In this Monday’s post; Ego rejects love and intimacy I began by sharing my reaction to hearing that my brother was reading my blog. I then went on to share my inner thoughts and observations of my relationship with my daughter and how intimacy so easily vanishes as ego dominates our conversation and activities -or the lack of it- with its fears and primary need to protect it’s own agenda.
We all know the story of the emperor with no clothes on, a story which so beautifully shows how our egos go to great length to keep up appearances and how avoidance of intimate sharing out of fear can keep a ridiculous situation in place. That fairy story sounds unbelievable but is it really?
Your comments, especially Tess, Peggy and Mark all echoed Jannie Funster’s assertion that;
The ego and love and intimacy do not mix.
This wonderful intimacy is soon to be rejected by ego.
My brother recently confessed that he ‘secretly‘ reads my blog?!
WHAT?! However I ’secretly’ thought straight away; “O hell, did I write anything compromising?”
WHAT?!
NO wonder that our closest friends and family do NOT read our blogs, when it solicits these reactions. I panicked and my brother obviously felt as if he has done a dirty deed AND that when nobody did anything wrong. Having got over my first fright I love having my brother read my blog; “hi Peter, I love seeing you here!”
But what was going on?
What went on is the result of the fact that the ego hates intimacy and resists it at all cost. THAT was what happened.
I’d say the ego is doing that for a good reason though.
Intimacy is Love-in-action.
Love makes you pay attention, love has you being present to whom is in front of you and the ego knows that intimacy means someone is getting too close for comfort.
The ego knows it is in danger of having its cover blown, having its underlying selfish, dishonest agenda exposed and therefore the ego resists love and intimacy.
John being Love-in-action because I am lovable of course.
What a glorious abundant love-in-action flowed from your comments on this Monday’s post; Are we lovable enough to attract love?
I absolutely adored the level of honesty that shone through in your comments. It is only through honesty that we get closer to the wholesome ‘what is so’ of our lives. Your honesty is such a loving contribution as we all get a chance to reflect on our own wholesome ’what is so’ when we read each other’s comments.
In particular I’m acknowledging the honesty of Dorothy and Joyce who echoed Michaele’s observation of how difficult it is to be love-in-action;
it can be hard to remember in the thick of things… and easy to forget.. and sometimes I find myself wondering how to *be* love-able in my current situation.
The honesty didn’t stop there as Tess shared;
as soon as I’m off kilter I find myself attacking hubs for no reason at all.
With Chris Edgar following up with a telling observation of human beings;
Tess what do you think of my hair? Honestly?
My heart sang with the honest sharing in this Monday’s post; ‘How I got to Honesty‘. YOU shine!
It sang to me because you too felt the need to be honest with yourself first and in particular with your feelings.
Chris Edgar gave a fine example of honesty by paying attention to what he is actually feeling;
the first and biggest step toward honesty for me has been actually paying attention to what I’m feeling, rather than what I’m “supposed” to feel in a given situation
He went on to say that feeling angry when being cut off while driving is a learned, ’supposed to have’ feeling, especially for males. Chris’ honesty had him realize that he did not feel anger and I’ll agree; not feeling angry does not take away maleness and it sure is time we all get that! Go Chris go.
Their ego-thoughts are not preventing them from loving the piano. Not yet anyway.
As always many thanks to everyone who commented on the Monday post; ‘What are your issues with migrating to Heaven on Earth?’
It is a challenging post.
It is one thing to read about ‘Heaven on Earth’ in spiritual texts but it is quite different to actually aspire taking such a huge step in daily life.
And as for migrating there, well Angelia Sims was honest enough to say what was so for her;
I haven’t really stepped out of my southern Oklahoma/Texas culture comfort zone.
And then she went on to say what else was so, with stepping out of her comfort zone;
On the road to an unknown future.
This Monday’s post; ‘We are looking for our new home the WomenLikeMe way’ was a little different from usual. I took the opportunity to report on how John and I are getting on with living our daily life differently.
It seems like a straight forward exercise, reporting; I’ve written lots of reports on people’s lives in my former work as a Careers Consultant.
But I notice that it is not easy at all to report what is going on for me behind the scenes, about the bumps and hurdles I experience along the way, especially as I have not yet safely reached the harbor yet and I have certainly not reached all the wisdom of hindsight yet either. I am still in the middle of the storm so to speak, oscillating between feeling confident and being totally freaked out. I did notice while writing the post that fortunately my confidence is becoming stronger by the day.
However it is still so delightful to have your comments support me in this as you too are honestly addressing your ‘behind the scene’ dilemmas and hurdles.
Joy opened up the inquiry with;
My question of the day to God/the Universe is: where is the love?…
When egos are quiet we can live happily ever after.
The comments flowed abundantly this week on Monday’s post; ‘Your ego can’t collaborate’ with Megan sharing a fine example of what many of us could identify with, the ego in action;
My ego got the better of me this weekend – yesterday and today, actually. You’re right that it definitely does NOT want to collaborate! Ego wants what it wants, and I noticed it was willing to invent stories (otherwise known as projection) to suit its flimsy desires today. I actually had to say aloud a bit earlier, “Please help me be clear! Please help me know the real truth!” Ego was clouding everything up and I decided I wanted to reverse that trend. Like an unwanted house guest…
Yes I agree, the ego sure is like an unwanted house guest.
Then on the subject of collaboration, Lisa exposed that there was more to collaboration than what we generally think;
… so much more important than I used to give it credit for. I really used to think of collaboration as more of a strategic skill, a way of combining strengths, learning to compromise etc. But it is so much more than that, and I hadn’t really clicked into realizing that until reading your post. It IS about ego, and whether or not two people can get beyond relating at the level of ego and connect and interact at a deeper level.
In Vietnam I did see collaboration, the ego had no choice.
Full of expectations, we marry, we work in teams, we build partnership and yet we fail in most of them.
Oh it might not look like we failed; most of us present well and sure know how to look good.
But underneath the surface we are either; martyrs, manipulators, whiners, complainers or passive aggressors, in short we are often unhappy people feeling lonely, because we never learned to collaborate.
Over ten years ago, I looked fine too.
But when you lifted the veil of my charming successful veneer, you could see a different Wilma.
I was a complainer, working in a job I learned to hate.
I had chosen to be rather stuck with the devil I knew, than leave a marriage we were both very unhappy in.
In the end I could have died as stupid as I had become.
I paint a totally different picture of my current life since I have learned to collaborate with people who matter.
And belief you me, collaboration is a totally new ball game you and I have very seldom played.
I am not kidding; this is what the ‘urban dictionary’ has to say about collaboration;
An unnatural act practiced by nonconsenting adults. Worker A: We have no common interests, we don’t like each other, and it irritates us to work together. But we were told by management to engage in collaboration.
Worker B: What a waste of time.
Hmm, does this not resemble marriage and most families as well?
George still going strong, uplifting and willing to play, showing us his old tractor.
At the end of this Monday’s post; Does the way your talk destruct or create? I invited you to “Notice your own destructive talk when you complain, blame and also watch your tone of voice and your facial expression”. I also said “when you notice it, stop even in mid sentence and apologize.”
What did you notice?
Did you play along? Could you catch yourself, did you notice it at all?
Observing yourself in the midst of daily flurry and emotions is one of the hardest things to do.
Why is it so hard to notice and observe?
Because how we talk and react is automatic, it is how we have always done it and we know no other way.
So I invited you to notice something a little less tricky, to notice when another person talks to you in a way that is destructive.
But what about when people and the way they talk, lifts you up.
"Yeah, yeah your food is coming", but soon all this demanding work will be all over for this mother. Lucky her.
This is our second week of talking about martyrdom and I’ve still got plenty more to say on the skills required to become martyr free.
You certainly could see my point in this Monday’s post; How to kill of martyrdom, that children are takers and they will get their way with a martyr every time.
However children being takers is not the issue, they are only one of the many daily challenges that recovering martyrs have to face up to.
Diantha explained this clearly for us with her comment;
You are right about children (and husbands) taking until one is just a puddle on the floor. For years I thought it was THEIR fault until I wised up and realized I PLAYED INTO IT! Gulp. Truth can be a hard teacher…
Yes Diantha, the critical first step is to own up to the truth that we martyrs play into it. We allow children (and husbands) to take advantage of us. It is easy for us to look external to ourselves for the cause of our troubles. It is much tougher and requires honesty to recognize and acknowledge how we are the cause of our troubles.
I’d like to add, if you have martyr, people pleasing, doormat tendencies, you will play them out everywhere, not just within the family, but at work and with your friends as well.
How we cause ourselves to be treated as doormats is invisible to us. This is where we need gentle friends to support us and reflect back the wholesome ‘what is so’ of our martyr behavior.
My mother's ring, oozing my mother's self care and self worth.
Is Martyrdom dead yet?
You wish now we have dishwashers, education & careers and the word ‘equality’ in our vocabulary.
But is it?
Are we confident providers, do we set ourselves up to be a well resourced basecamp capable of supporting everybody without depleting ourselves, losing out on fun in life and avoiding being resentful?
Hmm.
Although we all have great intentions to be the best basecamp for our families, we are NOT getting the importance of keeping basecamp strong, of looking after ourselves.
Most of us still go for martyrdom, most of us still tragically lose ourselves under the strain of all we have taken on.
We become grumpy while our guilt increases when having nasty thoughts about everybody and everything.
Many women still are drained and reluctant basecamps that are not much fun for anybody.
We all have seen people walking around as if on eggshells, afraid to trigger us off, haven’t we?
How many of us are sick of hearing our own nagging voices?
Haven’t we all heard partner’s or children exasperatedly asking us to please, please do something to bring our old smile back?
OUCH! and until all that stops and our complaints are no longer showing up in the bloggosphere, martyrdom is alive and well I am afraid.
Birds hate interruptions too. John will you leave them alone!
Your comments to this week’s post; ‘Interrupted thinking creates half-baked Me’ certainly deepened my thinking about this epidemic of constant daily interruptions.
I want to start by emphasizing that interruptions of themselves are not inherently bad, a modest amount of interruptions are great and a fact of life. This is not the issue at all. The issue is the constant stream of them and our lack of vigilance in recognizing the insidious consequences to our quality of life and quality thinking because of constant interruptions.
So what is the cost of lots of interruptions?
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