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I’ve been more or less inhabiting barren for the last several days, with numerous discoveries arising thanks to being willing to be there.
In the past I had always fled as fast as I could into a new reality, a new hope.
At this stage, for me, ‘barren’ is the absolute best place to be because I can see ‘me’ extremely clearly. Crystal clear. Without ‘getting up to flee,’ me is happening right in front of me.
Strangely, because I want to be here, it’s painful but not painful. It’s very odd. I can see how one could enter enlightenment from here.
The sweetness is coming through frequently, and it’s not coming from me.
I can’t rush the ‘barren’ experience, because it would mean trying to ignore things. The observations and removals have to happen at their own pace. What I can do is, allow the barrenness to happen as completely as I can, much in the same way as allowing the sweetness to happen. It’s the beginning of allowing ‘out-from-control’
I’m beginning to experience ‘nothing can go wrong’ because not being afraid of ‘stark, barren,’ nothing can really hurt me anymore.
All my worst fears are right in front of me, in fact I’m being hit by them constantly now. But as I said above it’s what I’m doing, on purpose. I understand that this is where I need to be.
I have found myself attempting to ‘bring my friends along with me,’ I have tremendous drive right now to share with others ‘my discovery.’
I see this as human ‘fellowshipping,’ like how Frodo has to get his fellowship around him before he goes to Mordor.
‘I’ want to have my buddies around me as protection.
I’m not sure what will have to happen for me to drop that. I think it will drop automatically as part of the barrenness.
I could see talking to a couple of people last night that they couldn’t tell what I was experiencing. I was trying to ‘bring them here.’
That’s probably reckless on my part. It’s for ‘me.’ They can’t come if they’re not ready.
‘I’ partly conceptualize these human beings ‘I’ call ‘my friends’ as these helpers for me to become free. So I have to drag them along with me. But I have to be considerate of where they are, what they are wanting, what their capabilities are. It’s no good for me to rush anything. That is a recipe for later problems.
It’s no problem for me to share this or that tidbit. But any pressure at all is going to be problems.
There’s also an element of bragging/showing off. “Look where I am! Look at what I can do!”
That is actually going back into reality. It’s ‘my’ accomplishment. I’m bringing home my little drawing to mommy to show off that I am ‘good.’
What do I think that gets me? Security… love… all that gets me is more humanity, codependency, insecurity. I’m waiting for their approval. I won’t get it for long, it returns to rejection.
It also means my own rejection has primacy.
I’m doing the same thing with Discourse: ‘I hope these people will approve of me, I hope these people will find me impressive.’
And hoping they will ‘be where I am’ ‘understand me.’
Interesting.
It’s a bit funny bc I simultaneously/alternately want to impress people (“be above them”) and have safety from people (“be below them”), depending on how confident I am in any moment… in other words what my emotional charge is moment to moment.
Proud = showing-off, insecure = desiring protection.
But it all depends on ‘knowing what’s happening,’ ‘the one who wants control’ being supreme.
Opposed to what Peter says, “I don’t know what’s happening to me,” “Out from control,” “allowing it to happen,” “I am the universe experiencing itself being alive.”
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What is in the way of perfection?
Still waiting for others to entertain me
I imagine that I ‘feel better’ with them here / performing a certain way. That’s fantasy
In actuality I’m a bit sick, low energy, I don’t want anyone around right now.
What’s happening is already perfect. Pre-eminently perfect.
Objections are very few, gossamer-like
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I made a connection last night that I was fantasizing about asking this girl out, but that the fantasy did nothing for me… it was a mental rehearsal for something that would never happen (at least, the way that I was rehearsing), and something I’ve rehearsed many times with many different girls without anything happening (again, the way that I imagined). I could see that the actual moment of interacting with someone is a totally different category than whatever fantasy-‘rehearsal.’
And if anything all the rehearsing is holding her at a distance, it’s preventing any interaction from ever happening. Really the way it would work is, I just find myself somewhere. I find myself talking with her, I find myself saying this or that. It’s all surprising, it’s not planned. Any planned interaction would be wooden… not a recipe for anything sincere, for anything that I want to happen. It’s antithetical to freedom.
Which also explains why it has never worked out for me in the past, the entire ‘being’ that I’ve been in with attraction has been a block to anything good happening.
Everything that has happened with me and my partner has been circumstantial-coincidental, a total surprise. We’ve put effort and growth into everything good and sincere that has happened between us, ‘I’ have done that work but it never went according to my plan. Ever since the beginnging.
Part of what’s been valuable about opening up rejection again, about going back into ‘barren,’ is that I can see that it’s the same old me, I can see where I’ve always gone wrong in the past. The connections are adding up. And now it’s now, I have the opportunity to be different with all the awareness that I have now. I don’t want to squander what has happened, everything that I have done.
With this girl that I’m attracted to, I don’t want more of the same, for me to be going to her from insecurity hoping for her to fill a hole in me.
I know it can be different than that, and it’s something I can do right now, from here on this couch typing this. It starts now (just as it has started from all the other ‘now’s’ going backwards). Because it is always now.
Just right now she is somewhere, doing something - who knows what. Actually existing.
This is fertile ground for me.
Overwhelmingly sweet
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‘I’ would rather be in the fantasy/reality
I do it for them, for her, for me, for him.
The actuality is here waiting. I remember seeing it
But it means giving up on the fantasy, forever.
To be here instead.
It’s really magical. More magical than I ever had the capacity to remember
The magic doesn’t fit in ‘my’ memory. It’s not compatible
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Faltering between wanting to see people and wanting to hide in a way that indicates self
Both are perfect options right now
Why do I not want to be seen?
I’m afraid of their response… of not being understood… once again, of rejection.
Why does it always come back to rejection?
I believe that rejection is bad
It’s people’s natural defense
They reject because it is human to reject
It is part of the makeup of, ‘human’
Humanity
History is full of rejections big and small
Families and relationships are full of rejection
I want them to see how ‘good’ I am, I don’t want them to see how ‘bad’ I am, how weak I am, destitute, broken, helpless, confused.
All ‘me.’
Here, the actual. Here, ‘me.’
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Physically tired, head hurts a bit, cut off from sweetness somehow… I am looking for a way out
My grandiose plans didn’t pan out… as always!
Have to find perfection in ‘tired.’
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I’m keeping it ‘over there’ at a safe distance from myself right now
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