It's FRIDAY!!! Yay!!!

vjewel 06/30/2012
Our Lesson for our Spiritual Grp. Meeting tomorrow...I like this one!
Step 5 Release Self-Judgment and Guilt
Weather I know it or not, I am always attacking myself. I may believe that I am attaching you, but thats just an illusion. Of course, sometimes you buy into the illusion too, and then you take offense. Thats how the world turns.
But, in truth, I cannot attack you. I can only attack myself. Everything I project onto you comes home to me. Thought is a perfect boomerang. It always returns to the one who sent it out.
It doesnt have anything to do with punishment. Many people, even those who believe in karma, dont understand that. Nobody is being punished for his sins. Hes just getting back what he put out so that he can become aware of it. If he puts out anger, anger comes back to him, because he needs to become responsible for his anger. He must own everything he puts out. Only by owning it, will it be released.
It is a simple law. We dont have to beat each other with it. We dont have to say, There you go, you creep. I knew youd get yours back. We dont have to play God. Were not needed for that role. We just need to understand that we are going to keep on making mistakes until we learn our lessons. We are going to keep on projecting negative and positive qualities onto others so long as we are unwilling to own them in ourselves. We are going to keep on attacking others until we own the attack.
Owing the attack is just a way of short-circuiting the process. I say Okay, anger, I know you belong to me, so I am not going to pretend that you belong to someone else. That doesnt mean that I dont express the anger. If its there, its my responsibility to express it. But I must do so knowing it belongs to me. That way it does not have to go out, stick to someone who feels guilty enough to pick it up, and then come back to me through some form of quiet resentment.
I take responsibility for the anger. I understand that it is not you, but me whom I attack. I dont get lost in the projection, or at least I dont when I am successful.
Success doesnt happen all the time or all at once. Sometimes I attack you and sometimes I own my attack. When I attack you, I feel guilty, because I believe that I can hurt you. I carry that guilt around, and then when you or someone else attacks me, my guilt invites the attack to stick. Its all very bizarre.
Whenever I strike out at you I feel terrible. That establishes me as a target for attack. Strangers with stored up anger sense a potential victim coming when I pass by. Even German Shepherds pick-up the scent.
Every time I attack you, I establish my own guilt. If you dont think this is true, read Dostovevskys Crime and Punishment. In the novel, Roskolnikov tries to create the perfect crime. He believes that if he kills for a good reason he will not feel guilty about it. It doesnt work.
True, he isnt caught. He gets away with it. But he cant live with the guilt. Eventually, he turns himself in.
Thats what we all have to do: turn ourselves in. As soon as we attack, we need to remember that we are establishing our guilt.
Lets fess up right away. To hell with justifying our actions! We know attack cannot be justified. So lets just take responsibility for bringing healing to ourselves and others.
I made a mistake, brother. I attacked you because I was afraid. I thought I had a right to attack you, but I was wrong. Forgive me. Help me get back on track.
When I make my attack a call for love, my brothers and sisters allow me to approach them. This is a gesture of reconciliation.
If I recognize my attack and take responsibility to correct it, I do not establish my guilt. Guilt is established when I justify my attack and refuse to make amends.
Chronic guilt is nothing more than the consistent refusal to take responsibility for recognizing and learning from my mistakes. Nobody becomes a punching bag without cause. Yet often the cause is hidden deeply in the psyche.
Every attack I make on you is an attack on myself. That attack an be a very subtle form of judgment, yet if repeated over and over it continually gives me the message that I am inadequate.
It is not coincidence that those individuals who have the lowest self-esteem are the same people who make the greatest number of judgments of other people. The more we judge others, the more we subconsciously judge ourselves.
All projections return. That is the function of guilt. On some level, it refused to let our attack leave us. We simply can not attack others without feeling responsible for the attack on some level of our being.
When we make this responsibility conscious, we can begin to heal. When we allow it to remain unconscious, we attract events which force us to become conscious not only of our trespasses against others, but of the deep self-hatred behind them.
Guilt and responsibility are mutually exclusive. Guilt hold onto the wound and so prevents it from healing. Responsibility is the first step in the healing process.
To let go of self-judgment and guilt, we must begin to take responsibility for our attack against others. We must become conscious of our projections as they happen.
Becoming conscious of our attack, we see the cause behind it. We see our own fears, our deep-seated judgments and feelings of inadequacy. We see our deep call for love.
That is essential. We cannot begin to forgive ourselves until we realize that all of our darkness is a call for light, and all our anger and hurt is a call for love. We need to acknowledge this, or we take our awareness and use it to beat ourselves.

Richeart 06/30/2012
Heyyyy....waaaaait a minute here!...this is some good info:

\"Nobody is being punished for his sins. Hes just getting back what he put out so that he can become aware of it. If he puts out anger, anger comes back to him, because he needs to become responsible for his anger. He must own everything he puts out. Only by owning it, will it be released.\" ---

Let\'s not gloss over this too quickly as just more reading.

\"When I attack you, I feel guilty, because I believe that I can hurt you. I carry that guilt around, and then when you or someone else attacks me, my guilt invites the attack to stick. Its all very bizarre.
Whenever I strike out at you I feel terrible. That establishes me as a target for attack. Strangers with stored up anger sense a potential victim coming when I pass by.\" --- To hell with justifying our actions!

Every attack I make on you is an attack on myself. That attack an be a very subtle form of judgment, yet if repeated over and over it continually gives me the message that I am inadequate.
\"It is not coincidence that those individuals who have the lowest self-esteem are the same people who make the greatest number of judgments of other people. The more we judge others, the more we subconsciously judge ourselves. All projections return. That is the function of guilt.\"

\"We must become conscious of our projections as they happen.\" ---MINDFULNESS

Really good stuff Vicki, thanks for sharing.

Richeart 07/01/2012
So the GUILT I carry around...and have carried around, all my life, is the guilt that I can, or did, MAKE my mother (or father) un-happy, I hurt her/his feelings and made her cry/him angry (and we ALL know crying is wrong, especially MAKING someone cry because then you\'re MEAN and terrible and unwanted) so I became a \"Co-dependent\"; because of my terrible powers to hurt others, even when I\'m behaving the way I want just being myself? So I harm other people whenever I\'m being myself; and I better stop doing that behavior? Whichever one hurts or CAUSES anger or unhappiness in someone else?

WHOA!!!! I\'m feeling afraid, and anxious, for avoiding feeling guilty because someone else BLAMES MEEEE!!!! For how THEYYYYY!!!! FEEL!!!???

I have been taught, no CONDITIONED, NO! ...Abused! THREATENED with punishment by abandonment, , to believe I can\'t, or MAY NOT, be myself because it MIGHT hurt someone else\'s feelings, that they actually deny being able to control themselves???!!! I was taught to accept the BLAME for EVERYTHING that goes wrong and MAKES people feel BAD or HURT???!!!

Is this what you\'re telling Me? And then THEY seek me out because they KNOW I\'ll feel guilty; and then THEY can be relieved by making me feel BAD and hurt and wrong ON FUCKING PURPOSE!!! And THEN I BLAME myself TOO!!!???

I\'m starting to get the true picture here. I\'m thinking AND feeling \"Maybe I should stop doing this, playing this GAME.\" How about if I make it \"okay\" to hurt other people if that\'s the way they want to feel as they choose to perceive what I do. How about if I LET them feel hurt and falsely blame me? How about I don\'t try to \"fix\" them, their feelings, because they falsely claim I have magical powers to make them happy or un-happy?

How about if I stop trying to control anyone but myself? How about if I learn how to set a boundary for my guilt? This ISN\'T really about the OTHER person, at all! THIS lesson is about me learning to stop punishing myself by agreeing to feel bad for volunteering to be a victim for feeling guilty, and ashamed, for not being a \"Better ME, for everyone else except ME\"!

HOW DARE I THINK AND FEEL FOR MYSELF TO PROTECT MYSELF!!! THAT MAKES OTHER PEOPLE SAD, AND ANGRY!!! THEY demand I take care of their feelings for THEM! They claim they are handicapped and helpless for how they feel. \"They\" ACT hurt, as a way to get attention for getting what they want: control over me, in order to take care of THEIR feelings of self-worth, by \"making me agree to be a victim\".

Ya\' know...., the more I write this the more I see a need for a change in \"triggers\" for asserting my boundaries for how I feel around others.

I\'m guessing there are a lot of US (meaning me) who have also used \"depression\" as a way to show how bad we feel in order to get attention. It IS a projection; it is what we\'ve been taught..: \"act hurt\" (Blame something) and then someone who feels responsible for \"fixing everything\", i.e., (\"bad feelings\") your feelings, the ones you don\'t want to fix yourself because \"it\'s too hard to understand REALITY and the lack of infinite power to control life and have everything you ask for\", will try to \"fix\" you by giving you the attention you need for expressing how disappointed you are over some event that you refused to accept you have no magical powers over. It can be over grieving the simplest thing that \"didn\'t happen\" the way you predicted it needed to be \"in order to feel happy\", or happier.

I\'m guessing/speculating that it all comes down to how unhappy we let ourselves feel for not being able to control everything to be like what we fantasize it SHOULD be, because we can\'t seem to accept reality as just as good and rewarding as our fantasy, if we change our judgment, or stop it all together. It is the quality of accepting WHAT IS, AS IT IS, as good enough, without judgment about what is good or what is bad. It is learning to stop predicting the future \"good\" or \"bad\" in anything, and look for some \"thing\", some idol or symbol, you like or something you don\'t like as a positive and helping lesson of what you want more of or less of for your self\'s benefit. Since \"we\" really can\'t tell what the future result will be with what is happening NOW, whether it will eventually (it the future) be something we accept or reject for our fantasy feeling needs, to learn to stop judging and evaluating every moment. Learn a sense of wonder about feeling guilty; and learning to release, \"let go of\", the paranoia surrounding the feeling that EVERYONE is watching US to see if \"we (Me, Myself, and I)\" behave in a way that THEY can claim hurts their feelings so that we can fear we will allow ourselves feel the pain of guilt once again; until we learn to stop doing that.

Soooo...., here\'s the question: How many times do we have to feel paranoid about experiencing feelings of hurt and pain for allowing ourselves to feel guilty for how others claim they feel because of us being who we are to enjoy being and accepting ourselves no matter what they accuse us of? At what point do we learn to stop and let go of the automatic GUILT for sympathizing with someone else\'s fantasy feelings? When do we learn to give up the guilt for our own projected guilt? As guess as many as it takes to recognize the dysfunctional habit, let it go, and create a healthier response. Until then it will be the \"same ol\' same ol\'\" habit.

I guess my work is cut out for me: don\'t EXPECT (blame) those other people to stop blaming me so I can stop blaming myself.

I DO feel that this commentary Vicki has brought out of me is where my feelings of \"paranoia\" come from: guilt for being blamed for causing someone else\'s feelings. The guilt MAKES me \"protector\" of anyone else\'s emotions. No WONDER I protect my emotions and I\'m such an emotional wreck. IT\'S MY JOB TO KEEP EVERYONE HAPPY AND SATISFIED!!!

I QUIT!!!

;-D