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I had a birthday conversation with my big brother yesterday.
I love my big brother. He is two years older than me, and until I was six years old we slept in the same bedroom, and we were the best of friends, even though he occasionally tortured me…
I have two brothers. I never developed a relationship with my younger brother, even though for three years he did work for me, and yet.
After my younger brother was born, I never talked to my older brother, he didn’t want to talk to me. You see, I was a girl… lol. But a few years ago I started calling him and asked for a conversation… So now we talk. And as long as I don’t criticize him, we shall… I think.
Yesterday’s conversation, for his birthday, we talked about our parents.
My experience with my parents was that they abused me and that they loved him.
Although it took me many years and a ton of work, I can now see my parents as people independent of how they were with me.
I have the sideways view. Everything looks different from there. In some pictures I see my younger self, but the emotion is not there… because I am not there. In the sideways view things aren’t happening to me, they are happening to her.
My brother never knew that you can look from another place and not take your ego with you…
So yesterday I was his sideways view… it was mighty interesting. Even just hearing how I saw things was arresting for him. Arresting like you are a horse running at 60 miles an hour and something makes you suddenly stop… not a simple activity… A tad jarring… lol.
My hope is that after that conversation he can re-evaluate what he says about my father.
My father with whom he cut all ties for about 20 years before he died… and he is still hurting.
His, my brother’s soul correction is just one digit off mine, but we are literally like night and day. Different.
He is sensitive, easily feels hurt, offended, and then he licks his wounds for quite a long time. He is 33, I am 34… My 4 encourages process… so almost as soon as I feel hurt I start to process and takes as long as it does, I get through, to the other side, where I can see what it is that I did that started the ball rolling. And maybe feel compassion for the other.
He tends to be down for the duration, while I manage to be that standup doll, that rolly polly, that bounceback doll. And even then I continue the process until I can laugh. Not just a little… No. A belly laugh.
But, obviously, I had to learn to process this way… and not get stuck in the misery of the hurt.
On another note: Now that I have read a little bit of Erich Fromm, psychiatrist philosopher, I have been looking again at the question:
Can humanity be saved?
Judging from everything I see, the answer is ‘no’.
Like everything, you cannot save anyone. They need to want to save themselves, and the way I see it, they don’t want to. They don’t care.
This has been the issue for many people who wanted the save the world, who wanted to save people.
Rumi: Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.
Another teaching is how Gandhi, before he would advise a young boy to stop eating sugar, he had to stop eating sugar himself, or he would be inauthentic.
Authenticity is not a style. Authenticity is the only place where you have power… because there is nothing hidden in the unsaid. You are who you say you are, through and through. The good, the bad, and the ugly.
- If you want people to look at things from the sideways view, you need to look from there too.
- If you want people to see people as persons… you need to first master that yourself… or you are inauthentic.
The eight billion is inauthentic. There is a lot hidden in the unsaid…
Even the 1000 is somewhat inauthentic…
Now, back to: can humanity be saved?
To decide that you need to look at the individuals. First look at the people who do or propose doing things for the good of people… If they didn’t feel so superior to others, if they worked on themselves instead, I would have some hopes for them. Like many of my email writers who tell me how much difference they make and that I should listen to them, or do what they do… ugh.
Then we’ll look at the people who just want a better life, who want to stop being empty, living an empty, meaningless life. The people who want to get unstuck from the almost permanent misery they feel. Or from self-hate. Or from feeling stupid, worthless, nothing.
Some of them work with me. Many of them read my articles.
They mostly hope that they can change some behavior or some results, and then they will be happy. They hope to find some tidbit that will make it all better.
Do they intend to invest time, work, effort, and maybe, god forbid, money? No. It doesn’t have enough value for them… not if it comes with having to change!
As long as the worldview is that having gives you value, humanity is its own enemy and is digging its own and maybe even the planet’s grave.
Now, if that is so, is it still worth working on yourself?
I really can’t answer for you. But… but if you compare my millionaire brother’s life experience and mine, who determinedly have nothing and laugh with joy… I think it is worth working on yourself.
I would say that the moment you can laugh about most things, including your own mistakes, your own misfortune, your own gaffes… laugh wholeheartedly, life will be worth living for you. And whether humanity is going out in a handbasket or not, you’ll be happy. You’ll be able to see people as persons, including yourself. You’ll be able to see the sky and the clouds… and have a sunny day even when the sky is covered by clouds. Because the sky and the sun are there… just covered up… temporarily.
So you won’t get stuck in any misery… because you’ll be able to allow reality to change… as it does… moment to moment.
And that I want I help people with. It’s quite intense. It is quite emotional. And it works if you work it.
And, of course, it doesn’t work if you don’t work it.
In an upcoming session in the Moneyroots series we’ll work on this sky vs clouds issue. So instead of what’s wrong with them, instead of what’s missing for them they can focus on what’s infinite, permanent, and unchanging: the sky.
Get to your personal heavenThe live session will be on Saturday September 24 at 11 am EDT. Having listened to the first two sessions is mandatory.
PS: The Moneyroots workshop is a money course…
and it deals with everything relating through money. Your mindset about having money, making money, making MORE money, spending it, saving it, investing it. Once the mindset changes, the behavior changes, and the results change with the behavior.
The workshop is entirely adjusted to deal with what the participants need, so it comes without a lesson plan, or and agenda. It will be ongoing as long as there are issues that people would like to resolve.
PPS: if you can’t see the hilarious in the title picture above, there is no way I can help you. A sense of humor is essential to working on yourself.
