Sunday Sermon [Self-Importance]

¡Hola! Everybody...
Congrats to my Filipino friends/ boxing fans. Manny Pacquiao took apart Puerto Rico’s pride and joy, Miguel Cotto. I honestly thought Cotto was too strong for the Pac Man -- boy was I wrong! LOL BTW, did I ever mention how much I admire the beauty of my Filipina sisters? *grin*

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-=[ Renting Space ]=-

Blessed is he who can laugh at himself for he shall never cease to be amused.

-- proverb

I have an admission to make. An admission that I fear will decrease your high estimation of me. (LOL!) I suffer from a terrible inclination toward renting the space inside your head. You usually rent it free (!!). Have you ever rented out your head space? Perhaps you have in the past, or maybe you still do. In that case, you should be wary of predators such as me for I have been known to rent the space inside many a head. I also take over your inner remote control as I lounge in the cramp quarters inside your head (hey, it is free).

People allow me to do this all the time... I know, I know: I am bad -- incorrigible even.

I must submit in my defense, however, that I am much better today than I was in the past. When I was younger I used to allow people to rent the space inside my head all the time. Having been on both sides of the issue, however, I am here to tell you that I would rather rent the space in your head, than allow you to rent space in mine. Are you confused?

Allow me to 'splain Reeky...

Let us say someone calls you a twat. That starts you thinking, “Who the hell does he think he is to call me an twat?!!” “How dare he call me an twat?!!” “He has no right to call me an twat -- I’ll show him who the twat is!” And if you are smart you realize that you have just allowed him call you a twat another five times.

That’s known as allowing someone to rent the space inside your head.

Every time you remember what they said, everytime you recall or mentally relive the insult, you allow them to insult you yet again. And therein lies the problem.

If someone insults you and you don’t hang on to it -- you let it go -- then it ceases to bother you. Its power (power donated by you) is diminished. Therein lies the solution.

I can correctly measure the level of my personal growth by how long I choose to hang on to an insult. Why allow other people (most of whom are unimportant) to rent space in your head? Why give them control of your inner happiness? Part of the answer is tied to the degree of self-importance you possess. All that ego takes a lot of energy that could be put to better use. But don’t listen to me, I love renting space in your head (free! LOL!)

Love,

Eddie

Forgiveness

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

Today? Another repost! LOL!

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-=[ 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

Resentment

¡Hola! Everybody... I am tired today... the following is a repost.

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-=[ Resentment ]=-

“Sadly, some folks want others to feel their pain, to hurt as much as they do -- or more. My grandmother once told me to avoid colds and angry people whenever I could. It's sound advice.” -- Walter Anderson

“Resentment is a lot like pissing on yourself: no one feels it but you and you end up stinking up the place.”

-- Eddie

Our problems with anger and our relationship issues go hand in hand. In my work, I have found anger to be a highly misunderstood emotion. Because of this misunderstanding some of us cope with anger by holding it in, eventually leading to resentment. Others turn to venting their anger and becoming abusive. Many others are so frightened of anger that they end up closing off the dialogue in their relationships when angry feelings come out.

Anger can be a form of violence and it often has its roots in shame. No matter how I present this idea, no matter how much I use people’s own experiences to help them understand this important dynamic, they don’t get it. On a physical level, responses to anger release stress hormones that were initially developed to help us survive. Sometimes it leads to the fight or flight syndrome -- a state of high alert. After a lifetime of constantly being in flight or fight mode, is it any wonder that we literally destroy our hearts? Stress kills -- really.

Anybody here remember the scene in the Jerry Maguire film where Tom Cruise’s character bursts into his love interest’s living room determined to confess his love (with the vomit-inducing line “You complete me...”) only to be confronted by a divorced women’s group? In the film, that group is little more than an excuse for bitching sessions. Bitching -- or better put -- resentment -- is merely a form of frozen anger.

Many people believe that if you don’t vent your anger that something bad will happen to you, but closer inspection of venting reveals that it’s just as bad as holding it in. Venting is practicing to be angry, does nothing for your peace of mind, and reinforces unhealthy responses to anger. Yet people believe you will explode or disintegrate or some such nonsense if you don’t vent.

Resentment is anger that has been stuck in your spiritual GI tract, causing spiritual constipation. I think both men and women do this: we get stuck with our anger and lash out at the “losers” who have made us unhappy. Bitching/ venting/ resentment is the language of “woundology” at its best.

S/he hurt me! Waaaaahhh! Look at my wounds!

When you hold on to resentment for another person, you are binding yourself to that person by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. That’s why I feel many forms of psychodynamic approaches to therapy fail: they get stuck in revisiting the past, creating stronger linkages to trauma as a result. ‘Sides, insight doesn't matter -- you will find countless ways to justify and rationalize your resentment until it eats your core.

Still others have wasted energy by focusing anger on people who weren’t really important to them. The question that stands out in my mind is do we truly want them to become so important. An individual spent a lot of time saying bad things about me -- to the point of character assassination. Someone asked me one day what I thought of the person and my answer was that I didn’t. On the other hand, perhaps our important relationships became frozen because we weren’t open and respectful with our anger.

The fact of the matter is that it isn’t possible to be close to someone without being angry at times. We invite and allow our loved ones to be part of our lives by feeling our anger when it is there and expressing it openly, directly, and respectfully to them -- or by hearing them when they are angry. The only way to transform anger -- which is only an energy transfer -- is to feel it. Venting or suppressing our anger are ways to deny the experience of anger. It’s an avoidance strategy. Actually experiencing our anger helps us create the necessary space in which to create a dialogue that will help us to let it go.

Love,

Eddie