Monday, January 3, 2011

NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS


It's January 3rd and the Christmas/New Year holidays have passed. I'm entering the cold months of winter feeling somewhat let down. I didn't accomplished as much as I had hoped I would in 2010. The world feels way too complex and out of control.

Usually, I don't make New Year's resolutions because I feel they lay unrealistic expectations on me. Yet I have an uncanny ability to criticize myself for lack of accomplishments even when the goals to be accomplished are unstated. It's as if I stand outside myself and objectify Chuck Pfeifer as something that needs to be fixed or improved. In this way I demean myself from the outside, never getting to know the Chuck Pfeifer on the inside.

Meanwhile the inner Chuck Pfeifer stands before this judgement uncertain and afraid. Through the years, I have developed a wonderful mechanism for dealing with this fear of internalized judgement. I escape into my head. I theorize about about the effects of the past on my present situation. I analyze social processes, and make lists of things I should do to contribute to the betterment of humankind.

By immersing myself in the midst of all of this activity, I avoid the scary feelings that threaten to undo me. As my self imposed judgements increase, I feel overloaded and despairing. I flee further from my feelings. I engage in compulsive and unproductive behaviors that fail to address the void in myself that I am trying to fill. I become the helper and fixer of myself and others, but from a distance.

It's hard for me to be with people without trying to help them or fix them. It is harder still to be with myself in the midst of my confusion and despair. As a result, I don't really know myself from the inside out. Furthermore, I don't really know and connect deeply with other people.

This new year, I'm trying to risk this scary kind of knowing which comes from being with my feelings. I'm trying to experience those parts of myself of which I'm ashamed as well as those parts which I admire. I'm trying to experience the scary feelings without going into my head. I'm trying to know Chuck Pfeifer from the inside out. If I practice standing in these vulnerable places with myself, perhaps I can relate to others from the inside out as well.

Anthony de Mello says, “You see persons and things not as they are but as you are. If you wish to see them as they are you must attend to your attachments and the fears that your attachments generate. Because when you look at life it is these attachments and fears that will decide what you will notice and what you block out. Whatever you notice then commands your attention. And since your looking has been selective you have an illusory version of the things and people around you. The more you live with this distorted version the more you become convinced that it is the only true picture of the world because your attachments and fears continue to process incoming data in a way that will reinforce your picture.” (from The Way to Love)

I'm beginning to believe that Living With Soul requires facing my fears, attachments and prejudgements honestly and openly. For me this means risking. It means engaging myself and others undefended. It means having the courage to face dying in it's many forms as an entree to living. Perhaps this is my New Year's Resolution for 2011.


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