judgement

Daily Reading: Remembering Our Choice

/ Elisa / 3 Comments

“It’s easy to blame, the media, our culture, or our community for perpetuating unrealistic images of what it expects of us. But at the very core of these expectations, there is no one to blame; because a commercial, like self-judgement, has no power over us unless we agree with its message. It is only when we willingly attach ourselves to these images and distortions that our happiness is compromised.

We do not need to take the blame for these self-judgements. We can simply become aware that they have been developing in our lives since childhood through the process of domestication.

Once we are aware of our self-judgements, we can regain our freedom by choosing for ourselves to transcend the reward and punishment model that has been imposed upon us and eventually arrive at a place of self-acceptance. We have a choice. That is our power.

Practice: How many of your ideas and beliefs about the world and yourself are results of domestication and outside influence? Do you assume things should be or look a certain way because that’s what you’ve seen on TV or in your community, and it seems normal? With awareness question those assumptions today. Ask yourself if things might be otherwise and if you could be happy without these rigid ideals of perfection.”

Taken from: Living a Life of AWARENESS Daily Meditations on the TOLTEC Path by Don Miguel Ruiz Jr. ISBN: 9781938289231

Walktober (3)

/ Elisa / 7 Comments

This is an image of the amazing greeting view that met me at the Gate by the Tree of Many Faces. It is still there. It is still beautiful. I checked. The image does not portray the scene. Sometimes images don’t.

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Which ones do we edit because they are not enough? Which ones do we edit because there is a shame that a thing will be seen as bad? I believe in a concept of things being bad and not good enough. I believe that the world is becoming a place where everyone is lovely, and that we all have to lie to ourselves to be such. Every effort is enough. Every action gets a reward.

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But, does it get the right one? A sense of pleasure and satisfaction with the self, from the self and the spirit? If I judge a passion as a way to judge what is right, what about the person that takes up a hobby that is hard and different, because their joy is simply to try a new thing? I can have shame now at not being enough to notice that what works for me CAN mean that something else is false and wrong, or for taking too long to see another way. I am not at all ready to give up the fact that even the bench warmer gets an award. I wonder if competition and worthiness is not the same as a shame. Yes, Kathy I am pondering the shame post.

I loved the post. I didn’t love that I cried. I loved that I cried. So now, I ponder. I wonder if I am attempting to step back, to detach as some say. I used to have vast difficulties feeling or aiming to feel detached. I would shout, how does detached feel? You want me to be a sociopath? Oh! You want me to disassociate, I’m good at that, however the world says that is bad. So I am going to ponder and attach and detach and reattach someplace else until I am satisfied, and hopefully that won’t mean that I beat the tar out of myself.

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I wanted to share all of the wonderful books that I got through Inter-library Loan. I have so many new amazing things to which I wish to attend fully, that I can’t choose. I am also having trouble with focus, fear and worry do that to me. I wonder if it is ok just to admire the heft of each one, the shape, and the feel of the pages. The dent of the text. It is for me.

I walked last night on a manageable loop through a park, around behind the Thomas Taber Museum, onto the Rail Place, through Park Home and back. I think that makes a Tree Place length and there are grasses and many trees and plants, both native and landscaped. It was a nice thing to do after dinner and made it simpler to overcome being stuck and unable to move. I enjoyed it very much, both the freedom from being stuck and the ground so close to home.

PSST! Unsure of how Robin wishes the links to the Walktober Project so,