As usual, I wake up around 3 or 4 and then meditate and contemplate. Today’s musings had three thoughts.
Especially with my interactions with others, I have virtually completely blocked out all of the good interactions and focus on the “bad”. The “bad” is where I get “hurt”. This gets extremely complicated but I think the truth is that these pains are telling me where I need to grow and change. But instead I take flight and isolate which supports and encourages the mistaken beliefs and the victim perspectives that are the toxins that I really need to be focused on getting rid of.
How many choices do I make which are fear based? Suppose you see a coin on the sidewalk. There are many valid and wholesome reasons to pick up the coin. Likewise there are many valid and wholesome reasons not to pick up the coin. But I don’t consider those. I might think I need to pick up the coin because if I don’t, people will think I’m stupid. Or… if I do pick up the coin, people will think I’m miserly. Fear is driving me in this case and, while the actual actions might be good, or perhaps the best choice, I am holding it as yet another negative event that occurred in my life.
The last time I visited my brother, I felt awkward the whole time. I tend to say “he made me feel awkward the whole time” playing the part of the victim. Eventually he said that I was the most selfish person he has ever known. Again, playing the victim, I would say “he said this because I didn’t intuitively figure out he wanted me to make him breakfast” — which has a large degree of truth to it. BUT… given the two items above, I bet I do act in a way that appears selfish or defensive or unaccepting — “closed off” might be the best term.
The frustration with all of the above is, I honestly am clueless as to how to change. Is the needed change purely spiritual? Do I simply need to correct my perspective each and every time and remind myself that I’m at fault for my pain every time? How do I adjust my expectations? How do I change mistaken childhood beliefs that I practically worship as “God’s truth”? How do I downsize my ego to the point that its opinion is just another opinion — no more valid nor invalid than many others?
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