{"id":6588,"date":"2020-04-09T16:29:18","date_gmt":"2020-04-09T20:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=6588"},"modified":"2020-04-09T16:29:18","modified_gmt":"2020-04-09T20:29:18","slug":"making-the-choice-for-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=6588","title":{"rendered":"Making the Choice for Love"},"content":{"rendered":"

from Richard Rohr’s daily meditation<\/a> for April 9:<\/p>\n

Giving up control is a school to learn union, compassion, and understanding. It is ultimately a school for the final letting go that we call death. Right now, as we face social restrictions, economic fragility, and the vulnerability of our own bodies, is there something deeper that you can surrender to, that can ground you in disruption?<\/p>\n

Surrendering to the divine flow is not about giving in, capitulating, becoming a puppet, being na\u00efve, irresponsible, or stopping all planning and thinking. Surrender is about a peaceful inner opening that keeps the conduit of living water flowing to love. But do know this: every time we surrender to love, we have also just chosen to die. Every time we let love orient us, we are letting go of ourselves as an autonomous unit and have given a bit of ourselves away to something or someone else, and it is not easily retrieved\u2014unless we choose to stop loving\u2014which many do. But even then, when that expanded Self wants to retreat back into itself, it realizes it is trapped in a much larger truth now. And Love wins again.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Richard Rohr\u2019s message today spoke directly to my central concern.<\/p>\n

I am very concerned about my health, which is generally good for someone in her 70’s. \u00a0But I have some details that I realize I spend a lot of time and energy on. \u00a0I keep trying to control my morning headaches by keeping track of them, they happen on the average every other day, I thought they were because of dehydration, but my efforts to consistently drink enough water have not resulted in success. \u00a0<\/span>I have a similar problem with my gut.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019ve suffered from constipation all my life, due to PTSD, and there\u2019s colon cancer in my family, so gut health is important.\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s hard to let go of trying to keep things even day after day, which is a ridiculous perfectionistic agenda.\u00a0 Thinking I can control a phenomenon that is the result of a combination of factors is impossible and frustrating. \u00a0<\/span>If I can look at it another way, that I am at least being able to keep my body in a manageable range, maybe I can let go of trying so hard.\u00a0 <\/span>But I don’t intend to\u00a0give up and stop doing all the little things that I hope are helping. \u00a0Just if I could find a way to do it with more relaxation.<\/span><\/p>\n

I remember a choice I made back in 1996, during the Summer from Hell<\/a>.\u00a0 <\/span>I had been to a retreat with Deena Metzger<\/a>, and I was driving home.\u00a0 <\/span>I don\u2019t remember now what led to my thinking process, but I remember wondering if the God of Love or the God of Power was stronger.\u00a0 <\/span>I didn\u2019t really believe in God, even now that\u2019s still a struggle, but that was how I phrased it.\u00a0 <\/span>I realize that today, watching the people who are coming together to help others through this crisis, and how the Federal government, let by the Predator in Chief (Eve Ensler<\/a>‘s term), is using the crisis to consolidate the power of the rich and corporations who value money over people. Watching these two forces at work, I see that I still oscillate between fear of power and hope in love.\u00a0 <\/span>I now know that the Summer from Hell was a post-traumatic reaction to a horrific experience on Paxil.\u00a0 <\/span>But I didn\u2019t know that then.\u00a0 <\/span>I thought that I was the world\u2019s worst coward.\u00a0 <\/span>But even with all that, I made a choice.\u00a0 <\/span>I said \u201cEven if the God of Power is stronger, I give my allegiance to the God of Love.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>I meant every word of it.\u00a0 <\/span>I am amazed, looking back, at that 54-year-old woman who made that choice in the teeth of traumatic fear.<\/p>\n

I knew my prayer had been answered when I got home to find that my husband was in the midst of a crisis.\u00a0 <\/span>We had not been able to have sex for many years \u2014 I thought at the time that it was my fault for being selfish or defective, but now I know it was PTSD.\u00a0 <\/span>When I got aroused, my reptilian brainstem sent me into freeze<\/a>.\u00a0 <\/span>My husband has become attracted to a woman who was giving him a massage every week, and he asked her to have sex with him and she refused.\u00a0 <\/span>He was practically catatonic.\u00a0 <\/span>I did my best to comfort him.\u00a0 <\/span>A good friend, who was living with us, told me that she thought I had been amazingly loving, and somehow I\u2019ve been able to hold on to that, despite my firm belief that I am an unloving person.<\/p>\n

I continue to make that choice, almost every day.\u00a0 <\/span>What helps the most is the lovingkindness meditation<\/a> for all beings, and tong-len<\/a> when I\u2019m able to do it.\u00a0 <\/span>Recently I\u2019ve been too triggered to be able to breathe in fear, but I will get back to it.\u00a0 <\/span>I will sit at the bottom of the pit with the terrified baby and tell her that I\u2019m not leaving<\/a>.\u00a0 <\/span>I know I can do this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from Richard Rohr’s daily meditation for April 9: Giving up control is a school to learn union, compassion, and understanding. It is ultimately a school for the final letting go that we call death. Right now, as we face social … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,14,16,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-present-day","category-spirit","category-story","category-trauma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6588\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}