"Can attack in any form be love?"
                                                                        A Course in Miracles

I'm not familiar with this band but I sure could identify with the cover art.

We seek love, and we are wary of attack.  We have all been caught in what felt like painful traps...some where we had to metaphorically gnaw our own legs off to escape.  Nobody wants to go there again.  The older we get, the more timid we become or the more guarded or the more angry or tired or sad.

I see now that my vigilance was never protective armor, but rather a cage of my own making.  A cage wrapped in thorns with a "Welcome" mat on the front door step.

I was given a great lesson this morning.  I was confused and hurt and in my simmering self-righteous pain, I felt justified in possibly sending out an attack.  It didn't feel like an attack to me.  It felt like I was putting an end to something that was causing my pain.  "Enough is enough" I was saying to myself, in a quite indignant, Grinch-like tone.


I think it was the Grinch-like tone that clued me in that perhaps this was not my highest self talking.


Instead of acting upon, or even giving further consideration to that impulse, I asked for help instead.

"What page?", I asked.

"493"

A Course in Miracles.  Chapter 23 - The War Against Yourself.  II. The Laws of Chaos. Paragraph 17. 

"Who can find safety from attack by turning on himself?"

I saw in that instant the person who was about to be the recipient of my ill thought out grenade launch had done nothing to deserve it.  It was me reacting to my own fear and feelings of inadequacy.  It was me bracing for an impact.  It was me anticipating the snapping of the trap.  Not his trap...my trap.  It has always been my trap.

Ask and you shall receive.

The hurt I've been feeling...and not just now, always...has been self inflicted.  Every time someone else did or said something that hurt, it wasn't them, it was me.  It was always me.  And when I've been attacked by another (either by direct assault or fortified distance) it was probably them being caught in their own traps.

Snap...ouch...snap...ouch...snap...ouch...snap...OUCH!

Well...you get the picture.

How do I stop this?  I can only disarm my own traps.  How do I do this?  The first step is the hardest.  I have to look around and find them.  Unfortunately, they are cleverly hidden.  That's why they snap so unexpectedly and why I always thought they belonged to someone else.  I've tripped over them whenever I would try to move close to someone else.  No wonder I thought they did it.

And when I thought they did it, I lashed out.  I took a swat at them.  Most often, when it hurt the most and when I cared for them the most, I got out my little hatchet and cut off ties.  I'm done with you.  You're not going to hurt me again.  No sir.  I'm too effing smart for that.

Yeah...I feel REAL SMART right now.

How hurtful have I been?  In looking back, I just want to throw up.  I was the asshole.  I was the jerk.  I was insensitive.  I was abrupt.  I was thoughtless.  I was impatient.  I was mean.  I was stupid.  I was ugly.  I was unforgiving.  I did not love.

A few days ago, I talked about forgiveness.  Ironic, and perfect.

Today was my first step in forgiving myself.  It happened when a trap snapped.  It happened when I said "help please" instead of taking a swing at someone.

It's like when you stub your toe and you curse at the table leg.

Stop abusing the table leg.  Kiss your toe and make it feel better.  Stop hurting others and love yourself.  The more hurt you feel, the more you must do this.

Snap...HELP...snap...HELP....snap...HELP...snap...I'm sorry...snap...love...

Thank you...for showing me the trap.  One down...

Blessings and peace,

WS

The lady in front of me at the 7-Eleven bought $34.00 worth of lottery tickets.

I hope she wins.

WS

I forgot how rare and lovely it is to walk in the rain.

I've been inside all weekend, and had been grateful for the waves of torential downpours and the pitter-pattering of drippiness in between.  Studying for Physiological Psychology a.k.a. Brain Class.  Had it been 81 degrees and sunny I would not have had much interest in the action potential of neurons.  In between study sessions, I have been on a learning journey of another sort.  Forgiveness.  Not just the garden variety "somebody said something that hurt my feelings and now I'm trying to get over it" kind.  This is Olympic freestyle forgiveness.

I've recently revisited "A Course in Miracles".  It's been on my bookcase for years as sacred and unintelligible to me as the Dead Sea Scrolls.  It was just too deep.  However, when I picked it up again a few weeks ago it was like someone had inplanted a Rosetta Stone in my head and somehow some of these beautiful words made sense.  When the student is ready...the teacher falls off the bookcase.

So...let me digress for a moment and get back to the rain walk.  It's Sunday evening and after getting no more exercise that traversing up the stairs to my computer and text books and then down the stairs to the kitchen and the cat, and then up again and down again...well, the moment the rain let up, I decided I'd better get outside for a little while or I was gonna be real crabby at work tomorrow.  Nothing worse than a weekend with no activity.

I put on my sneakers and grabbed an umbrella in case a monsoon hit while I was out, but it was just misty as I set off.  People who drove by me must have thought I was crazy.  It was when sunset would have been happening if one could see the sun so the sky was a smudgy shade of lightly illuminated charcoal.  I passed a lady on her bike with her dog out for a quick ride.  I guess I wasn't the only one with cabin fever.

As it got darker, it got drippier and so did I.  But the umbrella stayed closed.  My mind started wandering and I found myself remembering times I was out on horseback and got caught in the rain miles away from the barn.  I remembered the feel of the rain slowly soaking through my jeans and my horse's coat getting slick and shiny.  The drops splashing on the leaves above and the grass below sounded like a multitude of fairies whispering and shushing each other so as not to be overheard.  The slow drumbeat of hooves in the mud then were louder versions of my muffled sneakers now on the wet sidewalk.  But the rhythm was just as comforting.

Walking by houses, lights behind curtained windows, and the wind picking up and waving wet branches brought my thoughts back down off the back of my ghost horse and on to the idea of forgiveness again.

The Course tells us that forgiveness is the key to happiness. 

Yeah...I know...but... 

In this case, I have been challenged to consider forgiving the biggest "offender" of my life.  My evil arch enemy.  Which really only means that this person was someone I loved a LOT and wanted to trust and did trust and he really, really hurt me...and now he's trying to squash me like a bug.  Over and over.  And spraying me with Raid.  And unleashing the hounds on me.  And lets not forget throwing rocks.  And calling me names.  Mean ugly names.

What's creepy about being on this spiritual journey is I have to take responsibility for my projections,  I am "being with" the idea that perhaps he has been as hurt and wounded by me as I have been by him.  And most likely he considers himself to be just as innocent as I do.  Meanwhile, we are launching what we each see as defensive attacks.  He started it...no she started it...  Ugly, ugly, ugly.

Hears the deal-ee-o with projections.  We all carry around a bunch of memories of scary stuff that has happened to us.  Some of it is conscious memory, much of it is not.  Survival of our species, like most others, has been dependent upon learning what will hurt us and steering clear of it,  Over time, we literally are always "looking for trouble" and when we spot it, we have no idea why the buzzers go off in our head and "fight or flight" kicks in, but there you have it.  Often whatever set us off wasn't even real.  We were reacting to a memory that looked kind of sort of like what was happening in the moment.  We become more wary and cautious and suspicious until we either lash out or run.  He lashed out.  I ran. 

Attack and abandonment. 

Welcome to my study of forgiveness.

I'm still trying to get away and he is still trying to punish me for leaving.

And it has turned us both into people we're not.  What happened to the love?  How come I can't think of him without saying "asshole" under my breath?

I'm thinking Step 1 is "lose the foul adjective".

I have been praying and meditating and I really do want to change my perspective here.  I don't want to live like this anymore.  I don't want my stomach to churn when I see I got an email from him.  See...we have two amazing, wonderful sons.  Communication must happen.  Positive communication has been rare.  I want better.  Our family...broken as it is...needs healing here in a big way.

In this version of forgiveness, it needs to be both given and received.  Not sure how that's going to work but I'm willing.

Rain is still falling outside.  I'm inside and dry again.  Praying.

I'm sorry and I'm grateful.

WS