I had three very important realizations this last week. From my journal:
Monday, March 20
Reading Rohr on the twelve steps, can’t remember which step it is. You’re supposed to tell to another person and to God the things you have been doing wrong. Then the next step is “Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.” You ask God, because of course if you try to do it yourself your own patterns will come into play and it becomes another way of control.
Richard Rohr’s book on the Twelve Steps is Breathing Underwater. The one about asking God to help me struck me for the first time. I’ve been trying to “fix myself,” for most of my life. It’s actually an impossible undertaking. Realizing that I could ask God was a relief, the same relief I feel when I say “Thy will be done.”
Tuesday, March 21
3rd cup. coffee. I don’t have to be worthy to be blessed! I don’t have to be worthy to be loved! It was in the CAC’s offering today. O my goodness what a lift it’s given me. I can see Jenny, that mixed bag, good at teaching but painfully shy, kind but unable to express herself well in conversation… and I love her.
This one was astounding. I always assumed I had to do everything right to be loved. I certainly never felt loved by my parents. They always criticized me, so I got the idea that they would love me if I got something right. Of course, when I did something right, they didn’t praise me, so I didn’t really know it was right, and certainly didn’t feel loved. When I told a friend, she said “Of course you’re worthy to be loved,” but that wasn’t the insight. It was recognizing that “worthiness” had nothing to do with love, that I didn’t have to try to be worthy.
Seeing myself as a “mixed bag” felt like the first time I actually had a true picture of who I am. Finding that I could love her so easily was also a new experience.
On March 22 I was reading Jack Kornfield’s book A Lamp in the Darkness. It’s a series of stories with meditations afterward. One called “Shared Compassion” was quite wonderful, similar to the lovingkindness one. But it spoke about “Pains and Sorrows,” which gave me a whole new slant. “May you be held in compassion. May your pains and sorrows be eased. May you be at peace.” I started saying it for myself, and then for everyone I met or thought about. I found it quite wonderful to think “May your pains and sorrows be eased,” to people I always imagined had no pains and sorrows.
I found myself offering it to residents who I thought were dealing with pains and sorrows as well as ones who seemed fine. Even to Donald Trump! A practice I can do easily that will help the world I love!