Home About Contact Consultations Twitter Facebook RSS

Irony, Abandonment, and Forgiveness

The last episode of FOX-TV’s ”Bones” season seven had the main character, Temperance Brennan, doing the ironic unthinkable.  She was forced to abandon someone she loved just the way she, herself, was abandoned as a teenager.

It has been an ongoing important element of the show that Brennan was conditioned to be overly rational and compartmentalized, because of her having been abandoned by her parents at 15 and thrown into foster care.  We grow quite certain as we watch the series that Brennan has an issue with longterm relationships, and perhaps even with God, because of her deep-seated fear of and suppressed pain caused by the abandonment of her family.

Brennan’s relationship with the other main character, Seeley Booth, eventually develops into a committed relationship, but only because she becomes certain through years of partnership that he will never leave her…on purpose.  And yet after being framed for murder, she is called upon to leave Booth, assisted by her own father, and therefore, repeats the abandonment of her childhood.  Perhaps her father is suggesting, walk a mile in my shoes…

It has been my experience that when we cannot forgive someone, we are often called to walk in their shoes, whether we realize it or not.  Understanding is the key to forgiveness…and true understanding can only happen through personal experience.

http://youtu.be/TqgVBoy4sqo

Mudslinging rarely gets you unstuck…

I have lived all but 1 1/2 years of my life in the South.  And, where I’m originally from you aren’t a real man unless it takes a ladder to climb into your mud-caked truck.

It’s been my experience when stuck in the mud that mudslinging rarely gets you unstuck…physically or metaphorically.  When we feel trapped in a stressful situation and desperate to get out…we will spin our wheels and sling mud on anyone who happens to be close to us, which only creates more negative karma.

Are the mudslinging things we are saying to someone else really true?  Maybe.  Does that give us the right to say them?  I suppose we have a right to say anything we feel, but the real question is…will it get us unstuck?  I doubt it.

To get unstuck, you may need to kick in your four-wheel-drive, call a tow, or put down some plywood to help give you traction.  What you are truly seeking is traction…not mudslinging reactions.  Traction is an honest solution.  You are actually seeking an honest solution…not the blame game.

The real truth is we should have never been “muddin’” in the first place…or we wouldn’t have gotten stuck.  That’s what we are really mad about.  But as I have said before…my professor friend told me, “Don’t should on yourself.”  Instead, try some plywood.

All the wind in the world won’t move your boat unless you hoist your sails…

If you are like I have been, a boat sitting in the water waiting to move, you’d better keep one thing in mind…your boat may float, but all the wind in the world won’t move you without a sail.

So, God provides the wind…I sure don’t.  And, the wind doesn’t blow all of the time, but when it does blow, we can be sure we are going in the direction God wants us to…unless we refuse to hoist our sail.

I can stick my finger in the air to see which direction God’s wind is blowing, but that one finger does not a sail make.  I’m guessing God would say, “If you had your sail ready, I would take you in this direction, but you don’t, so I won’t.”

What is a sail?  I’m going to go out on a limb and say our sail is our acknowledged and acted upon divine potential.  It is one thing to tell myself I am a screenwriter.  It’s another thing to have written screenplays, and yet another thing to have sent my screenplays to the people who make films.  To speculate that I am a screenwriter but not having written a screenplay is like suspecting I and my boat can sail but not having a sail.  Having a screenplay written but not having sent it to a filmmaker is like having a sail on my boat but keeping it all rolled up tight and safe from the winds of change and storms of rejection.

But, if I’ve been divinely inspired and have written screenplays and sent them to filmmakers then I am a boat with a hoisted sail ready to catch God’s winds when they blow in my direction.

I prefer the sailing metaphor over the motorboat, because motors leave too much control in my tiny human hands.  And, God knows choosing my own direction and pushing myself until I have run out of gas is how I got stranded in uncharted waters to begin with.

But, if the wind is right, you can sail away…

http://youtu.be/uTQWZfi1_Bw

 

God is a purple lawn chair…

I had a bit of a disappointing day, today.  And, as I was shedding some hot tears, I reached out to a close friend of mine.  She proceeded to tell me I was operating from ego and not God…that I needed to accept that moment for what it was…to surrender to God’s Will…for God was right there wherever I was.  I looked at where I was sitting and asked, “So, God is a purple lawn chair?”  And, she answered, “Yes.”

She was right.  God is a purple lawn chair.  God is Everything.  I am the only one who needs to be something “special”…and that need is definitely from my ego.  Life will be a lot better once I realize that I, too, am a purple lawn chair.

“Don’t wear fear or nobody will know you’re there…”

Better drain your dirty dishwater…

It would be almost impossible to properly clean a glass cup right after you’ve washed a greasy frying pan, no matter how much soap you put in the water.  But, isn’t that what we are always trying to do with our emotional triggers?

Why can’t I get over this incident, we ask ourselves, when I’ve mourned it for over 40 years?!

The problem may no longer be the particular painful incident itself…it may instead be all the grease it left in our emotional dishwater…the greasy residue that keeps getting on our not so dirty, newer emotional incidents…making each so much worse than it started out to be.

So, how do we drain the water?  Open the drain stopper…and let it go down the drain.  Let it go. Let it go.  Let it go.  Wash out the sink.  Wash all the greasy residue down the drain.  Run clean and fresh, hot, soapy dishwater…for our next batch of dirty emotions.  Start over.  Now…doesn’t that feel better?

Mildewed Emotions

There’s a reason most bathrooms have exhaust fans.  When you don’t ventilate rooms that have lots of water and steam, the mold begins to grow.  Cleaning it becomes exhausting…because it always returns.  It returns because conditions are right…stagnant air and water.

When we refuse to cry our tears, the same thing happens to our emotional lives.  The spiritual fungus grows on our poorly ventilated hearts.  Before we know it, our once lively pink hearts have turned black…as we stuff and stuff our pain…creating more pain…hurting both ourselves and others.

But just like with chronic bathroom mildew, there is a simple solution.  Install an exhaust fan.  Vent.  Cry.

Remote Viewing, Part One

Remote Viewing, Part Two

Life’s circles get smaller.

While mowing the yard today, starting from the fence and circling inward, I realized, like with the mower, every time you go around, life’s circles get smaller. I often feel like I’m just going around in circles, passing the same problem over and over again. But thank goodness with every pass, the circles get smaller and quicker. And eventually, the problem will disappear…just like the grass.

« Older Entries