September 10, 2003

• Serenity NOW!

  That terse, tense demand for serenity, for anyone who forgot or was fortunate enough to miss that Seinfeld episode, is a quote attributed to an unconventional self-help group.  I think it struck me as particularly funny when I first heard it because it was so typical of my approach to the mellowing-out process.  I used to think I was doing the world a favor by smoking dope because it mellowed me out and kept me from going postal all over everyone.  That wasn’t an original thought, either–it was my ex-husband Charley’s rationale for getting loaded:  better a loaded freak than a straight freak with a loaded gun.

  Now after over three months clean of all addictive indulgences (not just the substance ones, but processes, too) except caffeine and capsaicin (coffee and hot peppers), and over ten months free of my lifelong drug of choice, sugar, I’m apparently finally getting the knack of serenity, at least some of the time.  I got some solid practical help from the various “anonymous” programs in the form of numerous reminders that I could not afford to hang onto resentments, plus a foolproof way to get rid of them:  just let the stupid things GO!

  However, there is no chance that any of that would have been effective for me had it not been for a number of things that went before.  First was a therapy group experience almost thirty years ago–half my lifetime, approximately.  In that, I learned to detect my own defensiveness, see through my own bullshit and accept myself as I am.  That was a first necessary step toward becoming what I wanted to be.  As long as my unconscious mind couldn’t handle the thought that I was already less than perfect, and worked to hide from everyone including myself every imperfection anyone ever reminded me of, how could I actively engage in a pursuit of perfection?  Defensiveness, unchecked, would have kept me from accepting any of the helpful input I’ve received over the years.

  The next major influence on my ability to develop a serene attitude was Dick Sutphen of www.prohypnosis.com, who not only gave me opportunities to network and associate with other psychic weirdos like myself and tools to easily and non-toxically achieve the shamanic state of consciousness, but also taught me his version of the ancient Japanese philosophy of Bushido.  In particular his oft-repeated injunction to “cycle from positive to neutral” and leave out the dark, gloomy, depressed and destructive bottom of the mood cycle has been a great help to me.

  My ability to recognize my own behaviors and transcend the ones that didn’t serve me was greatly enhanced by the work of E.J. Gold, particularly his book The Human Biological Machine as a Transformational Apparatus.  (If you find that title intimidating, he has published a symplified version, Practical Work on Self .)  I even got the basics of writing HTML from another of the websites created by E.J.’s webmaster Claude Needham (AKA Dead Elvis, AKA General Xxaxx), www.newbie.org, but that’s only one of the peripheral benefits I’ve derived from that association. 

  Mainly it has been the tools and techniques for working on myself that I most appreciate.  There is a saying in the “A’s” (12-step programs) that the programs can’t keep you from indulging your addictions, but they will take all the fun out of it.  That is very much like the effect I’ve experienced from the attention-focusing mindfulness exercises I’ve gotten from E.J.  It is no fun to let my lower self run amok.  I have not literally, “lost the ability to bullshit.”  I simply lost the desire for it when the payoffs evaporated and the costs escalated for me.    

  Pain was a large part of what kept me tensed-up and made serenity hard to achieve and maintain.  When a grateful client sent me Tolly Burkan‘s first book, Dying to Live, pain was on its way to being the helpful danger signal it’s supposed to be.  Buddha is supposed to have said that pain is inevitable and suffering is optional.  As I learned to remain mindful that I had Tolly’s technique for neutralizing pain sensations, which he learned from Ken Keyes, Jr. after a pedestrian/auto accident that left him with many broken bones, my suffering fell away.

  After I got Internet access, the first thing I did was create my PainSwitch website to share the technique.  [note:  The website was hosted by Folksites, which is defunct, but that link goes to a blog in which I explain the technique.] Linking it to Tolly’s sites, including www.firewalking.com, and thanking Tolly once again for the release from suffering, got me on his email list, for which I have been grateful many times.  The first big perk from that hookup was a pre-publication copy of Tolly’s ebook, Extreme Spirituality: Radical Journeys for the Inward Bound. 

  I benefited greatly from it, and shared with Greyfox as much as he would accept.  That wasn’t much.  He wasn’t ready.  Last week, Tolly sent me another pre-publication sneak peek.  It is the condensed version of Extreme Spirituality, called The Five Points of Power.  I printed it out and took it to Greyfox.  From it he extracted and used something that was also a useful reminder to me at this tense and busy time.  That is the reminder to, “Let it be easy.”  I’m all for having things be easy, but when I get caught up in the busy-ness of it all my tendency is to try and MAKE it that way.  That doesn’t work.  I must remember to let it be.

  That’s an important thing for me to keep in mind right now, with the world in the state it’s in.  This comment from Imbi to my last blog, points out just one of the stressors, politics:

  About B. [editor's note: our own Prez Shrub]
  Our prime minister has visited him. ( from The Netherlands, a tiny country in Europe, we are a kingdom).
  We have send more than 1100  soldiers to Iraq, for humanitarian help, it is said. Wonder of it is to keep the Iraquies from american backs.
  In our country the protest against an invasion of Iraq was very large (%).
  So the B. government told on TV that we were in favor of Saddam. Noop, we didn’t agree with his arguments and the way he dealt with his own war-drive. So on all levels the Bush government was made clear that we didn’t live in one line with Saddam. Offered even all the a-wax crews that flew over america during the war, offered our airspace, so we got nuts from all the planes, and cried when we saw on TV the bombing. All for peace with Mr. B.

  And now our Prime minister had spoken to him and his team, … and then he came on TV….. telling that europeans had been against his way of dealing with the Iraqui crisis and had been in favor of Saddam (can’t remember the right words at the moment). Doesn’t that man have a memory??

  And the hypocresy: the memorial garden for 911 is made by a dutch garden designer and gardener. (so from my country).

  We feel for all people who have died…… Let that be clear.

  But I think the idea of a lot of americans that America is the best and has the most freedom of speech etc…needs to be researched. There are better countries in the world at the moment.

  Another thing that has many of us grinding our teeth and sweating bullets is the current rash of computer viri and worms.  Until today, I hadn’t seen much of that beyond a few instances of W32/Dumaru (ED) [Dumaru:  dumb are you indeed if you open that bogus "patch" that says it comes from Microsoft Security], but today there were three new instances of it caught by the Postini filter that my ISP obligingly provides us free of charge.  My son Doug receives hundreds of such notices from Postini every day on this computer, plus just as many other messages from which our own installed anti-virus software has blocked our access to attachments. 

  The correspondents who have Doug in their address books are generally a dumber or more careless lot than mine, certainly younger on average than mine.  He posts on many gaming forums and has published player’s guides and game FAQs that generate most of the email he gets–email usually from kids too dumb to figure out what he has written in the FAQs and follow instructions.  But thanks to Norton, Postini and all my aforementioned mentors, I’m not letting it get me down, not getting myself worked up over it.

  I have definitely mastered the “courage to change the things I can.”  With help, most of the time I have the serenity to accept the things I can’t change.  Now, I continue working on the “wisdom to know the difference.”  On that one, I can use all the help I can get.

  

  • 3:11 pm
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