One Goal 100% of the Time

To remain committed to my spiritual striving is my only Goal.  The singular challenge greater than the massive unlearning– is accepting the fact that my wellness and wholeness permanently divide me from those whom rely on me to be broken, confused, ashamed–with desires to contract/conform and to please greater thinly need to expand.  Recovery from my first 40 years remains rigorous- 24/7 mindfulness over my thinking; living in a perpetual state of contrary action.  Because my recovery is hinged to deep unlearning of everything I thought I knew, felt, believed about myself, love, family, worthiness, belonging– I lack the luxury of auto-pilot mode or just cruising.  This modified version of  The Set Aside Prayer sums it up well–

“God, please help me to set aside everything I think I know about myself, love, family, relationships, and you, God, so that I may have an open mind and a new experience with myself, love, family, relationships, and you.”

I am seeking this new thing, which I want badly to learn and experience  for my self, and to model for my children. Equanimity--What I lived and was limited by, was a constant fear and judgment of all people places and things.  All people:   I learned that people, places, and things either pleased or displeased.  Pleasure was rewarded with flattery and weird gestures. While displeasure earned punitive rage(often annihilation), gossip, and abandonment– not indifference even, but a feigned indifference;  more unwholesome and damaging than legitimate indifference–because it comes from a place of hostility.  From my budding  understanding, Equanimity- is benevolent if not neutral, lacks judgment and ego, allowing  a person to experience a genuine peace and acceptance for what is.  When we are in peace and acceptance, we feel calm, free from a need to be right, liked, or in control. Genuine equanimity appears to mutually exclude shame, guilt, & fear.  Shame, guilt, and fear:  the Gods of my Childhood,   I am fucken blessed to have found faith in a God of My Understanding which inspires a more wholesome and gentle existence.  Pretty much anything would have been more wholesome and gentle than what I had come to know,be, do,feel.

Striving socially and hustling for validation is  something I have zero interest in.  Feigning peace and indifference is not only something I refuse; I will unapologetically decline any opportunity for exposure to those vibes.  I find them to be crippling.  I have not found it possible to feign and seek peace simultaneously.

Recovery has taught me to recognize and crave peaceful silence which feels open, calm, and safe. I am now able to note the stark contrast to that mandated pretendy silence/ peace, which to me, feels cluttery and tends to exacerbate my anxiety.

Emotionally Vacant,  Always Smiling,  Poised,  Postured,  Controlling AF, Martyr, White knuckled energy havers–They are not wrong for being this way. They are not for me.  Those are not my people.

Good Orderly Direction guides my serenity seeking  (not approval seeking) and equanimity (not poise),  Sticking close to those who share or even respect these values, seems my only prudent choice for as long as I remain committed to this one goal.  Do you have a goal?  This may be my first, ever.  Seriously.