Helping (people change)
with a dedication to a true hero, Bill S.

Today someone emailed me a little essay called Do you want to change? The first assumption was that people don't want to change.

I think that is a dangerous assumption. People don't know HOW to change. It's a social/political thing to want things to stay the same. That way The System keeps the insane status quo going. Keynes said, capitalism is insane and is sure to die, but in the end, we're all dead anyway (paraphrase) but that just shows how logic doesn't help straighten out anything!

The second assumption in the article is that abuse isn't personal. I think abuse is plenty personal. Okay, so if it weren't you it would have been somebody else is the argument used. But the fact is it was you. And the trauma, pain and scars you carry around are yours, not somebody else's.

I felt compelled to respond on the forum where it was posted. Because in my life in the 64 bit Alternative Universe has shown me that this New Age thing of "Blame the Victim" is completely out of control. People pretending to channel God who have NO compassion for victims of very bad childhoods. People who can't be vulnerable and cry with the grieving. People who thought the victims in Hurricane Rita asked for it because they couldn't or wouldn't skip town.

(/o\)(/o\)(/o\)(/o\)(/o\)(/o\)(/o\)(/o\)(/o\)(/o\)(/o\)(/o\)(/o\)(/o\)(/o\)(/0\)

We are all individuals and have to "deal" with things in our own way, in our time.

Unfortunately, life's misfortunes hit all of us.

If they are overwhelming -- such as sexual and physical abuse -- and we are not "safe" enough to cope with them in the NOW of the moment -- we must find ways to go on. So we become angry, or depressed (an overused word) or become mentally ill in some cases. Often, way too often, these tragic traumas lead to addictions. And addiction becomes an obsessive mentality (and sometimes an actual physical allergy depending on which of the three kinds you get) ... which can only be broken with a complete surrender and a true religious (read: spiritual) experience.

This is why so often it seems people who have experienced The Bottom are the spiritual seekers.

Change can be frightening to a person who has never experienced change to the good. And it is fruitless to try to persuade them otherwise. All we can do is to understand and "be there" for them as they try to find a better way to live.

Once trust has broken down by a traumatic event, it is a hard thing to restore. That's why our compassion and support is so important. Why change if there is nothing to support it?

These r.d.laing types of mental knots are only the tip of the iceberg. There is a school of "therapy" called rational-emotive therapy (RET). They used it for YEARS in addiction centres. It doesn't work. Great in theory, bad in practice. It attempts to argue people out of their obsessive thinking and "knots".

The truth is: it is by God's grace that we finally discover what God is. We are changed by positive perception, and other humans CAN help us with this. We can be an example to a damaged person. I call it the Will to Well. We can "catch" a desire to be good, to turn to God even though humans have failed us. The people who work on their addictions are true Heros, it takes courage (which comes from Full of heart ...) to look at YourSelf, discover the hole in the doughnut and then struggle with the beginning to Know the Unknowable.

Grace in itself is NOT enough. We have to make a daily commitment to live in God's way. It's so easy, and hard wired, to fall back into "bad" patterns. They kept us alive until we could experience the miracle and shouldn't be condemned. Sometimes we forget just how many people die from traumatic events. Suicides, "accidents" caused because we were obsessing over one thing or another, stress related illnesses.

In all my metaphysical searchings, the one thing I have learned is that GRATITUDE is a, if not the, key attitude needed to make life worthwhile. Being truly appreciative of the glass being half full and not obsessing about the half that is empty!

I am happy I went through all these stages of living, the good and the bad. They've brought me to where I am today. Even the worst of my obsessive thinking, mental knots and negativity served its purpose.

Getting to where you want to be is a process, not an event. We have to grieve our losses. That's why compassion (which comes from Full of all feelings, not pity) for every one and every event can make us be healers in the highest sense.

The message is: that email he wrote that I read is part of HIS healing. But it needn't be True for anyone else, unless it is True for them.

To say that the abuse in my life was nothing PERSONAL just doesn't cut it with me. It happened, it was personal and I needed to deal with it personally. And with God's help, I did.

I am a walking miracle. When I imagine a world with 1 billion Bill S's walking around, I am happy. It wasn't always that way.

Download a Bill S. talk: go to www.mysticalprinciples.yahoogroups.com