Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Try; always with care.

I thought about the beautiful excerpt in a book I'd read recently:
"Imagine you live on a planet where everyone has a skin disease. Their entire bodies are covered with wounds that are infected, and those wounds really hurt when you touch them. Of course, they believe this is the normal physiology of the skin. Even the medical books describe this disease a normal condition. When the people are born, their skin is healthy, but around three or four years of age, the first wounds start to appear. By the time they are teenagers, there are wounds all over their bodies.

Can you imagine how these people are going to treat each other? In order to relate with one another, they have to protect their wounds. They hardly ever touch each other's skin because it is too painful. If by accident you touch someone's skin, it is so painful that right away she gets angry and touches your skin, just to get even. Still, the instinct to love is so strong that you pay a high price to have relationships with others.... You cannot touch others because it hurts them, and no one touches you because they make the assumption that it will hurt you.

If you can imagine this, perhaps you can understand that someone from another planet who came to visit us would have a similar experience with humans. But it isn't our skin that is full of wounds. What the visitor would discover is that the human mind is sick with a a disease called fear. Just like the description of the infected skin, the emotional body is full of wounds, and these wounds are infected with emotional poison. The manifestation of the disease of fear is anger, hate sadness, envy, and hypocrisy....

Humans live in continuous fear of being hurt, and this creates a big drama wherever we go. The way humans relate to each other is so emotionally painful that for no apparent reason we get angry, jealous , envious, sad. To even say "I love you" can be frightening. But even if it's painful and fearful to have an emotional interaction, still we keep going, we enter into a relationship, we get married, and we have children....

We put up barriers for protection, to keep other people away, but those barriers also keep us inside, restricting our freedom. Humans cover themselves, and protect themselves, and when someone says, "You are pushing my buttons," it is not exactly true. What is true is that you are touching a wound in his mind, and he reacts because it hurts....

Imagine that one day you awake on this planet, and you no longer have wounds in your emotional body. You are no longer afraid to be who you are. Whatever someone says about you, whatever they do, you don't take personally, and it doesn't hurt anymore. You no longer need to protect yourself. You are not afraid to love, to share, to open your heart.

~The Mastery of Love, Don Miguel Ruiz
I will try.
“Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow.” ~MaryAnne Radmacher

3 comments:

  1. I think you are incredible. As always, thank you for writing.

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  2. I found some really interesting information on some of the philosophies of T'ai Chi. One philosophy was of "winning by losing" and the idea was that this is the expression of ultimate acceptance and advocates the “success of failure.” It’s really a beautiful way of living. To be able to freely make mistakes and fail knowing that it is going to take you further along your path. The most difficult thing I’ve had to learn so far in this life is that it’s OK to make mistakes. In the teachings of t’ai chi, it’s not only OK, it’s absolutely a sign of success! What a great way to look at things.

    Anyway, I thought about this when you wrote about your "series of failed relationships" Is this really true? Are they failed relationships? Are they part of the bigger "plan" of making you know yourself better and know what you want?

    Thank you for your honesty. I really enjoy your writing style.

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  3. I think you summed it up at the end.
    and if he is still as affected by his last relationship as you say, it might not be that deep. And more a reaction to his last relationship than to you...

    It's also possible I'm an idiot...

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