Tuesday, October 20, 2009

It's all about me ...


day 19
Originally uploaded by kygp

At the Big Book Study meeting I attended last night, the chairperson chose a few paragraphs from "How it works", specifically focused on selfishness and all its forms: fear, self-centeredness, self-pity, self-seeking.

The sharing that followed could have brought the entire room to its collective knees.

One man spoke about how he sat alone everyday at lunch while in high school. He believed, with all of his heart, that everyone at the other tables were talking about him. To cope, he turned to alcohol.
He was convinced that this was the remedy and now he would be liked. It is only now, after work with his sponsor and reading the Big Book, that he has come to understand that this was self-centered behavior.

A woman shared how it wasn't until she did her 4th & 5th steps and took a good hard look at the lists and her sponsor pointed at each resentment and asked her "And what was YOUR part?" that it hit her like a ton of bricks that she actually created each and every one of those situations that she wanted to blame others for. And this was her wake-up call to looking at selfish behavior.

The sharing that struck a chord with me the most was a man who spoke about the words of wisdom of his sponsor when he first entered AA who said to him: "If your motivations involve fear and are not about caring for another, it is selfishness." He spoke about the ways he withheld from his daughters and from others in terms of money, time, love. He wanted to make sure there was enough left for him. He remarked about his own selfishness being a barrier to being able to be fully there as a father, as a friend.

I came to this meeting on the tails of my own self-inventory re: a relationship with a friend that's become distant. When I shared, I spoke about the recognition I've had for myself about the ways I protect myself from being hurt, when I perceive that it's the other person doing it to me. It is part of a cycle of seeing myself as a victim. The truth is, that I am the one who creates the "story" that perpetuates the need to protect that has me put on the armor and move away and ultimately create the distance. The recognition that my self-pity and self-centered thinking is at the root of this was eye opening to say the least. And, it also prompted me to take an action. I called my friend yesterday and invited her for coffee and a swim this morning. I simply asked her:  "Would you be interested in helping to close the gap between us?" And she was delighted. I'll be seeing her shortly.

In kabbalistic healing, selfish behavior can show up in a number of places throughout the "Tree". My healer may say that it is simply "our longing for God and to be whole". For me, I see it as the "nega" place of my poisoned ground where I believed I was not lovable, not worthy, not good enough, too much, in fear of being abandoned. And my subsequent actions when I am in this nega place would most definitely be selfish. They could take the form of overcompensating; pleasing another to hold onto them and to make them like me; "testing" the care of another; making up stories in my head of how I'm being mistreated and then cut people out; isolating and being stingey with my time. The list can go ad nauseum. And, my behavior to "protect" myself from experiencing any of the painful, toxic aspects of my poisoned ground would find me in another area of the tree wielding a protective shield, a phrase coined as: "nega gevurah weaponery" . Having such strict boundaries that they are akin to concrete walls. Believing that someone will take away from me. In Netzach-Hod on the tree, there is something referred to as our "secret garden"; when it is in tact and there are healthy boundaries in this area, we don't have the need to engage in selfish behavior because we are solid in our place, we know who we are with another.  Then there is the behavior of "self-seeking"  and now we're in a place of unhealed Yesod.   Trying to connect to everyone and everything because we don't want to be alone,  don't want to feel.   We are desperate for company,  even if it is in the form of a bottle of booze.

Lastly, when we listen to our "God-voice" and the call of our Future Self to be whole and to heal, it is at this time that we move from selfishness and self-pity to being self-full, generous, open-hearted. I can feel the shift in my own self of wanting to offer of myself to another from a selfless place. To not protect my time but rather see it as an opportunity to connect. This is freedom from selfishness. This is the culmination of "The Promises" in the Big Book. This is our coming home to our true nature and to ourselves and to God. This is where I want to live out the days of my life.

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