I am an intensely needy person.

I am an intensely needy person.  I think that is why my close male friends are scared away.  I realize that as I reflect about those people in my own life whom I feel are wanting to release their fears and tribulations on me.  My presence encourages those around me to release their pain and troubles.  I both feel honored and irritated by that.  I realize that I too would withdraw from their life.  I would distance my self from their neediness.

I wonder if my former guy friends felt that about me? I wonder my need to connect deeply and share myself with another guy scared them away?  I wonder my desire to spend time, to be pals and have real guy time that is safe and fun scared them away? I wonder if they sense that neediness of mine to connect deeply with another guy scared them away?

If this is true then it only came to me just now.  An aha. I crave deep and trusting connection with another. Maybe I do latch on someone when I think that s/he is someone I can do that.  And if so, then I can understand I would drive people away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj4Yu9Utdw0

My axiom is that relationships are self selecting, I.e. if it doesn’t work out then there is a good reason why.  I have lost several guy friends.  Friends whom I’ve had a bromance with.  Guys whom I felt safe with and had fun with.  These are the men who ghosted me, who walked away without a goodbye.  Three close male friends dropped off the map in my life.  I mourn that. I am pained by that.  I see that the common denominator is me. So here I am trying to figure out the “why” of that.

Interesting that I come from a family of two brothers and a father but needing to draw around this male energy I felt I have lacked in my life.  I attribute that to my mother was the alpha to the men in my family.

I am open to own my neediness.  I will ponder this.  I will be more mindful in connecting with my own self more, connecting with my own maleness, my own yang, my own masculinity rather than trying to source that from another guy.

Accepting my spiritual journey

I just wrote an email to my former partner who could not accept my spiritual path and practices.
This both dismayed me and puzzled me for my practices are simple, fairly conventional and non-threatening... or so I thought.

I tell people that my spirituality is what the Dalai Lama says, "This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness."  My practice is kindness, being in the present moment, integrity and authenticity.

What was not understood was that I strayed from conventional medicine and logic by spending money with a psychic healer and an energy Body Talk worker.

Was this a red flag on my sanity? my gullibility?  my intelligence?  my common sense?  Perhaps, though I do feel that I am pretty grounded on all of those areas.  I point to this fascinating documentary of this "false prophet" who fooled people to follow him despite he telling them not to.
 
I tell people that my spiritual journey is driven by desperation. I seek out the woo-woo because the logical, the pushing hard toward goals was not working for me.  I look in skeptical askance, do some due diligence in testimonial proofs, but at the end of the day it's a leap of faith for me.  But then again, it's that way when I do the logical thing as well.

All this has brought about being viewed as  someone whose life and views on life cannot be trusted.

This pains me for, I work hard on being transparent with my vulnerabilities and open questions about myself known to all whom I share my life with.  Even though I know the risks of being judged and not being trusted as someone who knows how to live their life "well," I open my kimono anyway. I can only be who I am and hiding that does not serve me for I tried that before and did not serve me.  I lived another person's life that way.  This is my practice to live in integrity.

Even though I am not for everyone, it does give me pain to not be accepted by people whom I have felt a heart connection with.  Therein lies the paradox of friendship and what that truly means.  I view those people who I feel are close to me are people who accept the core aspects of me as I do with them.  They understand me or at least trust me enough to accept me without negative judgment.  I believe understanding begets acceptance and it is harder to accept something or someone without having an understanding.

I don't understand this journey myself.  I have made leaps of faith and cannot explain why.  It comforts me that those around me accept who I am despite or because of how live my life.  It pains me to have those who I care for, love, or respect that do not accept this aspect of my life.

I relate to what this author has said here in an article on what she got out of Ram Dass' teachings:
Most spiritual seekers have tried it all. Yoga, meditation, energy healing, psychic readings, shamanic work, plant medicine, to name just a few. These are wonderful tools, mind you. Practices we can utilize to bring us into deeper presence with ourself and our world.
We do need to practice. But, at the end of our lives, all we truly have is our inner awareness and ability to connect to that. We may seek external means to do so, until one day, we realize the heart of the matter is within us. As we connect to the sacred heart, the sacred matter that holds and loves us infinitely beyond the point of our own passing, we more fully know who and what we are, and where we come from.

I continue to practice connecting to my heart, sometime using tools that may not work and look foolish, but my goal remains that I get into my joy and my life's purpose.

Reflections on Communication, Integrity, and Reliability

I reached out to a former BFF guy friend of several years who ghosted me about 3 or so years ago.  The reason why I reached out now was because we both RSVP'ed for the same Christmas party and I did not want to be awkward.

I used the Marshall Rosenberg Non-Violent Communication model of identifying my needs and the negative emotions that came out of those unmet needs with the behavior specific request.  My needs of respect, acknowledgment, and consideration were not met when J stopped responding to my texts and voice mails.  I told him that I felt confused, hurt and angry from those unmet needs.  I requested that he acknowledge his part in this stoppage of communication.  I requested closure. I was not so much looking for his reasons for ending our relationship but more of him informing me that he no longer wanted to be my friend and that he is stopping any more communication with me.

I have learned that more often than not, I have experienced people rather just stop returning my texts, emails and phone calls without telling me why.  This behavior baffles me.  My view of people that I have met is that they theoretically adhere to the Golden Rule.  I brought that up with J who thinks of himself as a moral, honest, kind man who is courteous to people around him.  How would you like it if a friend of several years with whom we have been vulnerable with each other and shared hard and joyful experiences together suddenly drops out of your life without explanation?



I see this from more than one person who has entered and exited from my life.  It pains me.  Sure I deal with it by saying to myself that they don't want to deal with difficult emotions or explain them.  I can see that almost everyone I meet are prone to avoid confrontation which shows itself to passive-aggressiveness and lack of integrity.  I try to deal with my pain and anger by employing spiritual solutions of letting go of expectations for respect and an attachment to people behaving a certain way.  I know the Buddhist view of why we suffer is because of we don't acknowledge the impermanence of things, like friendships.

I also experience people telling me that they will do something, e.g. call me back, do something for me, or follow up on something but they never do.  I come to expect this kind of untruth.  They may have the best of intentions but, well you know the saying about the path to hell.  This is another learning for being attached.  I believe that there is a Twelve Step saying that "expectations are pre-meditated resentments."  It is easier to not believe the promiser in these instances of them telling me that they will do something for or with me.

I define Integrity as practicing your moral values.  I value honesty.  I value that when I tell people I will do something then they can trust me that I will.  I value being reliable, for myself and for others.  I only set goals for myself if I know that I will work on achieving them and have a reasonable chance that I will.  This is being reliable to myself.

This values of being honest and reliable along with communicating with clarity, honesty and compassion are very important to me because connecting with people and developing close relationships are important to me.  I keep being reminded that we are all different, that people have different beliefs and different values and different ways of behaving.  I am reminded that most people do not have the wherewithal to actually live with integrity.  Moral convenience and avoidance of adherence to core values can be difficult and easier to not live that way.

I do not claim to be the paragon of virtue and I can readily admit to my shortcomings and lack of consistency in living according to my core values.  I do know that this is very important to my day-to-day way of living and it still pains me that to expect this in most people who I meet.

Post Op Lessons Learned

There is an African saying “The blessing is next to the wound.”

I am now able to step back from my bowel obstruction surgery which took 9 days of hospitalization and look at the blessings from it.

I got to see my children and their partners all together on my first day of hospitalization.  We rarely get together all at once and this got to be a time we did.

I got to really experience and take in the deep love and caring from my children.  I tend to discount myself as someone who makes a positive difference in people's lives.  I look at myself as someone who can always do better, especially as a father.  I really felt in a deep emotional way that I am truly cared for, valued and loved by my children.

My surgery in this particular area of my body seemed to be a metaphor for what is blocked in my life.  I think the First/Root Chakra is associated with my blocked colon.  This chakra is associated with survival, stability, acceptance, grounding, fear, safety.  I suspect that acceptance is the key aspect that was blocked.  Now that I am recovering, I do hope that not only physical my life energy is back flowing but also having my self acceptance energy there as well.

My Second/Sacral Chakra could be the chakra that is associated with my colon.  I have been working on freeing this chakra for it is associated with creativity, passion, sexual energy.  I have felt that I have lacked passion in my life.  I don't have a dream or a drive to do something that excites me for I have no real excitement aka passion.  I think this is the underlying issue that is holding me back in my work and personal life, or just life in general.  Hopefully this operation will also let loose this passion energy so I can have a life of passion.

The outpouring of love and support from my friends shocked me.  Again, I guess I thought little of my "footprint" in this world and even though I cared for my friends, I did not expect such caring back.  I heard from those I had not had much communication before.

I have learned that even in when I was in this seemingly never ending cycle of pain and relief, pain and relief I was cared for by strangers.  This was not just dispassionate, clinical, perfunctory care.  This was care from people who did not see me as one of a string of other sick and recovering patients but as a fellow human who was in pain and needed their care. These people who connected with me as another person who also had feelings, who shared their humor as well as their professional skilled care.  I learned that the world can be/is a friendly place.  These caregivers were shining lights and examples for me to show me how I can treat strangers as if they weren't but as connected human beings with feelings.

Perhaps this unblocking Root Chakra acceptance energy has showed up as well?  Regardless, the blessing of such demonstrations of caring through words, deed (offers of meals and errand running and anything else), and even money were unexpected positives from this most physical painful experience in my life.

I am so humbled and grateful to have these people in my life.

Blind Boys of Alabama - I Shall Not Walk Alone

I am sure that I will continue to gain wisdom and insight from this experience of hospitalization and recovery afterwards.  I now look at my new touchstone of self-acceptance as a means to help me navigate my life.

I still have this sense of stuckness for my job/career/means of living.  However I embrace this new faith in life, in the Universe, in myself.  Hell, what can be more powerful than painful colon surgery to give me the message of acceptance; for myself, for my life?

My Hospitalization Costs

I keep hearing about the state of affairs of our United States healthcare.

I got to experience it first hand from my 9 day stay in the hospital for my blocked colon surgery this past October.

I just got the bill.  From the looks of it, it covers all my expenses during my stay at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center/Hospital.

The list is quite extensive and frankly amazing.

• Semi-private room: $1,918/day -> $17,262 total
• Pharmacy: $15,208.41 (includes pain medication, electrolytes, IV nutrition, etc.)
• Anesthesia: $1,156
• Emergency Room: $2,162
• Laboratory: $1,844
• Operating Room: $9,269
• Medical/Surgical Supplies and Devices: $442 (catheter)
• Professional Fees: $780 (Emergency Room)
• Recovery Room: $569
• Treatment or Observation Room: $657

Total: $53,505.41

Insurance coverage: $51,705.41

Patient balance: $1,800 due at the end of November, this month.

They offer a no interest payment plan which I intend to take advantage of.

Thank God that I do not have to resort to GoFundMe to help me cover my expenses for 1 in 3 are for such a reason.  This is the state of healthcare in this country.

November 10 addendum
Anesthesiology: $1,599
Insurance coverage: $1,190.02
Patient balance: $74.37

December 05 added YouTube video on sharing how much it costs for US healthcare with Brits
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kll-yYQwmuM&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR1dmSUBi94PSytKy8Pk0MMjyjG8VHwcnEEt-RlVu9g9e2MPBShbjCSjfcg 

What Does It Mean?

“The world isn't just the way it is. It is how we understand it, no? And in understanding something, we bring something to it, no?
Doesn't that make life a story?”

― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

I look for meaning in my life.  I also look for the meaning of the events that happen in my life.  I think this is a very human thing.  Looking up if there is a field of psychology about this, I found that semiotics is the broad area where this falls into.

When I had my bowel obstruction surgery, the doctor told me that the intestine has it own nervous system.  I knew that from my Body Talk knowledge.  I later found out it is called the Enteric nervous system.  The scientists call this our Second Brain. It is known that this controls our emotions.

The one and only other time I was in the hospital was when I was around 12 years old for, coincidentally enough, a stomach problem.  I had similar very sharp pains in my gut which landed me in the hospital.  My dad feared it was an appendicitis attack.  He lost his older brother from a blotched appendectomy so this brought back horrific memories for him.  I had to stay around 2-3 days under observation but they could not diagnose the issue or so my dad told me.

I wonder this history of abdominal issues (there were other, more minor instances of intestinal pain and disturbances throughout my life) that culminated to the most painful time in my life were signals to me to pay attention to this gut wisdom.

I knew about this source of intelligence and have tried to access that in the past multiple times and having taken several classes to assist me but to no avail.

I believe that my physical maladies are messages from my body to pay attention to the wisdom it has for me.  The frustrating part is that I have tried for years.  I am at loss on what I can do.  This painful time of my bowel being obstructed.

So maybe this surgery was the "fix" for me to access my gut intelligence now.  Maybe this opened up the energy channels so I can be more intuitive.  If I had to make up the lesson for this traumatic time that put me painfully out of commission, then for now, I'm positing this as the reason this happened to me.

Put on a Happy Face

[click here] Put on a Happy Face

I have struggled most of my life in being in that place of joy, happiness or even satisfaction.  I know that this is a First World dilemma but dammit I was born in one, to a middle class family who loved me, and got a first class education all the up to two graduate schools.  I refuse to buy into the "be thankful for what you have because there are starving children in India."  First of all, my Indian friend told me that his mother told him the same except she used the United States starving children as the exhortation.  Second, I am not a starving child.  I am me.  I am living my life, not someone else's.

The Secret popularized the technique of manifesting what we desire just be "raising our vibration" and visualizing it.  The vibration is our joy.  The spirit channel Esther Hicks is someone who also popularizes this notion of attracting good fortune from being happy.

Now I am the last person to dis the notion of wanting to be happy however to focus on that one emotion and being made guilty that I am attaining my highest spiritual aspirations by not being in that highest vibrational nirvana does not work for me.  I see that as a one dimensional approach to living.  We have a range of emotions that are not positive, that are not high frequency.  And sure, I do believe that we benefit by hanging out the joy place more so than the depressive place of life.

I struggle with this. I do want to be happy most of the time.  It's not working. I believe it is in part that I have not honored my shadow emotions enough which, in turn will give my being a sense of the range of what I can feel.  In other words, I need to fully experience and be in a place of sadness in order to feel happiness.

I grew up in a family whose focus was not to be happy per se.  My parents worked hard to create economic security and also to raise their sons by giving us opportunities to better ourselves.  We were serious in making our way through life.  That meant doing a good job; whether in school, at a job, our chores.  Happiness seemed like a luxury that was not even in our vocabulary.

I love to watch those movies where they burst out with song and dance, where the guy dances with his umbrella down the street in the pouring rain, where they dance out chopsticks on a toy floor piano keyboard, or those movies where the character has this unwavering optimism.  Those characters I envy.  There is no worrying or doubting the rightness of their lives.

I have read about the studies that in order to be happy, one must have gratitude, have strong social connections, that there is a happiness set point we are born with, and finding that activity that you can lose a sense of time in, i.e. that creative effort.

Then there is that other factor of accomplishing something that is meaningful to oneself.  I only recently realized in this past decade or so.  I see that even though a meaningful life does not directly equate to a happy life they are tied together.  Having meaning gives depth to happiness.  This is low resonance high vibrational living.

So sure, let's be happy together for I believe joy begets joy.  I love to be around happy people. What I want more is that I will live a life of happiness that feeds my soul, that expresses it.  And it's the other way around isn't it?  If I express my soul then I can live a life of happiness, of meaning?  Rather than dwelling on this chicken or egg enigma, [Edwin Hawkins Singers]I will continue to move forward in both realms. I will work on singing or at least listening to music as well as dancing, or in my case thrashing wildly with abandon.  I will look for ways of expressing my soul through deep, heart-centered connections with compassion and authenticity.