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Mining My Undermining

Undermining: 

the action or process 

of lessening 

the effectiveness, power or ability 

of someone or something

gradually

insidiously

Alpine Germanic roots: 

to weaken, hinder, or impair

to erode the base or foundation

to dig a hole underneath

the mountain I am climbing

making it likely to collapse 

Historically, culturally, generationally tested

No wonder I am so good at it

I had lots of examples

Originally spelled with a 'y' instead of an 'i':

To myne is mine

To undermyne another

holds the echo of self sabotage

Shout my name into the canyon

Shake the ground with fear

If captive by the patterns of protection

then unable to cease the egoic projection

So consumed by the energy exerted 

to hold you underground

that I must stay there too 

A design that guarantees 

neither one of us 

will ever get to see the light of day

Pathways

Dark settles in just below my eyebrows

because the sunshine lands bright upon my forehead

Gentle warm caresses my eyelids heavy

Heavy sinks deep into the bottom of my sockets

drains throughout the pathways of my sinuses

flowing into my skull full of mad

This hot pessimistic neuron trance 

is soothed by the solar my bare head basks in

Hard headed to say where one ends and the other begins

Pleasure and pain blur together

A stone soup of emotional weather

A sharknado of defenses and accusations

My soft self is swept up in the wind

While my ego says “surfs up dude!”

My hurricane lasts about 3 days

You can survive just fine if you stay in the eye

but the rest of the world gets destroyed

Wade through the flooding and debree

Fires and uprooted trees

Foundations have crumbled

Powerlines jumbled 

There is no lack of electricity

It’s just not controlled anymore

Ripped free and returned to its lightening

randomly striking

running amuck in the dark

A few seconds of spark

gifting flashes of pathways

leading back to the edge of the clouds

where the sun is still shining

You are the lake.

Eckhart Tolle says “You are the lake.  What happens in the outside world causes the ripples and waves.”

If someone throws a stone into the lake it will disturb the water.  Ripples, splashes and waves will form.  If I wait long enough the ripples will go away and the calm will eventually return.

When I want things to change in my life and I am at a loss for what to do, I often throw stones.  It's an annoying habit I have observed within myself.  Throughout much of my life I have avoided conflict but in other ways I think I am addicted to the puzzle of it.  I have habitually responded to what I often hear as criticism, within my relationships, particularly my romantic partner relationships, with defensiveness and anger.  Sometimes, rightly so.  But as of late…as of being tired of labeling myself as the angry one in the relationship...as of being tired of my same old communication patterns...as of being tired of repeating the same old mistakes in a new relationship...and as of listening to lots of Buddhist thought on the matter…I have been attempting to form a different approach.  The question is, “what would happen if I didn’t react to someone’s opinion at all.”  What if I listened, responded with “I hear you and I respect your opinion and I disagree”… if that happens to be the case and, most importantly, WITHOUT any further efforts put into explaining or reiterating my point of view.  What if I didn’t take the bait.  

Eckhart Tolle also says that there are two kinds of ego that we all have.  The positive and the negative.  The good version of ourselves and the bad version of ourselves.  Both are ego.  But the negative ego is the stronger one.  The bad version of ourselves holds on harder.  Mine sure as hell does. Blaming and guilt are both internal dialogues that we have with ourselves and others that strengthen the negative ego.  Blaiming and guilt are nothing but bait.  For the other person and for my own ego.  Within an argument there is so often a subconscious obsession with winning.  The irony is that this focus on winning actually reduces our own personal power.  The more we allow our emotions to control our thinking the more out of control we become.  Remaining neutral is a way to calm the water.  No reaction.  If I don’t react, then there can be no perpetuation of the same old actions.  Something different will happen.  I’m not referring to indifference, certainly not contempt or silent treatment.  The ego is sly.  Different might mean unpredictable and very subtle, anti-climactic even, but still different.  

Sigh.  However, I find that not reacting is actually an extremely difficult thing to do.  I hope it gets easier with practice.  I squirm like a cat in a leash every time.  For a good long while.  And sometimes it wins.  I take off the leash and lash out.  I am so conditioned to have a response but it really is an unnecessary reaction.  It’s ok to just listen, let what is said settle in and hear it very well.  

Then maybe a response will come or maybe not.  There is power in calm and silence.  It is a way to honor myself and my experience.  I don’t owe anyone an immediate answer.  I am allowed to think about something and feel something as long as I need to.  I am allowed to make space for myself.  If I am really done jumping for others, then I can take that all the way down to the details.  

This is the beginning of acceptance when in conflict with anyone.  It doesn’t mean I don’t have an opinion.  It doesn’t mean I agree with the other existing opinions in the situation.  It doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings and emotions.  It doesn’t mean my feelings aren’t valid.  It doesn’t mean I am allowing someone to push me around or bully me or use me.  It doesn’t require defending my position or validating the other's.  Acceptance is neutral.  The only thing it requires is listening.  That’s it.  To the other person but also to myself and my own reaction.  Instead of being swallowed by my reaction, I can see it, feel it and let it be there, instead of panicking to do something about it.  

The only thing to do, when I become angry and irritated, when a stone is thrown into the water, is pause and listen.  To the other person, to the silence, to my breathing, to my own maniacal thoughts, whatever.  Even if it’s only for 30 seconds, which is sometimes all I am capable of.  It stops the perpetuation of war, even if only for a moment.

I shall not be contained

New Work. Em and Will

Byron

Optimism

Is grass supposed to smell like bleach?

Is air supposed to hurt your teeth?

Is sleep supposed to make you stiff and sore?

Are toddlers supposed to drink mountain dew 

out of a bottle?

Are dolphins supposed to die from plastic ingestion?

Why is the size of the allen wrench you need 

never the one you own?

Why would anyone make a toilet paper holder

that is tightened with an allen wrench?

Do rednecks really have to take their fucking shirt off 

for every picture?

Does the dogshit bag always have to have a hole in it?

Are children supposed to be separated from their parents

and held in concentration camps?

Must every car I buy get scratched 

within the first two weeks I own it?

Do my richest clients always have to be 

the slowest ones to pay me?
How many white supremacists does it take
to turn on a light bulb?

How many days 

will my girl leave her socks 

on the bathroom floor?

Will my grandmother still remember me 

when I see her next?

Are the hardest conversations 

always put off the longest

sometimes until its too late?

Must the ones we love the most 

live the farthest away?

Will the freshly peanut buttered toast 

always land face down

on the floor

in dog fur?

Will I wake up grumpy every morning 

for the rest of my life?

If I am being a little bitch 

and my internal observer is aware 

that I am being a little bitch

and I have the tools and comprehension 

to stop being a little bitch

but I still cant stop being a little bitch

Will I be a little bitch forever?

If my beloved says me she loves me

tells me every day that I am beautiful

and says she will never leave me

Does she really love me?

Will she never leave me?

If I keep trying to be gentle

and learn how to love her better

trying not to hurt her

Will I never hurt her?

When the tornado passes through

destroying everything in its path

Will the birds still land 

upon the twisted branches

and sing to us in the morning?

Yes, they will.

Pondering on pondering

I have read so many self-help books that I have lost count.   I have a library at home and I have become aware of almost every major spiritual guru in the new age contemporary field over the last decade or so.  I am always trying to listen to what the conversation of our collective consciousness is.  Ted talks, podcasts, graduation addresses, audio books, motivational speaking, standup comedy etc.  It’s my own personal crack.  I have been listening ever since I was a kid.  I read the book Seven Thousand Ways to Listen by Mark Nepo and I think I beat him.  I grew up without television, but my family listened to the radio instead. It was always tuned to the local college public radio station.  I remember one particular show called New Dimensions.  It was the first program airing interviews of contemporary existential theorists that I had ever heard, and I was hooked.  I would sit next to the radio and do my homework when it was on.  I recall a variety of speakers, none of whom I was familiar with at the time, including the likes of Joseph Campbell, Eckart Tolle, Marianne Williamson, Leo Buscaglia or James Baldwin.  My dad started calling me his little existentialist.  Contemplation and debate on many topics was a common occurrence around the dinner table, led by my father and grandfather, who of course were not on the radio, but thoroughly enjoyed the sounds of their own ponderings whenever possible.  My grandmother and aunts also did their very best to save my gay, bohemian soul with their scriptures, fire and brimstone.  They failed miserably, just for your information and by the time I went to college I had very little patience or tolerance for proselytization of any kind.  Still don’t, but ironically, I enjoy the musicality and poetry of it, I have developed a hypersensitive ear for it and it is quite possible I have also inherited some skills and tendencies.   Probably because I have continued listening throughout my life anyway.  Some of it has been extremely interesting, and I try to integrate what I feel may be helpful.  

One of the many ideas that I have heard, throughout the years consistently, is one that I have been wrestling with for the last few.  Credit is often given to Albert Einstein for being one of the first contemporary thinkers of the last century to pose the question “Is the universe friendly?”  Is the universe for you or against you?  Supposedly, the shift in point of view, from against to for, will make all the difference. Existentialist thinkers have told me, books have told me, doctors have told me, therapists have told me, psychic readers have told me, my horoscope has told me, my partners have told me, and my own heart has told me.   It remains the hardest philosophy for me to adopt. 

There is a lack of clarity within the language of the question that I take issue with, lately.  I want so badly to believe that the universe is for me, but the phrasing “is for me” supports the illusion that the universe is going to do something for me, bring something to me or save me somehow.  It’s the genie in the bottle all over again.  It is a dangerous concept.  It has tripped me up psychologically for years.  If I hold too tightly to the idea and if I take the words literally, it gives me permission to wait.   The idea of “surrender” is lovely, soothing and temporary…and it also gives me permission to wait.  

Another phrase, which is often stated in conjunction with the former, is that “it is up to you to take responsibility for yourself and your life” (Thank you Rob Bell).  This is also true; however, it sounds directly contradictory to the concept of waiting for the universe to do something for me.  It isn’t that I don’t understand intellectually the deeper metaphysical and practical combination of these concepts. “It is not either/or, it is both/and” (Thank you Richard Rohr).  However, the less evolved areas of my brain have struggled with the added emotional and psychological stress that can be created by the contradiction, oversimplification and misinterpretation of such statements.  

What I have discovered through my own internal experience is that yes, the universe can be for me, but it is going to come from me, not come to me.  Nothing transformational is going to come from outside of me, so any magic I desire, any miracle I am hoping for is going to work through me.  And let me tell you, work is the operative word. When I am in a shit mood and it takes all frickin day to turn my thoughts around, pull my head out of my ass and open my heart back up, that’s a lot of psychological work.  Not to mention humility.  The kicker is “I never feel like doing it” (Thank you Mel Robbins).  The answer to that lack of desire that I always come up with is, “too frickin’ bad because that’s what taking responsibility means” (Thank you, Me).  My internal voice is not the most nurturing if you can’t tell.  “You do the work” (Thank you Iyanla Vanzant), so that the good and true can come through you.  I get to “ugly cry” (Thank you Oprah), my way through it so that “a greater vision, a bigger vision for yourself and of yourself can come through you” (Thank you Tony Robbins).  “It sucks because it’s hard” (Thank you Brene Brown), but I can do it.   I have to do it, if I want to, because I am the only one who is going to.   “You are the universe and your body, your mind, your heart and your spirit are your tools” (Thank you Michael Beckwith).

To respond to my own bitch, and be specific, this is where the work starts for me.  Slipping into and remaining within the trance of anger, sadness and depression is intoxicating.  It is literally the same neurological process as addiction.  Scientifically proven.  I am in no way discounting the difficulty of often lifelong addiction recovery, however, as many recovering addicts know, there are so many layers to the process.  If I think that I am “sober” because I  don’t ingest any chemicals from the outside, then I am mistaken because I am instead producing chemicals from the inside that I have created with the same kind of obsessive thinking that is physiologically interconnected to addiction.  The hard part is that I can’t just stop taking a substance.  “You must interrupt the ruminations” (Thank you Tara Brach).  I have to identify and halt and change the thoughts that generate the emotions and produce the substance.  “I can’t change is a deep habit” (Thank you Deepak Chopra).  

“The thoughts you repeat have created the neurological pattern, the path of neurons firing and wiring which releases the chemical, which produces familiar emotions, which then re-stimulates and reinforces the thoughts” (Thank you Dan Siegel).  It’s a loop.  A cycle.  It can be induced by personal trauma, generational trauma or genetic predisposition.   I am in no way discounting the Grand Canyon of the impact these life events can have or the Kilimanjaro’s they present.  The things that happen to me are not my fault.  I didn't do anything wrong.  “These factors are real, but not true” (Thank you Victor Frankl).  I can and have looked for all the events that created the thoughts in the first place, but ultimately it is my job to stop thinking the thoughts.  “Discipline” (Thank you Bruce Lee). Then I must knowingly and willingly go through withdrawal from the addiction to the chemical that I have recreated.  “Willpower”(Thank you God). 

Personally, I am addicted to control, anger, judgement, sarcasm, cynicism, self-loathing, worry, procrastination, my own personal brand of logic and storytelling.  I am sure the list is way longer, depending on who you ask, but you get the idea.   

“Very little grows on jagged rock.  Be ground.  
Be crumbled, so wildflowers will come up where you are.
You’ve been stony for too many years.
Try something different.
Surrender.”

(Thank you, Rumi)  

When I ‘surrender’ to acknowledging any one of my psychological addictions it feels like a scary freedom, the unknown and withdrawal.  I shake with DTs at the edge of a cliff every single time I address one.  I have observed from a very early age that most people are not aware of their own bullshit.  Therefor I have been trying to call myself out and own my shit, when I happen to be momentarily aware enough, throughout my whole life.  I work my way out of something just about every single day.  And frankly, I’m tired of it.  I’m tired of the work.  I am often frustrated. I keep expecting it to be cumulative. I read all about neuroplasticity this and neuroplasticity that.  Meditation, blah blah, yadda yadda.  However, I do all the blahs and the yaddas.  Whenever I can make myself.  There are no cures or fixes.  Yes, I know, I don’t need to be fixed, I just need to "accept myself", ppppbbbbbllllllllttt.  (Thank you, Buddha).  It’s a nice idea in the long run, but not very practical or helpful in the short term. “If you argue with reality you will lose 100% of the time” (Thank you Byron Katie).  In the good times I hold on to the tiniest grain of hope, or illusion, I can’t decide yet, that maybe my chemical balance will shift when I am not paying attention.  I know intellectually that it has shifted all along, but “in the midst of struggle it does not fucking feel that way” (Thank you Elizabeth Gilbert).  I do the work anyway, trying to let go of my expectations of results, trying to be a kinder, gentler person to myself and those around me.  I will probably work at it the rest of my life, or until I’m too old and grumpy.  I work at it to alleviate the sadness that comes with life, to release the grief I discover.  I work at it, so I might increase the love and joy in my heart.  So, I might stop poisoning my body with anger.  So, my partner doesn’t kick me out.  So, at the very least, the world isn’t a worse place.  Some days I do better than others.  

Bloomington Mural: Monroe County Health Department

Traffic

I have a strange superpower 

to be completely calm 

in the midst of the most insane 

metropolitan rush-hour traffic  

The crazier the bumper to bumper 

the more zen I become 

I think it frightens my passengers
because it’s like my body just surrenders 

to the complete lack of control 

I have over the situation  

My butt gets heavier 

my jaw relaxed

my senses acute  

I am concentration

I accelerate  

I break   

I weave through lanes

like young Michael Jordan 

in a playoff game 

I become a master of observation 

I can be in the middle of a city

under 3 layers of expressway ramps 

surrounded by semi’s 

in 6 lanes of traffic 

and pause

to marvel at the enormity of the machine 

the choreography of movement  

I easily release all expectations

combine minute quick reaction time 

with big picture strategy 

calculating moves 

faster than Bobby Fischer

I effortlessly maintain control of my emotions 

rarely lose my patience 

seldom ever panic 

go with the flow  

at home in myself

Fully present with buddhist mojo

If only I could do that with the rest of my life 

If only I could respond to everyone 

changing speeds 

changing lanes 

stopping hard

swerving sharp 

as gracefully 

as I do in traffic 

Maybe I have been in enough accidents to know

that you can hardly ever see the crash before it comes 

I wish I could maneuver through 

These 24 hour sun revolutions

the way I glide through traffic

Loosen this white knuckle grip 

on my egomaniacal sense of immortality

Fix this cracked windshield 

So I can see the opportunity 

to just play the game 

Stop the incessant anxiety driven 

useless insistence on prediction

and use my imagination 

Lighten the fuck up 

and just have some fun 

for a change 

Drive like my life depends upon it

because it’s quite possible 

that I only get one