Wrestling Continued

Meditation – Sunday (4/29/12)

Pause and Consider: Wrestling Continued

Yesterday had its ups and downs. Enjoyed getting all my audio books and Pathwork Lectures loaded onto my tiny iPod. I am so appreciating this opportunity of listening to all this richness of a library of 30+ books anywhere I am. Felt energy in spending more time refining my presentation of Pathwork Lecture 131 – for whatever reason this process of creating presentations of the concepts and ideas contained in the lectures inspires and energizes me.

Still the disharmonies arrived. For example, I am not clear on how the Leaders Retreat will go next week, or what my role will be in it. I have anxiety about my lengthy 35-slide presentation on Lecture 131 – could envision being mocked and laughed at for it. Not even sure I’ll give it. What is this all about?

I have given joyfully significant work on this presentation, so where does that negative energy come from that says I’ll be laughed at, and why do I hang onto it? I can even feel my negative pleasure from being laughed at for spending so much time putting this slide material together, or for not really getting the Pathwork concepts or not communicating them in a meaningful way.  Somehow this severe criticism of something I have so much energy for feels familiar, but I’m not sure from whence it comes.

Now I am finding energy to make YouTube videos out of the material – will be meeting with my brother this week to figure out how to do this. Just like my blog, putting material out there on the internet feels safe, but actually engaging from there in a live meeting or presentation feels threatening.

The Pathwork process is to see what my images are around all of this negativity so I can examine them, see the untruth in them, and let them go. So here again I have pure pleasure in constructing the presentations and pure terror at the thought of actually presenting them. They are at once really ME and yet this realness, this vulnerability in letting them express the real me, terrifies me.

On to another disharmony. Yesterday was busy – I got involved in details of life and was not able to spend time on my blog. I had planned to do this blogging and I miss this time of reflection and inquiry when it doesn’t happen. It is so pleasurable for me to construct these entries, a way of integrating Pathwork concepts and do Pathwork for myself. Yet I panic at the thought of someone reading the entries – so again the split: I both want to engage folks from this level (hence write them out on this blog) and am terrorized to actually do so in personal exchanges with readers. Again, seeing people laugh and mock at what is most ME, at what gives me great pleasure and joy.

Reminds me of times when I wanted to have serious conversations with several pastors during my many years in the church only to have them not be all that interested. I would get the message that I was simply too serious, or wrong, or not on a page from which they thought it worthy to engage me – leading me to conclude that I was somehow quite naïve in matters spiritual. So I have this intense interest in matters spiritual on the one hand, and feelings of extreme naivety on the other. Somehow in matters spiritual I assess that one has to be an educated professional and not one caught in a program like Pathwork. So I devalue something very alive in me, thinking myself very naïve.

And in still another area of disharmony, Pat and I struggled to connect yesterday. Our struggle peaked in watching a video last night – one she had selected, but one I did not care for and one I was surprised she put next on our Netflix list. However, about a half hour into it I was getting engaged, but she suddenly didn’t want to watch it any further. This led to a painful exchange and sense of separateness. Certainly not a big deal in the scheme of life, but one that holds much for us to work with. And again, I really want this rich relationship with Pat on the one hand, and on the other hand being overly real in the relationship terrifies me. We see this realness as our edge, and we willing step into this work for our own growth, but the pain is often hard to bear.

Focusing Statement: Pathwork Lecture 131 Interaction Between Expression and Impression; ¶ 8:

I have given you many tools for reaching yourself and thereby living in the now.  This whole path — with all its methods and various approaches — is concerned with this primary goal.  When you realize yourself, when you find your real self, you are in the now — in the very act of being in yourself.

It seems I am right where I need to be – finding myself, my real self. So who am I in this world? What energizes me? What scares me?

I seek to know truth and understand life – my life, the lives of others, and Life in general. Hence my love for the Pathwork Lectures and for other materials that resonate with my inner being. It is the basis of my relationship with Pat, including our struggles and our coffee time. It is the basis of my acquiring a vast library of books on spirituality, psychology, and philosophy, only to let it go five years ago.

I seek to share truth. This drives my recording of the Pathwork Lectures, my desire to create presentations on the Pathwork Lectures, my entire website where I make so much material available, including my self-revealing blog entries.

I seek to relate to others. This drives my relationship with Pat and with others, our coffee time, and my engagement with folks regarding any form of personal or spiritual growth and of course regarding Pathwork – even in committee work.

These forces seem to drive me. But what forces limit me? I also resist truth and resist understanding life – keeping myself narrowly, say, in Pathwork. I have a hard time sharing, too fearful of being wrong or judged. And in relating to others, even to Pat, I have many barriers and defenses. All grist for the mill.

Coffee Time with Pat

We talked for nearly two hours, looking at the pain in our relationship from many sides. We realized how hard it is for each of us to tolerate the inevitable disharmony, fear, confusion, and pain that are bound to come up as we each dare to become more real in each other’s presence. We realize some (and maybe realize but a small part of what’s there) of the patterned behavior that goes on between us to “keep the peace.” We each hate codependence, but we each likely have it.

But the only way to grow is to go through these hard times. In so doing each of us will be purified – losing our harshness, our rigidity, our stubbornness, our wanting to control, our deepest fears. Yes, we are where we want to be, but the work is hard.

Shared in love, Gary