This morning when I woke up, I popped in a Christmas CD ... you know the kind? Classical music with the sounds of song birds and running water mixed in ... I think they call that bringing the outside in or something like that?
My dog is getting old so she starts stretching when she hears me in the morning. She has plenty of time to stretch while she watches me make the coffee and put the toast in the toaster.
This morning, she was especially anxious and did her low whine which is doggie for "Gotta Go - Gotta go - Gotta GO!". I laughed as we walked to the door, not sure who was leading who, but when I opened the door, I saw the most magical thing!
My yard was full of CEDAR WAXWINGS! They travel in flocks of 30-40 and the males have masks like tiny little lone rangers. They are my favorite! I haven't seen them in years though.
The weather has been so strange for the past few years that I figured we weren't on their flight path anymore ... I have seen them only occasionally, but today, I had a visit from a WHOLE FLOCK!
How awesome if that?
Native Americans have long believed that animals have specific character traits and considered animals that they identified with strongly to be a part of their totem or even their "spirit guide". Their is a wonderful book called ANIMAL SPEAK by Ted Andrews. Ted Andrews's best selling ANIMAL SPEAK shows readers how to identify his or her animal totem and learn how to invoke its energy and use it for personal growth and inner discovery. I couldn't resist looking up the waxwing. It said:
Waxwing - connection to healing, self respect and control of ego
How cool is that? Healing? I sure am! Self respect? I have more of that than I ever have. Control of ego? I have been learning a lot about that justrecently.
I'd like to talk about that. I have had some contact with people recently whose soul agenda was to put me down, upset me, tip my apple cart and I knew it. There really are people who ENJOY making other people miserable! It's like a game to them. If they are picking on me, it means someone else is getting a rest! And picking on somebody makes them feel like they are better, wiser, smarter. It doesn't matter if it's true or not. It's what they feel so it's real to them. If that's all they have to feel good about, they don't have much.
What do I have? I have a good life ... a huge caring family, lots of friends, a warm and cozy house, lots of nice things and there is always someplace interesting to go or something fun to do, even if it's just my own backyard! If I have so much, does it really matter what a few people say to me or about me? Nope, not really. I can afford to be generous.
So if "winning" is so important to them and this argument means nothing to me ... Why not let them think they won? I'm not talking about being a doormat for someone ... I'm talking about having so much that my ego just doesn't have to weigh in on every conversation.
Ego ... we stroke them, bruise them, protect them, feed them, check them ... Dr. Sam Vankin, in his book Malignant Self Love, talks about strong and weak egos:
"Persons with a strong Ego can objectively comprehend both the world and themselves. In other words, they are possessed of insight. They are able tocontemplate longer time spans, plan, forecast and schedule. They choose decisively among alternatives and follow their resolve. They are aware of the existence of their drives, but control them and channel them in socially acceptable ways. They resist pressures – social or otherwise. They choose their course and pursue it.
The weaker the Ego is, the more infantile and impulsive its owner, the more distorted his or her perception of self and reality. A weak Ego is incapable of productive work.
The healthy Ego preserves some sense of continuity and consistency. It serves as a point of reference. It relates events of the past to actions at present and to plans for the future. It incorporates memory, anticipation, imagination and intellect. It defines where the individual ends and the world begins. Though not coextensive with the body or with the personality, it is a close approximation."
I never thought about it, but recovery is a time when we put aside our false self in favor of our true self and the more we get in touch with our true self, the healthier our ego will become. We let go of the false things that held us back and embrace the true things that will carry us through ...
Does that make sense?
When we project "an image" of what we want people to see, we have a lot invested in maintaining that image and our egos become touchy little things whose soul purpose is to "keep up the image" to the rest of the world but when we commit to living a more REAL life, we have to let go of that false image we projected and accept that we are what we are and we are where we are. There is no use trying to be or do something else because we are here in this moment for a reason ... and living one day at a time is freely admitting to ourselves and the world around us that THIS IS WHO I AM, for better or worse, this is ME ...
Recovery is committing to do inner work ... to consciously work on our selves from the inside out. As a co-dependent, I have lived most of my life from the outside in. Who I was and how I felt depended on how the world around me was responding to me at the time! As a co-dependent in recovery, the false self and the false ego have to share the back seat! Recovery is admitting and accepting that some things have to change. It is starting every day with:
God grant me the serenity to accept the things
I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and
the wisdom to know the difference.
No room for false, inflated egos there ... No reason to get in a "battle of egos" or a "battle of wits" or a "battle of wills" with anybody! Most of life's situations have gone better for me when I consciously checked my ego at the door!
Let me read that again ...
"The healthy Ego preserves some sense of continuity and consistency. It serves as a point of reference. It relates events of the past to actions at present and to plans for the future. It incorporates memory, anticipation, imagination and intellect. It defines where the individual ends and the world begins."
To think one little flock of waxwings got me to thinking about all this ...
Maybe, God sent them to my yard, knowing they were my favorite, but also knowing that I'd look them up in the book and see that they represent:
connection to healing
self respect
control of ego
Maybe it was my little reward for choosing to be kind to those who came looking for a fight? Maybe, He just wanted me to know that I am connected to HIS healing. I do respect myself more for the way I reacted. I am learning to control my ego ...
After a lifetime of trying to get other people to love me, it feels good to love myself ... but even better to KNOW that God loves me too! Do you know how I know? Well, this morning, he sent me a flock of my favorite birds!
1 comment:
Light and Love to All.... this is a great piece. Hits home.
I was born into a FoO system of religious cult malignant narcissism (very well hidden from societies view, as is their way of surviving.), and I was deemed their Identified Patient, scapegoat. All I knew was an elevated sympathetic nervous system, and a brain that developed "autistic type" output due to constant maltreatment, all forms of assault, abuse and trauma, and group think/action against me in shunning form. I somehow knew pain wasn't
All Life had to offer and yearned to live free of it all, yet without the ability to complete the knowing due to my brain's corpus callosum deficiency and thus left/right brain unable to hold and process like data, I always came up deficient and stuck in the cycle... only my lifetime of seeking Truth, a working heart, and finally my Mother's sudden death to occur, thus setting my psyche free from Stockholm syndrome. Plus absolute 100% no contact with 99%of all FoO and like minded ones for two years, learning about my physiology and needs, addressing my overtaxed addrenals and gaining safety physically and emotionally and mentally and Spiritually, have I begun the task of realigning all my Person to my rightful place in my Space here, now, with joy and confidence. I am exceptionally successful.
As for ego, I embrace these wounded parts of me and no longer fear their presence... as I know each is a need with in me to be felt , loved and held so the wounded memory and part of my ME PAST can be brought into my now alignment of Inner Wholeness, safely and soundly.
Every part of Self is Sacred and worthy to be heard and loved into its place of Wholeness.
I realize I reside in the center of the Infinte, fearlessly. I am always Home.
<3
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