Pride

Life must be wonderful when you know how to live. Human Adult, or even someone like my friend, with the blue sky life, who just became a father and has and had everything going for him, never a day of misery in his life, no adversity whatsoever. I look at him like I look at the movie screen when a Disney movie is playing, it’s so far removed from my ‘reality’, it hardly seems possible. I do envy people like him, and sometimes I feel contempt for him, because he thinks he knows it all, and nobody can tell him anything new, yet at the same time he lacks the ability to put himself in someone else’s shoes; “Why don’t you do this? Why don’t you do that?”, another version of my father. But his arrogance is grounded in nothing. He had it good, and sometimes I remind him he has all the reasons in the world to be grateful for all the blessings in his life. It’s hard to swallow that he takes everything for granted, although that might change now that he has a baby.
Anyway, that’s none of my business, but once again, an effective mirror. He has the absolute opposite of my deepest belief. He believes it’s his birthright to have a royal life, and he might even be right. My belief; I have no rights, nothing is mine, I deserve nothing. No wonder I can’t stand to be with him very often, he reminds me of what I am not, he reminds me of the failure that is my essence. That I believe to be my essence. A very persistent belief, as indestructible as a cockroach. If it wasn’t for his arrogance I might have been able to be happy for him, but petty me, still stuck in poor me mode, would like to see him a bit more modest and grateful, how arrogant is that?
I will repeat for myself: that is none of my business, it’s his life and he can do what he wants with it. I’m just feeling bad and petty tonight. Cramps, pain, one step back, sadness, you name it.

Okay, that’s enough self-pity, what do you say we get to work? You do realize you can’t skip the one step back parts of the process? And you do realize that deep down you don’t envy him? Do you realize that this is the life you chose? In it’s entirety? Bad stuff, worse stuff, horrible, maddening stuff, and some fairy dust stuff all rolled in one? Looking at your life I must say you have a very rich imagination, girl. Yeah I do, don’t I, so why can’t I imagine my way into a nicer life? What do you think you are doing now? Imagining? I’m working! All the work is done inside you, it’s all in your mind and your body follows your mind. You’re imagining everything, bad and good, progress and stagnation, blue skies and electrical storms. Be honest, you prefer stormy weather over blue skies. Yeah, definitely. And you like a good anecdote. Yes, that too. So what’s the problem? I don’t even want to spend too much time lingering on this, cos deep down you know you’ve conjured up this life in accordance with the universe, you just lost the script there for a while, and now you’re finding your way back to it. So stop moaning, we’ve seen enough of that. Well sor-ry. Enough with the self-pity, there’s work to do. You’re sad, I get it, but that’s what progress is, to keep going despite adversity and you just love adversity, don’t you. Mh. When it’s over, yeah. Your best moments were moments of extreme crisis, like when you got raped. You were at your best, you shone. How can you say that? I didn’t stop him. You came out of it alive, you made all the right moves, you played him like a fiddle so you could go on living for a while longer. Remember the elation you felt a few days after? Yeah, I decided I would get my resurrection, I was overcome with joy. But how does that tie into the process? You’ve had some great moments, and I won’t have you dwell on the bad stuff, we know that now, you’ve repeated it often enough, it's time to leave that behind, it’s no longer an issue in that you no longer have a disadvantage compared to other ‘spiritual’ seekers. Oh. Okay, I guess that’s good news. Yes, but only if you can let it go, you know, what you wrote about today. You derive too much specialness from it, you lean on it too much, it has become a crutch instead of a victory. Your experiences haven’t disabled you, you are doing that by hanging onto them. It’s my life story. Yes it is, but it’s not you, it’s not your essence. Your past is not who you are. That’s such a simple lesson, how can I not get that? Your world was a small one. It takes time to adjust. I think I get it now. I didn’t have anything else to show for, after thirty-four years on this planet I had nothing to show for except my past and the dangerous situations I survived because of my wits and instincts. That’s the only thing I had that gave me a sense of pride. Exactly, so kill it. What?! How productive do you think pride is, for the process you’re in? Uhm, not very? Exactly, so kill it off. You don’t need it to boost your ego because you don’t want to boost your ego. Pride is fear based. You take pleasure in this process don’t you? Yes, yes I do. So let that be enough. Others are out of the equation so you don’t need to have anything to show for or to be proud of. The process is you. Can that be enough? Yes. Yes, it can. Thank you. Thank you so much.