c u p p e n r o o d

I'm listening: "Do Not Take It

Personally.
It is not
about you."

"Anything that is not impeccable can be perceived as an attack." "Unwiring the conversational dynamics, the ego 'attack-defend' cycle. . . . So hard-wired for our ego to defend us." "The only answer we have [our ego has] to solve the problem is 'kill the bad guy.'"

Sean Daily Twitters—New episode BST 241: The Attack-Defend Cycle and The Second Agreement http://ow.ly/16rMTI

I listen.

"Be willing to accept criticism from your superiors." "It's never about you, it's always about them." "Every once in a while you are going to offend them."
"We are, as a race, we are ruled by our egos. They tend to be our best friend, but they're actually our worst enemies." "Your ego is not you." "One of the moments is when your ego is completely decimated." "When your ego is shrunken, you have the greater ability to escape it." ". . . or it's destroyed for you—divorce, death . . . ." "It's the whole thing about attachment." "Keep your word." "Don't take things personally." "You are emotionally invulnerable." "I think a worthy goal is to be unflappable." "Another time your ego goes away is when you are in the Zen of the moment." "If you can actually be present in the moment, your ego goes away." "Being conscious of it and making it other."

Business Success Tips.org

I wonder what compassion has to do with this, if anything?
Is compassion volitional?

"You know, there are no absolutes in life."

Can we speak for ourselves if this is believed? Who will hear us, and what would we say? May we be absolute by existence? Is that not what our behavior seems to prove: "I am absolute. You are absolute. So do not take it personally. It is not about you, it is about me." This is confusing if considered and very clear if considered. It's both sides of us. Which, I believe, is SAME.

"So I wouldn't really say that this emotional void is the answer."

I think, Why want to be God, the absent, in this way?
Why would we want to emotionally wilt another person?

Perhaps the danger is not Ego so much as it is how and where we wear it. Ego is Vanity, isn't it? Ego is the vain place, the shallow part of self-adoration. But we cannot out-love or out-destroy the deep one, the absent Present. The Holy that is simply Worthy. Is our speaking of Ego another sales-speak trend to consider our Lives valuable, temporal, and so treat each other with dignity, hurting less and less and staying, God helping, out of debt to ourselves? Is Ego a speech talk to avoid The Holy that is simply Worthy? Worthier than SAME?

"We can only make others poor," I thought, I must examine this, but with what? My Ego? With my enlightened state? With help and thanks to God, named absent (by my awareness) to speak up? Do I trust the greater humility in speaking, and why am I challenging SAME, except I feel strong worth? And, to what, to Whom will my worth be allowed to take shape?

"That which you give, you must also take."
I agree with this.

"But that's the problem. We have to get the hell over ourselves."
I understand that.

Is agreement satisfaction? Life? Persuasion? Dignity? Resolution? Healing? In a marriage and family, maybe. Is Worthier satisfaction? Life? Persuasion? Dignity? Resolution? Health?

Isn't it odd that SAME cannot reach SAME.

Today, my death choice was eating an entire bag—four helpings worth—of chocolate truffles. No one else's self-love or enlightened life will inform mine that I chose death in eating those. At some point after I had bought them, I crossed a line from pleasure and life to excess and death. My body will pay, my metabolism will have to be the abused workhouse of my own hand's feeding, in my having chosen to consume so much. A similar analogy could be used for purchasing guns or condoms or steak or lottery tickets or checking the locks. What begins as pleasure, good intent, can at some point, of our/my own choice become death or life to us/me.

Who are/am we/I serving? I must choose. SAME (ego, etc.) must choose to listen to SAME.

Does our/my Ego stop us/me?

Does our/my Enlightened state give us/me pre-knowledge of the balances (of myself and of you and of God), without having read umpteen years of articles about health and success and relationship? Without having my religious freedoms threadbare by their existence, my failed humanity exposed, a failed love exposed in ideals that have something, but not quiet.

I realize that energy is a precious commodity, but who is to say how it is to be used? Who is to tell me who to serve? Who is to tell you, "You may go," or "Buy this, you will not regret it," or "You cannot know why, but I will lead (love?) you. You are not leading (loving?) yourself."

Who will we trust, if not our born ego that we(?) coach to LISTEN to that Greater Humility that shows in literal ways that our backs are watched and our paths lighted? Is Ego WE?

Words and speech are far more than Ego, and listening is Life to some. Have a doctor give that a name, and it may be accepted by the Ego-driven caretakers of all of us.

I exemplify "attack-defend" here, but do you not see? Who will we trust if not the deeper trust given from God's greater humility? And may we give God a name without having to defend ourselves? I loathe self defense, which is partly why I do not take part. Life is hostile in my experience of it, and I am ashamed to say so, feeling my lack of love and trust, and feeling like a failure to be strong anyway, to keep giving regardless of how it feels, the "Ego" which seems to be what tells me I am alive to desire and mocked at the same time by ignorance or weak heart.

Being solitary and a writer at this point in time, I will continue to embrace this task, at least today, as a part. Though my energies appear opposing, they are constructing a walkway for me. It is thought which takes me places.

And I find things as I build, snails, like these:
Sin at birth? Perhaps Ego? Perhaps we are merely self-appointing rest to the self-defending child who was never convinced love was real, thieving as it went. Death is believable, because it is evidenced. Life, though—Life is not to be believed. It seems to be personality and cost and produce and profit and the rare heroic sound that is taken down by dissenters who hear with different ears. What of suffering, or should we not speak of that. Should we not look to see who has done it, and how dare they be divine?

Actually, as I write, I see that we should not create our own suffering. Perhaps that is what is meant by all this talk of Ego. Control yourself. Renew your mind. You may live and recover.

I think, however, of those tempted to suicide, of those not aspiring to profit, of those grown around the ingrown. Oppression does not realize its magnetism, at first, and when realized, its Truth and Consequence is something greater than another's Enlightened replacement or recovery.
Oppression and Ego are not one, and silence is not always friendly to Life.
Oppression may go away, but Ego remains, licking the shards of its absent success, having drawn oppression in some form, either competitive or consumable. Abolish Ego, and we are all saved. But by Whom? I would not save myself. I cannot afford any of you for long or myself forever. What of that?

I am only a proud woman keeping herself in a house, fearing the power of weak people skills to work successfully in a team of people for their good and her good. Do not mind me. I only write, without awareness of you or Haiti or the neighbor who will not talk to me, or the rules of a society that I am usually at odds with, terrified of their robbing every part of my understanding and worth.

A life can be restated to be nothing, you know.
I need fresh air.

Posted by nancy at January 29, 2010 11:20 AM