THE SOULS FLAW
“In all this talk of ‘soul-reckoning,’ a word must be said about our ‘blind-spot,’ the way in which we conceal our true Self from ourselves, and conceal this act of concealment. This blind-spot is highly charged, and even as we catch a glimpse of it, it recedes, provoking all sorts of avoidant behaviors. However, if it is confronted and contained, it ultimately yields its secret and strength.”
-Gate To The Heart- Reb Zelman (pg. 87)
In the not so distant past, my daughter and I were talking over sushi. The conversation drifted into dangerous ground as we discussed the various narcissists in our family. Anger is an emotion I’ve never kept concealed and I’ve always looked at it as the character flaw I needed to overcome. You can imagine my surprise when my daughter said “you’ve became unbearably judgmental in your old age.” Naturally, I cracked a joke about barely being 40 but the seed was planted.
When your child has the EQ of a 90 year old saint it’s always good practice to apply their observations and study self. The more I examined my inner dialogue and the passive aggressive words I’d hidden under a thin veil of snarky flair I realized it was self-righteous anger. The reason anger had such a home in my heart is because I looked at it as manifested trauma- a justifiable roughness around my edges.
Oh, the lies we tell ourselves are always the sweetest. After all, how can someone 20+ years into meditation and spiritual practice possibly be running on ego. Not just the ego we use to navigate through existence but a carefully crafted ego that had allowed all the gangster mentality of my youth to shift forms and hide behind what I thought of spiritual evolution. I had found a way to remain critical of people who weren’t putting in the work to change their lives and do better.
Like I have exclusive rights to spiritual growth and know what it feels like to be anyone else. You see the arrogance in that?
Once again, I set a sentinel at the gate of my heart and began observing every instance where this new spiritual ego reared its head. I created new prayers to recite with lines asking God to “remind me it is you who is reflected in people I don’t like.” Yud, Lamed, Hey became the letters I engraved on my heart with a simple mantra of “I will spread love for no reason.” I took those judgmental thoughts and steered them towards instances where I did something equally cruel- or as is usually the case with x-cons with gang files, something worse.
Examining flaws became a source of compassion and humility. Meditation and prayer became more fluid and I became painstakingly aware of the fact that I can still be a complete asshole of left unchecked. That… is unacceptable no matter how pretty the mask appears to be.
Still not sure which one of us is the parent but growth is a process.
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Just finished season 4 of The Umbrella Academy. I’ve been looking all through the tags on it to see if anyone else has pointed this out.
Still can’t believe I’m only seeing people talk about Lila and Five and not how they used that horrendous trope of “we feel this powerful, magical connection between us which gives us an insatiable urge to just fuck so we will even though it literally adds nothing to the plot or storyline and we only have this urge because we’re a man and a woman and for some reason the writers think that our relationship needs to be inherently sexual then as a result” with Ben and Jennifer.
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Dc x dp idea 134
Danny does not like leaving amity. When he’s not there he is in a stressed and anxious state. He knows he can run to the ghost zone in amity.
Everywhere else. Yea. The government can legally dissect him and he wouldn’t have easy access to safety. So no. No thank you. He will very much not go anywhere else.
Then of course a field trip happens.
Dannys forced to go. Lines like maybe you’ll see an alien. Their hero’s it’s perfectly safe. From the minute he gets there he is beyond stressed and on edge.
Then they go to the watchtower. They were so lucky they got the opportunity (heros definitely not just trying to see what’s up with amity discreetly after finding firewalls blocking info).
He is not discretely hiding it at all. Hovering by doors. Definitely not plotting if he could escape into the vacuum of space. Thinking about all the times the government tried to kill him. The sun wouldn’t kill him right? He could escape to the sun. Or how legally the league would have to turn him in. Like they work with the government. Just pure panic thoughts.
He is absolutely not thinking of every scenario that could happen. Definitely not spiraling the longer they are there.
It’s not like anyone could tell.
Everyone could tell. And with the panic as bad as it was. Well they did have a couple mind readers.
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