unlearning, part 1

How Life does give. In a dark space between yesterday and today I encountered a challenge that I was far from ready for. It's a worthy challenge, to both mind and heart. Simply to take past hurt, past experience, past wish and expectation, and to rise in spite of it to new levels of understanding, of acceptance, of empowerment. It's an inner discussion. It concerns others, but it's mostly about my point of view and the healing it seeks. And I'm grateful for it, as it furthers the growth that I already desire. I'm just not really ready for it. I don't feel competent, empowered, capable. I feel exhausted, pain-full, misunderstanding and misunderstood. I can be with these feelings, for now. I can even try to move into them, with openness, curiosity, and acceptance, as I've read that some Buddhist teaching recommends. It's just still the time being, the meantime, the painful healing time, for the moment.

Ran into the same friend whose affirmations I recorded yesterday. Opened up _The Sufi Book of Life_ just before I saw her. The page it fell open to today was this name, out of the 99 Sacred Names of Love: Al-Mudhill, which Neil Douglas-Klotz translates as "Low 'Self' Esteem". (Do note the quotes around 'self'). Here is what he writes: "Real learning means unlearning everything we falsely believe we know about ourselves." There's the word for the day: unlearning. Think I could write about 99 more posts on just that subject.

And he also says this: "The root [of this sacred name] shows the starting point as diversity and division...which then becomes magnified without a connection to the divine life force of the One. In its extreme, the word symbolizes isolation. Yet by recognizing this feeling, we have already taken a step toward reconnecting our diversity with Unity."

Okay, I recognize it. I resemble that. I can dig it. Then in comes my friend. I tell her a little bit about my inner conversation today, and my struggles with the mind and the heart -- which gets to speak, and which needs to listen more. First she tells me this: "Don't forget that your mind is an army of love and compassion." More challenge, more affirmation, yes. Then she gives me this very unexpected blessing. Reminds me that our friendship started out of our love for plants, and in our tendency to find our beloved community perhaps more on the earth, and in the realm of green growing things, than in the world of people. So keep learning to understand and connect with people, she encourages. But remember also that "you're in really good standing with the Mother."

Wow man. I can dig that for sure. I could unlearn a lot, with that kind of relations...