Every fall CAN be a fall forward

Some spiritual teachers say that we always fall forward. Another saying is also that life happens for us and not to us.

I believe that these two statements go together. I’ve also come to believe that the second statement is always true, while the former only is true if we make it true. And in a sense, we have to make the second statement true as well.

What do I mean by this? Well, it all depends on how we process it on the inside. If we choose to just resist our hardships and not learn anything from them, it will feel as if life is happening to us and a fall will just be a fall. Maybe in the grander scheme of things, everything that happens, including total defeat and death, is a learning experience. But if we don’t want to wait until after death to see if our failures might have taught us something, we need to start paying attention to how we process things.

The day before writing this I had a fall. It’s of a personal nature, that is not suited for this blog. At least not at this point. 

I’ve fallen in this way before. But something interesting happened. I didn’t fall as hard as the last time. And it made me realize that I have to deal with my stress. That I need to take care of myself in more ways than just working out, meditating and eating healthy. But there will be a separate post on this. 

What I want to get at, is that there is a lesson in all of our experiences. Even the ones that we and our lack of character are the causes of. It’s so easy to get into negative self-talk, with thoughts like: “I’m hopeless”, “now I’m back at square one”, “I’ll never take control of my life” and “I’ll never amount to anything”.

But this is very limited thinking. And that’s all it is. Thinking. We can change our thinking by choosing whether we want to believe our thoughts. And when we understand this, it also becomes easier to choose our thoughts.

For one, our “bad” behavior is never the whole truth about ourselves. If we take a step back and observe our thoughts, we can see that we convince ourselves of all kinds of stuff that we regret later.

But if we instead resist what is happening, explain things away and refuse to learn anything, we will likely just get more and more lessons, until we get a lesson that destroys us. In most cases it’s unlikely that things go this far since the lessons become clearer and clearer. But we can make it more and more difficult for ourselves. 

The real big things happen on the inside, when we choose to take to heart what God is trying to teach us. Because often it is quite obvious what we need to do to make things work better, whether it concerns our relationships, careers, finances or something else. We just don't want to be humble or uncomfortable enough to actually do it.

And depending on how we process things in our minds, we will either fall backward or forward. Depending on how we process things, we will either take control or let life happen to us. And paradoxical enough, real control begins with us letting go and trusting God. Because as long as we let the ego take charge, we haven’t learned the biggest lesson yet.

This is something that I still struggle with by the way.

How wonderful it is to be a sinner

The title of this post is sort of click bait. What I’m talking about here is something akin to the parable quoted in the post-image.

The point is that I’m grateful for my sins, because they make it harder for me to judge others. However, I had to become aware of my sins for this to be the case. In the past, I didn’t see my own sins. Or more specific, I didn’t look at them as sins. As something disgraceful or hurtful, or whichever other label one might give to actions that fit under the label “sin”. So I judged. I still catch myself judging sometimes, I have to admit. In my thoughts, I catch myself doing it quite often, even though I catch myself quicker and quicker and do my best not to believe my judgments. 

Do I judge the pharisee? Let me put it like this: for most of my life I didn’t look properly at myself. So I judged. I could have continued not looking at myself, had it not been for the grace of God. I could have continued being just as bad as the pharisee regarding judgment and I did not get out of this mindset by my own effort. I couldn’t have, since I wasn’t aware of how I was acting. In many other instances, I’m probably still just as “bad”, or “worse” than the pharisee.

Punished by God? Part 1

What if God isn't angry at you? Just try the thought on. What if God never is out to get you? What if God just loves you unconditionally, no matter what you do, because he knows that everything “bad” that you do, you do out of ignorance? Just try these thoughts and see how they feel.

I don't know if I myself can fully believe this. But the more I think about it, the more right it feels. It doesn't have to mean that we're free to do anything. There are still consequences in this life, and this perspective does not exclude the possibility of some hard lessons in the next life, if we fail to learn what we came here to learn in this one. 

But why would our loving, heavenly father punish us for making mistakes, for all eternity? We would never call a human father loving, if he hurt his child when the child made mistakes.

Called to Christ? Part 1

I’m a confused person. But I embrace my confusion. I think more people should embrace their confusion. Because there are loads of things to be confused about. 

On the one hand, I feel called to follow Christ. On the other, there are so many weird things with a spiritual nature happening in my life, that don’t fall in line with a normal Christian life. Some fall in line more with what, for the lack of a better word, might be categorised as New Age.

At the same time, I do not believe in Liberal Theology. I don’t think that we basically just have to be nice to each other and everything will be okay. This partially has to do with me recognising that in order for us to be truly nice, we need to have character. And character is not built simply by being nice.

I've knocked on the door

I’ve knocked on the door and it has opened. But now I’m hesitating on the threshold. My baggage keeps me from entering and I’m unwilling to let it go. I’ve been carrying it for so long. I’ve gotten comfortable with it. It has become like a friend to me. Sometimes, I feel like it is carrying me, even if I know that it is not true. Some of it is tied around my neck with a hard knot. But I know the knot will loosen, if I choose to let go of the which will come off more easily. Yet, I’m hesitant to even do that. 

Undeserved grace

What did I do to deserve the grace that I’ve received? Of course it’s not about actions. But all is not well on the inside either. My character isn’t what it ought to be. I can often be unloving and judgmental. I try not to be. But I am. I’m selfish and greedy. Not all of the time. I don’t consider myself a particularly good person. And yet, I catch myself bragging about virtues and accomplishments, even though they in truth are pretty meagre. 

The only things that I’ve really got going for me, is an honest willingness to change into the person God intended me to be. That, and a longing for being with God, that sometimes can move me to tears, but that often is drowned out by my ingratitude for what I have and resentment stemming from all the things that I perceive as being things that I lack, or from the things in my life that I don’t want. 

And yet, God has chosen to step into my life and make his presence known. Perhaps this is so not is spite of all my shortcomings, but because of them. Because, even though I’m still pretending to others that I’m someone that I’m not, I’ve stopped pretending to myself. I’m weak and sinful. I don’t want to be. But I am. And I can only keep striving for a perfection that I know that I will never reach. At least not in this life. 

The strange paradox in all of this, is that I'm okay just the way I am. And at the same time, I'm all but okay.

When we start to slip

It took a long time for me to notice this tendency, which also has been the theme for my previous two blog posts. And these posts are partially me trying to write myself out of my tendency to slip. I’m trying to understand the mechanisms behind it, so that I can more easily notice where things start to go “wrong”. 

It goes something like this: I decide to do something. Or adopt a certain attitude. It goes well at first. But then little changes to my original intent start to creep in. It always start with thoughts. Sometimes it’s pretty straight forward, with thoughts like: “Just this once” or “Maybe I can look at it this way instead.” And suddenly I’m somewhere where I don’t want to be.

But sometimes my mind is more insidious. One good example is that a while back I decided to just accept things as they are. When I did this and just focused on the things that I had direct control over, instead of things where other people were involved, I felt really good. My life felt easy and everything seemed to fall into place. I was in control and thinking happy thoughts.

Then I got a little annoyed over something. And then something came up that I felt that I just couldn’t leave alone. Even though it would in all likelihood not turn into a disaster, it might hinder or delay things that I found important. 

And boom! I was back in resistance. And this resistance sure created obstacles and things that delayed me. Had I chosen not to resist, things might have run smoothly. But because I resisted, I was sure to get exactly what I did not want.

I believe that something crucial here, is kindness towards ourselves. When we start noticing that we have fallen, it’s easy for us to beat ourselves up. It is for me at least. And since going against something that is good for ourselves and others already creates circumstances that make us feel bad, we make it even worse by trash talking ourselves. And this usually leads to even more “bad” behavior. Because the energy that we could have spent on picking ourselves up, is spent on getting ourselves down instead. 

I’m also thinking of something that I touched upon at the beginning of this post: the unconscious part. And this one is tricky. Because the distinction between conscious and unconscious is tricky. There are for sure many thoughts that just slip by unnoticed. But at some point, I do notice them. And when I do, I have the choice of letting them go or holding onto them. Then again, I might be only half-aware of my thoughts and have some awareness in the back of my mind, that I can do something about them, but it doesn’t go any further than that. It never occurs to me that this “something” could be to let them go. And before I’ve done something more with this awareness, something distracts me. And the next time the same or similar thoughts return, I might not at all be aware that I can do anything with them, except for believing them.

I thing that the best way to prevent slipping in the future, is to simply practice becoming more aware of what is going on on the inside. Aware and HONEST towards ourselves about what is going on on the inside. No one is going to do it for us. Because the only ones that know what is going on on the inside, are us and God. And the funny thing is, that we and God are also the only ones that we can never get away from. We and God are the only ones to whom, ultimately, nothing but the facts matter.

I did something bad a few days ago part 2

The final choice of doing what I did, can be divided in two. I first made an initial choice, telling myself that I’m just going to do this one thing. Just to see how it is. Then I’m going to let it go. But about five minutes later, I had gone through with the rest of it. 

As you can see, I managed to trick myself over and over again, slipping more and more. It is also worth noting that there is a potential continuation on a possible chain of events relating to the topic that I’m talking about. But I’ve decided to say no to my mind. No to my ego. And I pray to God that he will help me to stay committed to my “no”. 

I did something bad a few days ago part 1

Not something BAD bad. Not anything that most people wouldn’t find totally okay. But bad in a way that I prefer to leave it to your imagination to figure out what it was. So, why am I writing this post? Well, in the hope that I will learn something from the experience and that others might learn from it as well. By writing this down, making it clear that this was something bad and stating my clear intention of not doing what I did again, I hope to turn this fall into a fall forward. 

You see, it started in my thoughts several weeks before. And since the thoughts were connected with pleasant memories in the past, I chose to hold on to them. It was a choice. I could have chosen to just observe them and let them go. But this was not the choice that I made. 

Here is some context: As my two weeks vacation started, I started slipping back into some other old habits as well. These I wouldn’t call bad in the sense that I call that other thing bad. But they made me lazy and comfortable. And when you’re lazy and comfortable, you’re less observant and your will is weakened. 

Slipping again part 3

This will be the final post about slipping for now, and it will consist of some concluding reflections. 

The first thing that comes to mind, is that there was no way for my wife to be aware of all the things that were bothering me. I wasn’t even aware of half of them before I wrote them down. 

Let’s pause and reflect on this a bit, because it seems somewhat relevant when it comes to negative emotions and conflicts in general. And if I can find the lesson that is to be learned from this, the fall might be a fall forward instead of backwards. And perhaps there is a lesson within the lesson. Namely that every fall contains a lesson, that can turn it into a fall forward, instead of a fall backwards.

The lesson seems to amount to these questions: How can we hope to resolve anything, when we’re not aware of what is causing us to act and feel a certain way? When we let our emotions get the best of us, start acting mindlessly and play the blame game, instead of actually trying to communicate what we feel and why, in an open manner, with the common goal of resolving the conflict and reach a mutual understanding. 

Finally, I want to return to the two tracks that I mentioned in the first post and talk about something that I’m starting to suspect, that I’m not really sure of. As I’m writing this, the time is 11:11. Just wanted to add that. 

What this concerns, is the details in the tracks. What I’m starting to suspect is that every little choice that we make, contribute to which track we are on. One good example, is that I used to make load of what you could call “immoral jokes” in the past. And the more you practice something, the better you get at it. And I’ve been able to get people to laugh quite a lot with these jokes over the years. I still give in to the temptation of telling such jokes from time to time, when an opportunity arises. No harm done, right? 

Right…?

What I think that I’m beginning to see, is that telling these types of jokes can get me into a mindset, where I’m more prone to do other things that get me away from the track that I want to be. The jokes might not in themselves be enough. But if I also choose to indulge in unhealthy food and overeating, let negative thoughts about people slip by my conscious awareness, watch movies with negative content for the sheer pleasure of it and maybe a few other things, it seems to start building towards something more serious. Something where I hurt myself, my relationships and those that I love and care for.

I don’t think that this means that I should just go cold turkey when it comes to any kind of negativity. Darkness is a part of the human experience and my discernment isn’t good enough to know when it’s time to let go of something, and when I’m simply pushing something down, that I for one reason or another am not ready to let go of yet. I, for example, am not convinced that I should just stop watching movies with dark themes and just watch ones with love and light in them. I’ve gained many insights and new perspectives from such movies. But I believe that I can definitely have more discernment as to what I choose to watch, than I’ve had in the past. 

But the jokes are probably not making anything better for anyone. And the thoughts definitely belong to the category of “things that should be let go of”. But I can’t beat myself up too much either. Constantly keeping the mind in check is difficult and requires practice. And I will just drive myself crazy if I don’t apply some acceptance to my inner life.

Slipping again part 2

Since I started the first blog post, another thing also happened. I got angry with my wife over making a decision for me that I didn’t feel that I was consulted properly about. But she was just trying to be helpful. And the thing that I realised afterwards, is that I didn’t care enough about the decision. I didn’t communicate my wishes properly.

The background is that I’ve moved to my own apartment. We’re still married and together, but for different reasons, we can’t live together right now. So, I needed a bed and a sofa. We were in total agreement about the bed. Basically any reasonably comfortable bed of around 160-180 centimetres was fine for me. I knew that I could count on my wife finding such a bed for me. 

The problem was the sofa. She showed me the sofa and said that it was perfect. I took a quick look at the pictures and nodded my approval, feeling that she more or less had decided on the sofa. The thing is, that this was before we decided that I would move to the apartment, when we wanted to have it together, so that we could spend some time alone, away from her teenage daughter. But when the plans changed, I didn’t stop to think that my wants and needs might change as well. 

Long story short: we picked up the sofa and it turned out to be way too big. First, I didn’t say anything about it, thinking that I would just accept things as they were. But then, as we were driving to the apartment, we got into a small argument. My irritation over it lingered. Then, when we got to the apartment, the sofa turned out to be really difficult to put together. I was worn out after a week of hard work and had really longed for just eating something, watch a movie and sort of land in the apartment. Especially since I hadn’t watched a movie by myself in a long time. Now I felt that I would be too tired to watch a movie and that I would probably just crash in bed after we were done.

Adding to the stressors of the particular situation, was the situation of moving away from my wife in itself. While I think that we need to do this for a while, and while I do feel good about being able to do some focused work, that I had trouble doing at home, I also feel sad about this. I am an introvert and I do require a lot of time alone to feel good, which I couldn’t really get at home, I also feel a bit lost and scared without my wife with me by my side. She’s only a few minutes away, but it still feels strange in a way that is difficult for me to handle. 

This also blended with an issue that goes much further back, where I feel that my wife often make decisions without consulting me, or that I just go along with her wishes when she already seems to have made up her mind about something. 

As I’m writing this, I realised something funny. She has said the exact same thing about me. That I just run her over when it comes to certain things, seemingly leaving no room for her to object. There is clearly some more problems with communication than I had already realised.

So, anyway, as I got more and more frustrated from trying to put the sofa together, I started making angry comments about the size of the sofa. It sort of just happened, as these things often do. Emotions that I had been able to keep in check for a while, started to pour over. 

Then, as we returned the trailer that we had used to transport the sofa, we discovered that someone had pulled a really lousy prank on us, attaching the trailer to the car with a steel-wire that had to be cut. At this point, I would have probably beaten up whoever had attached the wire, had I gotten hold of him, even though I’m not a violent person. I was just so angry and frustrated over so many things at that moment, half of which I was only dimly aware of at the moment. I only became aware of them as I put into words exactly what caused my frustration now. 

As you can see, there is a lot of confusion to both what started the conflict, and why I was feeling the way I was feeling. Isn't it always so?

I think that this will be a good time to end this post, and talk about putting things into perspective through writing them down in the third and final post on this subject.

Slipping again part 1

I’m slipping again. And I will tell you about the situation in a little while. But first, I want to write down some reflections. There seems to be two quite distinct tracks that I can follow, with an almost infinite amount of smaller details within them. One leads into more ego and more suffering for both me and others. From the ego’s perspective, this track seems like the most reasonable. This is the track that wants to be right, wants me to get mine, feels offended, denies reality and struggles against it. 

The situation that has gotten me back into my old ego habits is the following: My wife’s son’s girlfriend is pregnant. The pregnancy was ill-planned for and they need a lot of support. Me and my wife already have trouble paying our bills and dedicate enough time to running our business. From a higher perspective, I’ve been able to meet this with acceptance, understanding and a willingness to help. But, when I’ve been in my ego, my response has been: they put themselves in the situation, so let them figure out how to solve it. We have enough of our own problems. 

And lately, I’ve been more in my ego again. These things go back and forth. But the ego is quite insidious and I don’t really notice that I’ve slipped, until I’m rushing down the track that I, again from a higher perspective, know that I don’t want to be on.

But what would have been the alternative? That she had an abortion? I’m not completely sure where I stand on the subject of abortion. I probably never will be. But, first and foremost, they want this child. If they can’t make it completely on their own, we have to step in and help them. If they want the child, they shouldn’t be forced to make any other choice than to have it. 

Finally, about abortion, what I can say for sure, is that I don’t believe that it is a decision that should be taken lightly, and that I think that it is something that, as far as possible, should be avoided.

Here is the thing: in scarcity easily throws one into an egoistic mode. But I believe that this should be a challenge and not something to just give into. I can’t do miracles. But if the people that are close to me need help, I should help them to the best of my ability and trust that God will work out the rest.