email:
D: "I have been reading and on the fourth read of Self Observation by Red Hawk. It has really helped me to understand better. Right now I deal with pain from siblings who did not help me take care of my parents for ten years. Intellectually I understand but I "judge" them still and feel anger off and on. The work is such nourishment for me and helps me like nothing I have studied before. Identification with my "family" of origin is my intense work now. My passion for art suffers from the grief of letting them go and also the joy of letting them go."
L: "Hello D... Thank you for your letter. ... Sorry, I don't know the name Red Hawk or the book. Can you tell me who that is...
It is very hard to be objective when it comes to family and very close friends. Examining and processing past (and even present) events and hurt feelings toward your siblings surrounding your parents long term care in the light of what real work on oneself brings can be so healing. I worked for many years to learn how to release ... anger, hurt and resentment toward my family ... so that I could come to a place of [less subjective] understanding and simply Be and Love them ... unconditionally. My Heart appreciated the release. It was in that prison along with everyone else until I let go. It is necessary to let go of the old dreams, plans and expectations and simply Be in the reality that truly is in each moment [I Am] in a state of acceptance - present in the moment.
This inner Work is an example of the voluntary suffering Gurdjieff spoke of. You are experiencing that, as you acknowledge that you are being nourished by the work of self observation. You will see more and more often as you work toward emotional freedom that if you can be present to both what you are experiencing emotionally and identified with, [without being taken by the experience], it will be easier to let it go and something else, [something Higher] begins to take place in you. Real Love, Understanding and Compassion will come to take the negativity's place.
Really the truth is, at the bottom of it all is some poor little "i" or group of "i's" somewhere inside, measuring and counting - keeping score of how much love "it" got for how much love "it" gave and retelling "it's" sad old stories and lies to itself. When you can see those "i's" clearly in a moments of Being, the pain subsides and is transformed ... True understanding comes, bringing the Love those poor little "i's" have been wishing for [all your life] from those outside yourself "they" expected to get it from. You begin to get that Love from yourself, from your Higher self.
Gurdjieff's idea that every stick has two ends serves well when one can stand, whole, in the middle. Whenever I get the poop end, I turn it around and look at what is there on the other end. I verify this for myself over and over again.
I am also an artist and find that when my [outer] work is interrupted by ... emotional issues, I am identified. I need to stop everything and sit until I am no longer identified with whatever has taken me. Then, when I return to the ... [outer work] , I am so much more present and so much better at my craft...
Be Peace
Be Love
Be Well
BE
L.
