On Asteya (non-stealing) 

On registering desire and attaining the desired through legitimate means

Question(s): What am I stealing? What do I want? What drives humans to steal? How can I be of service to you without feeling entitled to your gratitude?

Answers?: Greed for money, hunger for attention 

I hunger to be admired 
To be the object of your gratitude 
All the while
I claim to abhor the blurred line where admiration meets love
I will save you from this cruel world you’ve created
All the while
I claim to know that no one is coming to save me from my own
And to love is to respect a person
To the extent that I allow her
To save herself
To be her own home
To expect more from her
To hold her to a higher standard

On a recent trek through a rather unforgiving and overwhelmingly green Mgahinga with my distant and quiet friend, I showed my grotesque pride and said,

“I’m actually way too good at being alone.”

And he said to me, surely in jest,

“You know, you aren’t actually as independent as you think.

Who signs your paychecks?”

The words a dagger into the thinnest section of my heart, I turned my nose down and to the left as tears finally came,

“Alex, are you crying?”

Come on!

Get over yourself.”

I take pride in all that I can manage alone because my dad taught me that no one is ever going to care about me as much as my immediate family cares about me. What became true to me through that dictation is maybe the world is a scary place and people are out to get you and don’t trust anyone because no one cares about you they all only care about themselves.

This obsession of mine with proving myself hyper-independent is going to poison me; it’s going to slowly suffocate me it’s going to alienate me from people who love me and it’s going to fuel my love addiction, draw me close to the narcissists in the sky, and drop me from a 30 stories high. 

I must put this on the divine fire and never reach back in — I must relinquish my grip on this dream — I must trade it in

if I don’t see it for what it is, meet myself where I am, meet myself in the container created by my limitations –

I cannot do everything I cannot do everything alone, without help I am not capable of achieving all of my dreams I am not capable of saving everyone I am not capable of saving anyone

No one is coming to save me and I have to stop trying to save you — the shape-shifting you whoever you are

I affirm:

I have complete faith that you have the power to save your own life

I believe in your resourcefulness 

and my own

Oh, get over yourself!

In the moment, it was the most hurtful thing anyone could say AND now, I feel myself getting over myself. the layers of me coming together again, integrated, after being shaken hard.

I am confused

I don’t quite understand the paradox of my low self-esteem and my simultaneous pedestaling myself 

How can I be so consumed with myself and so doubtful of my own abilities at the same time

How often do I project my doubts onto others?

Every interaction, actually 

I once sat in the passenger seat of a Nissan Altima going 81 on 75, heading South or North — I don’t exactly remember but I think maybe it does matter. So, sorry. I said to someone I claimed to love, absolutely with mal-intent maybe not at the time but most definitely as I remember the words now,

“Do you ever think that your hero complex itself is what makes the people around you so helpless?”

In therapy at some point over the rocky course of this relationship, I asked about my victim complex and my therapist made me aware that

the dynamics matter —

that I wouldn’t be victim if she wasn’t her own hero and, at the same time, my villain

And it’s only now occurring to me that

the dynamics matter —

that she wouldn’t be the hero if I wasn’t playing the victim. I continuously communicated to her that I needed saving.

By trying to save her from whatever she believed about how bad the world was, I was saying, ‘look, we can save each other’ and all she heard was ‘help, I need saving.’

I embarked on a brave journey this October and I climbed like a lizard all over hot and famous rocks. I shivered and yawned and found my stability, some sense of solid home in my own too feet and afterwards I outsourced all of my own awe and I said, “I like you because you know that I don’t need saving.” And he didn’t really have much to say to that and how lucky am I to have finally said it to someone who could tell I wasn’t speaking to them. OR how lucky am I to have finally heard what I have been trying to tell myself for quite some time.

I said it to myself. And while the constitution of the listener matters a great deal, it’s his ears that offer the the easiest way through,

and my resilience that makes me receptive. and Goodness’ patience, too.

someone else’s ears, a witness to corroborate my story —

I liked 13-year-old Alex. I also liked 16-year-old Alex They’re both dead now. They lived outlived their allotment. With the marriages and engagements of their best friends, they die. 

My best friend posed the ever-important following question: what are the good things about marriage?

As two unmarried women and as two children of divorced parents, we decided that to have a witness would be nice.

Immediately I ask: Can I be my own witness? Should I want to be my own witness?

How independent is too independent? Whose dirty dishes am I trying to clean?

In other words — what am I trying to prove?

And

Am I winning?

What if you trade it in?
What if you leave the party 
for some hours
Go for a drive
While your uncles and cousins 
get stuck in the mud
Because it’s been raining for some days
Because they’ll either figure it out 
or they won’t
Because it’s not up to me, actually,
If I don’t make other people 
the victims
I don’t have to be 
the hero

I trade it in
I lay down my saving instruments 
Whatever those are 
Before you
Whoever you are

I trade in the desire, the flicker, 
For ever-burning flame 

I land in Atlanta 
At the end of this year of the snake
Having shed not only 
wants no longer mine 
But also 
what’s no longer me

Until You Know Better

morning grains

Say, “no, I cannot”

savasana of the year

serve and witness your expectation of payment in return

Great Artists Steal

Desire as the root of all suffering

Watch Caught Stealing on the plane

WCDHT episode, September 11: “Liz Gilbert on Loving Without Losing Yourself”