My sponsor said, stop worrying about being perfect. Be faithful.
I know what she means. My fearful self thinks that I have to do things and say things absolutely correctly to get what I want. I will be abstinent. I will be sober. I will be financially secure. I will be safe. I will be liked. I will be thin. I won’t be blamed, or yelled at, or cheated, or lied to.
There’s only one problem, dear fearful self. I’m not perfect; and trying to be perfect makes me crazy. I get angry, rebellious, and defensive. I lie to myself and others. I am seductive and manipulative. I threaten others. I vehemently justify my words, thoughts and deeds. These are not pleasant states of being.
So, if I can’t be perfect, I’m told to be faithful.
What is faithfulness… I asked our therapist. He asked me back (of course), what is faithfulness. I answered, but knew my answer wasn’t quite right. He asked again. I answered again, not yet there. I got a little deeper with my next effort. He asked me to think about what it is that I can be faithful to that I don’t want to rebel against.
Yesterday evening, during her webinar “Wide Awake: The Path and Practice of Meditation”, I asked Susan Piver, what is it about meditation that I can be faithful to and not rebel against. She said, “There is only one thing to be faithful to and that is yourself and your experience in the moment. That is what we are faithful to and by that we mean being present. Presence is a kind of faithfulness… and a kind of trust [ohhh… yes]. And faith and trust are related. However it’s completely fine and good even to have doubt and rebelliousness [really?]. When rebelliousness arises in our practice we say “thinking”. That’s a thought. Let it go and come back to the breath. You can totally be rebellious and you can have a lot of doubt. Doubt and rebelliousness – although they can be counterproductive after a certain point – are also a sign of intelligence [hooray!]. So, we are not trying to subsume our own mind in a system of belief that someone else gave us. We are trying to find what we believe and we are trying to discover who we are. And the faithfulness is to your own path, which is the same thing as your experience. Your experience is the path. There is no other path. So please be faithful to that.”
Similarly, our 12-step program says, to thine own self be true. It says, be honest and we will receive the promises of the program.
Yesterday, I fell in love with and purchased a beautiful salad bowl. I didn’t enjoy the experience very much though. There was a voice saying, this is not what you are supposed to be doing. You are a bad girl. You shouldn’t be spending this money. You should be including Gregory in the decision. You should keep looking, go to more stores, check online.
So, all the way home I was caught up in preparing to justify my action. I ended up lying to Gregory. I exaggerated how hard I’d looked everywhere else for salad bowls. I said that I would return it if he didn’t like it. I said that I would pay for it out of my (dwindling) monthly account.
If I had been faithful, honest and true to myself I would have said, “Hello Gregory. I fell in love with this beautiful salad bowl and I bought it. I thought about the expense and I thought about the pleasure of using this bowl twice a day. I went ahead and bought it. My only real misgiving is that you weren’t there to choose it with me. Please look at the bowl. I want you to love it, too.”
I can be faithful to myself in the moment. I can be faithful to my experience. I can let go of fear and trust myself. I can be honest.
Love & Light,
Valerie
What a relief! So faithfulness is being honest with myself and others. That’s actually a lot easier than keeping up with a lie.
Hi Ma,
You make me smile.
Love & Light,
Valerie
The other day I had a bite with a colleague of ours. (I am in town until Sunday) In the discussion I talked about a characteristic of mine and how I am looking into changing it … the long short is that I am rarely ever on time …. for anything.
BUT … BUT … there is more to this lateness thing: For one, it manifests in such a way that I end up being a liar. “The traffic was horrible. There was an accident. They closed off the road I needed to get on, diverted us to Utah :)” and so on.
I believe that once a little lie is told, what’s the difference if another little one is put out there, and another one and … will the fibs and white lies become all out fiction? I’m not going to find out.
So, what’s the remedy?
* I need to give myself more time to commute from point A to B to … z
* I need to be honest with myself and others … “I am sorry, I procrastinated. I am sorry, I was caught up in my work and didn’t want to stop.”
The only thing I am very good at is letting people know 10-15 minutes earlier that I am going to be 10-15 minutes late. But still, why make people wait? Why speed up and down the road like a NY cabbie? There’s no need for all that rushing and hustling.
My faith is interconnected with awareness (and then acceptance and action). But I can only get to awareness if I am AWAKE and ready to look at the situation without judgment. I think you do thais very thing better than me and anyone I’d ever met.
Enjoy the salad!
Hi Richard!
So nice to know that you are close by.
We are enjoying our salad AND our salad bowl! Happy-happy me!
Oh boy. Awake is necessary for awareness without judgment, which give us the opportunity to accept and take honest action, in accordance with faithfulness to ourselves. You said it, Brother!
I keep thinking about my rebellious nature. What am I rebelling against? Is it this notion that I’m supposed to be perfect and do all the right things in the right way? If Susan is right and rebelliousness is a sign of intelligence (I absolutely agree) then maybe I can check in with that part and ask what’s up. What are you trying to tell me? I’m awake to you. I aware of you. I’m not judging you. I accept you. I’m taking an action with your concerns in mind. I’m being true to all of me, including the rebel.
Love & Light,
Valerie
I don’t believe everything in a relationship should be a “compromise.” Yeah, the big things or I guess if your taste is very different and it’s something that is a big deal. I was married for 16 years and when it came time to split our property, it was done in less than an hour. I was amazed by stories that people spent enormous amounts of time deciding who got what. In our case, I realized it was easy because we’d had a shared value that allowed each of us to pick the item that we loved. Sometimes it was more expensive, sometimes less than we wanted to spend. But everything in the house was loved by one of us and put a smile on one of our faces everyday.
That’s when I learned I didn’t have to “love” or always really “like” what my partner, friends, or child like. What’s important to me is that they love it and it brings joy to their heart and a smile to their being. I’m not so altruistic that anything goes, my one criteria is that it doesn’t upset me from the perspective of if I have to look at it everyday or it’s inappropriate. I remember vetoing a sign that said “fuck you” (the husbands favorite word) and skirts that were too short and tops that were too low, etc.
If the salad bowl brings a smile, it was the right one. You can always skimp on something else to make up the money, and somehow it will make it all the more right because of how virtuous you feel by disciplining yourself that way for something that made your heart sing!
Have faith that being honest with yourself, especially when something touches you deeply where there’s only a joyous, innocent smile of being, you’re touching something real. Something beautiful inside. You.
Thank you, Jeanmarie.
You bring a smile to my face!
I’m happy to report that once I was honest with Gregory, he was totally on board with the salad bowl. He even pointed out what he sees in it that’s beautiful; and he asked for the best way to wash it! He did groan a bit when I said it would be good to hand dry it each time.
Love & Light,
Valerie
I think you are intelligently rebelling against the notion that you don’t deserve the salad bowl, and since you may think Gregory is in line with that thinking — you will find out the answer to both by doing the purchase (and if need be) apologize later. If it is a money issue, tighten up somewhere else for a few days, the bowl already has greater yield in your investing in it. Clearly it is leading you to look at this stuff deeper (at least a grand in therapy saved right there!)
The perfection part, to me, sounds like you clearly know there is no such thing. (It is really a bizarre word). Regardless, the word is in your mind and whatever you defined as being perfect is imperfect – because perfect doesn’t exist, and so you will prove that when you can. 🙂 many will believe their understanding of Gd is perfect, and that’s cool — but then why in Gd’s name are we getting ___ with ourselves when we can’t do Her job that well?
If not obvious, you aren’t alone in this one and these are just my findings.
Thank you for the conversation and the exploration, Richard! I appreciate your findings.
Yes! The Gift of the Salad Bowl – a deeper understanding of each other and acceptance of each other as whole, wonderful, growing human beings.
Love & Light,
Valerie
Typos – stinky typos. I can’t edit from here tho.
😉
I was very engaged in your reflection about the purchase of the salad bowl. For many years, I used to make bowls out of clay. I studied their shape, how the clay would rise under my hands, the feel of the slip between my fingers. Then there was the task of removing small bowls from the hump and large bowls from the bat without altering the shape — making them oblong — or only slightly out of round. I relish a well-formed bowl. So many steps to make a bowl — the glazing process could yield delightful surprises or the satisfaction associated with a well-executed application of a reliable glaze. Sometimes bowls gave me delight and sometimes disappointment — but always learning. Bowls took me out of myself and plopped me right down in the present moment, over and over and over again. I celebrate bowls – their properties of roundness and smoothness and the delicious feel and sound of the clay. With all this going on I’m not surprised that you fell in love with your salad bowl. Valerie — I hope it continues to nourish your soul by its beauty and your body with its bounty. I loved your post -it made me remember happy times.
Dear Sandra,
Reading your beautiful contemplation on the bowl helped me to pause this evening and take a deep and peaceful breath. Thank you very much.
Some good news. Gregory says he loves me… and he loves the bowl, too. 🙂
Love & Light,
Valerie
Dear Valerie,
There are many 12-step groups for food addictions and you have had such a wonderful experience with yours. Is it possible for you to share with me the name of your 12-step group?
Hi Tricia,
I would be happy to privately share the name of my 12-step group with you and anyone else who is interested. I’m also happy meet you on the phone for a conversation about my program.
Please email me at valerie@acpuofkindness.com and I’ll get back to you ASAP.
Thanks for your interest.
Love & Light,
Valerie