wow. morning reading brings yet another reminder that is comfort. it also underscores the recent realization that negative reactions are indicative of inner challenges, not outer ones.
i pause for a moment, thinking i will feel pain to say this… but it should be said. the abandonment of me by this other hurt most because i realized it was this other’s admission of inability to become and to give in to such is, to me, the very saddest thing possible.
it’s all woven together, as this article demonstrates:
http://www.thebuddhadharma.com/issues/2006/fall/ask_the_teachers.html
the lingering hurt here is my own wish to have been more capable of undercoming this other’s sense of inability. it is an odd kind of annoyance with myself for seeing very clearly what is needed, but not being able to provide it for lack of access or trust.
out of my control. not something i can change. i wish i were less stubborn. stars. where did all this stubbornness come from, anyway?
in strange ways, i still struggle. not so much to release. that is done. but to find the way to stop remembering how it felt to believe something good could live in those moments and beyond them… that my presence could be less intimidating to this other, or that their presence could be other than acid on my flesh. still fighting myself on the matter of idealism and potential unrealized. grr. annoying, really.
i re-read ‘the list’ this morning and while i cannot in honesty change a single thing on it, already my mind is percolating on how each of these hurtful things reflect my own challenges. the outcome, of course, is an overwhelming sense of frustration with myself. i often feel as if for all i strive, i make very little progress and that i should be further along than i am… none of which is very kind, but then, being kind to myself is an area in which i have more than a few challenges, too… so… expected.
and, of course, it doesn’t help that weird week is here.
time for coffee. more on all of this later.