A Question of Boundaries and Anger

Dear David (not your real name),

You say that just seeing the picture of a particular person makes you feel angry; "Physically, I could heave, and mentally...ouch! ...How invasive!  I am so ticked!  What the heck gives him the right to invade my space?  Dang...I am so mad!"

Your comments remind me of another group member's story on Tuesday, when she described how she felt when someone she knows invited someone to her church, with whom she was very uncomfortable. Betsy (not her real name) was so disturbed because she felt her space had been violated and that she would not be able to keep going to the church she liked, for fear of having to interact with that person.  

 

I think you will find that you have fear as the emotion which underlies the anger.  Usually it is necessary to resolve the fear before the anger can be seen to be unnecessary.  What is the fear that gets generated when you see that picture?  How does your mind tell you that you are in danger because of this?  What is it about him, or your interaction with him, that you feel you cannot handle?  How old do you feel when those emotions are triggered?

 

I want to remind you of a more advanced notion in the Dr. Ryce works which is,  “The people you withhold your Love from, are the ones you most need to give Love to, in order to heal yourself.”  This is related to but not limited to the dynamic at work in the "Codependence to Interdependence" worksheet, where we list people who "have hurt us" and then give them advice, only to realize that this is the very advice we most need to follow.

 

You have everything you need, to deal with someone who is not respecting your wishes.  You have strength, knowledge and resources aplenty to deal with people who have poor boundaries, and still stay centered in your true nature of Love.  Remember, whenever you move away from the knowledge of your true nature as Love, it is you who are doing it, not someone else doing it to you.  You cannot be separated from your true nature, you can only forget it, or refuse to see it.  There is no need to re-connect to your true nature because you cannot be separated from it.  See the game that your mind, and your years of conditioning are playing on you, and it will cease to have any impact on you.  

 

Don’t forget to practice generating Love and then sending it to yourself, and sending it to "the trigger" who is your current focus.

 

Remember that when you are viewing things through the fear filter, you are not viewing things accurately.  You are getting distorted information and bad data, and that is what you are using to create your reality.

We come from Love, we are made of Love, we are Love.  Everything else is false.

Empowered To Heal

Last night we watched the first half of the Dr. Michael Ryce lecture titled: Empowered To Heal, which focused on the idea of health rather than disease.  Dr. Ryce discussed how the current medical model and advertisements for drugs and medical treatments are so strongly focused on the disease process.  He reminded us that advertisements for drugs begin with an intense, emotionally loaded story about the person who is suffering with the symptoms of the disease, and then they present the supposed solution, their drug or treatment.

Dr. Ryce suggests that we begin working with a focus on health and he proposes a definition for health as; "When we are living in and from our true nature of Love".  He reminds us that the most ancient texts on this subject tell us that we are made in the image and likeness of the creator and that the creator is Love.  So it makes sense that we are made of the energy of love and that for us to be healthy we need to be living in and feeling this energy of Love at all times.  Dr. Ryce went on to quote Einstein on the nature of matter when he said that "What we have heretofore called matter is energy.  Energy that has been so slowed as to be perceptible to the senses.  There is no matter.".  This modern scientific mind seems to be telling us what ancient texts have long described.  God is the energy of Love and we are made in the image and likeness of God, which means we are made of the energy of Love.  Therefore anything that is unlike Love which we create and store in our bodies and energy systems, will cause dis-ease and eventually disease in the physical sense.

The lecture went on to review the major question in physics about  how energy sometimes behaves like a wave and sometimes behaves as a particle.  There is evidence to indicate that energy exists in wave form unless or until it is observed, at which point it behaves as particles.  This means that as we think about things and observe them and focus our mind energy on them, we change them in very real ways.  So if we hold an energy of fear in our minds we send out vibrations of "fear" and that energy interacts with the world around us and the world shows us things to be afraid of.  When we hold an energy of anger in our minds, that sends out vibrations of "anger" and that energy interacts with the world around us and the world shows us things to be irritated with. 

So our job is to remove any energy in our system which is less than Love and we are given tools for this process such as The Reality Management Worksheet.  In the support group portion of our meeting tonight we each worked on a Reality Management Worksheet and supported each other in the process and then shared the results.  The worksheet I chose to do focused on a recent incident of my getting angry when the computer and printer would not work properly.  As I did the worksheet I thought about the pattern I have in my life of getting angry with objects that don't "work" properly.  During the worksheet process I thought about how I have always gotten more angry at things than people and that I allow myself to get more angry at things when I am alone, than when other people are around.  This showed me in a new way, how I am really angry at myself in each of these instances.  So the worksheet changed focus before it was finished and I finished the worksheet with a realization that I get angry with my inability to make things work correctly, or angry with myself for not planning things better, and giving myself more time to complete tasks and projects.  I realized that most of the anger I generate is in situations where I feel time pressured, and I fear failing.

By the end of the worksheet I saw that I was getting angry with myself for not being perfect, and for procrastinating, or not being smart enough to figure things out.  My goal for myself at the end of the worksheet was to accept myself as I am and see the Love I am made of.

We come from Love, we are made of Love, we are Love.  Everything else is false.

The Mirror Theory - A Favorite Book

People frequently ask me about what I am reading and why.  I often hesitate to share the titles of books I am reading until I have finished them and can whole-heartedly endorse them.  The book I have re-read the most times and marked with the most underlines and post-it note tags is titled, The Mirror Theory by Betsy Otter-Thompson.  This book describes the idea that we see in the world only what we need to see, to be shown the work we need to do within ourselves.  The concept of mirrors in this book, relates to emotions.  The idea is that we will only feel negative emotions when we are carrying them inside of us and we need to heal the judgement or belief which is creating that negative emotion.  We will only have a negative reaction to the negative emotions, or actions, of others when we need to heal that emotion within ourselves.  So for instance if I am feeling intense fear or anger when I am in the presence of someone who is acting out anger, it means that I have fear or anger within me that I need to heal.  If I don't have fear or anger within me which I need to heal, then I will only feel compassion or Love when someone is acting out anger in my presence.

When I first started reading this book I almost put it down and never picked it up again.  It started with, what I thought of, as a very sensationally, contrived premise and that was a turn-off for me.  But, because I had been referred to the book by someone I thoroughly respected, I kept reading and after about fifty pages, I was hooked.  As I continued to read I started highlighting statements and sections of the book, which is very unusual for me.  When I was about halfway through the book I found a statement which struck me so powerfully that I did not want it to get lost in the mass of highlighted areas so I went out and bought some post-it note tabs.  When I finished reading the book I didn't even put it down, and just started reading it again from the beginning.  At this time I can't even tell you how many times I have read the book from start to finish, because I quit counting after five or six repetitions, (that does not count the many times I have picked it up and re-read some of the  highlighted and tabbed entries).

Now, I know that books are very personal things.  Books I love are often viewed as trash or completely uninteresting to people I love and respect.  Also books which have excited me at different times in the past can seem rather bland or even ridiculous to me today.  This says more about me and my struggles, growth and setbacks than it does about those books.  I realize that The Mirror Theory came into my life at just the right time and showed me just the things I needed in a way that resonated with me, to help me keep a Loving perspective on life and  my journey. 

The premise which almost made me throw the book out, is  that it tells the story of Jesus and his family.  His brothers, sisters, biological father, step-father, grandmother, cousins, etc.  The book uses the story of Jesus and how he learned to recognize the Mirrors in his life, to illustrate how Mirrors work and how they show us exactly what we need to heal within ourselves.  In the  story Jesus learned from his interactions with his family as they struggled to learn the lessons from the Mirrors in their lives.  As he grew to understand himself,  he was able to heal himself and be a role model for others who wish to heal.

As I have studied and  come to understand the work of Dr. Michael Ryce, I feel The Mirror Theory is completely compatible with these teachings and it gives some wonderful metaphors and stories to illustrate the way Love works in our lives.

We come from Love, we are made of Love, we are Love.  Everything else is false.

Creating A Viable, Conscious, Spiritual Body

One of the themes of the last two lectures we have watched in the group is the idea of being clear about our purpose so that our intentions and therefore our goals can be "on target".  If we are not clear about our purpose, our goals will be vague, and our energy will be scattered, and therefore less productive.  In the teachings we are studying, the primary purpose for everyone on the planet is the creation and strengthening of a viable, conscious, spiritual body.  This means a recognition that we are first and foremost eternal spiritual energy systems, made of the energy of Love.

Knowing this helps make it clear that all we really need to do in order to fulfill our primary purpose is to monitor our emotions and work to identify and eliminate any energy which is less than Love. The tools we can use to accomplish this can come from a wide variety of sources.  One key is to understand that it is our thoughts which create our emotions.  Another key is to understand that when we create negative emotions, negative energy is stored in our bodies and  energy systems.  It is this negative energy which is getting triggered and expressed whenever we are in pain, or emotional discomfort.  Whenever we are feeling pain, it is a gift that lets us know we have unresolved negative energy in our system, which we did not know was there.  If we do not know it is there, we cannot dismantle it and  remove it from our systems.  The longer the negative energy stays in our systems the more it dis-integrates our energy system, and eventually the physical body begins to break down.  This is the cause of our dis-ease and our disease.

With this in mind, the primary task for each of us can be said to be; "Watching how we feel and taking full response-ability for having created, and being able to dismantle, our negative emotions and pain".  One theory holds that "The Universe" wants us to be whole, integrated, happy expressions of Love. As such IT continues to "kick us right in our limitations", so that we become aware of what negative energy we have created and stored in our systems.  This gives us the possibility of dismantling it, and returning to Love and ease.

We come from Love, we are made of Love, we are Love.  Everything else is false.

The Effects of This Work

This morning it occured to me that whenever someone becomes more self-aware and finds a way to make Love more conscious, active and present in their lives, it changes them and therefore it changes their relationships.  For most people the changes are overwhelmingly positive.  The range of responses from others when someone they love begins to do this work is;

1) "Wow! You seem different.  What are you doing?  Can I learn that with you?"

2) "You seem different and happier, but I don't want anything to do with that stuff."  

3) "What are you doing?  I want to learn it to.  I'm really interested in what you're doing." (The real message is: "You're changing and I want to know how so I can sabotage it and get you back into our old comfortable pattern.")  

4) "You have changed and you're not the person I got into this relationship with so I'm leaving." 

What occured to me this morning is that the more we work to stay focused on our responsibility for our own emotions and pull our energy away from trying to control or be responsible for the emotions of others, the more different this will be for the people in our lives.  Sometimes this is very difficult for the people we love, and they can be very upset by the change, even though we see the change as positive.   One of the  most common patterns is for the people we love to feel either angry or abandoned by our refusal to play the game of trying to be responsible for their emotions.

The goal in this work is to increase our awareness of the Love which is our lives.  When we are successful in doing this,  it changes our daily experience in powerful ways.  It is important to realize that this will change the lives of those who live with us in powerful ways as well.  What is needed here is compassion and the ability to hold the space of Love for ourselves and the others in our lives, without retreating to the old pattern of blame and shame. There will be times when this is really difficult, but it is well worth the effort.  

We come from Love, we are made of Love, we are Love!  Everything else is false.