Christmas Gift

It is Christmas morning. I am wondering what I can give that will be meaningful. I began to write just to help clarify my thoughts and in the process realized that it is the writing that is the gift, the sharing of the understandings that I have come to with help. So “we” will write and perhaps you will read on…

(I start out writing to myself…) I know you are miserable over the food issues, the added weight….the lack of zest that you are told is your birthright, the loyalty to food. Feeling fat and frumpy is such an excuse for not enjoying life, holding back. The truth is that skinny wasn’t great either…..then you felt sexless, old and saggy. But now you don’t fit into your clothes and that’s right in your face....

The body stuff is the most difficult hurdle that we have constructed.  We are so identified with it….the physical body. I, for one, don’t want to get caught in the life long idea that revealing my true vitality and the beautifully expressed essence of me (and you) will take a long time and now, because of my bad behavior, (eating or drinking or smoking or shopping, too much), I must be punished. But that is an old belief program, heartily supported by mutual agreement. There are many sisters and brothers that suffer in this way and it is just a distraction and a guarantee that they will be imprisoned for a long time in their suffering…. the ego thinking is like this. This needs to be disavowed. But, I know it well, because food for me had been a deep addiction always there to keep me far from the truth, even during those times when I was the “correct size,” and "ate properly." 

(As I am in the process of sharing this, I am aware of the yank of the ego…..I had the impulse to put this on my blog site. One I opened months ago but never used. Now, this impulse to share so publically could very well be (and I have determined it is or I wouldn't be doing it) an impulse from my true self or higher self….inline with the will of the Father, but as I swim out into life, so to speak, willing to be transparent, share my struggle and Truth, the anchor of the ego yanks me back, like the tether it is and I play the discounting tapes that drain all the vitality out of the idea, such as; no one wants to hear about your personal issues, you shouldn’t write about this until you are thin again-after all who is going to listen to the one who still has the issue-you need to be a success first or how do you know that what you are writing is the truth and why do you think it will help anyone else….? That is just some of the thinking that the ego is using to keep me from sharing. But if I am being impulsed by my connection to Truth to do this, I must out of integrity and by doing so I will strengthen my ability to listen to my inner guidance. This is the process, how we develope the skill.)

Inner guidance is crucial. You cannot do it alone and who would want to? Without it we are stuck in this nightmare. My job (as is everyone’s who wants to wake up) is to discern between inner guidance and ego, learn to ignore the ego and strengthen the ability to listen to our guide.  I have learned to recognize ego chatter over the last year or so with much finer discernment. As a psychotherapist and as a client of many years of psychotherapy myself, I have learned how to work with the ego using the ego. Now that tells the truth of psychotherapy. It is psycho. It is like trying to get clean by swimming in a dirty river. Nonetheless, I have learned many of the tricks of the ego but now I apply a different solution because I understand you can’t solve the problem by using the problem maker. It has too much to defend or else it makes itself obsolete. So we will get no help from the ego in solving this dilemma. In fact, it will fight tooth and nail against success. Well that’s too bad. I for one am determined to awaken and if this sharing helps anyone else, great. No one is forced to read this. If you are led to read this, maybe together we can disarm one more aspect of the ego bondage that we have “created.” And I appreciate your partnership in this endeavor.

I write in response to creative impulse and, if nothing else, it helps me be clear and honest with myself as I listen to my inner guidance. The food issue is only one issue, the thinking that the body as a thing of matter that can even be addicted to anything, get fat or skinny, injured, weak, sick, and die, is an illusion. The weight aspect is just one, but it is where I want to start because it is confronting me right now (my pants are too tight!) and it is my way out. However, ALL addictions have the same source and EVERYONE is addicted to something.

I first left my old life in the States because of small medical issues that were creeping into my experience and it frightened me. I ran away from that life because I didn’t want to go down that road….the mutually agreed upon definitions of what would, could, should happen. No thank you. I do think it helped because I was less inundated with all the propaganda around it that is insipid in the States, but I didn’t escape the bottom line where it is written by the ego that “you will eventually get old, sick, and DIE. Again, no thank you.

I named this blog site months ago, What Matters, not sure why and without any idea what the blog would be about. But now I am given the idea that it should be What Matter?  The Truth about the Body…. I have “psychotherapy” clients that are struggling with their relationship to food and their bodies. I do not do “psychotherapy” in a traditional sense anymore. The ego is not my guide. I am just like you. I have to confront ego beatings everyday. But it happens much less and I have found peace and I know it is my birthright. My skill at ignoring the ego has developed much, but obviously not totally. I let myself get away with much less, but the body thing is still very challenging. It is just a symptom of misbeliefs so fundamental to our “worldly” experience.

We go this journey together, you and I. We are the same, equally loved by the Father, equally endowed with all his gifts and glory, equally his creation, son or daughter. Join us if you dare and together we will walk into the light together. No one wakes alone. I need you.

R & J

Christmas Day, 2010