409: Unconditional and Conditional Love

( I am writing more because a lot is going on with our extended family. I process to find relief. If you don’t see me around for a bit, I might take a break. Hugs and love ~ Sam)

I have had the opportunity to experience a variety of friendships. In so doing, I have learned a lot about myself and love. For the majority of my life I felt a false-love from others and gave out false-love. Even though I felt the false-love, I didn’t recognize the falsehood for what it was. I was an active participant in the illusion. Most of these friendships were based on need. This desire was masked as possible fulfillment and completion. I know now no one can complete me.

I still hold all of these people in love and light. All of my friends continue to be some of my greatest teachers. I don’t choose to see any wrong in where I have traveled, and hold no one in my life responsible, not even my self. I have forgiven me and all. I place no judgment on any of my past or current friends either. I see them as lovely lights and filled with goodness. I don’t see them based on their actions but based on their hearts.

I was a player in the game of false-love, particularly in relation to men. Most of this telling is based on reflecting back to my behavior in pre-marriage years. I think if I had read what I have written below in my twenties, I never would have seen the ‘truth’ of it, and gone on living in denial. Maybe I even would have been spiteful and angry. I think if I had read this prose in my thirties, I would have thought I already loved unconditionally, and this was a waste of my time. I would have thought the person was preaching or trying to teach what I knew. If I read this last month, I would have thought, interesting, but I know this already. But it wasn’t clear to me until recently. Dynamically clear.

For now when someone claims to love me with a conditional type of love, I don’t feel love from them. I don’t know why, but all falsehoods affect me to a great degree. I don’t even know how I see this false-love, but I do. That’s not to say that people who proclaim to love me don’t love me. I believe they do. I believe a part of them does. But I believe a greater part is in constant battle with an unmasked, unnamed, and unforgiving fear. I believe this fear constantly transforms who I am when interpreted by another. I become what another projects from fear. In rare cases I become the light of love. This, and only this, is when fear is eradicated from its shell of illusion.

There is a struggle for people to find love and claim love, because they haven’t yet found the love inside themselves.

This false-love scares me momentarily, until I dismiss the fear.

It scares me because when another feels the illusion of fear, I feel the separation.

I have those in my life now that love me unconditionally. There is much freedom in this, to be me and be loved for me. I am not loved based on my outcomes or what I do or do not do. But even I, in my relationships with others, slip back into conditional love; this is very evident in my marriage and with my children. I continue to release judgment on self and others, and to learn. I am fortunate to have such experiences available.

When I am loved unconditionally I feel fed and nurtured. When I am loved by someone with conditions, I feel caged and judged. I am learning to not feel caged and judged, and to see this as illusion too, but it is taking some practice.

Lately, I am becoming more of a projection of what another choses to see in me. I can feel this in my depths. I become what another believes he or she sees. I become, in essence what they hold within. I have heard of this happening to other people, as well. So I am not alone in this experience. It is interesting to watch as I transform based on another’s deep level. I do not at this time think I am choosing to still see “fear.” I recognize the beauty and light in all, and see the fear only as illusion, nothing more. I can’t see beyond the beauty into fear, because there is no fear at the foundation.

I know I am still learning and growing.

I no longer choose to buy into another’s pain; especially when their pain is projected onto me, as if I did something or didn’t do something to cause the hurt. I do not have the power to knock down or to build up a person. Only source and a person’s own self can affect the spirit. I do have the power to love, and in this love to bring wholeness to self. Everyone has a choice to accept what he or she thinks I am saying or to reject it. To take in what he or she interprets as my truth or to decline. To say thank you and receive or say thank you, but no thanks. In this way, ultimately it is the receiver’s choice to determine what he or she takes in. I choose to take in all as truth and none as truth. I choose not to pick and choose. Unless someone is speaking from a place of fear, then I typically, when aware, politely decline. I prefer not to take on another’s fear-projection.

I believe there are only two roots: Love or Fear. All truth grows from there. Take a fruit off of the branch and examine it for what the fruit is. Rotten equals Fear. Ripe equals Love. One can tell much from the end product. Take the final outcome and drive backwards to the root. Where there is pain, there was fear to begin with manifested in false-love—illusion. Where there is mutual healing, there is love—the only existence.

Again this is my temporary truth.

My personal interpretation that assists me:

What true friendship is: Unconditional love.

What unconditional love is: Love without want, need, perimeters and/or expectations.

What want and needs are: Self-based, ego-centered desires that one thinks will make him or her happy. Also known as illusions and/or the path to suffering.

What perimeters are: Rigidness and separation; the judge emerging to decide if another has been deemed sufficient in their actions.

What unconditional loving friendship isn’t: All relations not based on unconditional love; in other words, all relations based on conditional, false-love, aka fear.

What unconditional love is not: False-love, also known as fear.

What fear is: An illusion often manifested in various actions and/or emotions that aren’t stemmed from love.

All false-love breeds fear and pain; all true love breeds more love. This true love can lead to spontaneous awakening and healing.

When one does not feel unconditional love, either the giver is loving with false-love or the receiver is misinterpreting the gift of genuine love.

This is not love: Expectations, martyrdom, fear-based desire, giving to receive, condition based giving, imagined selfless-giving, self-projection, owning, self-based desire, deeming one special or above the rest, caring more about self than other or caring more about other than self, blame, self-loathing in the name of love, fearing the future, needs based on outcome.

In love there is no hurt. All pain is self-inflicted.

Indicators of false-love:

Look at what a giving, loving, caring person I am, why can’t you love me like I love you?

I sacrifice for you, why can’t you sacrifice for me?

I am not good enough to be your friend.

You aren’t enough.

You should do this…

You disappointed me.

You won’t/don’t love me.

If you loved me, you would….

If you do this it will all be better.

You are the best person in the world.

You are hurting me.

People can have a mutual loving relationship based on unconditional love with moments of neediness and pain; unconditional love can fluctuate just like the seasons. No one is expected to be a perfect anything. Especially not a perfect lover or perfect friend. To suggest so, would be automatic judgment and separation. However healing happens when one starts to recognize his or her actions based on fear. Then self-healing can begin to take place in the one. After the one self has begun the healing process, the other in the friendship, noting the changes in his/her friend, will either continue in a state of fear, fight the change before also seeking self-understanding, or naturally seek out the friendship to heal in a way reflected in the healed or healing friend. In this way conditional love can bring both parties to pure love based on unconditional love.

If both partners are not ready, strong, and compassionate about growth and self-awareness, blame and jealousy quickly arises and the friendship may end. Yet, being this was a friendship based on false-love the illusion is what ends, not the friendship. This enables both to be free. One to go on to further unconditional love and the other to decide to remain in denial, suffering, and repeated pain or to seek out self-love. No one is right or wrong, better or worse; they are where they are.

In some cases someone who has learned self-love will be in a friendship with someone with conditional-based love. In this instant the person who continues to love unconditionally, despite the other’s projections, demands, and needs, can reflect back the ideal form of love and in this way transform the other trapped in a pain cycle.

True love heals when one capable of unconditional love simply is.

Again my temporary truth.

Strong indicators of conditional false-love:

No desire to celebrate a friend’s successes.

Not wanting to share the friendship with anyone else.

Thinking you are the best and/or only person for that person.

Changing actions or making decisions in an attempt to gain attention.

Obsessing about the person.

Thinking you are responsible for a friend’s growth, success, triumph, or accomplishments.

Thinking you are a person’s savior, teacher, protector, or safety.

Giving self-credit for another’s joy.

Thinking you have the answers another seeks and needs.

Thinking you were used, abused, or mistreated.

Jealousy of other people in the friend’s life.

Judging and putting down a friend’s friends.

Evaluating a friend’s choices, behaviors, mannerisms, and way of being.

Feeling the need to set a friend straight, so he can see your way.

Secretly or overtly harboring feelings of hurt and a sense of abandonment about the relationship.

Talking to someone about a friendship using harmful words about the friend.

How friendship appears:

A reflection of the love a person holds about his or her inner self.

What unconditional love-based friendship feels like:
Coming Home

374: Moments

“It is not that I am not present in the here and now; it is that I am so entirely present to the universe that I become intoxicated in possibilities and rapture, and self must retreat back to the echoes of my imagination in order to breathe.” ~ Sam, Everyday Aspergers

Moments

The moment when you know you’ve spoken your complete truth, whether it was a word or thought, and you sift through what you said, wanting to make sure there isn’t the splinter of doubt that you didn’t indicate anything other than truth, and you feel your stomach twist, because maybe, just maybe, somewhere inside of you, you were wrong.

The moment you speak your truth loudly and clearly, with extreme empathy and knowing, weighing the validity of your words with the interpretation of necessity, while fighting back the voices that analyze and dissect the coming unspoken that is surging its way out through your veins, as you question your need, your want, your intention, wondering if the silence will win out over the pulsating necessity to share.

The moment you risk for the higher good, knowing if you speak your mind that you shall be persecuted, ostracized, and judged, but knowing all the greater that you shall in speaking your light have conquered the darkness, at least a splinter of the darkness that permeates your world.

The moment you lie, only to protect the feelings of another, and you replay the falsehood over and over in your mind, a broken record that hurts your ears and leaves you suffering, not for the sake of another, but for the sake of going against your own self and truth, as you wonder if a better course could have been detected, discovered, and executed, something beyond the distasteful torture of falsehood.

The moment you realize no one has the answers, no book, no preacher, no teacher, no guru, absolutely no one, and that all of your efforts have led you back to self; only now you are carrying a giant book of something that resembles truth, but in actuality it is a drafted, desperately edited and marked up tablet stack of contrived and siphoned rules, many of which contradict, point fingers, and leave in the ring either victim or prideful one.

The moment you speak your truth and the others leave, except perhaps one that stays for analysis and judgment, or to set you straight; and you listen, trying your best to look like you are interested and are learning, as you bleed all over the sidewalk from the bitter and deceptive words, your heart only wanting love, acknowledgment, and acceptance, not to be told again how you don’t fit in, don’t have a right, or don’t understand.

The moment you realize you understand more about a topic than anyone in the entire room, but to say so would immediately set up barbwire fences of division; thusly, you keep quiet and nod, trying to ignore and not comprehend the analogies that go against the base foundations of truth, justice, and love, with your last hope being that someone, somewhere in the room is like you, sees the light in your eyes, and wishes to not push his belief system upon you, or prove to you his theory, or embrace you in his way of life, but only enters your space to welcome you unconditionally as another being of substance.

The moment you dial up a conversation, and with first word, the person on the other end begins the game, following the rules of conduct and behavior and asking you blank, empty questions, not caring, unattached, unwilling to connect or even listen, the shallowness of the encounter physically hurting your chest and making your heart weep, as you attempt to move through with your life-preservers of nodding and smiling, acting as if you are comfortable, while feeling the energy of the speaker pierce you like daggers: the tone of the voice, the inflection, the pauses, the drawn out non-silence that does not match who she is, what she is, and where she is going. You are merely a dancer in some line of communication, knowing not where to step or when to pause, trying not to step on toes, and staring at a blank empty face, whose only need is to check your name off of her list.

The moment the sun rises and your breath is taking away and you are dancing in the rays, your heart free, your child like nature set to the wind, spinning, leaping, abounding in spirit, without moving in inch; and wanting to share this experience, to share the opportunity of hope you see in nature, and in the dawning of a new day, you giddily laugh and celebrate and raise the arms to the magenta skies; only to discover the persons surrounding you can’t sense what you sense; and you think somehow you are made wrong, too attached, too intuitive, too knowing. And so comes the feeling of separation, the sun’s hues shifted, the day begun, with you lost to self, trapped within thought of why your way is not their way, and why your way is left out of the equation.

The moment you kiss another and you wonder what the kiss means, because it has to mean something; and you question how two could connect without connecting, touch without touching, and how the game of romance is only a game, marked with pitfalls and dungeons and war. How you have instinctively set up camp upon another’s territory and in so doing have been given a safe zone, in which you shall not tread outward; for in stepping out, you risk annihilation, alienation, and doom. You weren’t meant to spread across his land and place flags of declaration about your feelings or experience. You were built for silent torture as you sit spinning in your small space of reason wanting to scream out the ecstasy and dynamic shift of being, but forced to crease your edges, sew your own self shut and hide out until the coast is clear, or the being you so loved, simply slips away.

The moment you want to be present, but you can’t; and the guilt settles in as friend or child, spouse or son, he looks at you with wide open eyes ready to connect at his level, in a place of happiness and delight, without deep thoughts, without theories and strings of reason, without doubt, without prospect of future circumstances; and how you sit in this passing moment, longing to reach out and be this same way, to stop the clock of the own mind and silence the tick-tick-ticking; and so you pretend, you try, you harbor your very own secrets of misery; a false grin, a false laugh, an intense glance, all means in which you try to give back and let the other know he is loved and needed, even as your brain radiates outward, living in an imaginary land, pulling you back to a place so distant that all connection, all being is lost in a blink of letting go. To speak and be present, like the other, is to balance on the plank, with the sharks below, knowing without fail, you shall fall with a splash, that your eyes shall dim, your mind blank out, and you shall undoubtedly sink into the dark and murky depths, embracing the emptiness and cold, where once the potentiality for sharing, an open beckoning space with dear one, existed.

The moment you know you are different and you celebrate the uniqueness knowing you have a purpose and a bright light and that you will make a change in the world for the betterment; perhaps you feel enlightened, like a teacher or creator of beauty, or even like a semi-saint; but to speak this to the world would be the death of you, for others would claim you are self-centered, grandiose in thought, or egotistical; but you know deep down you are meant for greatness, even as you walk in a world that seemingly does nothing but dilute your own fuel to your own fire. You are passion, you are insight, you are intuition, and you are connected to the grand scheme of life; but to say so leaves you breathless and unsure of yourself, dipped in the pool of humility time and time again, only to be told you are wrong.

The moment you understand that you are only a perception of what people think of you, and that no matter what you say or how you get your point across that no one will see you other than how they choose to see you; that ultimately you are an island onto yourself with tourists that caravan by and wave but never set foot onto your sands. And so you stand, unmoving, shining your light, wishing upon the star, that feels more liken to friend than any other being you know, waiting for the day, when a brave one will enter, and join hands to the infinite beauty of you combined.

The moment you realize you are no one, but you are supposed to walk in the world as someone, a someone who acts a certain way, dresses a certain way, expects certain things; but you no longer expect anything and no longer know how to act, and stand on this endless stage watching the ones garbed in their costumes, refinery and fancy ways, and wonder where you are to stand, how you are to observe, and what you are to take in, if not the bewildered stares of stagehands, whom keep pointing and staring at your indecent and unpredictable ways. Where to walk. Where to move. Where to be—each become your questions, as the world moves onward to a beat you cannot hear and do not wish to hear.

The moment you realize you do not have a condition or a syndrome or a fault, but understand intensely people are trying to make you believe you do, trying so hard that they convince themselves they are this illusion of normal, and you are this jumbled mess of faults; only you see the truth. Your blinders have been removed. You march in the silence, the one not dictated and orchestrated by the misers controlling the masses. Your eyes have been made open. In essence you have been reprogrammed, the barrier of righteousness, to shine the light on falsehoods and bring out the truth; yet, no one knows this but the few others that see in truth; and thusly, you move forward half-blinded in lies and half-open to truth, stuck in a place of limbo, with something beyond the beyond, urging you forward through the life that seems not life.

The moment your hands hurt, your feet hurt, your eyes hurt, your heart hurts, but you can’t stop, because there is a force inside of you that burns so deeply that if you do not open the crevice to creativity and let the flames burst out, as dragon releasing delicate-rage, then you shall perish in your own internal war. And so you move, in whatever way called to move; your own self bleeding in the efforts, your own self lost in the time without time, sinking into the separate land where no one can see you move with the freedom of angels, and you cannot see where this world was that you were made to walk in. And here you breathe, inside the escape of freedom, where the others cannot reach in and pull you out, cannot shape you and make you, and tell you lies of whom you be and whom you are not. A place of refuge where you can meet your own maker, whether self, universe, or God, and sit there in your trembling awe.

The moment you can no longer stand being you, as the music never stops, the thoughts never linger, but leap and bound across eternity, bringing up the genius of the world and making you into a spinning top of fury-making; when even the sound of the silence singes your ears and stops your heart, so that you want to scream at the annoyance of the drumming universe, though none around you can hear the pounding. And you cringe and cry and rant and plead, exploding inward as much as outward; for you have been placed in a merry-go-round of havoc with blind-seekers, each dumb and deaf, and wishing you were something other than your own self. And you have no way, no thread, no line of communication in which you can explain how you are the one displaced, removed from where you belong, and brought down to be tortured by the nonsense. How you have all the answers within, but are continually haunted and stopped in your making and doing, when the others, who know you not, shun and persecute your actions. Can they not see you are only trying to be, and that the more they stomp on your beingness the more they push you back into the dungeon of no recourse but explosion? Why do they force their ways upon you, when they, in their infinite blindness, know not what they do.

The moment you recognize you are not alone, that there is at least one other person like you on the planet, and you recognize their heart, their purity, and their need to make a difference; and in seeing her fully, you fill her with hope, because she knows at last you believe her and you trust her; because, contrary to what she has been told, she is not pretending to be kind, she is not pretending to be generous, nor is she pretending to love. She does love you, with all of her being, with all of her heart. And like your lonely, forlorn and forsaken self, you long to scoop her up and paint her in your compassion and security, to blanket her in your own goodness, and let her know she is this thing called beauty; she is this joyous light.

*********

(I wrote and pulished the post 373 (Semi-Saint) yesterday, knowing I might receive some backlash and that some individuals would choose to stop following my blog. I had a choice: to be authentic or to pretend. Today I understand that I needed to feel the suffering of rejection and judgment, in order to feel humbled, and to feel the collective pain of isolation. As odd as this seems, I need the suffering. I need to be connected to the others that still hurt. I don’t want to feel healed and complete (yet); and it seems at this moment, I cannot feel healed and complete, until every last brother and sister feels loved and accepted. For how can I walk in this world in a state of contentment, when all about me I see suffering? I know there is a way; I know I will realize this. A way to love my neighbor intensely without feeling his suffering, but I have yet to find it; and so I choose to walk beside the pain, until He has taught me all I need to see.)

316: 50 Reasons to Leave Your Lover

1. He tells you as he is making out with you, “Someday your future boyfriend will be really glad I taught you this.”

2. He corrects and critiques the way you break your bread, showing you how to separate the roll into four equal pieces.

3. He stays up all night scraping the black factory-painted pinstripe off of his truck because he can’t sleep until it’s entirely gone.

4. He stays up all night making cardboard hotels for cats, convinced he will be rich off of his invention.

5. He owns a limo, but it turns out he’s the driver, and he likes to tell you often what he watches the passengers doing in the backseat.

6. He explains that he likes you a lot, and will share a bed with you, but doesn’t feel comfortable sitting on the same couch as you.

7. He steals your expensive perfume bottle (again) and “secretly” gives it as a present to his other girlfriend.

8. He doesn’t have driving insurance and totals his truck while on a secret rendezvous to the mountains with his other lover, and then asks you to come get him at the hospital.

9. He says, after your first dinner date, which he planned to be out of town, that he is too drunk to drive home but has conveniently already booked a hotel room nearby.

10. He promises he just wants to cuddle.

11. He says he has a romantic surprise for you, and when you enter the room there is a “toy” and a video camera set up.

12. His father tells you, after your lover has gone missing for three days: “He is just like me, a player, and he ain’t changing.”

13. His mother takes you out to an intimate lunch and tells you, “You are so smart and lovely and kind, why are you with my son?”

14. He takes you to an antique store to teach you have to shoplift.

15. He sells you a stereo that he bought with his roommates “stolen” credit card.

16. He doesn’t come and find you when you run out of the house crying.

17. He calls his ex-girlfriend when you are still in bed together.

18. He has rearranged the photos of you as a couple each time you come over.

19. He lives with his sister, has no job, is addicted to pain-killers, and is a chain-smoker.

20. He makes you gag.

21. He makes you wish you lived on another planet.

22. He says, “I don’t love you, I’m certain.”

23. He is the roommate of the other really odd guy you dated.

24. He has an ex-wife that warns, “Watch out, he is trouble.”

25. He enters a room and every woman wants to give him his number, and he takes them.

26. He has deep dark brown bedroom eyes, and he knows it.

27. He shows up late all the time, and always has a very detailed excuse.

28. He says, “It depends, are you planning on losing weight,” when you ask him if you should cut your hair shorter.

29. He tells you how to dress.

30. He tells to wear long fake fingernails painted pink.

31. He is in therapy with you and seeing another therapist with his wife.

32. He enters the athletic gym, and the male employees look at you, raise a brow, and say in a derogatory tone, “That’s your boyfriend?”

33. He was the first man you saw after breaking up with your other boyfriend who was the first man you saw.

34. He claims he cannot tell you where he lives because it is a temporary situation and he can’t give you his phone number because he doesn’t have a phone.

35. He plans a party and not one person shows up.

36. He asks your father for your hand in marriage, shortly after his mistress, holding a baby, kicks down his apartment door in an attempt to kill you.

37. He does things with himself at stop signs you know are plain wrong, but he insists everyone does it.

38. He lies to his mother.

39. He yells at you because you packed the camping ice-chest wrong.

40. He tells you that your suspicions about his cheating on you means you are paranoid.

41. He likes beer with his breakfast.

42. He takes you out to drink “brain freeze” alcoholic shots for the first date.

43. He tells you all about his special adventures with his guy friend, with a twinkle of love in his eyes.

44. He takes you to a party and you find him half-naked in the bathroom with his ex-girlfriend, and he claims she is helping to adjust his Halloween costume.

45. He tells you how you could be prettier.

46. He asks you to buy something for his mother’s birthday because he can’t afford it.

47. He takes you on an out-of-state trip, via airplane, to his hometown and disappears in the early morning to meet up with a past lover.

48. He calls you from a phone booth, a few blocks away, claiming he is out-of-town working for a few days.

49. He doesn’t say, “You are beautiful.”

(He points out your mistakes often, like forgetting to add number 50 to this list.)

Please protect your aspie daughter. Teach her she is worthy. Love her unconditionally. Pay attention to her. She doesn’t know as much as you think she does. She thinks, like herself, that everyone is kind-hearted and filled with good intention. Teach her about red flags, about predators, about liars, about trickery, and about manipulation. Teach her about appropriate behavior and conduct. Consider her an angel on earth, uneducated about the ways of this world. Hold her and cherish her. And above all teach her how special she is.

This was my first album; I used to play this song over and over and over. I memorized all the lyrics. I was so awesome.

Random thought: What if the reason why my dog is so very happy to see me every morning is because in her reality one night is 100 years!

308: Weakness

Weakness

A leader who feeds off his own authority
A learner who believes his words are the right words
A man who takes his own life
A widow who gives up hope on living
A child who runs from the bullies
A dancer who cries at audition
A doctor who lies to a patient
A rapper who slanders his father
A joker who criticizes himself
A wife who stays with the abuser
A person who claims life is too hard
A candidate who cheats to win
A scientist who presents false data
A listener who thinks she knows better
A friend who gossips
A gambler who has a system of winning
A mother who leaves her children
A daughter who banishes her father
A prisoner who escapes
A judge who accepts a bribe
An athlete who gives up on the race
A sister who weeps openly in public
A brother who drinks to feel numb
A street walker who gives of her body
A cop who deals drugs
A classmate who hides in the corner
A neighbor who cheats on her spouse
A grocery clerk who steals from the bin
A principal who harbors resentment
A test-taker who pays for the answers
A waiter who keeps more than his share in tips
A gymnast who takes steroids
A jailer who bludgeons the captive
Of which of these would you call weak?
Of which of these would you judge?
And still more, of which of these would you fear?
Are they not each a part of you?
Are they each not a collection of your perception?
Of what you have been taught is right and wrong?
And what of the murderer, the destroyer, the dictator, the martyr, the insane?
Which of these is wrong? Which of these is evil? Which of these is not enough?
The one you find the least in favor, is this the one you hold inside of you most?
Do you fear the rapist, the reaper, or the tramp?
The gambler, the preacher, or the false-prophet?
Which one shall be punished? If not all?
Who are you to say? What is it that gives you the right to declare the weakest? The worst? The one deserving punishment?
Is it the child molester then? Who shall it be?
Which one pulls on you to no end and makes you squirm?
Who is it that you cannot and will not love?
Is it the one who reminds you of fear or of self?
The one you cannot understand or will not understand?
The one that caused so much suffering to the innocent?
How do you know who has caused the most suffering?
How do you recognize this evil?
Have you not looked into your own soul?
Have you not dived within to see your own incompletion,
though you be whole?
Where inside of you does this judge live?
And how much suffering does this judge give?
Are you not the one who bleeds suffering?
Are you not the one who is the sufferer?
When you have removed the judgment, when you have stopped to see another as someone to be categorized, fitted, and placed into one of your boxes, then you shall see.
That all of us our God’s children. None of us more or less worthy.
You will see you were never meant to be the judge.
You were never made to be the evaluator.
You were built to love and love alone.
When you see the angry dog, vicious with his teeth out, do you judge the dog?
Do you think that is a wrong dog, a bad dog, a demon dog?
When you see a storm coming, do you judge the storm?
Do you think that storm was raised the wrong way, a storm that should know better, a false storm?
When you see a tree that falls down and crashes a home, do you judge the tree?
Do you think that is a vicious tree, an unjust tree, a tree that needs to be taught a lesson?
When you see the sea do you curse the waves?
When you see the sun do you curse the rays?
When you see the rain clouds do you curse the coming water?
What is it that you see?
What is it that you need?
Do you think because human has a mind that he is above nature?
Do you think that because he is above nature he should be judged?
Do you think that nature is not bestowed with the same giving spirit as you?
Do you not see the nature is as worthy as you?
And if both are of equal worth, than how can one be given different standards?
How can you not respond to man like nature: With your heart, with open eyes, with bewilderment and awe, with amazing grace.
This man before you is no less or no more than the sunrise each dawn, no more or less than the space that holds your spinning world, and yet you think you are more or less than him.
This makes no logical sense, as you are him.
You are each of the same seed.
Each birthed in beauty and magnificence.
Look upon each other as children of the universe, not as enemies of this land.
Join and you will no longer suffer in your separation.
Bleed out your truth, this truth though weak it seems, is the cornerstone of your foundation.
Your greatest weakness is your disbelief in self,
In your disbelief in your grand magnificence.
There is no weakness beyond this false belief.
And even that is not a weakness but opportunity.
For I have given you nothing but opportunity, for opportunity is the fabric of my love, ever-reaching, ever-growing, ever-nurtured.
There is none loved above you and none below.
So go out now and look at the sunset before you.
The one that God blows to your doorstep.
Breath him in. Bring in his wisdom.
For whatever touches you is a gift from beyond.
A gift for you to open: a gift to judge not with thine eyes, but with the heart of God.

~ Samantha Craft, January 2013

Lori Sealy is a woman whose voice, spirit, and message truly touch me. She is on the spectrum (ASD). I find her music healing.

This is Christian based.

https://soundcloud.com/#lori-sealy/song-of-the-afflicted-mix1

To find out more about this artist, go here:
On iTunes at:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/begone-unbelief/id585872741?i=585872804&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

And on Google Play at:

https://play.google.com/store/music/album/Lori_Sealy_Begone_Unbelief?id=Bbz3o5yjbzz6v2d5grbmtdaogva&feature=nav_top_albums#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDUsImFsYnVtLUJiejNvNXlqYnp6NnYyZDVncmJtdGRhb2d2YSJd

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/lorisealy

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This woman is my spirit-given sister; here is a post that I found helped me very much.

http://alienhippy.wordpress.com/2011/10/26/uncluttered-what-are-you-doing-here/

296: The Star of My Post

I panicked this morning. I pulled my husband out of the bathroom. He was stripped down to his boxers. And I was mean.

I don’t like to be mean. I hate it, in fact. At the core of me, I am nice. But this mean, panicky part of me surfaces at times.

She especially appears when I am feeling bombarded with change and sensory overload. When my normal routine is drastically altered I get a bit crazed and then my scale of unpredictable outcries is undeniably both potent and dramatic.

This morning, the birthday sleepover for my youngest boy was almost over. There had been much noise and upheaval as the boys celebrated together and tore the daylight basement apart with their slathering of snacks and soda. I’d not fallen asleep until nearly two am, and I’d cleaned and organized and shopped and prepared the entire day before.

My husband had been a great support, as much as any human could be who didn’t possess super powers, but by morning, he, like me, was exhausted. And unlike me, he was ready to get out of the house and start a course of errands. He headed downstairs to shower, as I was wrapping the party up, and awaiting the arrival of the two last guardians to pick up the children.

After twenty-minutes of feeling a kneading, unidentifiable discomfort inside, suddenly a shock of revelation hit me. Two strangers were about to appear at my door. As I thought about this fact, I was bombarded with what ifs, and what to say, and how to stand, and how to smile, and how to be, and how to stop my own very self-consuming fear of being seen by another being.

As I processed, and my anxiety grew, I realized I wanted to duck under a blankie, to escape, and to not face anyone.

Suddenly, and without warning, an all-encompassing fear bit at me like a disobedient hound leaping to snatch food from an innocent bystander.

I logically processed. I figured this biting and uncontrollable fear was part of my Aspergers, part of how my brain worked, part of who I was and had always been. The feelings weren’t unfamiliar, not even more intense; but I was more aware.

Still, even with the understanding, I could do little or nothing to calm myself down. At any moment the door would knock and a stranger would appear.

I talked to myself in silence. I reasoned. I tried to logically stop the worries and concern. I knew there was nothing to fear, but yet I feared. I knew there was no threat, but I felt threatened. I wanted to run.

The doorbell rang. It was the first stranger. She was kind and courteous, and we didn’t have opportunity for small talk, as her nephew gathered his things and left quickly enough.

I shut the door, wishing them well, and sighed in relief. I felt half of the anxiety leave. Only one to go. Only one to go, I told myself. I attempted to self-soothe, to talk myself into the fact that I was safe. But I couldn’t. Though half the anxiety had left, the remaining panic was newly fresh and alarming, clawing at me from the inside out. I just couldn’t do it. Not alone. Not by myself. Not with all the uncertainties.

I rushed then. I darted down the stairs in a state of meltdown. I was imploding and exploding all at the same time. The outside me, the observer that sometimes watches, and takes note of my behavior, and who is often able to laugh or offer sound advice, she’d been swallowed up in the confusion of my emotions.

I had to find my husband, make sure he was dressed, and get him upstairs, right away. There was no time to wait. My soul was on fire!

I found my husband in his boxers, doing something in front of the mirror. I don’t remember what. Everything was a jolted blur of rush and chaos. “Please hurry, he will be here any moment, and you know how I am,” I whined.

I looked my husband over and realized he hadn’t showered yet. It had been twenty minutes, and he still hadn’t showered!

“What have you been doing?” I queried rudely. “This whole time you could have showered, and you didn’t. Why didn’t you? Why did you leave me up there alone? Why? You don’t get me. You don’t know me. What do you not understand about Aspergers? What do I fear the most? What do I fear the most!”

My husband stammered with his eyes and braced himself against the bathroom door. I could see he was processing my emotional state. I could sense the familiarity of his experience: how he knew I was on the verge of freaking out and that his next move would either create a domino effect of me collapsing into hysteria or serve to bring me out somewhat from my spinning panic.

He stepped closer, and waited for me to finish my thoughts, waited in a way and with a skill I have not yet learned, and fathom I shall never learn. I felt a reckoning of sadness, a knowing I was different, odd, and displaced on a planet where my skillset had never been completed, where my tool box of communication skills was vastly depleted.

I wept inside, until the fear rose. I went on fast then, and with an unrelenting urgency. I knew what I was doing and what I was feeling, and it all felt so ridiculous and unnecessary and unfounded and just plain stupid, but I couldn’t help myself. I was trapped in a prison of jumbled thought and worry.

I said more, my words not chosen carefully, my panic taking the wheel. “You abandoned me. You abandoned me. You say to me ‘You take it from here; I’m going to shower,’ and you leave me to face the strangers. You know how I am? How could you do this?” My eyes were welling with a mixture of tears and rage.

I was on the verge of flipping my husband off. About to mount the stairs, and with a quick turn of my back, turn and give him the finger. I was so confused. My emotions all jumbled and twisted into a crisis.

I stood my ground, even as I saw another path of what I might have done, how I might have taken off as I told him off. I stared past him, fighting back the urge to yell, “I hate you!”

He didn’t move or even flinch, but looked at me with such profound and unattainable patience. I knew I was being childish. I knew at that moment he was the only adult in the house.

“Your worst fears are talking to strangers, especially at the door, and to men,” he replied. He then said, with a sigh, “I’ll wait to shower. I’m coming upstairs. Be right there.”

Within two minutes, I was back on the couch, hiding behind my laptop and my husband was in the leather chair twiddling his fingers and playing with his cellular phone.

I said, “Stop picking at your lip. That bugs me.”

I said, “I don’t understand. Don’t you care? Why did you do this to me?”

He looked at me blankly, and replied. “I didn’t shower. I came up here for you because I love you.”

I waited for him to be triggered or upset or to show emotion. I needed him to be emotional. I needed him to take me out of my emotional state, by means of his emotional state. For me to be able to focus on his wavering feelings, and to blame him, so I could escape self-blame. I punched at him with my words.

He didn’t care. He didn’t. He didn’t know how to show me love, is all I could think.

“Our problem is the Language of Love. You show love in service and duty; I show love through emotion and affection. I really need a hug right now and compassion.”

He got off of the couch and came to my side and held me. But I didn’t feel release. I’d wanted to blame him and make him act a certain way, thinking his behavior would relieve me. But it didn’t.

He stayed at my side and looked over at me as I maneuvered through the stream of my Facebook wall. He was watching the posts, watching me, and in my space. I looked at him and said, “Thanks for the hug. Can you go away now? I don’t want you near me. Please leave.”

I recognized the cruelness and impatience in my voice. I sensed my selfishness and sporadic ways. But I couldn’t help myself. I was in the middle of a breakdown, and nothing my husband did or said or offered could help me.

My husband rolled his eyes and shook his head. And I offered some half-apology for my behavior, knowing I’d been terrible. I tried to make him laugh. “Well at least you might be the star of my post,” I offered.

I don’t think he smiled.