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Grace etc
- Thread starter FLANDIDLYANDERS
- Start date
So here's the rub today. How to be gracious with ourselves?
How do we acknowledge our failings, accept ourselves despite them, but at the same time not give them permission to persist, while accepting that they may just remain?
Now that was a mouthful!
To hold strength and weakness in tension is a terrible but essential need. When I consider my own power from a position of weakness, I become proud. Infact when I recieve praise while weak, it takes a lot for me to either accept the praise, or not let it go to my head. The Way of the Samurai warns that all praise is dangerous, even well-meant, truth. While I agree, I also recognise the strength in recieving strength from others. I suppose praise is best recieved by those who also know my faults. Perhaps my drive for openness is juss as way to recieve praise in a truer context?
But to be vulnerable and even insecure around those whose opinion we value - those who will praise and advise us - is an essential but horrible thing...
(juss gotta change a nappy...
...ran outta wetwipes, but flanel close to hand. Phew!)
But is vulnerability connected to dependance? I ask this because the stereotype is that the most independent person is usually the least vulnerable, most powerful. And how much dependance is good dependance? Conversely, how much independance is good independance?
There is so much of me that I hate to share, because it shakes me, I don't think it's insecurity, but I become insecure out of habit of having been so unloved for so long. And so I force myself to share anyway, like now on this thread.
So where now? Into the arms of Jesus, I'm all shared out. Finally my mind is recognising it's limits, I think. Baby is down, 3 yr old is happy, I'm off to hit the books.
Peace out, hope this openness helps someone today!
How do we acknowledge our failings, accept ourselves despite them, but at the same time not give them permission to persist, while accepting that they may just remain?
Now that was a mouthful!
To hold strength and weakness in tension is a terrible but essential need. When I consider my own power from a position of weakness, I become proud. Infact when I recieve praise while weak, it takes a lot for me to either accept the praise, or not let it go to my head. The Way of the Samurai warns that all praise is dangerous, even well-meant, truth. While I agree, I also recognise the strength in recieving strength from others. I suppose praise is best recieved by those who also know my faults. Perhaps my drive for openness is juss as way to recieve praise in a truer context?
But to be vulnerable and even insecure around those whose opinion we value - those who will praise and advise us - is an essential but horrible thing...
(juss gotta change a nappy...
...ran outta wetwipes, but flanel close to hand. Phew!)
But is vulnerability connected to dependance? I ask this because the stereotype is that the most independent person is usually the least vulnerable, most powerful. And how much dependance is good dependance? Conversely, how much independance is good independance?
There is so much of me that I hate to share, because it shakes me, I don't think it's insecurity, but I become insecure out of habit of having been so unloved for so long. And so I force myself to share anyway, like now on this thread.
So where now? Into the arms of Jesus, I'm all shared out. Finally my mind is recognising it's limits, I think. Baby is down, 3 yr old is happy, I'm off to hit the books.
Peace out, hope this openness helps someone today!
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www.enginecreations.com/myspace/the-way-of-the-samurai.doc
Latest version of essay available directly as Word Document. Enjoy
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Here's a snippet of todays writing...
In a relationship my brain gets in the way, so my heart helps me out. Or put another way, when I find intimacy I often become afraid, so I try to over-analysis and predict in an effort to know the unknown, to be protected from potential pain. But my heart realises that I could also be prevented from potential joy. So my emotions become intense, to force a connection of love, love that casts our fear, maybe. According to most poets, I am not alone, it seems. This process is natural in “falling in love”, or simply finding love or intimacy. Because it feels nice, or drowns out our other problems – that we would often rather not face – we can become addicted to intensity. It feels very similar to intimacy, allows us to love and even believe beyond hope, making us faithful. But intensity is not sustainable. Which, I suppose, is why churches tend to only offer intensity at given points during weekly or bi-weekly meetings. Too many meetings would be unsustainable, unless God would really come and show us all how amazing he is. So churches meet regularly enough. Some even dream of a life filled with intensely powerful and power-filled encounters, back-to-back meetings with a God so obvious that everyone would join in, worship and love with us. Everyone would finally agree with us. The meetings would validate our belief, validate us. This is because intensity, like intimacy, arouses our emotional self, evoking vulnerability and yielding. Of course I express a cynical extreme, but there is truth here nonetheless. The truth may be that we are comfortable to rely on institution to keep our lover happy and to keep us faithful to our lover. A committed Christian marriage with stability and friendship and children, but without love. When we should instead use our intuition to follow, find and fathom our lover. And trust our lover to do likewise. But even recognizing this, we must confess that we are human and prone to returning to the familiar
In a relationship my brain gets in the way, so my heart helps me out. Or put another way, when I find intimacy I often become afraid, so I try to over-analysis and predict in an effort to know the unknown, to be protected from potential pain. But my heart realises that I could also be prevented from potential joy. So my emotions become intense, to force a connection of love, love that casts our fear, maybe. According to most poets, I am not alone, it seems. This process is natural in “falling in love”, or simply finding love or intimacy. Because it feels nice, or drowns out our other problems – that we would often rather not face – we can become addicted to intensity. It feels very similar to intimacy, allows us to love and even believe beyond hope, making us faithful. But intensity is not sustainable. Which, I suppose, is why churches tend to only offer intensity at given points during weekly or bi-weekly meetings. Too many meetings would be unsustainable, unless God would really come and show us all how amazing he is. So churches meet regularly enough. Some even dream of a life filled with intensely powerful and power-filled encounters, back-to-back meetings with a God so obvious that everyone would join in, worship and love with us. Everyone would finally agree with us. The meetings would validate our belief, validate us. This is because intensity, like intimacy, arouses our emotional self, evoking vulnerability and yielding. Of course I express a cynical extreme, but there is truth here nonetheless. The truth may be that we are comfortable to rely on institution to keep our lover happy and to keep us faithful to our lover. A committed Christian marriage with stability and friendship and children, but without love. When we should instead use our intuition to follow, find and fathom our lover. And trust our lover to do likewise. But even recognizing this, we must confess that we are human and prone to returning to the familiar
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tryingtobeagain
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Interesting writing today Flan.
Many of us find ourselves afraid of the intimacy, not because it is intimate but because it makes us vulnerable and vulnerability can be a difficult place to be when you are unsure of the final outcome. The fear of intimacy is more of a fear of giving myself to someone else (at least for me), because what will they do with me? If someone is walking around with this piece of me they may not even know they are carrying then I can be tossed to the side, dropped in the trash, or left at the next woman's house and I fear that. Will they throw that piece of myself back at me, or will they take it home, make a safe place for it and blow it kisses at nighttime? This is the unknown that I fear, so I understand your desire to over-analize. But for me, some things are better left unknown. Faith is believing without seeing and just like I do not test a chair before I sit down - because I have faith that it will hold me, I too have to have faith that I can give myself to someone and they will not mistreat me. Of course there are those times that the chair breaks and I fall on my behind, but I learn to look for the crack in the leg, that was so obvious instead of becoming afraid to sit again.
What you are talking about is not the falling in love... to me that's the falling in lust. I say this not in a sexual way, but just that the period of getting to know somone and enjoying them is not love, it is lust. It is the high you get that is emotionally driven, but not as deep as we would like to believe. When love sets in, it's not all about butterflies and rainbow kisses. It's about the time you put in, and the shared life you build together. Love is deeper then the hand-holding, taking walks on the beach kind of deal. It's the dealing with life together and making it through every and any situation. It's not a feeling in your chest, but an aching in your soul to be with that person. And God is always in our hearts whether we are thinking of Him or not so naturally as humans, love is familiar.
That's just my take.
Many of us find ourselves afraid of the intimacy, not because it is intimate but because it makes us vulnerable and vulnerability can be a difficult place to be when you are unsure of the final outcome. The fear of intimacy is more of a fear of giving myself to someone else (at least for me), because what will they do with me? If someone is walking around with this piece of me they may not even know they are carrying then I can be tossed to the side, dropped in the trash, or left at the next woman's house and I fear that. Will they throw that piece of myself back at me, or will they take it home, make a safe place for it and blow it kisses at nighttime? This is the unknown that I fear, so I understand your desire to over-analize. But for me, some things are better left unknown. Faith is believing without seeing and just like I do not test a chair before I sit down - because I have faith that it will hold me, I too have to have faith that I can give myself to someone and they will not mistreat me. Of course there are those times that the chair breaks and I fall on my behind, but I learn to look for the crack in the leg, that was so obvious instead of becoming afraid to sit again.
What you are talking about is not the falling in love... to me that's the falling in lust. I say this not in a sexual way, but just that the period of getting to know somone and enjoying them is not love, it is lust. It is the high you get that is emotionally driven, but not as deep as we would like to believe. When love sets in, it's not all about butterflies and rainbow kisses. It's about the time you put in, and the shared life you build together. Love is deeper then the hand-holding, taking walks on the beach kind of deal. It's the dealing with life together and making it through every and any situation. It's not a feeling in your chest, but an aching in your soul to be with that person. And God is always in our hearts whether we are thinking of Him or not so naturally as humans, love is familiar.
That's just my take.
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Nice distinction there girl.
I will think about working that in, considering "lust" in terms of hightened emotion rather than sexual.
So would you class my early feelings as lust I wonder?
Is there ever a time when intensity is good? Or do you use the term "lust" to cover "negative intensity"?
I am very new to the whole "love", "lust" and intimacy/intensity thing and realise that personally I dont seem to be ready for any relationships like that. But i still wish that i was
Ah well, back to philosophy and living. Which is hard enough!
Cheers girl.
I will think about working that in, considering "lust" in terms of hightened emotion rather than sexual.
So would you class my early feelings as lust I wonder?
Is there ever a time when intensity is good? Or do you use the term "lust" to cover "negative intensity"?
I am very new to the whole "love", "lust" and intimacy/intensity thing and realise that personally I dont seem to be ready for any relationships like that. But i still wish that i was
Ah well, back to philosophy and living. Which is hard enough!
Cheers girl.
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tryingtobeagain
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I would class your early feelings as lust IMHO but not negatively. Intensity is good, that's why we associate it with love. It releases endorphins, and creates all kinds of good feelings of excitement in us. But that is temporary and wears off. Real love begins to set in when the lust wears off and you still want to be with the other person. Hope that explains my position a bit better.
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tryingtobeagain
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Because I am my own revolution and my world is just now revolting against love so these feelings are now coming up.... and I know what you'll ask next and no my revolution will not be televised....lol.
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That's why I haven't been here for 2 weeks. I've got so much else to do.
I wanted to rspit out what I read: Scott peck makes the following differences: Falling in love=effortless=unavoidable=tries to escape loneliness=not interested in spiritual growth= a mere droping of ego bounderies.
Loving =effort=matter of decision=puts up with difficulty=most interested in spiritual growth=stretching of the ego bounderies.
He makes one more difference--the sexual nature of falling in love. But why stop there? Something reminicent to falling in love exists even in non romantic relationships. I find that some of the pitfalls are similar when it comes to relationships, whether romantic/opposite sex or not. Too often I have revealed things about myself to friends with whom I didn't yet have a strong and deep enough relationship to reveal such things. The result is a mild feeling of resentment. Funny how on the internet we function differently than in real life.
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Tru girl tru.
You been reading and thinking again, I see.
Also, while single I am finding "romantic" love type associations with friends - male or female - which helps me deepen the friendship and stretch my own ideas/misconceptions about "love" and "romance" and what it is I am actually searching for.
Ironically, I seem to be searching for myself. As I find Jesus in others, I find myself reflected too, like some sort of ego-centric quest without the ego! To be comfortable around others, as comfortable as around oneself, is a genuinely delightful place to find oneself. To be comfortable around oneself is also delightful and very, very tricky at first. But once you've figured out how to comunicate with yourself, it flows naturally enough, eh?
Erm... where were we, and how did we end up here?
You been reading and thinking again, I see.
Also, while single I am finding "romantic" love type associations with friends - male or female - which helps me deepen the friendship and stretch my own ideas/misconceptions about "love" and "romance" and what it is I am actually searching for.
Ironically, I seem to be searching for myself. As I find Jesus in others, I find myself reflected too, like some sort of ego-centric quest without the ego! To be comfortable around others, as comfortable as around oneself, is a genuinely delightful place to find oneself. To be comfortable around oneself is also delightful and very, very tricky at first. But once you've figured out how to comunicate with yourself, it flows naturally enough, eh?
Erm... where were we, and how did we end up here?
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tryingtobeagain
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Don't know where we were or how we ended up here but I'm going with it.
True love is found within, when you really discover yourself and fall in love with that person (someone wrote that as a comment on one of my blogs ). Not in a vain way or anything, but how can you really give to someone else if you can't give to yourself? How do you really know how to love someone else if you can't love yourself?
These are some of the things I am working on for myself to build myself back up from the terrible relationship I just got out of. I think I loved him more than I loved myself and that created an opportunity for me to allow myself to be taken advantage of. Now I'm focusing on loving myself before I enter any kind of relationship again.
True love is found within, when you really discover yourself and fall in love with that person (someone wrote that as a comment on one of my blogs
). Not in a vain way or anything, but how can you really give to someone else if you can't give to yourself? How do you really know how to love someone else if you can't love yourself? These are some of the things I am working on for myself to build myself back up from the terrible relationship I just got out of. I think I loved him more than I loved myself and that created an opportunity for me to allow myself to be taken advantage of. Now I'm focusing on loving myself before I enter any kind of relationship again.
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Good girl, good. Really insightful. On the subject of loving oneself, here's my story... of a suicide ended:
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A Cut and A Smile (05.11.06)
Aaron McKenzie – the Pregnant Man Experiment.
Kids watered and fed and bedded above, nightlights on and TV off. I step down stair by stair, close the stairgate with a clack behind me. Into the hallway.
I have cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher. I have untangled the lounge from its toy infestation, and wiped the walls clean of chocolate dessert (which for just this once, they ate on the sofa). I walk deliberately down the very centre of the hallway to the front door. Pause to flick the outside light on, then thumb the latch on the door so that it will just push open when my friend arrives. To find me.
Alone for the first time. Half an hour of me. No longer hidden behind my childrens needs and friends concerns and families silent astonishment. My crouching emotions have finally found me. Suddenly they come…
In drunken bewilderment, my memories stagger around my heart. Tripping on jutted-out failures, catching on dreams, yanking them and shredding them into nightmares. My feelings off-balance, knocking me bodily from wall to wall as I walk the hall. And that is when I stumble and choke; an emotional breath of fire and brimstone. Hold, hold, hold. (exhale) And breathe out, my mind excavating with the rush, leaving echoing memories, repressed actions now more certain. One action, a sole lone act to take. A decision no longer to make, but made for me by the silence of being deafened by my own roaring breath. (inhale)
Breathing shallow now. Everything is dizzy, except for the very centre of my vision, a tunnelled blur pin-pointing a single objective; an object the length of my arm, to hold in the palm of my hand and slide, like a smile, across my wrist.
To enter the kitchen, pick up a knife and walk to the bathroom is no trouble at all. The sort of thing you do all the time, like changing a nappy or “there, there, let me kiss it better”. Because I am dirty as sin and it hurts like hell. And that’s the problem. I know I’m not, not dirty or guilty at all. But you can’t stop the feeling, can you? You can’t stop loving, you can’t stop the nagging, lonely and selfish longing to murder the cause of it all; the feelings must be stopped, stopped dead. The heart must be killed, drained from my wrists, a smile sculpted in my flesh, like the smile sculpted on my face all day; jollying my children on, reassuring my friends that I am A-OK; grinning like a Cheshire cat, but nine lives on, wasted in one single day, it’s time to bleed tears from my hands, like Jesus. I die for their sins. So noble, so romantic. So…
I’m in front of the mirror now, looking myself in the eye, trying to find out just where I went. And as I exhale my breath sticks to the mirror, fogging my reflection forcing me to wipe the wet away. Instinctively I reach up and open my palm, knife clattering against the glass and crashing like a trainwreck into the sink, shattering my concentration enough to think a single thought, a whisper that rises to a shout, to a roar, the roar that deafened me is returning and I am listening, hearing for the first time all at once the reasons I’ve stopped myself in the past. In a split second its come and gone, in a split second I see that suicide is not about leaving my oh-so-well-known life, it is about entering the unknown of death. I suddenly fear death. I step away from the sink and explore my fear. I look at it, examine its shape, touch it and taste it, swallow it like a lover, take it deep in me and allow it to spread. It’s not my fear. It’s wrong, it’s not right. It doesn’t quite fit. I breathe in and out and in and out. Slowly, hard, like sex. I look into the mirror again and I know, I know that I can’t do it, can’t be that selfish, can’t end the pain of love broken and busted, with a cut and a smile. But not for the usual reasons. Not because I will be missed, not because of my kids, not because of my job, my friends, my family, not even because of my future and all that I could yet live and achieve. Not for any of that did I stop suicide smiling on my wrist. No.
You wonder why I stopped my final selfish act? Ah, I fought selfishness with true selfishness. You see, self-pity can only be fought with self-preservation. As I saw the hell that I was living, one thought and only one thought broke through; how would I know? How would I know that if I died right there, right then, feeling just like that… how would I know that the bit in me that is exhaled from my body in death, the breath that cannot end, would not live this hell of my own making for ever and ever and ever?
Like me, you may not believe in hell. But if it is there, it is because we allow ourselves to live in it everyday and die there, living it in eternal night. So here’s to life, to a world that deserves to know; that a cut will one day heal and a smile will one day show.
============================
A Cut and A Smile (05.11.06)
Aaron McKenzie – the Pregnant Man Experiment.
Kids watered and fed and bedded above, nightlights on and TV off. I step down stair by stair, close the stairgate with a clack behind me. Into the hallway.
I have cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher. I have untangled the lounge from its toy infestation, and wiped the walls clean of chocolate dessert (which for just this once, they ate on the sofa). I walk deliberately down the very centre of the hallway to the front door. Pause to flick the outside light on, then thumb the latch on the door so that it will just push open when my friend arrives. To find me.
Alone for the first time. Half an hour of me. No longer hidden behind my childrens needs and friends concerns and families silent astonishment. My crouching emotions have finally found me. Suddenly they come…
In drunken bewilderment, my memories stagger around my heart. Tripping on jutted-out failures, catching on dreams, yanking them and shredding them into nightmares. My feelings off-balance, knocking me bodily from wall to wall as I walk the hall. And that is when I stumble and choke; an emotional breath of fire and brimstone. Hold, hold, hold. (exhale) And breathe out, my mind excavating with the rush, leaving echoing memories, repressed actions now more certain. One action, a sole lone act to take. A decision no longer to make, but made for me by the silence of being deafened by my own roaring breath. (inhale)
Breathing shallow now. Everything is dizzy, except for the very centre of my vision, a tunnelled blur pin-pointing a single objective; an object the length of my arm, to hold in the palm of my hand and slide, like a smile, across my wrist.
To enter the kitchen, pick up a knife and walk to the bathroom is no trouble at all. The sort of thing you do all the time, like changing a nappy or “there, there, let me kiss it better”. Because I am dirty as sin and it hurts like hell. And that’s the problem. I know I’m not, not dirty or guilty at all. But you can’t stop the feeling, can you? You can’t stop loving, you can’t stop the nagging, lonely and selfish longing to murder the cause of it all; the feelings must be stopped, stopped dead. The heart must be killed, drained from my wrists, a smile sculpted in my flesh, like the smile sculpted on my face all day; jollying my children on, reassuring my friends that I am A-OK; grinning like a Cheshire cat, but nine lives on, wasted in one single day, it’s time to bleed tears from my hands, like Jesus. I die for their sins. So noble, so romantic. So…
I’m in front of the mirror now, looking myself in the eye, trying to find out just where I went. And as I exhale my breath sticks to the mirror, fogging my reflection forcing me to wipe the wet away. Instinctively I reach up and open my palm, knife clattering against the glass and crashing like a trainwreck into the sink, shattering my concentration enough to think a single thought, a whisper that rises to a shout, to a roar, the roar that deafened me is returning and I am listening, hearing for the first time all at once the reasons I’ve stopped myself in the past. In a split second its come and gone, in a split second I see that suicide is not about leaving my oh-so-well-known life, it is about entering the unknown of death. I suddenly fear death. I step away from the sink and explore my fear. I look at it, examine its shape, touch it and taste it, swallow it like a lover, take it deep in me and allow it to spread. It’s not my fear. It’s wrong, it’s not right. It doesn’t quite fit. I breathe in and out and in and out. Slowly, hard, like sex. I look into the mirror again and I know, I know that I can’t do it, can’t be that selfish, can’t end the pain of love broken and busted, with a cut and a smile. But not for the usual reasons. Not because I will be missed, not because of my kids, not because of my job, my friends, my family, not even because of my future and all that I could yet live and achieve. Not for any of that did I stop suicide smiling on my wrist. No.
You wonder why I stopped my final selfish act? Ah, I fought selfishness with true selfishness. You see, self-pity can only be fought with self-preservation. As I saw the hell that I was living, one thought and only one thought broke through; how would I know? How would I know that if I died right there, right then, feeling just like that… how would I know that the bit in me that is exhaled from my body in death, the breath that cannot end, would not live this hell of my own making for ever and ever and ever?
Like me, you may not believe in hell. But if it is there, it is because we allow ourselves to live in it everyday and die there, living it in eternal night. So here’s to life, to a world that deserves to know; that a cut will one day heal and a smile will one day show.
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tryingtobeagain
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Wow Flan... thanks for sharing that. It's beautifully written and brought me to tears at my desk...
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