Core Story Work

Core Story Work –

I am full to overflowing with ‘not knowing’, open to whatever guidance comes. The answers appear as they will, often in the moment in which action must be taken and not before. It is clear that it is inappropriate, silly, futile, a waste of time and energy to try to answer the question before it is fully formed, ripe.

We spend precious hours of our lives planning, weighing options, wanting to know because it feels safe to know what tomorrow will look like and then we are living in a moment that hasn’t come instead of this moment and living in an unreal fantasy. It takes practice and courage to have that much faith. One does get better at it. Living in the not knowing develops a comfort zone with it.

The only thing the universe understands is action, when you physically take the plunge, jump into the abyss. Intention without action is empty and meaningless.

My normal MO has always been that I would feel some discomfort in my body/heart/mind and I would breathe into it and identify it and then often journal for quite a few pages about it in order to integrate it. It’s been interesting that for the past few months, when material has come up for me I’ve been able to write a few sentences about it and integrate it. That combined with daily meditation has kept me in a pretty peaceful state of mind and a state of acceptance including the acceptance of probable sickness and possible death. I have frequently experienced non abiding awakening, a connection to all that is, a realization that there is just this incredible rich and beautiful oneness and that nothing anywhere is ‘wrong’. Hard, yes. Painful, yes. Wrong, no.

The other thing that I’ve noticed is that my relationship to life has shifted dramatically. This has been a process that has taken years. When I was first diagnosed I felt like

‘Ok, well f*** it then, I’m outta here’ (and good riddance really was the underlying emotion). The corollary to that was, ‘Life has been hard, I’ve done my best to be a good human and a good parent, be honest and compassionate and helpful and loving and THIS is how you treat me? It hasn’t been that fun. I’m totally down with my departure and the next adventure.’

Simultaneously, I’ve also been aware that this entire life thing has been a conspiracy to do the healing work that would allow me to awaken from the dream state. And I’ve referred to myself as the most blessed man on the planet. I know that I am very much loved by lots of people and certainly by wildness that has supported me in so much of my life. I’ve been given these lovely gifts of love all along the way to support and nurture me in my work.

I’ve come to the point where although I’m not attached to being here on the planet, I really do appreciate and honor the experience of being alive. I’ve grown fond of it. Previously there was a tenaciousness that wanted to squeeze every last drop from the adventure. That’s still there, but it’s coming from a softer place, more like life and I are nurturing each other.

So, yesterday? The day before? I had a melt down. I put T on the shuttle, cleaned everything like a maniac, went to bed ultimately and woke up the next day unable to get warm although the thermostat was set to 80 and I was wearing layers of clothing including a thick sweater and a jacket. I knew in that moment that my physicality was pretty severely compromised. This body is the master in many ways of my experience. If I want to stay here and participate, I have to do what it tells me.

So I did do what the body was telling me. Exceptional self care, pills and naps and hyperthermia and good food. I am certainly not fully recovered physically. In fact, the body still feels pretty weak and tenuous and I’m aware that I can’t back off on the self care for some days.

Simultaneously I listened to the Core Story audio by Adya. I had listened to it previously but got more out of it this time. My core story, like a lot of people’s is a sense of inadequacy, not good enoughness, no matter how successful one is at whatever one has done, there’s no way to fill that hole. In Zen this is called the hungry ghost, all mouth and no stomach. Stuff all of the success you want into it and the reflections by others of that success and it will never be satiated.

Our tendency is to drop into stillness and wholeness where we know this is not true, but that’s a patch. We don’t like pain and are programmed to avoid it if possible. The core story will come up again and again. Adya says that the core story has really driven all of our existence and our decisions about life and how we’ve lived it and I can see that this is true for me. It has driven my desire for relationship, my desire to be seen as helpful, spiritual. He says that when the core story work is completed you’ll know because your activities will no longer be driven by it.

So instead of avoiding it, we drop into it, hold it, keep it in our awareness. I have the response of ‘why in the hell would ANYONE want to do this work? It’s hard and it’s painful.’

The same day, I did a body talk session with H in which it came up that I am unable to fulfill most of what I learned about what it is to be a man. That definition includes ‘provider and protector’, the strong macho get it done guy (especially with the Aries sun sign, oh my god). In that sense I have very little to offer, in that sense. I have no value as a man. She identified my anger and frustration about this. It totally tags into who I am in relationships. And of course it totally tags into my precognitive programming of not being enough, the hungry ghost.

It is the desire for consciousness to be present within me that brings the illusions to awareness over and over again. Consciousness that brings up the often difficult and painful learning.

Pain comes and goes. That’s the way life IS! There is NO WAY to be alive and be free from pain!

Then you fall off the wagon again

What? Did you expect to hold onto freedom all the time?
You think that when you get there, that's it?
Your work here is done?
You can be above it all for the remainder of your days?
You can be at peace all the time?

I've always had to work pretty hard at whatever I wanted to get good at and this is no exception.
This is one of those places where intelligence is probably not helpful and in fact may be harmful.
This is not one of those things like calculating the sun's angle of incidence at 1 pm for a particular geographical position and time of year.
It's not like figuring out a better way to manage a couple of dozen employees.
In many respects it doesn't have a dirtworld application.

After being so comfortable and confident and feeling like there's some sense in all this (a lovely high, btw) the slightest little toe stub sends you reeling back to the pits of your self created hell. Maybe it's the contrast between states that makes it so hard.

Even though I KNOW that there's treasure in the dark hard places even THAT can seem so pointless on the level of existence.

I was pretty sick for a number of days in a row. I don't know how to describe it. Like the life force is SO low that you're floating in the tween state between embodiment and death for hours. Sometimes that feels painful, sometimes I am merely curious. Sometimes it feels like I'm hanging on for 'dear life'.

That's just my truth. No holds barred. My quality of life was pretty dismal there for a bit. Then being here DOES seem pointless.

When you ask god, beg him/her to go all the way into complete knowing, you're jumped onto the back of an animal that you have absolutely no control over. You've entered a realm that is going to take you to your own personal hell over and over and over again. Maybe you'll come back and maybe you won't. There are no guarantees and you can't back out or change your mind.

Push yourself up off the ground again, can you sit, can you stand? No mercy. Is there a reward at the end of this? Is it worth it?

Relationships

I think, as I said, that by the time you eliminate people who don't come from the same socio/economic background, eliminate a fairly large percentage of the remainder that has not even BEGUN to do their emotional work, eliminate from those, people with whom you don't have good chemistry or who have other problems and then figure you're working with a handful of MEN! Yup, you've just killed off about 99% of your population. :-) I actually know and respect a pretty large number of guys who HAVE done a lot of their work and are strong, hard working and emotionally intelligent. (but they already HAVE boyfriends) Just kidding. You've heard that one? I know a bunch of heterosexual great guys as well. They are somewhat rare but they do exist. They are the kinds of het guys with whom I maintain friendships. I don’t have any male friends who don't basically meet those criteria.

OK, in fact what I call REAL men are faced with the same odds, if you will. Most women that I know COMPLAIN that there are no guys who are emotionally available AND manly (strong, courageous, capable, or whatever), reasonably attractive and good team mates. But they are actually ATTRACTED to guys who are arrogant, self absorbed and borderline abusive. I can guarantee that this is true because many years ago I tested that theory. To get completely nerdy on the subject, you might attribute this to historical conditioning. These types are seen, perhaps, as strong and able to protect the cave and the family.

OK, I'll admit that there is one other category of men that a certain large group of women find attractive and that is guys who are wealthy. The Take Care of Me class of females and they are quite abundant. An associated group of women are those that neeeeeeed to be taken care of emotionally. I guess that goes for a lot of guys also. In theory, at least, there are a greater number of women who are emotionally well-balanced. I wonder sometimes if it's actually true.

I think the only way this ever works in the modern world among reasonably well-balanced people is when equals get together and are completely aware of the importance and value of doing whatever work is involved to deal with their OWN issues as they come up AND to make an ongoing and considerable investment in the relationship. Doesn't mean that we are strong in all areas and that girls can't be girls and boys can't be boys. Just need to discuss, make agreements and figure out ways to make it all work.

I have said that relationships are one of the faster paths to enlightenment (the other being terminal disease :-)) If two people are truly loving and in relationship, whatever 'stuff' you have that ISN'T love will bubble to the surface to be healed by love. In a healthy, balanced relationship, stuff bubbles to the surface and your partner supports you in working it out. Requires time and energy and focus. Also, it seems that some of the 'stuff' that YOU are packing around fits like a key in a lock to whatever 'stuff' your PARTNER is packing around. This can sometimes be quite volatile. That's why it takes incredible commitment. Just how important is a real relationship? Maybe just easier to avoid the whole thing and do serial dating for the rest of our lives? :-)