Me-as-You-are.
Seeing the good and feeling the bad; losing our joy in other people's suffering.
Dear family,
The other week, I wrote a poem about measuring up to Love. I’d found someone who effortlessly emanated peace, openness, compassion, and self-commitment and listened attentively, with Love, to those in contact with him. In him, I noticed all that was good, all that was Love, and I wanted this for myself.
A POEM - SEEING LOVE IN ANOTHER
Me-as-You-are
To pour into You without asking without question without invitation then measure Me in Your skeleton against Your spine notching the units of space You use to investigate where questions come from I have filled Your silence to the tongue even my lips leak at Your containment of Me. To pour into You without asking without question without invitation and fill Your peace entirely listening for Your enquiries to spill and drink you inside out enough to drown You with infectious salivation for You are everything I want for myself. To pour into me accepting question accepting asking accepting invitation You as I am what is it in Me that You want to reach I can’t see as I am as I am in You to become who You are Me to become Me as You are.
SOOTHING MYSELF THROUGH SOOTHING OTHERS
This morning, my Love played this. It reminded me of the poem. Yet again, poetry enlightens me on self-hood, inviting an enquiry into my emotional psychology and the peaceful, loving truth of human nature.
In this meditation by Gangaji, the student shares a story on wanting to soothe the huge suffering of their partner. On the surface, the will to soothe is experienced as a want to help the other feel better, to fix their self-inflicted injury, but underneath is a desire to want to be free of the others suffering. They cannot have the joy they want because what is in the partner is also in them; they are one, and they are each other, and if the other is sad, then she or 'I' is also sad and cannot fully experience the readily available joy.
SEEING THE GOOD IN PEOPLE
This wanting to fix the other in order to feel better is seeing the good in people. It’s a quality I’ve always had, even in those exhibiting spiteful, selfish, loveless behaviour. I felt saddened for them; sorry for them, believing something must have caused their negative disposition or pessimistic relationship to others. I wanted to understand the cause, and connect with them by soothing it.
The helplessness I saw in those expressing their suffering through negativity and righteousness opened me up to criticism as an adolescent. Trying to understand a person rather than judge them was a trait I was bought up to toughen up against. Seeing the good in people meant I was;
manipulated under the description ‘You’re influenced by others.’;
stupid under the lesson ‘Don’t be so naive!’;
untrustworthy under the slander ‘You are too trusting’;
senseless under the call ‘blind’ and ‘not being able to see’ what is supposedly blatantly obvious in their behaviour.
I took this as a fault in my self rather than a fault in the person in question. I have this innate want to be in relationship with all people. I feel in me what I see in them, and want to be a source of compassion for the undercurrent of sadness/loss expressing itself protectively through said spitefulness, selfishness, lovelessness.
This made me question my seeing the good in others intentions.
Is the loving nature I see in others; is the sadness, frustration, stress, anxiety, anger, displeasure or grief I feel in others actually my own?
Is my will to want to soothe them, to be the shoulder for their tears, a frustration that belongs to me?
Are my intentions to soothe them honest, or am I unable to experience joy unless they feel better?
Do I want them to feel better because their troubles affect me, or do I want them to feel better because their shadow makes me uncomfortable?
Am I accepting them for who they are, or do I want them to change?
Is my Love, is my Joy trapped in other people’s sadnesses?
Is my empathic sense actually a way to dissociate from myself?
Is my want to soothe them my inability to be present with these emotions?
Am I conditioned to notice the good underneath the bad so that I can protect myself from the expression &/or impact of the bad?
REFRAMING SHADOW *negative GUIDANCE
What I was essentially doing was seeing the sadness in them. My body and brain seem to tune into and contain the ‘shadow’ emotions (I want to avoid calling anger, envy, pride, ego, manipulation, spite, selfishness ‘negative’ as all emotional traits have their lessons) of others easier than the ‘light’ emotions.
What do I do then? I get confused. As I try to relate through understanding the cause of the suffering, I unintentionally reflect a concentration of the bad onto the other, and continue to tune my focus to find the undercurrent of sadness. If I notice the good intentions of everyone, regardless of their behaviour, am I wrong for feeling familial towards them?
How we measure up to one another, or at least how I measure up to others, is through feeling. I think this is a power, an emotional communication between bodies. The presentation of shadow inflicts a pain onto others thats really the cause of the shadows performance, which creates a fragmented physical reality.
I will always see the good in people. I will always seek to find the good out of a want to love, out of a want to relate, out of a want to mother and befriend. What I must work toward is seeing the light before the shadow, rather than dissect the shadow for light, and if the shadow is so permanent, love my shadow reflected in that emotional communication.
Soothing self through soothing others comes from wanting peace. It wants peace for other and for self. We measure ourselves against each other because we want to feel peace. We want to eradicate discomfort, fix the ailment, and soothe the sadness for want of peace.
Peace is what I saw in my Love most of all.
It’s what I wanted to experience. It’s how I want to be.Peace is what I want for everyone.
It’s why I want to soothe, it’s what I want for me.
Even as I go to write this final line, I see the positive intentions of the criticisms I received for always seeing the good in people. They wish I was more cautious with my relationships so as not be hurt, so as not to feel disappointed (a feeling I am often left with) when a relationship isn’t mutual. They had my best intentions at heart.
Love this Hayley.