(Written in October 2003)
\nDream: we\u2019re all in a car coming up Park Road, Daddy driving.\u00a0 He goes past the driveway & we tell him & he complains that we should have made sounds when he got to the mailbox so he\u2019d know where the driveway was.\u00a0 As he starts up the driveway I realize that he\u2019s blind, and we\u2019re all letting him drive.
\nWoke about 5:30.\u00a0 Fear & heat.\u00a0 A lot of heat in my heart.\u00a0 Asked for mercy.\u00a0 Put on relaxation tape.\u00a0 Still awake at the end so I started the Pema Chodron tape on \u201cjoyful exertion\u201d but found it too difficult.\u00a0 & finally turned it off.\u00a0 She talked about 3 kinds of laziness: 1) comfort-seeking 2) losing heart 3) not caring at all.\u00a0 It\u2019s clear that I\u2019m dealing with 2)\u00a0\u00a0 O but it\u2019s not about pushing through.\u00a0 It\u2019s about getting to know your resistance \u2014 not acting it out, not repressing it.\u00a0 So to look at my loss of heart as a witness.\u00a0 Mercy, mercy.\u00a0 Not trying to make it be different.\u00a0 There\u2019s a softening in my heart.\u00a0 Holy Mother Mary, have mercy on me.\u00a0 Have mercy on me.\u00a0 I will be gentle with myself.\u00a0 There, there, dear.
\nI keep seeing a young mother with her new baby \u2014 she\u2019s angry and unhappy, she wasn\u2019t prepared for this neediness, she\u2019s all alone, and she doesn\u2019t want to face her anger and unhappiness, so she treats the baby roughly, yells at her for crying, maybe even slaps her. Then she feels terrible, cries and sobs while holding the baby, then goes off to comfort herself with alcohol. And fails to return to the baby for hours.\u00a0 I can feel compassion for both of them.\u00a0 I can see that the stoniness of heart that I\u2019m struggling to be with is the stoniness of a mother in denial (she may even be dealing with post-partum depression \u2014 her husband is away at a war for god\u2019s sake, and she\u2019s all alone in that big house \u2014 and she\u2019d never be able to admit her depression) and the stoniness of the poor baby\u2019s despairing helplessness.
\nI\u2019m feeling so much compassion for Mom.\u00a0 Totally unexpected.\u00a0 This is a true place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(Written in October 2003) Dream: we\u2019re all in a car coming up Park Road, Daddy driving.\u00a0 He goes past the driveway & we tell him & he complains that we should have made sounds when he got to the mailbox … Continue reading