looping

Hi Maggie,

The second of the four agreements was always most important to me.  This is what I think of when someone lashes out at me, saying mean things or inappropriate things.  It's not me. I'm just the screen they are projecting themselves onto.

We were excited this evening. The turkeys came back to sleep in the wooded area behind my garden.  They came back in time to be on the count for this year.  I really like the fact that they are there.

Thinking about your words - I think we are social in order to survive, yes, but we are social because we are part of the web.  We need that connection and, when we are in balance, the connection needs us.  I saw a brief article that speculated humans may have different roots than other mammals. It stated that other mammals fit their environment. They do not overfeed or overproduce. They know how to live in balance.  They can live in harmony. Humans, on the other hand, act more like viruses...we are sick, and we are out of balance.  When we are healthy, we are unafraid, unashamed and in balance.  We see all of our relatives, all of our connections...we are truly social.

I get on the same rant as you...we are living virtual lives. Communication and connection only seem real if we have technology between us recording, authenticating.  My grandson was adorably cute, and part of me wanted to post it on Facebook, to make it real.  But social media are a poor substitute for real life.  So I post almost nothing, preferring to live a real life.

But I do think it's part of wanting a witness for our lives, wanting to feel like there's someone out there who notices.

I had two "hits" today that I wanted to share.  I was talking to someone who had a parent who was a binge alcoholic. We talked about some of the effects of beiong brought up in chaos.  There was wondering - that maybe without the craziness, perhaps this person would not have retreated into imagination, into writing, into creativity.

Are there gifts that come from being brought up in trauma?  Would we be less creative if we had been raised in a healthy - yeah "healthy" -  family?  What would our talents be if we didn't war with ourselves and our history all the time?

I'm willing to concede that a bit of trauma gifts us with wisdom.  But when we lose all faith in our own value - then it was too much...

The other thing I am considering is that when something bad or shocking happens to us - I'm thinking about the Challenger explosion, about the jets plunging into the Twin Towers, about Grammy dying - we feel it in our stomach. It feels like someone has punches us. There is physical distress. What if, by eating crap and participating in other addictive practices we created that same distress in the gut. Does that backtrack up to the brain and make us believe something awful has happened.

Are we caught in a loop?

Love and hugs...

Clafe