It’s Only January 15th

If that title caught your eye, if the subtitle elicited a horrified chuckle, if you think you know what this post is about or suspect you might relate to it, maybe you will, maybe you won’t. It might depend on the question you carry in your mind, how much you desire the answer to that question, or how much glue you’ve sniffed this morning.

Electricity is available and waiting to be accessed just beyond that outlet cover. In the United States, when you push a plug into a socket, the energy instantly flows to the appliance. In the United Kingdom, you push a plug into a socket and then must flip the switch on the outlet so that the energy flows to the appliance. I sensed a message there when I had that thought early this morning, but then I remembered that even appliances have on/off switches. Make of that what you will. (Hint: This is a Substack about spirituality.)

Many times your “best” trait, the one that seems so selfless, is your most egoic quality. When you examine not just the parts of you that need work but the parts you think are already sewn up and ask “Why am I moved to do that, offer that, be that? Who does it really serve?” you sometimes realize you need it as much or more than the recipient. Ask yourself why. There might be deeper levels to explore. My shadow comes in both liver 🤢 and raspberry 😋 flavors. How about yours?

I do not know your path and you do not know mine. If we’re being honest, sometimes we don’t even know our own. When you think you need to help someone out, save them from their misery or themselves, assist in correcting their mistakes—all according to your assumed understanding of those things—maybe step back (along with your pal Felix Unger of “when you assume, you make an ass out of u and me” fame) and do nothing for a bit.

Did they ask for your help? Do you honestly know what they need? Can you see from the eagle’s vantage point or are you getting a partially-obstructed view from your position on the ground? Sometimes people come into their purpose after hardship. Who are you to rob them of that experience for your own comfort and self-validation?

You can’t bake good bread without the patience to let the dough rise. Sometimes events transpire that are frustrating, suboptimal, inexplicable, or seemingly meaningless until enough time has passed and you see what it was all for.

Perhaps a homeless man is selling The Big Issue (a UK newspaper sold by homeless people to earn an income). You want to support him but something makes you wait until your partner finishes his purchase at a shop. You make the suggestion, which was already on his mind, too. He forks over the money and realizes there is a lump of bird crap on the cover. Your partner asks the man if he has a clean copy. He doesn’t. In fact, that isn’t even the latest copy. It’s the Christmas edition and it’s three weeks past Christmas.

Your partner says okay, shrugs, lets the guy keep the money, and simply deposits the soiled copy in the rubbish bin. You continue with your evening.

The next morning, you wake up with the beginnings of grace beginning to bubble in your soul. Your partner’s eyes are open and you ask him if he is still sleepy, between dreaming and waking. When he nods, you say good…you want to ask him a question while he is in that state. Surprisingly, the non-morning person agrees.

You ask him why he wanted to buy The Big Issue? How did he feel when he saw the bird crap? When he was told there wasn’t another copy available? When he realized it wasn’t even a recent copy?

He tells you he wanted to help the guy and preferred buying a copy because it acknowledged the service the other person was providing. He tells you he eventually realized it might be a scam and not someone who regularly sells The Big Issue.

How did he feel about potentially being scammed? Annoyed.

You ask why that wasn’t apparent, why he was able to just move on and not react or overreact or express his annoyance outwardly? Why was he able to just let it go with this stranger who he believed actually might have intentionally scammed him?

And he responds, because it just didn’t seem that important and he had bigger things to worry about.

When he responds to your question about what those bigger things are, you tilt your head and open your eyes a bit wider to emphasize his own words.

And then you hear yourself saying,

“Perhaps we can’t fix or heal anyone else. Perhaps we can only heal ourselves and then from that healed state we radiate healing to others.”

Take this as a story that may illuminate something in your own life or as a delightful bit of voyeurism into a struggling relationship. Your choice.

What can’t you let go? What makes you overreact? Why is that? Only you can know and only you can heal it.

“No! No!” you protest. “I need them to do this or that before it can be right. And until then, this can’t work!” You quote psychology or new age wisdom and speak of the need for boundaries…

A thought dropped into my mind like an Alka-Seltzer tablet in a glass of water:

Sometimes we must erect temporary, physical boundaries until the spiritual “boundaries” (which are actually anti-boundaries) are in place.

Life, in the earthly realm, interrupts the thought stream. Feeding time at the zoo.

Have you ever realized how many questions are actually attack thoughts spoken aloud? Why did you do that? Why did you say that? Why did you put that there or not put that here? Often, those are just translations for “You did it wrong (according to me).”

We think we know. From that place, and with a desire to help, we offer advice, knowledge, wisdom. But there’s always some guy without a high-priced education who does something so crazy, so ridiculous, what the heck is he thinking??? A few years later, the world can’t live without it. Wait, are we talking about technology…or religion?

We are all addicts in our own way. But the world has decided which addictions are acceptable and which ones aren’t. Maybe ponder that before judging. Between you and me, I wanted a cookie last night and there wasn’t one. It wasn’t pretty. I am not joking. And it was just a cookie. Imagine.

What are your addictions? Think beyond those that have been given the official label by society. Control? Perfectionism? Helpfulness? Being right? Fixing others? Healing the world? Victimhood? Avoidance? Outrage?

The need to blame is strong. So strong that we will bring criminal charges against a man who froze in fear in an unimaginable, deadly scenario rather than dealing with a problem that should have been fixed a long time ago.

Do you know that saying “everything happened in slow motion”? I once watched a young woman take the last step up onto the platform before calmly jumping in front of the oncoming train. It felt like hours, not seconds, of processing what I had just witnessed. And hours, not seconds, during which one part of my mind said “Run to her” and the other part said “Stay where you are.” Even as I ran toward the stalled train, a part of my mind was screaming “Go back! You won’t be able to unsee this. You will live with this image in your brain for the rest of your life.”

All of that and my life wasn’t even in danger. Imagine how much greater the fear would be if it had been?

But as I said, the need to blame is strong.

As a writer, I came to realize a mistake I was making. For each round of edits or rewrites, I would always start at the beginning of my manuscript. The first chapters got stronger and stronger. The middle chapters…not so much. I would lose steam and take a (sometimes long) break before returning to the beginning again. I learned to start editing at the middle when I was at my freshest.

There’s this spiritual tome I know that many people tend to begin again every January 1^st. At what point in the year does their momentum wane? Do those middle chapters sink in as much as those early chapters and workbook lessons did?

Two years ago, I started reading again from the middle of that tome.

Two days ago, I began again…from the end. Oh the epiphanies! Is it just my tech writing career that has me finally seeing a quick reference card for living the principles near the end of the text?

Yes, it’s only January 15^th. I’ve heard from several of you in recent days.

“The world is blowing up.”

“I’ve already broken my New Year’s resolutions.”

“How am I gonna get out of this funk?”

I don’t presume to know the answer to your question.

Not after today.

Flip the switch.

With love and peace,
Margaret