Humble Pie
Saturday, October 10th, 2009The wifey has been being nice lately. It is actually sort of weirding me out a bit. One of the things I had begun to understand is that my wife is basically my reflection in this world in many ways of my relationship to God. So this last two weeks I have been working hard core on cleanup of me and my mind. The powers that be seem to be reciprocating a bit. Thanks!
She actually apologized for something last night! Historically she has said I’m sorry two times in the last two years. Once was for something I shan’t go into here, and the other was an argument about two-three months ago. This time was different though. She took pride in her apology! She was putting forth EFFORT and was looking at herself too! I had felt like I was the only one attempting self-work over the last 1.9 years or so. She is seemingly working on her own spiiritual development as well now! No matter what happens between us, I am so pleased and happy for her on this!
Now all of this doesn’t mean anything. She is still adamant about not coming home or even considering reconciliation, saving a family, raising our kids the natural way, BUT she is practicising the very fine art of apologizing!
Here’s the thing. I can’t take the credit, because she has had a counselor working with her (the same one working with me), but none the less – there seems to be a very real correlation to what I am doing to what she is doing. I’ll give another example.
A few months ago, I started getting back into sports and such. I used to deplore sports and viewed it as following someone else’s life rather than living your own. That may well be true; however, it also seems about identification with the struggle. The victory and the defeats. Perhaps people don’t have enough victory and defeat in their life and so they must live it out vicariously through football and other sports. Well point is, the wifey has started getting into football quite a bit is what several people have told me. Interesting. I tried to expand my world by forcing myself to get into something that I consciously deplored – passively watching sports. The struggle. I’m been forcing myself to do the same with other things including forgiveness, cleaning up my soul, letting go, etc.
Yesterday morning I went for my walk. I’ve been doing this for about three weeks now. I’ll go for a walk in the morning to start my day. As I was doing this, at first I would bring some podcasts so I could learn something new. Eventually though, I started to just enjoy the sounds of nature. I started studying the planets and stars as they arose in the morning. When I was a kid I was into astronomy and could locate stars and planets quite easily, but I never bothered to pay attention to the motion of the planets and stars. It is interesting to try to “tune in” to that. I’ve been doing the same with the phases of the moon and other cycles of nature. As I go on my walks, I tried something new. I started asking questions about things. What is the grass for? What does it symbolically represent? What are the trees for? After a few minutes, answers started flowing from that creative source inside all of us I suspect. I also began something called self-talk.
Self-talk will sound slightly skitzophrenic (spelling). Basically, I “invoke” certain parts of me that aren’t ready to forgive for whatever reason. They hold onto resentment and anger. In the morning when I do my towel ring out exercise of forgiveness, it is for one aspect of myself. The other aspects are triggered at different times by different stimuli. When I do my forgiveness towel thing, I’m not truly working with the part of me that has resentment. I’m only working with the part of me that is naturally predisposed to forgive! So I need to work with the resentful side that hangs out in deep dark places that are hard to find!
I have to work with those sides of me, but somehow have the “observer” part of my mind still active. So I’ll ask questions that I know will bring up the parts that have resentment. Then I try to hang onto a part of my mind that is watching the whole process – a different viewpoint if you will. The resentful part will speak of such astrocities that it feels it’s wife has done, then the other part will gently remind through self-talk – yes that is true, but are we not here to forgive – to learn how to forgive? The other part will mention that I had done things to contribute to where we are at and that only through letting go and forgiveness can we expect the heavenlies to move. So the resentful part accepts this very rational argument and it feels lighter. Then it may burst out into an emotional tirade on my walks (it is important to do this where no one is watching). I try to hold on with the observer part of my mind and basically reconcile the two aspects of mind and bring them together into wholeness until they are married. Until they are one. When the resentful part of me has been raised up, when it has grown, then I am able to work faster on the spiritual development and sanctification process. This process is painful. It hurts really really bad, but when it is over with there is a release. Hopefully this isn’t just some sort of emotional self mental-sex, but is actually developing.
The overarching point to all of this, is that I had a major session and faced two major tests. I managed to hold on this time and did my best to forgive in the moment. I told myself to “pray through it”. The heavenlies moved and the whole thing was cleared up within an hour. Then last night, the wifey apologized for something! Are the two correlated?
Another thing happened yesterday. Before my walk, I had the opportunity to kill a bug, but spared its life because I’m trying to be all loving to all of God’s creatures and such. The bug showing up reminded me that just the day before, my mom had told me a story about finding a baby rattle snake in her house. Her fellow spare the snake and took it to a nearby creek. Mom was up in arms about this, but I told her that he did the right thing and that she should watch for what happens and not tell him, because I bet that his life would later be spared on something else. Perhaps the bug was a test for me. I suppose the tests can come in the smallest package. Truly the flap of a butterfly’s wings can start a hurricane.
I began my normal morning walk, but it was looking cloudy outside. I got this mental image of it starting to rain violently as soon as I got back from my walk. It wasn’t a vision, just something in the back of my mind. As I went for my walk I started thinking about transformation, my marriage, my self, those I love, etc. A few seconds later I passed a young boy and his mother discussing a caterpillar and that it turns into a butterfly! A butterfly is one of those symbols that has often showed up right as I had given up hope on the whole situation and my family. Well I thought it was neato that the kiddo was talking about this, but continued down my walk. I saw two love birds, then an owl, then on the return trip it started to get really cold. The wind picked up. A few drops of rain pelted me here and there. The sting felt so good on my skin. I tried to feel the drops as they hit me and thought that I might even get an early morning rain walk. It would be electric! As I continued my walk, I crossed paths (almost stepped on) with a baby snake. Perhaps I didn’t get bitten because of my mom’s fellar? Who knows. I sensed that I had better get the move on so I walked a bit faster. I saw the approaching rain and knew it was a matter of a minute or two. Finally I made it back to the house and within 15 seconds it started pouring down rain!
Later on I went to my wife’s house. I got to go pee in her house for the first time. As I interacted with her I saw the butterfly. It was there on here neck – the necklace I had bought her for Christmas! Now this still doesn’t mean anything, but it was definitley a sign from the heavenlies for me. She gave me instructions for the medicine and my son who was sick. She was friendly. There was no awkwardness. Eventually, she came outside to get the kids in the car. I had somehow parked my car within a millimeter of her garage. As we were leaving, she came out to ask me about grandmas.
Later that evening we were close to getting into an argument about an issue with the court papers. The pastor counselor helped us work through the issue. When it was all said and done we were both happy and gleeful for a few minutes after we avoided the argument and still addressed the issue. I told her – I wish we would have known how to do this 5 years ago.
What a day!
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