!”

I wake up thinking there’s been a fight or major argument but I’m completely unprepared when I see my mother’s eyes -- I see it all in her eyes and I’m wrenched into sobriety. My mother only manages to say, “Oh Eddie… ” or something like that. Nothing prepares me for the next time I see my dear Vincent, an incongruously neat bullet hole in his temple. I scream out in denial because I can’t accept this -- this can’t be... And I hold his head in my hands and beg him to wake up.

Outside the hospital, my brother challenges me yelling out, “It’s your fault! If you wouldn’t have been startin’ your shit this would’ve never happened… ” And he goes on a harangue for what seems to me too long and all I can do is stay quiet. And every word is like a knife into the very heart of me. When I try to form the words, nothing comes out, I have nothing, I’m empty inside, as if the very life force of me has been sucked out.

The details are hazy, but I remember someone trying to wake me up. I thought it was Vincent. He kept calling for me to wake up and he tried to take my arm, but I shook it off, telling him to leave me alone. I’ll never be sure if this really happened because I was so drunk. Was I dreaming? Was it really Vincent trying to wake me up and telling me he wanted to talk to me, or did I make the whole thing up? I don’t know…

All I know is that sometime in the night one of my cousins found me and told me to get up quick because something terrible had happened. I looked at my cousin and she saw my anger and said, “Get up, Eddie, Vincent shot himself.” I’ll never forget those words.

They rushed me to the hospital and the last time I saw Vincent he was already dead. A part of my mind couldn’t wrap itself around that. There was my mother crying and everybody else and there was Vincent dead, having shot himself in the head in a drunken stupor/ rage. What’s worse, he did it in front of my youngest brother, his son Vinnie, who was maybe 5-6-years-old. He locked himself and my little brother in his car and blew his brains away.

At the hospital, it got ugly. My brother confronted me and told me that it was my fault because I had gotten drunk and instigated a series of events that ended tragically. Vincent wouldn’t have shot himself if it weren’t for me, he said. And I looked around and while the rest of my family didn’t say it outright, no one disputed it either. I jumped at my brother, the rage welling up in me was uncontainable.

Looking back, I can’t blame my brother. Our lives were irrevocably, senselessly changed that day, and it was something unfathomable, it was impossible to make any sense of it. I know that in my own heart I also felt Vincent’s death -- it was my fault.

They say that all suicides are accompanied by a psychological phenomenon known as psychache. Psychache refers to the pain, anguish, and psychological hurt in the psyche, the mind. Truth is, Vincent had attempted suicide before, but was unsuccessful. Sometimes when he drank, he would lose it completely. There were demons inside of Vincent -- who knows what lurked in his mind? What traumas he harbored? And while things weren’t all that smooth, he was experiencing the most success ever.

But I took my brother’s words to heart and I couldn’t forgive myself for Vincent’s death. From where I stood, I killed him. I created the circumstances leading to his suicide by fighting and inciting Vincent. Vincent’s actions that night almost destroyed my family; the repercussions would be felt for years. It was my fault as surely as if I had put that gun to his head.

Tragically, suicide is not as uncommon as we think. Within the United States, suicide ranks as the eleventh leading cause of death among the general population, the second leading cause of death among 25-34 year olds, and is the third leading cause of death among 15-24 year olds. Of the 240,000 annual suicide attempts, most do not end in death and despite the frequency of suicide, there is a huge social stigma attached to it.

I left Houston as soon as I could, returning to New York and distancing myself as much as I could from my family. I was unable to face the hurt, the destruction, but no matter how much I ran, I lived with that guilt in my heart for so many years. I can honestly say that Vincent’s suicide marked the beginning of my personal descent into hell. For many years after, I became more and more self-destructive, gradually surrendering to my dark side, throwing myself into an addiction that knew no satisfaction. And whenever I thought about changing, or doing something to save myself, my guilt was there, something I could flagellate myself with, ensuring that I would never feel worthy of some measure of sanity, some peace of mind.

I like to say that feeling fucked up is habit-forming, and it is -- you can rewire your brain for misery if you feel fucked up long enough. I couldn’t change in part because I didn’t feel worthy. I was unworthy in all areas of my life. I was a failure as a father, as a son, a lover, a brother, I was someone who never fulfilled his potential -- all these things drove me and my addiction. Most of all, I felt so guilty for my mother, who suffered so much.

Guilt is a completely different thing than remorse. In our culture, “guilty” is a verdict hammered out by a judge in court. And if no one else punishes us, we look to punish ourselves, in some way or another. Guilt for me meant punishment deep inside my psyche. It created in me my own psychache.

Today I know that Vincent’s suicide wasn’t my fault, but it took me a long time to get here. I also had a lot of support and did a lot of “inner” work therapeutically and otherwise. And still I almost didn’t make it. I too attempted suicide once and when that failed, I tried to get others to do it for me. But I’m here today, and I can celebrate my birthday and not be angry with Vincent for taking what I thought was the easy way out. For so long, I was so angry with Vincent. How could he do such a thing? How could he leave us? I still miss Vincent, and today I still love him…

Today, I know I can never really know why Vincent did what he did. Today, I try to honor Vincent’s memory by remembering all the good he did while he was here: his selflessness, his compassion, his commitment to providing for us -- five children, four of whom weren’t even his own.

Vincent always encouraged me to use my intelligence. He would take me to his co-workers when I was a child and announce, “This is my son and he’s real smart. Ask him any question -- go ahead.” LOL! It was a lot of pressure and I hated it when he did that, but nine times out of ten, I would get the answer right and Vincent would beam with pride. He paid for my cherished encyclopedia Britannica because, although he never had a formal education himself, he understood my intellectual curiosity needed to be nurtured. My greatest hope is that he really understood what he meant to me -- to all of us.

I guess the most difficult part of my journey was convincing myself that I deserved forgiveness and absolution. For so many years I lived with this crippling guilt. Then one day, I realized that if I wanted live, I would have to let go of the guilt -- forever. That was the day I broke out of my inner prison.

Love,

Eddie

Sunday Sermon [Sex, Spirituality, Ego ]

¡Hola! Evertbody…
I don’t know about where you live, but here, at the Center of the Known Universe, it’s been hawt! Don’t get me wrong, I love heatwaves, love the beach, the humidity – the full catastrophe of summer in the Big City.

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-=[ Sex, Your Higher Power & Ego ]=-

We moan, we grin, and we roll apart
for some small talk
after our little piece of dying.

It is a feeble reach
for the rational,
some tiny piece of evidence
that proves we are

still alive,

once again in possession of our

separate selves,
once again intact.

-- Edward-Yemíl Rosario ©

Your Higher Power, however (or if) you conceptualize it, is love.

When we are relating to the things and people around us with care, compassion, and consideration, we naturally radiate that love and joy. When we are not handling things in that manner, our spiritual life -- our consciousness of the ever present energy of the Universal Principle -- will be blocked by our apathy. In the interest of honesty I will say that there are times when I do not embody such caring, but I am trying.

To go off tangent for a moment, I know of at least one woman who probably doesn’t like me too much these days and most likely would rather not hear from me… ever. I said at least one, but there are most likely more. The irony is this: until we can undo the karmic entanglement we have created, we will be forever linked. The relevant point being that if you want to be rid of me, then you’ll have to love me first. LOL

I laugh, but I’m serious -- but I digress…

By not caring or being inconsiderate, we create an environment equal to that of a psychological pig sty. In that sty of negativity, not caring often means casting judgments on others. Anyone who’s ever been in a committed relationship will agree that this can be clearly evident as an expression we have taken to bed.

Part of intimacy in bed, aside from the obvious, is sleeping together, something both men and women often take for granted. In actuality, sleeping together is a profoundly intimate, trusting experience, although we have all at one time or another abused that intimate comfort.

How many times have you been in bed, irate because you knew the person next to you was “wrong” but wouldn’t admit it? What did that get you except righteous indignation, as you maintained this intimacy with a bad taste in your mouth, or a tense stomach? The fact is you could have bypassed that righteous indignation.

Perhaps your response might be: “I tried. I mean, if s/he would only admit s/he was wrong, everything would be fine.” To that, I will only say that I’m not talking about trying in that way. That’s just exacerbating the conflict.

Or, another response you might have is, “If only he’d stop being such an arrogant asshole, I might let him in.” To that I would say that’s not “in”; that’s merely allowing your lover out of the judgment jail you put him in the first place.

There are other ways, if you’re willing to put down the defense.

When you’re lying there with your lover in bed, you might instead opt to give them a light massage and as you’re doing that saying something along the lines of, “I don’t like being separate from you. I don’t care anymore about right and wrong. All I know is I want to be with you and to care for you, and for you to forgive me.”

Your response to this might be to object, to say that why you should be the one to forgive if you were the wronged or injured party. Another person might say, “Give Eddie a massage?!! After what that psycho muthafucka said to me?” My response to you and to that form of thinking is that the best thing you can probably do is send the ego packing. To paraphrase a wise person, people say, “I want to love.” I say, drop the ego (I), do away with the desire (want), and what are you left with?

I will say this: be careful about sticking to your guns because you might then find yourself locked into playing the role of gunslinger for the rest of your life. And believe me, once you get with the way of the gun, there will always be another relationship around the corner for you to gun down or to gun you down at the not-so-OK Corral.

I’m just sayin’

If you desire to be with someone in warm, loving, caring, caressing support, I suggest you step out of ego-centered world of the Mini Me, and opt instead for that tender moment.

Love,

Eddie

Sunday Sermon [The Heart of the Matter]

¡Hola! Everybody...
Whenever you relive an insult -- or think or dwell on it -- you have repeated that same insult. In this way, you relive and re-experience all the insults of your life.

Think about that...

* * *

-=[ Forgiveness ]=-

All isms end up in schisms.

-- Huston Smith

Several years ago, I was having a very rough time at a community meeting. I was trying to educate a group of people on the effectiveness of alternative to incarceration programs. For me, it was a no-brainer: treat the root causes and crime decreases. Treat the addiction and it has a double effect. It’s more effective and cheaper than incarceration which is extremely expensive failure. Address education meaningfully by investing in smaller classroom size and making schools more accessible to parents and we prevent crime before it ever begins. I had the charts, the facts -- in short I had everything I thought I needed to help people see that locking up millions of individuals (mostly young people of color) wasn’t a very smart or effective way to create a moral and just society.

Man, was I getting beat up that day! LOL

At one point, during an intermission, this young white man came up to me and asked if he could address the audience briefly. I don’t why I trusted this individual, I had never seen him before, and I had had it to here

::grabs dese nuts::

... with angry white men. But inwardly acknowledging that the meeting couldn’t possibly get any worse, I shrugged and told him, “Go ahead, finish putting me out of my misery.”

He got up and told of how two men brutally murdered the woman who raised him, his grandmother -- the only family he had. He told of the agonizing pain and hardship; the anger he felt; of how he wanted those who took his grandmother’s life to be punished -- to have their lives taken also. Then he spoke about something that floored everybody. He spoke about his journey from being consumed with vengeance to forgiveness. In the process of speaking of that healing process, he managed to do what all my facts and charts didn’t: he opened people’s hearts to the possibility of a different community; of a different society. A society based not on revenge and killing and an “eye for an eye,” but a society predicated on empathy and compassion and equality. I was never so moved as when I heard this man speak so openly about being torn down only to be arise again. What a lesson! And, no, he wasn’t a religious man, at least not in a rigid sense.

I think this man was able to touch upon the essential nature of vengeance and forgiveness. Vengeance comes from desire -- a desire to make things “right” no matter what the expense. If you killed mine, then I must kill you. And in the short term, vengeance serves to alleviate our pain. But in the long term the desire for vengeance -- like all unskillful desire -- erodes our basic humanity. It eats at us from the inside until we become empty of anything even remotely resembling an enlightened species. Compassion and empathy comes from the part of the brain that triggers love, creativity, collaboration and, physiologically, it releases chemicals and responses that heal -- that strengthen the immune system and encourages fellowship.

I would suggest a different form of spirituality: one that recognizes a universal energy in everything, the humility to admit mistakes, one that promotes flexibility instead of rigidity, and a willingness to tolerate differences.

And isn’t that a story that mirrors any kind of redemption? Couldn’t such a shift be an evolutionary quantum leap? In fact, this is where we stand today: at the precipice of an evolutionary and spiritual chasm, and leap we must or become the first species to cause its own extinction.

Love,

Eddie

Don't Go and Talk About my Father/ Mother [God is Love]

¡Hola! Everybody...
It’s Monday...

I find RE-posting the following extremely difficult today. Especially considering that our home-grown terrorists, fringe right CHRISTIAN fundamentalists, are rejoicing that their ideology has resulted the cold-blooded murder of yet another human being. My heart goes out to Dr. Tiller and his family, who was gunned down while he was worshiping in front of his wife and community. Slaughtered like an animal.

His crime? Exercising his constitutional rights in the service of others. May their jealous and vengeful God have mercy on the rotted souls of this mass pathological movement.

* * *

-=[ God is Love ]=-

“God is Love.”

-- Marvin Gaye song

“Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?”

-- Jesus of Nazareth

When will we accept the Divine within our selves? The idea that we are more than sack of flesh may trouble some individuals. Others may think this idea just more New Age bullshit.

To others, the idea that we are part of the Divine spark may sound like blasphemy, even though my own investigations into the world’s religions, including Christianity and Judaism, contain passages, often overlooked, which clearly emphasize this very perspective.

Think about it: different cultures across different eras have come to the same conclusion, more or less. In addition, modern physics is beginning to sound very “spiritual” lately. Especially when looking at the very essence of all matter. The conclusion is so: that we are not separate from the rest of creation. Therefore, our very thoughts and beliefs have a power to impact on ourselves, our world, and those around us in ways we never knew.

In the creation story of the Jews and Christians, for example, God is portrayed as being the Creator. God creates out of his mind’s spoken desire: “And God said, let there be light... water... firmament,” and so on. Finally, God concludes by the creation of humankind “in his own image and likeness.”

Let’s look a little further at the teachings of various religions where God is seen as Love, and that we are of the same creative essence or Spirit of God:

Judaism:

“Love is the beginning and end of the Torah.”

“God created man in his own image and likeness.”

“I AM that I AM.”

Christianity:

“God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.”

“I and my father are one... You can be as I... Greater things than I have done, ye shall do.”

“We are all sons of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ.”

“I am the vine and you are the branch.”

Hinduism:

“The individual soul is nothing in essence than universal soul.”

“Deep within abides another life, not the life of the senses, escaping sight, unchanging. This endures when all created things have passed away.”

Buddhism:

“Be lamps unto yourselves. Be a refuge unto yourselves. Seek not for refuge from anything but the Self. Desires and tendencies pass away.”

Islam:

“On God's own nature has been molded man’s.”

Sikhism:

“God is concealed in every heat; his light is in every heart.”

It’s amazing how the same themes run through each of the world's major religions: that God is love, and that we are of the same creative essence, or spirit, as God.

Yet, our small ego-centered minds fight in every way the recognition of our divine inheritance. You see this expressed everywhere: In psychology or in religious thought you will find the tendency to preserve our sense of separateness, littleness, and powerlessness.

Who and what we are is so magnificent that it is more than we would ever dare dream. We are at our core spirit expressed through flesh. Our Divine inheritance, which we have disowned, gives us all those qualities we have projected onto some “up-in-the-sky” god that is separate from us and full of an endless supply of love.

Folks, we are powerful, knowing, and present in ways we have only begun to understand. We are Love itself. Since it is only an illusion that we are separate from all this, we have never lost any of the qualities -- we just think we have. Nothing limits us as much as our beliefs -- negative or positive.

What happens when we take this perspective and apply it to our relationships? Can such a way of seeing the divine in ourselves help change our relationships, helping us to let go of a limited and narrow concept of self?

If you accept the bigger reality of your True Self, you will become more and more aware of your beliefs, your thoughts, and the connection between the two. In touch with your divine essence, you will learn to use an untapped source of power within -- not only to transcend your own personal suffering, but also to heal those many relationships based on the small, narrow sense of self.

Love,

Eddie

Amends

¡Hola! Everybody...
Recently, I had attempted to apologize to someone here privately. I soon discovered that my attempt became something to ridicule on another site. In large part, the following is my response...

* * *

-=[ Making Amends ]=-

“As you start to let go, you let go of your desire to change what has already happened. What’s already happened is complete. That’s a big step, because anytime we want to change what has already happened, we re-create it over and over again in order to change it. So when that drops away, a lot of patterns drop too, because you no longer want to fix what’s already happened.”

“Most of us live our life as though our thoughts are both who we are and facts. But neither is true. Thoughts are just that -- not facts, and not true. The good news is you have the ability to let go of any thought, and thereby change both the way you feel and how you act in life.”

-- Hale Dwoskin

Recently, I sent a message of apology to someone here on the ‘Ply. There was a part of me that felt she deserved whatever I threw at her, but I know from experience that self-righteous indignation is the noise we make to drown out our own bullshit. Though I felt justified for attacking her and putting her hypocritical shit on Broadway, I also knew inside I had to let that go. So I sent her an apology -- privately. Shortly thereafter, someone informed me that my apology was the subject of a blog on another site-- something held up for ridicule. Again, a part of me felt hurt -- but I reminded myself I didn’t apologize because I expected anything from the person. I did so without even the expectation of an acceptance. I attempted to make amends because, 1) it’s what I have to do to forgive myself, and 2) because it came from the heart. These incidents reminded me of the following post I wrote a few years ago...

The path I follow, the path that sings to me, has a long history and set of cultural values that emphasize forgiveness. Actually, the path I follow is an integration of sorts of integral psychology, Theravadan Buddhism, and the good ole Twelve Steps. What follows here is part of my journey back to love.

During my first ten-day vipassana (meditation) retreat, our teacher led us through a meditation on loving-kindness (metta). She began by asking us to think about people we had harmed and ask for their forgiveness. In order for us to open to love, she said, we must forgive. We must empty ourselves of the resentments and guilt from the past so that we can fully open our hearts to love.

I remember thinking about ex-girlfriends, my parents and other family members, long lost friends, my mother-in-law at the time, even that lady that… well you get the idea. I breathed in the sorrow and I asked, “why did I hurt you?’

Next, we were asked to think of people who had hurt us. I settled in my breathing and the very same people came to my mind.

What was that about?

As an addict in recovery, I had written a Fourth Step -- “a searching and fearless moral inventory” -- and I saw the same pattern: The people I hurt were, more often than not, the very same people who hurt me. This was no mere tit for tat; at least I didn’t see these patterns in that way. I saw it as an example of how intimacy triggers these struggles for me. I was seeing what my loved ones in recovery told me I would see in “working” the steps: the whole pattern of my life. I’m seeing more clearly today the essential entanglement of love and fear, of intimacy and alienation. The truth of this contradiction continues to unfold for me to this day.

During the time of my first retreat, I was married to beautiful and remarkable woman, let’s call her by my pet name for her: “Fo-head” (cause she had a prominent forehead). She was actually supportive enough to encourage me to go on this ten-day retreat in the first place. Now, for those here who have been married, you know that ten days is a luxury in married life. LOL! I am eternally grateful for that gift.

In loving-kindness (metta) practice, we took three types of relationships: with people we love, with those we feel neutral toward, and with difficult people. As I undertook this practice, I quickly realized that my wife fell into all three categories! I loved her dearly as my life’s partner; sometimes I barely recognized her as we passed each other; and sometimes she was the object of all my frustrations.

This is true...

Step Eight: “Made a list of all persons I had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.”

When I first read the above step early in my recovery, I wanted to skip all the previous steps and just go immediately to that one! Luckily, I had people in my life who acted as guides. They patiently explained to me that before amends can be made, one first has to go through a process of self-discovery and self-forgiveness in order for it to mean anything. We all say, “I’m sorry,” but how deep is that? If you can’t forgive yourself, then how can you forgive another? For those of you who say otherwise, I’ll tell you you’re only fooling yourself.

In making my list, I saw clearly, probably for the first time, the people there: my parents, my brothers and sisters, my exes, my wife, my friends, all the most important people in my life, all the people I loved the most. This showed me that the work I needed to do was here right now, in front of me.

My spiritual growth and personal development doesn’t hinge on reading a new book, or adopting a new esoteric philosophy, or reaching some transcendental mystical experience, but rather on something as seemingly simple as recognizing that the person laying next to me in bed was a precious gift in my life: she was my lover, my teacher, my friend. Still, how many times did I come into conflict with her? How many times did she push my button so that I felt anger and fear? How many times did I want her to think or behave differently, thinking she didn’t understand or appreciate me?

On and on…

It was a revelation for me because here again, I was confronted with the whole pattern of my life: what Zorba the Greek called the “Full Catastrophe!” The blaming, the judging -- the wish to control.

What my path teaches me about this is that these habits, these patterns, are the result of my past actions and that I can change these in this very moment. I can look up from my book and smile. I can start again with a fresh breath, a fresh kindness, right here in this very moment. If there’s something that any relationship requires, it’s this ability to let go and stop the war and begin again with kindness. I’m an expert on forgiveness, I was married. LOL!

If you can’t forgive, a relationship, whether platonic, familial, or romantic, won’t last very long. At most it will be a very painful one.

Step Nine: “Made directs amends to such people whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.”

I didn’t speak to my father for more than ten years. And with good reason. He hurt me repeatedly, from the time I can first remember. Finally, as a young man and having endured another betrayal at his hands, I decided I would cut him out of my life. And I did… for ten years or more.

During all that time, my father made repeated attempts to contact me. He would leave the message that he loved me. Big fuckin’ shit, I would think. It was during my incarceration that my father began writing to me regularly and it was during that time we first opened the door to the possibility of reconciliation. I was in my first year of recovery, however, and I was cautious because I didn’t need to foolishly open myself to someone who had a history of hurting me. But I began to see this as a possibility. I became willing.

Two years passed, and I was married with my own son and wife. I knew that I would have to, for my own sake, reconcile with my father and that first phone call was difficult. I lay in bed and thought about it (never a good thing) and finally I called. We spoke, and he accepted my amends and offered his and we cried. I didn’t know it at the time, but at that time my father had been diagnosed with a terminal illness and he knew his time here was limited. We left off with the agreement that we would respect each other as son and father, but also as men.

After speaking to my father, something else came up. There was another messier resentment lurking inside of me that I carried. I had idolized my father, but he had failed to live up to my ideals. My father was an addict. I adored my father but he failed me somehow and these feelings complicated my relationship with him.

It’s these complications that make the amends process difficult. Painful relationships rarely go in just one direction. We hurt each other. Many times, I have found myself making amends to people who have hurt me -- oftentimes more than I’ve hurt them. And this is why we don’t go straight to Step 8. We first have to develop the ability to stay on our own side of the street. To resist the temptation to think of what others might owe us is the biggest step towards some measure of sanity in our lives.

Yes, my father was all that I can say he was, but here I was, a father myself, someone who had grappled with his demons. Who was I to judge? Didn’t I fall into my own addiction? Didn’t I also abandon my son? When we point the accusatory finger, my friends reminded me that there are three others pointing right back at us. This a good point for those here who enjoy defining themselves in relation to how much better they perceive themselves when compared to others.

Oscar Wilde said that “Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.” When I finally got clean and wrote that first inventory, digging deep into the history of my resentments and the ways I acted them out, my feelings began to change. I began to see my own part in the problems I had with my father and I began to feel compassion for the difficulty he and my mother had in raising their children. They did the best they could with what they had.

In accepting my own failures, I learned to accept my parents’ failures. I realized that they too had parents that were less than perfect, and that they tried to be good parents.

As I continued going through my Step 8 list and making amends, something wonderful happened: I began to feel free for the first time in my life. Not all my amends were happy affairs. I still have people in my life who may never forgive me and that’s Ok because I have become willing to make these amends. Some of my amends stories are miraculous, like the time my son’s mother woke up from a coma and certain death while I was attempting to make amends to her. Other times, it was quite the opposite: I have had people curse me out and chase me from their lives -- some have even thrown things at me. To these people I totally understand, sometimes we can’t forgive and that’s OK, I just want to undo my part of that insanity. Others, after initially holding grudges have since reconciled and have expressed to me that the process was a healing force in their lives.

After an exhaustive Step Nine, I began to think that there was something missing from my list. There had to be more than I remembered. I meditated on my list and on my life, and there was something missing. Then it came me: the person who had been hurt the most by my actions was me. Ultimately, forgiveness is not just about forgiving others. It’s being forgiven and forgiving ourselves. For many people, this is the most difficult task in spiritual development. In the final analysis, making amends to others is to make amends to ourselves, since while hurting others we hurt ourselves in the process.

My entire path can be seen in this way. Each step I take is an amend to myself, repairing my connection through spiritual means, becoming honest with myself and others, making amends, passing on the gift. For me going back to school after so many years was an amends to myself. So was picking up my meditation practice and learning to be more compassionate with myself and others, more forgiving.

To forgive ourselves means pursuing our heart’s true desire. The Buddha said that we could search the whole world and not find a person more deserving of love than ourselves. Is this a possibility for you? To see yourself as equally precious as anyone else on Earth?

Love,

Eddie

Sunday Sermon (Transcending Wounds)

¡Hola! Everybody... You know what? I could give a fuck about the Super Bowl. I came to this realization quite some time ago, but now it just sits here inside of me like a fact. Is that, like, un-American or somehow unmanly?

Yup, as I said, I could give a fuck...

Repost!

* * *

-=[ Transcending Wounds ]=-

“There comes a time in each life like a point of fulcrum. At that time, you must accept yourself. It is not any more what you will become. It is what you are and always will be.”

-- John Fowles (1926 –)

I am firmly convinced there is a conspiracy out to get me! This is true, don’t look at me that way, I ain’t crazy! I know, for example, that there is a covert association of old ladies out there somewhere whose solitary mission is to send its members to block my way on the streets and on subway platforms. And don’t get me started on that group of train conductors whose assignment is to get me stuck in between subway stations and close subway doors right in my face.

Then there’s that damned OAA (Overly-Analytical Association) women’s group, hell-bent on sending me women who “think” through even mundane stuff (like sex, for example) to the point where it is isn’t even fun anymore! And don’t get me started on the “Evil Parents” consortium that determined to have me born into a poor household headed by traumatized parents themselves barely out of their teens.

It’s a conspiracy! It’s true, I tell ya!

I’m exaggerating, of course, but for a long time I took things very personal, as if life had somehow conspired to fuck me without the dignioty of kissing me. While I knew that old ladies weren’t organizing against me (as if I were that important ), my reactions were just the same -- flagrant anger and bitterness that I dressed up in a cynically chic “that’s my life” outerwear. It’s considered chic and cool to wear our wounds nonchalantly – you hear people constantly say stupid shite like, “Life sucks… ” as if it were all predetermined.

There’s a fairly erotic scene in one of the Lethal Weapon films in which Mel Gibson’s and Rene Russo’s characters compare scars as a prelude to sex. “I have this scar,” says Mel, and Rene counters with, “Ha! That’s nothing, look at this one!” They go on like this until both have managed to take their clothes off in their mad dash to outdo one another.

It’s funny a funny scene, but like with a lot of fiction there’s a fair amount of truth to it. As a society, we have developed what the medical intuitive, Carolyn Myss, calls a “language of intimacy.” But that intimacy is based, she goes on to say, on “Woundology.” Briefly, woundology is recognizing that we have come to an important insight, namely that we need to bring out into the open our wounds, discussing them in a healthy manner. This is a very powerful and fairly recent development in the human condition. What has happened, however, is that we have gotten stuck on our wounds -- a “woundology.” We have become addicted to our wounds. We have come to be defined by our wounds.

You see it all the time. You meet someone, and before you even get to know them, you’re privy to some pretty much intimate details of that person. This is what happens when we merely admit our shortcomings, or wounds. Everything is now filtered by the fact that you’re an incest survivor, or a widow, or an addict, an abused child, etc. Please, don’t get me wrong here: it’s extremely important that we bring into the light that which resides in the shadows. And many, many people, keep all this shit stuffed inside, in the process causing both physical and psychological dis-ease, but that is only part of the issue. There are other steps we have to take.

If only I had a better childhood…

If only I didn't have my hardships…

This over identification and obsession with our wounds is so powerful that we actually become attached to them. In fact, many people don’t really want to heal or change, they’re too enamored of their wounds to do that. I have a relative who’s always harping on her parents and how her parents are the cause for her inability to relate, to be a good parent herself, the rain, and the car that just cut her off… well you get the idea. When I challenge this belief system, she freaks, or she just stops listening. The end result is that she’s an essentially unhappy person actually infecting her own children with the same disease of learned unhappiness.

Take away the wound, we seem to be saying, and what do we become? I’m no longer just a recovering addict?!?! I’m not just an incest survivor?!?!

OMG!!!

Acceptance is the gateway toward forgiveness. I am not speaking here of passive acceptance to how things were or are. I am also not speaking here of forgiveness in the way we normally see it. Acceptance in this context is coming to the realization of things how they are (as opposed to how we wan them to be). Forgiveness in this context is not forgiving others, but forgiving ourselves. When we cling to our wounds, we are actually punishing ourselves because we do not see ourselves as worthy. When we accept the facts of our lives, we then can move towards maturity and the development of true happiness. We all deal with hardships; you are not that unique, really. And life sometimes isn’t fair, but it isn’t about fairness, it’s about reality.

So, in a sense, it would be correct to say that we need to love those aspects of ourselves we like least in order to move beyond the wounds to the space where healing begins. Acceptance opens the door to forgiveness which opens the door to Love, which in turn leads toward integration, healing, and wholeness.

Many of us like to say we’ve moved past all this, but I still see the bitterness, unhappiness, and tendency toward blame. I especially see it in the people who often comment on this blog by saying some bullshit like, “Yeah, people need to get over it... ” or some bullshit like that. It’s not about getting over it, it’s about integration, not negation.

Then again, maybe there is something to this conspiracy theory thingee...

but I doubt it.

Love,

Eddie

Forgiveness

¡Hola! Everybody...
I’m off to prison to work with the ladies...

Today? Another repost! LOL!

* * *

-=[ Forgivness ]=-

“Forgiveness is another word for letting go.”

-- Matthew Fox

Learning forgiveness -- both granting it to others and accepting for ourselves -- is one of the primary paths for growth. For many us, if we are honest enough with ourselves, taking a look at our history is to be plagued with deep-rooted feelings of guilt. We may develop insight, or we finally open to the possibility of being accountable for some of this history, which opens us to a new perspective on life. As human beings, we may also yearn to undo our mistakes. However, many of us carry guilt for years as if we deserved to continue to be punished.

True growth means letting go.

It is not until we learn forgiveness that we can stop the patterns that have been handed down from generation to generation. I’ll give you an example from my own personal history. I was blessed with two beautiful, intelligent, caring, and courageous parents. The fact that I’m living the way I am today is a testament to their legacy of courage and determination against sometimes great odds. I am totally grateful for what they have given me. I honestly believe that if I were to carry my mother on my back for the rest of her life, I still would not be able to repay what she has given me.

However, both my parents were abused and neglected as children. My father was orphaned by the age of seven, having lost his parents to disease and was subsequently raised by an older sister who was barely older than him. My mother was sexually and physically abused by her older brothers as a child and was a battered wife for 13 years at the hands of my father.

My earliest memories are of my mother using me as a shield to stop my father from beating her.

It took me a long time to begin to understand all of this. I loved my parents dearly, as I know they loved me, but there was a lot of abuse and feelings of horror and abandonment in my childhood. I simultaneously adored -- worshipped -- and hated and feared my father, who could be both loving and angry to the extreme. My mother, also a sweet and loving person, was quick with her hands, often smacking me in the face, eliciting within me feelings of hatred, which I then felt guilty for harboring. To this day, I still sometimes get uncomfortable when a lover reaches to caress my face.

People today are always amazed at my ability to size people up. I’m often right on point with my ability to analyze people, even if I choose to look at the better side of human nature. I’m no fool -- don’t let the suit, tie, and smile fool you. LOL The fact is that I learned how to read people as a child. I had to for my own survival because I had to know if the most important person in my life was going to hug or hit me. So I learned to read the body, listen for tones in the voice, check the eyes. I had to become good at this.

Growing up and listening to my mother’s screams I would promise myself that I would never re-enact these abuses on others. At those times, I hated my parents and felt guilt about that hate because they were my parents and I was taught that it was wrong for me to feel what I felt.

Years passed and I found myself (funny way of putting it, huh? LOL) being the primary caregiver to my own son seven years of age. Imagine having me as a father!

LOL!!!

Anyway, my son and I had a great relationship. I can be very entertaining, to say the least. *wink* My son adored me and I tried to be honest and loving toward my son. Most of all, I was determined not to replay the same patterns in my relationship with him.

One day, he came home with a report card that wasn’t what I felt reflective of his abilities. My son was an intellectually gifted child but, as with many brilliant children, he lived in his own world, the “real” world sometimes being very boring. Anyway, it was one of those days -- I was feeling a little drained and overwhelmed and I became very frustrated because here I am, I thought to myself, busting my butt to stress the importance of education to this kid and he’s just not getting it!

So the more I’m talking to him the angrier I get, and the angrier I get the more boundaries I trespass: by now, I’m cursing at him and screaming and talking to him in a way I never did before. Heck, in my mind, I want to take him over my knee and spank the shit out of the little ma’fucca.

All the while, there’s a part of me that’s “watching” all of this, but I’m in “fight or flight” mode, and I can’t stop myself. By now, my son is crying and the more he cries the more frustrated I become and somewhere I know I'm losing control, that I’m going somewhere deep and dark and my son is terrified...

BUT ALL I WANT IS TO JUST KICK THIS KID’S BUTT!!

Just then, my son -- voice quavering and his body trembling -- my son pleads to me, “But Pops I don’t understand, what do you want me to do? Please, tell me... ”

And at that moment, everything stops and my heart just melts right then and there because I look at my son’s face and see the tears and those beautiful blue eyes and at that moment I’m overwhelmed with love for my son. It is at that precise moment that I saw reflected in my son’s eyes, my own inner child and was vividly reminded of the horrors and trauma of my own childhood. It was as if his plea awakened me from an unconscious or deep-rooted rage and I became terrified myself.

I awaken from my rage at that moment and all the fears, all the rage dissipates. I take my son in my arms and hold him tight, repeating over and over, "I’m so sorry... "

You see?

This is how patterns are repeated. I realized right then and there that I had to find resolution with my own demons because if I didn’t, it would get passed down to my son and those that I love the most. Before I could be the father I wanted to be, I had to forgive my own parents, and let that rage go because that abuse was so powerful a force that it threatened everything that was important in my life.

I had to let go...

Fortunately, I was able to do that. I was also able to speak to my son about my own fears and how sometimes when he didn’t do well in school, my fear was that he would that he would eventually suffer as I did. It was an irrational fear, but that’s where my head went in those moments when I became most angry or fearful.

Eventually, I learned that my anger stemmed from a deep-rooted fear – probably the fear I experienced as a child in an abusive home.

Did I become the “model” father after that day? Aww heck no! This is Eddie we’re talking about here, folks! LOL But that day I began to truly understand the importance of forgiveness and letting go because letting go is not just something you do, it's something you become.

Forgiveness is not saying that what you or someone else did is ok. Rather, forgiveness is a state of being in which you allow yourself to get rid of the fear and rage through a long and slow, but necessary process. Some would call it a state of grace... The price you pay for not letting go is pain, not just for yourself, but for those closest to you.

Maybe today we can begin to entertain the possibility of being forgiven and letting go of past mistakes.

Love,

Eddie