The Habit of Adding Insult to Injury
About an hour into our coffee time this morning, Pat shares that she got an email from Sage, the Sage half of our Sage and Anthony couples counselor team. It was a video link Sage thought might be helpful to Pat based upon our session two days ago on Wednesday.
Gary: I notice that I am jealous here, Pat. You got an email and I did not. In fact, often in our sessions with Sage and Anthony, especially as we listen to the recordings of our sessions, I begin to feel awful – I see you as the courageous one doing deep work, all the time applauded by Sage and Anthony, and I feel like the retard in our relationship. Am I even worth working with in our relationship? I drop into a kind of hopelessness and self-loathing. I experience this negativity spiraling downward. This is my negativity pattern arising. I stop and ask, “Can I just be with this, observe it, and be curious about it?”
Pat: So how are you in just being “with this” without observing it and being curious about it? What does it feel like? Gary: I hate seeing all this hopelessness and self-loathing in myself. Surely, after 14 years, I am beyond this in my development! So I see that instead of simply accepting, feeling into and loving this part of me, I judge this self-loathing as being awful, defective, childish, and immature. I pause and ask myself, “Can I just feel into and observe with curiosity this negative self-loathing part of me instead of judging it so harshly?” Pat: So there is the voice of the “judge.” Can you be open to that part, the harsh judge, also being here? So in reality you have here two parts to the pattern: first there is the self-loathing, hopeless one, and second you have the judge condemning him. As Anthony has said many times, with the judge judging the self-loathing, hopeless one instead of simply being present to him, you are adding insult (the harsh judge) to injury (the self-loathing, hopeless one).
Gary: And so now I’m judging the judge, “You ass hole, do you have to be so harsh with this self-loathing part of me? Can’t you be loving and kind to him instead! Enough is enough.” And right here in this statement this negative pattern repeats, creating a vicious self-destructive circle – the judge judging the judge judging the judge judging the self-loathing, hopeless one.
As I feel into this I find negative pleasure in being sooooo bad on so many levels. I notice that I actually feel more relaxed in this state of violent self-condemnation on so many levels! In fact I see that tension would show up if I allowed myself to sense “goodness” arising in me! I am more comfortable feeling into, owning, and, yes, even identifying with, my awkwardness, dumbness, and unattractiveness.
I remember from our helper meeting at Sevenoaks last month that, after I did a work scene of sorts, one participant gently confronted me on the way to lunch and said, “Gary, as I watch you, it seems to me that you are attached to the negative in you. I see the light, the gifts, the love in you, but you seem to refuse seeing those positive qualities in yourself. You seem to find pleasure in the negative in you.”
I accepted the input, but not really. Actually I didn’t want to see what he was seeing. Pat: You were not able to see it! Gary: No, it was my negative intentionality, my will – I intended not to see his input. Pat: No, Gary, you were not able to see his input. Gary: OK, you’re right. I can see that at the level of consciousness I was in, I was not, in fact, able to hear his input!
Gary: As I settle into this, I see I resist being helped by you here this morning as we talk! Just like I resisted the helper trying to help me at the helpers’ retreat last month. Actually, I do not want to be helped by anyone! I do not trust another to help me. It is hard for me to trust another when I block seeing love and goodwill coming toward me from another. Pat: Do you trust yourself to love yourself? Are you in touch with your inner essence, God within, Christ within, and here, at this deep level, experiencing your true self’s love for all of yourself?
Gary: That’s a lot to take in. Let me pause a minute. … I’ve just finished Lecture 250 – Inner Awareness of Grace – Exposing the Deficit – and the Guide’s words come to me about grace – “grace is,” and this grace is the all-goodness of the indwelling God and of God’s Universe. The problem the Guide points to is not that grace isn’t there but rather that I do not have the consciousness required to experience the grace of God at work within me and within the cosmos.
Pat: So what does the Guide say to do when you are in this jam? Gary: — Pause — At this level of negative intentionality, help is required, help from God. But when I refuse even to trust God, how can I pray and be open to help? Part of this process is to simply see and accept my resistance to trusting grace, my resistance to feeling the faith that is within my Essence, but then to go on and, with courage, to risk trying to accept the all-goodness of the Universe, including my goodness, the goodness of my Christedness. It is one of those places of “jumping into the abyss.” So perhaps I shall! At any rate this has been great to see as it has unfolded this morning. And great to be able to engage with you without being overly caught up in jealousy and self-loathing!
Shared in love, Gary
Epilogue (added 9/27/14) — further understanding to what Pathwork says about coming to recognize and dealing with the blockage to grace and faith from within.
Borrowing on the 50/50 Work of Moira Shaw, I come to face and accept my humanity — the part of me that holds to the illusion that I am separate from God, the part of me that, believing that I am separate from God, and not therefore God, is merely and utterly human. That separate part tries to act like it is God (my mask self), but of course is powerless to do so. That human part in reality doubts, is fearful, and tries to live by pride and self-will.
But seeing and accepting this human side is only half of who I am. Regarding the other side of who I am, I, in my Essence, am one with God. The purpose of my life on earth is to bring my divine Essence into material manifestation in this dualistic (good OR bad) world of illusion — in other words, to incarnate my Divine Essence into this material world. This is a process of purification of my lower self aspects (my fear, self-will, and pride) and, through prayer and humility, allowing God (the God within/without, the All, my Higher Self) to transform my negative intentionality into positive intentionality. This is the ongoing process of my life, or, if you allow reincarnation, my lives.
These words may not help, but I felt a need to spell this process out in more detail.