There's something to be said for Kitchen Table Wisdom - you know, like in the old days when people sat around the kitchen table after a meal and talked about life, the universe and the meaning of it all - as well as the gossip doing the rounds in town...

Well, that's what this place is - a place to share common wisdom, thoughts and feelings about things important and unimportant, that bring us joy, laughter and happiness and that trouble, sadden, confuse and anger us ...

What I write here is what's 'real' for me. It won't always be PC or 'nice'. We're missing out on true connection and chances to grow and change because there's too little authenticity, too little honesty, too much holding back what we really feel and mean.

Welcome to my world...

I used to have a copyright claim here, but I've removed it...

Ideas don't belong to anyone -

they come to those who are receptive and are to be used for the well being of all...

I find images and movies and music all over the web

and I use them to accent/expand on my thoughts and understandings...


If you feel you have experienced or received something of value in reading my posts,

please consider either:

Giving a Koha/Love Offering Here - Donate with WePay

or paying it forward to those who need

material and emotional/spiritual sustenance in this world...


Thank You


As You Think, So It Is - Your Beliefs Create Your Reality

If your Reality isn't Working for You, Create a New One!

Life Unlimited!


Namaste

(the Divine in me, recognises and honours the Divine in you)

Sahila




Saturday, January 15, 2011

Revenge???


So, I'm sitting here, fuming, frustrated, fed-up and freezing, wondering what there is I can do to deal with this craziness about having the thermostat locked away inside a plastic box, so I can't warm the house beyond what my housemates have decided is OK...

And really, there is not much that I can, in honour, do...

I can smash the lock box and turn up the thermostat - am thinking about it, but then we get into the possibility that they'll match violence with violence, either against me or our stuff, and/or that they'll call the police...

I can steal or damage their property, hoping it will give me leverage to get them to unlock the thermostat so I can be warm... same risks...

I can rant and rave and throw things... makes me look crazy

I can just give in...

It was the same when my housemates moved my possessions down into the garage and put all their art work on the walls, leaving no space for mine...

I could have hauled all my stuff back up the stairs...

I could have taken their art work down...

I could have put mine up...

I could have left theirs up, and filled every last square inch of wall space with mine, regardless of the aesthetics of that...


Gandhi said: "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind"...

And what's that truism about two wrongs not making a right?


None of these options could be implemented without me seeming to be vindictive, without adding to the energetics of abuse, disrespect, without escalating this battle for power and control...

And yet, there is no denying I have a right to be warm and comfortable in the space I pay for us to live in, using utilities I have already paid for, just as Connor and I have the right to make our surroundings feel like our home too...


And in all of this, Connor is watching to see how to handle conflict in a healthy manner...

I've been playing a game called Balance on Bejewelled, where you have to collect equal numbers of red and blue gems, all the time keeping two tubes balanced so one doesn't reach the bottom before the other.



I've come to understand, in the last few weeks, that this is what life is about - keeping the balance...

In this world of duality and paradox, there are two driving forces - love and fear, expansion and contraction... and it's not a case of either/or, it's a case of and/also...

They don't necessarily have a qualitative value attached to them (we humans might assign them values, but Life itself does not).   They are not good and evil, positive and negative, black and white... they just are... and harmony exists when they are in balance...

So for me, the object of living well is to maintain balance...



And, if my housemates' action is symbolised by a red gem, for example... to stay in balance, harmony, I have to put forward a blue gem... putting forward another red gem (an act of revenge, of power and control, of abuse) will create imbalance and disharmony... 

My question to myself is - what will a blue gem action or state of mind/attitude look like?


 
How can I solve this problem, stay in integrity and not become a victim?   I can be compassionate, I can be understanding, I can be forgiving.... but... I'm still bloody cold sitting at 55F inside my own home in the middle of a Seattle winter!





2 comments:

  1. " Here is a situation in which screaming does no good. No one hears it. the self of the scream is not responded to. Rage may continue for awhile, feeding on itself, finally obliterating itself. the result may be a personality we call burnt out, wounded, hardened, mean,or weak. mean or weak spots abound in all of us. Burnt out rage, rage that never ends. Am explosion that goes on and on creating havoc, yet is emotionally ineffectual. on becomes embalmed in an explosion lost in space.' It how we process rage, "when our ability to digest what has is injured." The prescription: "Feed your psychic digestive system, stimulate emotional digestion> Michael Eigen RAGE

    ReplyDelete
  2. I posted in my follow-up piece that I chose to break the lockbox and raise the thermostat so we could be warm...

    The sound of the one blow it took to break the box brought my housemates out of their rooms and we proceeded to have a blazing row.... well actually, I blazed while they sat there doing the spiritually superior "we're all calm and in control" thing...

    I called them on all of their crap from the previous three months and had this really intense moment with the woman who is my peer...

    We had this minute of silent recognition and acknowledgement of where this crap was coming from within herself, and noticing the lack of (Buddhist) acceptance and non-judgement and compassion she was expressing, that came out of her own (very old) criticism and unforgiveness of herself...

    And for the first time, she expressed her fear of the dying process she was undergoing...

    We agreed, in the end, that it would be better for Connor and I to leave as soon as we found another place....

    Shortly after we moved out, my peer died...

    ReplyDelete