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Primitive religion is not believed, it is danced!

Arthur Darby Nock

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
And only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

Elizabeth Browning



Saturday, January 25, 2020

shame on shame


Shame is a soul eating emotion.”
                      Carl Gustav Jung

“Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.”
                      Brene Brown, I Thought It Was Just Me
_________________________________________

It sneaks up on you, just like rancid tweet
A memory pops into your head
Of one of “those” moments when you made a really bad choice
Maybe it is more than a moment

Sometimes the journey through the valley takes time
and the climb out is painful and slow

Or perhaps it is not a sneak attack
Perhaps someone who has seen you, experienced you at your worst
Attacks
Hitting you over the head with a verbal 2X4
Leaving you staggering

And there it is
Shame

It does not matter how far in your past
the offense occurred
Sometimes it does not matter how egregious the ‘sin’

Your head gets noisy
It is as if it is full of 100 TV’s
All turned on
All tuned in to horror shows

And then the voices come
Not from that proverbial committee
But from a mental Supreme Court, ready and willing to
Confirm your guilt

That is when your sympathetic nervous goes berserk
When you heart pounds
And your stomach clenches

And you forget, at least for a moment,
Grace

That is when all the changes you have worked for
All the insights you have gained
Seem to slide inexorably into the ooze and slime and old decay

That is when the pain comes
Not just the mental, emotional, spiritual pain
That comes when you own your errors and flaws
But the physical pain that comes
When your self induced trauma makes itself know in your head
Your neck, your back
Your bowls

We carry so much hidden inside us
All those things unresolved, unforgiven, unreleased
That lurk in our bodies and our minds
Ready
With just the slightest cue

To emerge

And there we are,
Back in the valley of death

But grace is a thing
God’s love is real
And with God there are always fresh starts and new endings

Yes, you will rage against grace
Yes, others will refuse to let you change (they will forever see you the same old way)
Yes, you will have to go through this again
And again
And again

Paul had his thorn
I have my points of woundedness and pain
So do you (I suspect)

But always, always
God is there
Making all things new

And so as our emotional and spiritual alarms blare forth
We can stop
And breathe (and stimulate that vagus nerve)
And we can remember grace
And we can wish ourselves well

In the east they learned
To use metta phrases (loving kindness phrases)
To with themselves well, and others too

This is where I go in my darker moment
I breathe
I remember God’s love
And then I repeat the phrases

The classics?
 May I be happy.
May I be at peace.
May I live with ease.
May I be free from suffering.

I wish those I think I have harmed the same thing
I wish the name callers the same thing
I wish my loved ones the same thing
I wish my enemies the same thing

Stop
Breathe
Immerse yourself in kindness

Then carry on

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