An Insight to CO-ness this morning.
But first I'll repost my last comment from yesterday:
Judging ourselves is strictly fear from our ego/roommate, and the only antidote is changing to love instead, Shari. That's what I've found to be true. Keeping my heart open as soon as I feel it close because of some odd-ball thought from my CO-Ego seems to help. I'm willing to state that all our CO-ness is from our hateful Ego, and the ego is always recalling painful memories from our past to use against us as a definition of our identity, i.e., who we believe we are. As long as we refuse to let those old feelings go, with love and forgiveness, the ego will use them as a fear to control our behaviors, thoughts, and feelings.
The ego uses "comparing" to judge us, even if we feel guilty for feeling arrogant when we compare ourselves to others. Forgiving the ego for what it does is a good lesson to apply, and forgive with a loving heart. As Vicki says, we're headed in the same direction, just in different places of success. We each have different paths due to out differing experiences that are holding us back. But the more we exchange our thoughts and what we learn, the more we all progress.
I could not have made the breakthroughs I made this week without all of your help, including the awareness of expectations as a major cause of fear; and re-reading "The Way". Had I not written what I did, Vicki would never have reminded me or encouraged me to start re-reading "The Way". I probably would not have done it on my own. So then there are no accidents, and it's all working perfectly.
We all desire to be free of CO-habits, and we are all naturally attracting answers from all sorts of sources, The LOA works! And being loving does not mean being CO and a doormat. It means loving and respecting your humility first, before anyone else. And forgive those who are trying to get us to feel CO and guilty, with love; but with firmness for loving ourselves first, "warts and all".
For the first time, I understand I do not have to defend myself, I've done nothing wrong! Ever! That would be a judgment, from my ego, a fear. Except "there are no accidents in the Universe", so whatever I do in being myself I have created if I am being allowing of myself and loving. Others are welcome to make judgments from their ego and fears if they choose. That will be their choice, not mine. There's probably more to it than that, so I'll clarify it later.
******************
In addition, Shari's Journal yesterday about accountability and responsibility helped with my insights this morning. (I went to sleep last night at 10:30 pm and got up, finally, at 10:20 am., thinking about this new insight and viewpoint. AND I will try not to use "we" and use "I" as often as I can remember to do so.):
I suffer from a lot of guilt feelings, and I understand it is part of being CO. IN my case it's a major part. What I fear most, and most of the time, is that I will be found guilty of doing something, saying something, feeling something, or thinking something "wrong", so therefore I "will" be something wrong. All of us have experienced some form of abuse in our childhood to make us CO. The abuse varies form emotional, to mental, to physical, to sexual, and any other type we can imagine. What came to me this morning is that we were taught to feel guilty about ourselves, because that's what children do as they learn the customs for the culture they are born into. Children are innocent of the customs and must be taught through error and correction. What happens, in my opinion, is that we are constantly "corrected" and punished in order to become "ideal" members of our culture and feel guilty as a result. I was constantly "wrong", except to the enlightened insight I had this morning. The punishment and abuse I felt was never about ME! I was not responsible for the actions, anger, and fears of the adults and others who accidentally punished me for THEIR feelings. As Shari pointed out last night (I read her piece last night) IF I am to be responsible and accountable for MY feelings and thoughts, that NO ONE forces me to feel anything, then THE SAME IS TRUE FOR OTHERS, whether they want to agree yet or not. I was NEVER responsible for how my parents treated me and corrected me for being "shy" or anything else. It was never about me, as a scape-goat. I was blamed and I assumed it was me that was causing their feelings of fear and anger, or in their pleasure for pleasing them instead of myself.
So by Shari's comments, I can now set proper boundaries for my self and my guilt, I will not accept responsibility or accountability for anyone else's sadness, fears, or anger; none of their emotions or behaviors or thoughts. I feel this is the seminal germ of CO-ness-hood (New word!). Of all my limitations, not limiting my feelings of guilt is one that is missing. I am innocent of being ME, and I always have been.
Now I can forgive myself, and all the rest I have erroneously believed harmed me, and I can forgive them too. They were taught to be "blamers" for the feelings and behaviors they accepted from outside, too. Whether they still want to believe they are not responsible and accountable for their emotions or not is not my problem. It is not for me to fix them. However now that I know what I know, I can correct my own error, and not blame them for my chosen feelings. They are on their path, and I am on mine. It is up to me whether to accept blame from anyone for me being me and not suiting them, or even not suiting myself.
To do this, I will use loving-kindness toward myself, and them, and set better boundaries on my feelings of guilt and fear of guilt. I will forgive myself as often as I can remember. And like Rosie and Vicki, I can start going through my past and forgive all my past mistakes with love. I was, and still am, innocent.
My ego/roommate was created because of my feelings of guilt. In fact, all my fears are what I call my ego. It is a defense for my soul for all the errors I assumed were because of me, while my true self knew differently. My true self was not about to accept blame, it knows it was always innocent, so it created the ego as a "not me" collection of all those erroneous beliefs separate from itself.
Okay, I'm done for now. I could not have had this insights without all my Friends contributing their own pieces of the puzzle, and so this insight was not an accident, for me.
I hope this helps my Friends.
Love and Affection,
Rich
Judging ourselves is strictly fear from our ego/roommate, and the only antidote is changing to love instead, Shari. That's what I've found to be true. Keeping my heart open as soon as I feel it close because of some odd-ball thought from my CO-Ego seems to help. I'm willing to state that all our CO-ness is from our hateful Ego, and the ego is always recalling painful memories from our past to use against us as a definition of our identity, i.e., who we believe we are. As long as we refuse to let those old feelings go, with love and forgiveness, the ego will use them as a fear to control our behaviors, thoughts, and feelings.
The ego uses "comparing" to judge us, even if we feel guilty for feeling arrogant when we compare ourselves to others. Forgiving the ego for what it does is a good lesson to apply, and forgive with a loving heart. As Vicki says, we're headed in the same direction, just in different places of success. We each have different paths due to out differing experiences that are holding us back. But the more we exchange our thoughts and what we learn, the more we all progress.
I could not have made the breakthroughs I made this week without all of your help, including the awareness of expectations as a major cause of fear; and re-reading "The Way". Had I not written what I did, Vicki would never have reminded me or encouraged me to start re-reading "The Way". I probably would not have done it on my own. So then there are no accidents, and it's all working perfectly.
We all desire to be free of CO-habits, and we are all naturally attracting answers from all sorts of sources, The LOA works! And being loving does not mean being CO and a doormat. It means loving and respecting your humility first, before anyone else. And forgive those who are trying to get us to feel CO and guilty, with love; but with firmness for loving ourselves first, "warts and all".
For the first time, I understand I do not have to defend myself, I've done nothing wrong! Ever! That would be a judgment, from my ego, a fear. Except "there are no accidents in the Universe", so whatever I do in being myself I have created if I am being allowing of myself and loving. Others are welcome to make judgments from their ego and fears if they choose. That will be their choice, not mine. There's probably more to it than that, so I'll clarify it later.
******************
In addition, Shari's Journal yesterday about accountability and responsibility helped with my insights this morning. (I went to sleep last night at 10:30 pm and got up, finally, at 10:20 am., thinking about this new insight and viewpoint. AND I will try not to use "we" and use "I" as often as I can remember to do so.):
I suffer from a lot of guilt feelings, and I understand it is part of being CO. IN my case it's a major part. What I fear most, and most of the time, is that I will be found guilty of doing something, saying something, feeling something, or thinking something "wrong", so therefore I "will" be something wrong. All of us have experienced some form of abuse in our childhood to make us CO. The abuse varies form emotional, to mental, to physical, to sexual, and any other type we can imagine. What came to me this morning is that we were taught to feel guilty about ourselves, because that's what children do as they learn the customs for the culture they are born into. Children are innocent of the customs and must be taught through error and correction. What happens, in my opinion, is that we are constantly "corrected" and punished in order to become "ideal" members of our culture and feel guilty as a result. I was constantly "wrong", except to the enlightened insight I had this morning. The punishment and abuse I felt was never about ME! I was not responsible for the actions, anger, and fears of the adults and others who accidentally punished me for THEIR feelings. As Shari pointed out last night (I read her piece last night) IF I am to be responsible and accountable for MY feelings and thoughts, that NO ONE forces me to feel anything, then THE SAME IS TRUE FOR OTHERS, whether they want to agree yet or not. I was NEVER responsible for how my parents treated me and corrected me for being "shy" or anything else. It was never about me, as a scape-goat. I was blamed and I assumed it was me that was causing their feelings of fear and anger, or in their pleasure for pleasing them instead of myself.
So by Shari's comments, I can now set proper boundaries for my self and my guilt, I will not accept responsibility or accountability for anyone else's sadness, fears, or anger; none of their emotions or behaviors or thoughts. I feel this is the seminal germ of CO-ness-hood (New word!). Of all my limitations, not limiting my feelings of guilt is one that is missing. I am innocent of being ME, and I always have been.
Now I can forgive myself, and all the rest I have erroneously believed harmed me, and I can forgive them too. They were taught to be "blamers" for the feelings and behaviors they accepted from outside, too. Whether they still want to believe they are not responsible and accountable for their emotions or not is not my problem. It is not for me to fix them. However now that I know what I know, I can correct my own error, and not blame them for my chosen feelings. They are on their path, and I am on mine. It is up to me whether to accept blame from anyone for me being me and not suiting them, or even not suiting myself.
To do this, I will use loving-kindness toward myself, and them, and set better boundaries on my feelings of guilt and fear of guilt. I will forgive myself as often as I can remember. And like Rosie and Vicki, I can start going through my past and forgive all my past mistakes with love. I was, and still am, innocent.
My ego/roommate was created because of my feelings of guilt. In fact, all my fears are what I call my ego. It is a defense for my soul for all the errors I assumed were because of me, while my true self knew differently. My true self was not about to accept blame, it knows it was always innocent, so it created the ego as a "not me" collection of all those erroneous beliefs separate from itself.
Okay, I'm done for now. I could not have had this insights without all my Friends contributing their own pieces of the puzzle, and so this insight was not an accident, for me.
I hope this helps my Friends.
Love and Affection,
Rich
Replies
I am soooooooooooo happy for you!
Hi Rich,
Wow, your insights here have certainly helped me too. Thank you for sharing and bringing this to the next level for me as well. You reminded me of the lyrics from Sarah McLachlan:
\"We are born innocent
Believe me Adia, we are still innocent
It\'s easy, we all falter, does it matter?\"
Hugs and Love,
Shari
Hi Vicki and Shari. It did seem like a breakthrough.
Here\'s a new insight from today, Monday morning: \"All my fears are illusions\". This little bumper-sticker quote may help me with my \"triggered memories of fears\", so I can remember to feel them one last time and then let them go, with love and forgiveness.
Still a lot of work to do yet, at least it\'s a new tool to recover with to start implementing as \'therapy\'. I\'m taking a break from reading now, as I begin implementing what I\'ve just learned. Reading and understanding is not enough, I have found, these ideas must be used to take new actions.
Hugs, Love, and Affection,
Rich
Great stuff here Rich! It certainly helped me to feel better today...love what you wrote about freeing yourself from feeling responsible for others...how my life would change if I could free myself from the guilt and worry...it takes realisation and practice I guess? Great uplifting entry...love it xxxxx
Yes to love, forgiveness and staying open rather than closing. Seriously, yes! Why don\'t we choose that path more often?
When I read the \"Way\" I feel myself opening and then closing. Back and forth. Is it just too big of a commitment to stay open?
I am glad you picked the book back up. From the time you first started reading it I could tell it really spoke to your heart.
After today I can tell, like you Lisa, it ain\'t going to be as easy as I\'d like, to stay open all the time. It does take practice. The thing is to not let the ego disappoint me for failing to stay open 100% of the time, or to feel guilty for failing even once. I have to set my intention, and then allow it to happen, and not force it to happen. Love is not forcing, it is allowing a choice, not controlling a choice.
I will say that as soon as I detect fear, I feel it, then drop into my heart, and feel love and forgiveness. Fear is just another forgivable mistaken thought, and we don\'t have to attach any real meaning to it unless we choose to.
Part of what I feel we need to know, in our hearts, is that we cannot make a mistake. And what I mean by that is not to fear \"making a mistake\", I mean \"we literally can not\" make a mistake, it\'s impossible. For the lives we have chosen to experience, we are doing it all perfectly. The timing is perfect, always. There are no accidents for our learning now. Trust your heart, you intuition concerning loving yourself, and it\'s impossible for you to make a \"wrong\" choice. Whatever we choose to do will be perfect for now. [Now, that\'s may feel like a hard concept to swallow, but I\'m feeling it\'s true.] We are creators, it\'s what we do. The sooner we learn to love ourselves, the sooner we can begin to attract loving experiences according to the LOA. The more we allow our fears to rule us, the more we will attract things to fear. So forgive yourself for thinking you\'re done something \"wrong\" at anytime, for feeling guilty for doing anything [that the ego judges by reminding you to fear you just did something wrong according to its rules]. Choose again, and project love, especially for your Self. Be gentle with ourselves; everything is spilled milk, and can be replaced with more, there will always be enough love to replace the spilled milk (accident). Spilling milk is just another opportunity to learn not to feel guilty for spilling milk. Does that make sense yet?
Here it is: IF we can feel guilty for just about anything we do, we can also feel forgiveness for just about anything we do. We can create any feeling we want, except as CO\'s, we constantly choose guilt! Why? Habit? Training? By mistaken beliefs! I can\'t speak for my Friends, but I feel like I don\'t actually believe I deserve to be forgiven for anything I\'ve done \"wrong\" according to my ego\'s thinking. All we need to do is to change that belief, that\'s all there is to it. Some of our family members will feel bad about what we do to love ourselves, that is not our concern, if we are projecting from the heart in what we do to love ourselves. We are \"responsible and accountable\" only for OUR thoughts and feelings, no one else\'s. We are not here to fix anyone but ourselves. In fact, we are told Th3 Universe cannot interfere with anyone else\'s freedom to choose; nor are we allowed to let them interfere with ours, once we learn the truth. We don\'t have to feel guilty for caring for ourselves, IF we are not doing it for our ego, pride, power, etc. We are safe as long as we do not choose to feel out of fear, and feel out of love from our hearts.
Like I said at the beginning of this comment, that it ain\'t that easy yet. That euphoria of making it to the next step in principle dissipates quickly, out of habit. We will fail a lot at first, and we will still learn what works best, and we WILL get better. There is no going back to being blind and ignorant now. we know too much.
As soon as I feel fear now it\'s like, :Uh oh, I\'m in my head again, fearing, and not in my heart, forgiving. Get back into my heart.\"
We get to choose whether we want to feel fear or Love, it is a choice, that\'s all. We just haven\'t fully learned we are allowed to do that yet. We have to give ourselves permission to even try (and we will). It feels a LOT better than fear, I\'ve already experienced THAT, and I like it!
Love and Affection,
Rich
Cheers Rich. I Love this piece you have written as.. I love any writing ..whether on here or in any book I have read or from anyone I hear that - has a thread of Faith and Love running through it. This has....
\"and we WILL get better.\". Yes. e all need that Hope and Belief. We all need to and CAN believe that ...NOW ;-))
Very nice...
You know, that makes sense. It makes sense that there are no mistakes. That is a concept we fabricated. The guilt over the forgiveness, something else we fabricated. Guilt serves a purpose in society, to a point, and then we internalize and take it too far. I certainly do :/ It is good to know I don\'t HAVE to do it. If I can allow myself to let go because I am the only one stopping me :/