We are currently in a Socratic Email Class in which participants choose what they wish to focus on. Below are excerpts from the class with the Guide’s responses.
I still need to work on self-hate. I think self-hate originates in a feeling of shame because I did not have loving parents. I always worked to prove my worth by being "perfect," which didn't bring the love and approval a child needs. Self-hate comes as stress, urgency, anger, pushing myself physically, always judging myself to see if I fit in, trying to "read" the group to see which persona is best, using humor to keep the conversation light and impersonal, fearing that I might expose too much about my past, and generally being uncomfortable with myself. R/L
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What you’re describing—quite perfectly—is what every human being must encounter and transcend if they are to be freed from the tyranny of egocentric karmic conditioning/self-hate. The following is a true story: I have worked with thousands and thousands of people over the years and never met a single one who’d had the childhood they believed they deserved. Not one. People will say things along the lines of “my parents tried their best…” and the rest of that sentence is “but they failed me.” Sometimes one parent succeeded but the other didn’t and that was the cause of the trauma. It is really, really, really important that we let go those old stories about how what’s wrong with us now is the result of what happened to us as children. It is not. (If those reading along will take and apply that encouragement from this class, your life will change dramatically and quickly. If we have no one to blame, no excuses, clearly how we are NOW is up to us.) The self-hate each person feels is the result of a relationship with egocentric karmic conditioning/self-hate and from nothing else. EGO causes stress, urgency, and anger. EGO pushes and judges. EGO is always scanning, projecting, creating fear of “others” lest someone see it for what it is. EGO constantly manipulates a human being into believing the human being is doing everything ego is doing. That’s what’s happening with you and that’s why you—and all the rest of us—will never be able to change or fix ourselves enough to end self-hate, the judgments, and the beatings. “You” are NOT doing any of those things. Not the pushing or judging or hiding or manipulating or fearing. Until we see that, we are like creatures caught in a spider’s web. We are trapped, helpless, and suffering. As soon as we see ego for what it is, recognize the conversation in conditioned mind for what it is, get it that we are hearing/seeing all that information, not “authoring” it, we are moving toward freedom. What do you see about all of that? Gassho
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“I want to, but I can't" is the suffering process that perennially gets me. Seeing the "I" prevalent in the statement itself! Yet, I slip into being the "do-er." For example, a new practice offering is presented and I say "yes" enthusiastically, may feel hints of "can't do this," but trudge on with forbearance and an impressive amount of tenacity, sensing I'm already waist high in the suffering set up. Then, later will often get blind-sided by information that I'm identified, while thinking I've been practicing diligently. The pay dirt: self-hate and "Gosh, I try but just can't...!" R/L Gassho.
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The good news is there’s a lot of clarity there. If I’m seeing what you’re seeing, you realize that ego, the false “I” that is the ego identity, does. Life be and ego do. Efforting. Doing is “being” a someone. Awareness doesn’t require a someone to be aware. So if ego is going to be sure it stays in the driver’s seat in a person’s life, it better be sure to do awareness. But of course ego can’t do awareness—nor does it want to. It wants to get to and hopefully “live” in that pay dirt of suffering and self-hate that gives it the attention it needs to continue to appear to exist. How about exploring the difference between awareness being and “someone doing”? Gassho
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What I struggle to figure out sometimes is what is grief’s presence and what is ego’s voice. Like when a memory comes, is it helpful to play it out and feel it, or to try and pull my attention back? I don’t want to avoid, or indulge. R/L
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What you’re getting to explore is the difference between a sensation/feeling/emotion and a story. A memory appears. What if you stay with the experience of “memory appearing” rather than going off to “think about it” and “feel” it? What is the memory without the story and the meaning and the subsequent sensations/feelings/emotions that story engenders? Gassho
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It seems the recording half of R/L is best done at certain times when ego has been "neutralized," like at a retreat. But listening has benefit all the time because ego didn't sneak on the recording. How can I end up with more recordings of me without ego intruding. R/L
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Remember, we’re not going for outcomes, we’re going for freedom. You’re recording, in large part, so that the voices of ego are revealed. It’s how you can get clear about when you’re identified with ego and when you’re present, at center. So record fearlessly! Listen to the recording. Do you hear ego on there? Make a recording that explores what you heard. In this way you’ll get clearer about what ego is doing and how it’s doing it. If you have a drinking problem, staying home all the time is not the way to resolve it. Yes? We want to be free, not controlled by ego to live a smaller and smaller life. We’re not “getting it right,” we’re learning to walk freely through the world. Gassho