Trusting The Process

trust the process
and…ask
to see the way around
again spirals

i do not believe that everything happens for a reason…
but i do believe that everything happens.
and you don’t deserve it.

i rake the leaves again
one barrow at a time
i fill the garden
weeks behind
but the garden will fill
and the grass will grow
and already the crocuses are saying hello
hello

trust the process
let the anger rise and have it’s say
let the grief swallow you
it takes as long as it takes
live in it
and when it’s all too much just
hold still

It Takes a Village – Maintaining Ethical Standards in Spiritual Traditions and Practice

“Creative minds have always been known to survive any kind of bad training.”

~Anna Freud

Survive -  I’m a survivor and I’m surviving once again.

Confession – It’s been almost a year already since I crossed a line that shouldn’t have been crossed.
Rephrased -   It’s only been a year since a line was crossed that shouldn’t have been crossed.
To clarify  -   It’s only been a year since I had a sexual encounter with my therapist/spiritual teacher.

It still hurts in this really deep-deep-down-heart-aching way.

For the longest time I thought that the whole affair really only affected me.  Lately I can see how it’s had a profound effect on nearly everyone in my life, in one way or another; my husband and daughter being the most noteable.

I’ve withdrawn from my family and many of my friends.  I’ve been mindful of keeping and recruiting a  support network and  I know I am not alone, but somedays I’m much better at reaching out than others and lately I’ve been holing up again.

I still have a lot of anger and grief.  I don’t subscribe to “everything happens for a reason” so please don’t go quoting some idealistic “you’ll be stronger for it” peptalk.  I learned a valuable lesson for certain…but that doesn’t mean ‘I asked for it’.  I didn’t ask for this and had boundaries been created and proper therapy/teaching been in place I could have learned what I needed without so much pain.

It’s got me to thinking a lot about what can be done to help prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future.  The man I had been seeing isn’t actually a licensed therapist, though he led us to believe he was, telling us to have him added to our provider list but then never calling my husband back after repeated requests (the insurance company couldn’t find any record of ”Michael Dean Goodman” being licensed in the State of Florida).  Such was the state of our marriage (and hence my seeking out couples counseling) that I believed the therapist rather than my own husband.   I thought my husband was just being difficult and was not open to therapy.  When I asked the therapist about it I was told to “stay out of it”.

I had sought out this man because he was said to be alternative lifestyle/kink friendly.  I was (and still am in certain ways) attracted to a very strong polarity dynamic in a relationship (also known as Dominance/submission) and was also seeking out ways to have pain inflicted upon my body.  I wanted to better understand the reasons for these urges and I wanted help for my marriage which was nearly shattered at that time.  It wasn’t long before I was placing my therapist in that empty masculine position in my life.  It’s completely natural…they even have a name for it called “transference”.  And yes, I became quite infatuated with him.

I read back over our corresondence and I remember bits of conversations that we had.  I told him how I felt.  He lives several states away and the counseling sessions were done via phone.   Perhaps he felt safe because of the distance…

It escalated.  He would tell me what to do during therapy and I would turn into a gooey mess.  He knew.  I told him.  I wrote hundreds of emails.  He knew. Perhaps he thought he was doing some great thing by using his dominant nature to get me to open up…

I started to feel like I belonged to him.
I started to believe that he could show me the white light.
I started to believe that only he could show me the white light…
Forgetting…forgetting….

We started talking of spiritual things - experiences that I was having; levels of consciousness; meditation; ayurvedic living.  I started thinking of him as “Guru”.  I was so hungry for Guru that I didn’t listen to my Self.

It is no good to see the light if you can’t see the dark – no good to embrace the brilliance if you can’t dance with the shadow.

Now, there are medical boards and state licensure requirements for all who practice medicine; people you can call if there is a malpractice; consequences for crossing ethical boundaries.  There are no such measures in place for those who practice spiritual teaching as their trade.  Who do you call?  Outside of having the money to hire an attorney (because you’re unlikely to get one to take the case without a big retainer unless your teacher is effluent) you’re on your own.

Yet, so many teachings urge us to find a guru and follow them implicitly.  How is it that this tradition has been handed down for so many lifetimes?  It works of course, when all goes well but the risk is so high.

Well, one must have good powers of discernment (which is something I think is sorely lacking here in the western world and is something that I’m still working on myself) but also and perhaps more so I think it comes down to community.  We are so isolated, even in our big cities with millions of people.  We are so alone and transplanted and lacking the safety of community.  Community knows.  You can’t get away with much in Community without being found out.

They aren’t kidding with that whole Six Degrees of Separation thing.  It’s often even less than that.

And then of course, we need to speak up for ourselves.  The only thing worse than crossing those ethical boundaries is keeping quiet about it so that they can be crossed again.

I’m not quite sure what my voice is going to sound like or the ripple effect it may or may not have, but I know the answer for me and the future is community.  If we can make the time to build and maintain supportive spiritual communities then there won’t be so many that will suffer harm at the feet of an unethical guru and likewise, such a teacher would have the opportunity to correct his or her behavior (possibly even before great harm was done) and they could look into their dark side more completely to work on their own attachments.

After all, we’re all human…
And that’s not something I’m likely to go forgetting ever again…

“Ooooo, Snuggle Puppy of Mine….

Everything about you is especially fine.
I love what you are, I love what you do…
Oooooo, I love you!”

And a very Happy Valentine’s Day to all of you!

 

lyrics: Sandra Boynton

Caught up….sort of…for the moment….at least here….

Yep, finally answered all your wonderful comments.  I don’t mean to get so far behind but I get tired and I don’t like to respond to comments when I’m tired because it feels like I’m searching too hard for words and then that just doesn’t feel genuine so sometimes it ends up being a reeeeeaaaaalllllllyyyyy long time before I get back to responding.   But hey, I’m caught up again…for the moment….and I really always appreciate what ya’ll have to say.  (See?  I’ve been in Virginia for too long…I’m startin’ to talk all funny.)

Hope ya’ll have a great V-day! 

Me and the girl are gonna go to a Valentine’s Day Milonga! 

I think that warrants painting our toenails red-red-red!

xoxo

Things I Find Odd

The way that corndogs can smell like the inside of an icecream shop.
The way that popcorn can smell like old gymsocks.
Why it’s “fourty” instead of “forty”.
I mean “Why it’s “forty” instead of “fourty”….(someone was into the wine).
How the District of Columbia can fine you for speeding and then not send you a notice and then not supply you with any photographic evidence after they turn your account over to collections (thereby doubling the amount of your original citation).  I don’t think traffic cameras are entirely constitutional…and I wasn’t even the one driving.
Why I love “Hell’s Kitchen” and how come I get squirmy (in a good way) when Chef Ramsay goes off on someone even though it makes me uncomfortable (I would NEVER audition for that show!).
Baby Phat clothing in the Fingerhut catalog.
The fact that I even get a Fingerhut catalog.
The way my blackberry wine really tastes more like rasberries but not at all like grapes…

Sometimes I think I’m not doing so well…

…but if I look at the bigger picture, I’m probably doing pretty darn well.

…all things considered.

…and all.

:)