forgiveness and coming clean - Jan

July 30, 2009

Hi Jan,

I can relate to a lot of what you said; my father basically drank himself to

death, and would quit then relapse, never getting the better of it, and finally

dying from it. I hated him for that, there were times I wanted to kill him, and

i hated that he kept on going back..

In my experiences with drugs and alcohol, it eventually hit home after one crazy

party weekend I went sat with a coffee and stared at the people walking around

the city, and asked deeply what I was doing. It came to me that I was getting

high because I wanted unity, I wanted completion, I wanted to find a place

where, even for a blessed moment, I would be whole, complete and okay, not

wanting, not running, searcching or hungering..

When I realized I wanted unity, thats when I took my spiritual practice with

increased urgency, and due to both grace and my commitment, I have increasingly

become whole. I feel addiction is the search for wholeness, driven by roots of

pain as desires are thwarted by the unconscious and the resuling, recylced pain

is difficult to face. It took me a long time to understand the cycle of

destruction, and to understand the roots of destructive behaviour, to reach the

hidden love behind destruction, and, with the healing hand of grace, to heal..

i listened to a talk last night on www.integrallife.com, between Ken Wilber and

a Zen monk called 'Mondo Zen : Five element training'. They started to speak

about anger, and I thought of you with your anger, and I thought also of my own

anger, as its a powerful energy when it raises its head. I kind of paraprhased

his words at one section in the talk, and for me its a very clear process of

how to penetrate to the root wisdom of anger...

He spoke about how at our core, we are totally empty, totally free.

so then, how do we reach that freedom?

'Anger is not a feeling, its a violent intervention. If you slow it down, drop

into witnessing (turiya), what you are really experiencing is fear, and the

intervention is a movement to avoid fear and protect something. If you stay in

the witness (turiya), stay in the fear and slow it right down, then you will

find there is grief. If you go into the grief, you will find what drives it all,

which is unreasonable love. Its like holy sh$t, I am really deeply moved and

concerned, and I am being violent in presenting that deep concern. This is a

philosophical problem based on ignorance..(total confusion) if you really get

this, it has to have meaning. Next time you feel anger, drop to your knees, get

the tears in your eyes that are really telling what you feel, and do something

meaningful. Now anger is your liberation, and anger can never, never, never

seduce you again, because now you are awake. You can do the same thing with any

negative reaction.. "

love to you and your family

Bruce

, " Jan " <drjandean

wrote:

>

> I have a lot of anger and sadness coming up. My dad has resumed drinking and

he forgets and gets redundant & strongly opinionated. It seems like every time

I consider visiting my family, one of them relapses. I hate addiction! It

makes absolutely no sense to me, such a destructive behavior. Yet, I think the

deep anger and forgiveness work is towards myself for my own past alcohol

problem and all that it brought. I am where I am now as a result of the choices

I've made. when I was drinking, I was s@xually promiscious in part to hurt

others and of course, it ultimately hurt me. It was about power and control,

rarely about love and intimacy, but sometimes it felt powerless. During my

alcohol days, i became pregnant and had an abortion. this was decades ago but

still deeply pains me and I often look at young adults and think about how old

my child would be if I'd had him/her. When I quit drinking, I quit the

promiscuity and became much more controlled, less flexible. Now I've been

trying to reclaim something I seem to have cut off from. The dancing is the

beginning of reclaiming this vital energy. I'm asking K Ma to help me heal

this, I surrender it at her feet by writing to you all about this.

> Love and blessings,

> Jan

>

July 30, 2009

Thanks dear Bruce for this great layering look at anger from the talk you

listened to,

It makes great sense to me and I did get to the tears after writing about it on

the list . I am starting to develop a separation between the addiction and my

various using family members. I'm reading a book right now in fact called Thirst

for Wholeness thats about that very thing, the longing for wholeness, unity that

addiction is in pursuit of.

I appreciate your support and sharing.

Love,

Jan

, " bruce_oom "

<bruce_oom wrote:

>

> Hi Jan,

>

> I can relate to a lot of what you said; my father basically drank himself to

death, and would quit then relapse, never getting the better of it, and finally

dying from it. I hated him for that, there were times I wanted to kill him, and

i hated that he kept on going back..

>

> In my experiences with drugs and alcohol, it eventually hit home after one

crazy party weekend I went sat with a coffee and stared at the people walking

around the city, and asked deeply what I was doing. It came to me that I was

getting high because I wanted unity, I wanted completion, I wanted to find a

place where, even for a blessed moment, I would be whole, complete and okay, not

wanting, not running, searcching or hungering..

>

> When I realized I wanted unity, thats when I took my spiritual practice with

increased urgency, and due to both grace and my commitment, I have increasingly

become whole. I feel addiction is the search for wholeness, driven by roots of

pain as desires are thwarted by the unconscious and the resuling, recylced pain

is difficult to face. It took me a long time to understand the cycle of

destruction, and to understand the roots of destructive behaviour, to reach the

hidden love behind destruction, and, with the healing hand of grace, to heal..

>

> i listened to a talk last night on www.integrallife.com, between Ken Wilber

and a Zen monk called 'Mondo Zen : Five element training'. They started to speak

about anger, and I thought of you with your anger, and I thought also of my own

anger, as its a powerful energy when it raises its head. I kind of paraprhased

his words at one section in the talk, and for me its a very clear process of

how to penetrate to the root wisdom of anger...

>

> He spoke about how at our core, we are totally empty, totally free.

> so then, how do we reach that freedom?

> 'Anger is not a feeling, its a violent intervention. If you slow it down, drop