Making Moves

I am starting to eliminate any extra stuff from my life that I can choose to cut out. Activities that are not fostering love or are not conducive to me feeling more positive about myself. The only thing that fits this description at the moment was the pro dance team I was asked to be on. I never really connected in any way to the people on the team or the choreography. I want to start working on my own stuff. I know now what I need to work on but I doubt very seriously that I will get it here as a dancer that is. The salsa community here is pretty narrow, not much variety, at least not in Abu Dhabi. There also is not a lot in the way of adult focused dance lessons of the more classical dance genres and that is what I want to be involved in.

I have contacted the people necessary to possibly start doing some private English tutoring on the side. I also have been approached about teaching private dance lessons too. I really need to start getting another cash flow so I can plan for my trips at Spring Break and over the summer. Now, I really want to start meditating and praying more regularly. I also hopefully will host a regular devotional/fireside here at my house. It looks like I may have found a group to do some volunteer work with and may even have the opportunity to learn and perform a style of dance I have always wanted to learn...flamenco!

Pulling Out the Thorn

‎This is eventually what happens when I meet someone who inspires me to revisit my myself. I begin to feel things that I haven't felt for some time and I begin to question. I take up the task of healing where I left off.  Or rather where I never went. I am finding gems on the path of healing by re-reading my own writing and my consultations with others. Recently too, I have read some quotes on Facebook that have resonated with me. All of them together tell me the direction I must go to reconnect what was disconnected. To finally embrace the spiritual power I received pre-birth. To finally forgive and be at peace with my past. 


This is the focus of this post:  I think I need to be in a place where as I am letting go I am also receiving something to fill the "holes" [anger,sadness] simultaneously. 


A friend's Facebook post that speaks to the process of "refilling": "Be not the slave of your moods, but their master. But if you are so angry, so depressed and so sore that your spirit cannot find deliverance and peace even in prayer, then quickly go and give some pleasure to someone lowly or sorrowful, or to a guilty or innocent sufferer! Sacrifice yourself, your talent, your time, your rest to another, to one who has to bear a heavier load than you...".

Excerpt from an email to therapist in 2007: "I am beginning to notice a consistency. When I begin to really heal from not just this abusive relationship but also the things that happened to me as a child I get scared because I don't know what to do with the free feeling I get. I grab onto the most recent violation to not feel the "holes" left when the anger subsides and the sadness. I think I need to be in a place where as I am letting go I am also receiving something to fill the "holes" simultaneously. This is all about getting to Love. Anger and Love cannot reside in the same heart. One must be stronger than the other. I want it to be Love."

A friend of mine reminded me of a piece of guidance from Abdu'l-Baha: " your therapist said 

"i wonder if it wouldn't be 'a more pleasant experience' to nurture love in your present than to expend your energy trying to deflate hate. this is all about perception. do we give more attention to love or to hate?"it seems Abdu'l-Baha agrees: 

"When a thought of war comes, oppose it by a stronger thought of peace. A thought of hatred must be destroyed by a more powerful thought of love."
to me that sounds like the same idea: not concentrating on getting rid of the hate, but rather on growing love." 

I woke up this morning knowing what I needed to do. The stream of thinking above is where my mind was as I opened my eyes. I am right back to where I have been numerous times before. The only way I will be happy and will feel as sense of purpose is to finally embrace the spiritual energy at my core, learn spiritual discipline and infuse it into all I do. I have felt drawn to doing a couple of things: get to a country that encourages the development of meditation and learn from practitioners; travel through Central and South America studying dance and movement; and get my chorepoem on stage. 

There are four things I can do now that will create a spiritual foundation and make travel possible: generate more income by possibly doing private lessons in English as well as dance; start volunteering here in Abu Dhabi; continue with my prayer and meditation routine; and phase out the dance classes until I have only 2, one for general fun and another that will challenge participants and myself. 

Through my healing journey I have learned to heal intentionally. It will be important to apply this same thinking to my current stage of growth. I don't want service to become a diversion. It must be a conscience act, focusing on refilling the released sadness and anger with love and joy. I feel I must say "Good-bye" to the  old hurts as I replace the space with positive energy. There is a finality to it. An acknowledgement that a new step has been taken.  Maybe, just maybe, I can recapture that part of me that is not judgmental, is pure, and loves being of service. 

O my GOD!! I see now what I let him take from me. I see now what power I gave him. It was more than the power to judge but the power to define who I was. He compared be to another person and using his fear of my past childhood abuse, told me I was not innocent, pure, and did not love service because she was these things. I shared with him something so raw and painful and he turned my pain into a reason to choose someone else who was "better than me". I had so given up my power for the promise of being loved that I allowed another person to define who I was and this is what I have not been able to forgive. I let him take away what is the best of me. With patient healing, focusing on love and service, I can recapture that part of me that is not judgmental, is pure, and loves being of service. 

Soul Work Revisited

6/28/07  Letter to Therapist

I hope you are having a nice time in Japan. Since our last session I have been reading a book that is considered Sacred Writings by Baha'is and another book that is about our spiritual powers and healing. It has been very interesting how these two books are actually working together. They fit and I am beginning to find ways to finally heal spiritually. I will bring both books when we have our next sessions. One thing I am trying to do is live in the present and that has been good in some ways. I am beginning to feel different. It has also been difficult in other ways. I wrote something that I will share with you now:

 

I am almost moving on. Almost. This attempt to live in the present is helping. I keep going back to the fact that he thought I was unworthy. Great as friend but not in a relationship and he never looked back. He was heartbroken when the virgin married someone else. He was hurt by that. Me. The person he spent nearly a year with. The person whose family he met. The person he was with when her grandmother died. The person who met his parents. The person who revealed the pain of her soul to him. He forgot. Like a second thought if even that.

 

I am trying to learn to live in the present but something in my mind won't let go the past. I let go then snatch it back. Like if I don't remember no one will. If no one remembers then it didn't really happen. It keeps coming back to that one moment. To those words. I don't want to let it go. If I do it means I have forgiven him. It means that he did nothing wrong.

 

I am beginning to notice a consistancy. When I begin to really heal from not just this abusive relationship but also the things that happened to me as a child I get scared because I don't know what to do with the free feeling I get. I grab onto the most recent violation to not feel the "holes" left when the anger subsides and the sadness. I think I need to be in a place where as I am letting go I am also receiving something to fill the "holes" simultaneously.

 

This is all about getting to Love. Anger and Love cannot reside in the same heart. One must be stronger than the other. I want it to be Love.

 

Peace~

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6/30/07 Response from Therapist

wow.  some very useful and powerful insights. you are right on!

i would like to see these books you are reading.  i am really glad to hear that they are helping you. and that they are actually complementing eachother.

forgiving him does not mean he hasn't done anything wrong.  forgiving him does not undo the wrong he's done.  you forgive him BECAUSE he's done something wrong, and you don't want to be miserable about it any longer.  we need to remember that God forgiving us and man forgiving his fellowman are quite different levels of forgiveness.  God's forgiveness is cleansing, sanctifying, and purifying.  man's forgiveness is [only] all about getting along with one another in the sinful world.  and of course we should try to reflect our God's character as much as possible but we have not been given the power to erase wrongdoings.  that is, rightfully, only in the hands of God.

'moving forward'...  'living in the present'...doesn't mean the past never happened. nor does it mean we forget the past. it means we are less and less, negatively affected by it.

familiarity...  very powerful.  sometimes, we become so comfortable with being uncomfortable that we are only comfortable replacing the 'uncomfort' with more 'uncomfort'.  you have come upon a very very important principle of life- when we lose/ take away something we've had for a while, it needs to be replaced with something else or we have a 'gap'.  the more meaningful the 'thing', the deeper/wider the gap. smokers wanting to quit need to replace their cigarette; linus, should he ever feel the need to lose his blanket, would need something to replace the
blanket. 

the need to replace could come from any sphere of life- physical, emotional, mental, spiritual/meaning , biological, physiological, behavioural etc and of course, in combination too.

you identified 'love' as what needs to be a bigger part of your life.  great!!

just thinking generally, i wonder if it wouldn't be 'a more pleasant experience' to nurture love in your present than to expend your energy trying to deflate hate.  this is all about perception.  do we give more attention to love or to hate?  you said that both cannot reside together.  if one grows, the other fades.  would we be happier looking upon 'love' or
looking upon 'hate'?  have you ever ridden a bicycle? the body follows the head, and more specifially, the eyes. whatever direction you're looking in, that's the direction you begin to go in.

but! what i just said does not preclude the issues that need to be dealt with.  issues need to be looked at; healing needs to be initiated before reaching the above stage.

how are you/would you, specifically, expressing/like to express, hold, nurture, more love in your life?

you are doing very well, adalia. of course, you have been for a while.

i hope this email finds you well.

Release from Negativity

For some reason there are certain people that bring out really negative feelings in me. A couple have done nothing outwardly to bring these feelings about while one in particular left a thorn in my side that has proven to be next to impossible to remove. As I am trying to pray and meditate more regularly these feelings are becoming more unacceptable to me. I have been in such a negative space for so long that it is proving to be a hard task moving out of it. The negativity has been an inward, introverted attack and does not find expression outwardly very often. Despite this though, it affects the way I see the world. The way I judge or don't judge others. It is time to move from this place because it is holding me back and creating chains on my spirit.