To: K-list
Recieved: 2004/08/17 21:35
Subject: Re: [K-list] Loving myself
From: Mystress Angelique Serpent
On 2004/08/17 21:35, Mystress Angelique Serpent posted thus to the K-list:
At 03:44 PM 14/08/2004, Lone Path wrote:
>"Most attempts at compassion are simply the projections of a needy ego in
>a vain attempt to bolster its dream and force others into helping it in
>its desperate projecting. We instead project our opinions and needs,
>hates and loves, out into the world of "others" and then pretend that our
>manipulations of these others is compassion. Being lost in the movie of
>one's own inner drama does not provide compassion."
This is wisdom.
I get people asking me to train them as healers, and the first thing I
want to know before I'll agree to anything, is what is their motivation?
Often they are surprised, most never considered it, they just assumed the
role of healer hero savior was all good in and of itself... it never occurs
to them that it is an ego projection game.
I fell into being a healer for selfish motives. Too much empathy, I'd
get caught in people's stuff and the only way to free myself was to help
them feel better. Blackmailed into it... then got addicted to the power rush.
I was talking to an old SM friend last week, whom I had not connected
with in about 5 years. The most interesting thing about the conversation
was a recognition afterwards, of how much I have changed... She was
expecting, maybe projecting the woman she used to know... and that woman is
gone.
She told me that she seems to be getting a lot of people being drawn
to her for healing, mentoring or spiritual guidance... and how it is such a
rush when she can help or guide someone, but so exhausting.
Well, yeah, that is how it goes if you do it that way. Karma follows
responsibility. You only get the rush if you take responsibility for the
results.. "I did that! I'm so great!" and if you take the responsibility
then you get the karma too... emotional bumpiness and fatigue.
I missed the rush a little, when I stopped taking responsibility for
what Goddess does!! I did not miss the emotional chaos. The rush wasn't
worth it. Peace is better.
People thank me, and I tell them, thank Goddess. I guess it sounds
very spiritual but really, it is just that I'd rather they don't project
the responsibility onto me! Ducking the missiles of gratitude... Cash
makes a cleaner energy transaction. We trade time for money, it is the way
of the working world.
I work from a place of knowing absolutely that no-one needs me. I've
been thinking with amusement of late, how it is not so different than when
I was a Pro-Domina. Hierarchical roleplay for $200./hr. I see them as
Goddess, infinite... they want to see themselves and helpless and in need,
well OK I'll play along with that game if you pay me for my time... and it
will work, because Goddess provides... just like when my Pro-Dom work was
causing K awakenings and healing in my clients.
I surrender ... but, not perfectly. Some stuff still sticks, using
empathy for work. After so many years of too much empathy, getting caught
in emotions that are not my own, I really value the peace and clarity of
being sovereign in myself.
Even so, I have a Shamanic imperative to do at least a little healing
or spiritual work, or my own energy starts to get bent out of shape in the
other direction. I get kind of cranky and out of sorts, and then I start
getting unwanted accidental manifestations as too much energy builds up and
stray thoughts happen.
So I tend to do a whack of sessions one week, then take two weeks
off... lots of slack!
Had a funny client recently, she paid for a session then wrote asking
does she really need it and trying to dump responsibility for that decision
onto me, along with some crankiness and a whack of her issues of scarcity
consciousness.
Not the first time she has tried that... I wouldn't tell someone they
"need" a session with me because in my opinion nobody does! All is Goddess...
I found her letters kind of tiring, with all the karma dumping, ended
up processing some stuff for her by remote, and offering some advice. I
wrote some responses that I did not send, processing but waiting for her to
consciously make up her own mind, about the session and about whether she
would choose to hang onto the scarcity issues.
In the end, she voted for scarcity, cancelled the session and asked for
a refund, having chosen another, less expensive teacher. She closed her
letter with apologies for her churlishness, (people in scarcity rarely have
the self esteem to treat others well or fairly) plus some flattery and
gratitude. I have told her I have no use for payment in that coin. It is
the second time she has done that, and she will not get another opportunity.
Annoyed, I started writing a response, explaining that, and how her
actions were a symptom of her scarcity issues, but dropped it. Why bother?
Let Goddess sort out the accounting with her. There are more fun things to
do with my valuable time! Gardening, making soap, going to the beach,
doing work with people who treat me with respect and no dumping... writing
because I feel like it...
Oddly, the rush I get from making soap is more pleasurable than the
healer savior hero rush used to be... and Goddess is giving my soap one
heck of a Shakti charge! Good place to put all this energy...
Heh. I did not expect that, although I might have guessed... energy
follows attention, and anything near me gets zapped. People have gotten
dizzy from the energy of handling my laundry... and I really love making
soap.
When I first got into making soap, my students joked about karma
cleaning soap... and I dismissed it with a giggle. Mental picture of myself
as an old time travelling salesman on a wagon, pitching "Mystress
Angelique Serpents Miraculous Karma Clearing Snake Oil Soap." (Contains no
actual snake oil) I still find the idea very funny and far too absurd to be
real
.... but I have noticed that while I'm giggling my palms are
switching on like for a session and the energy is going into the soap!
Truth makes me laugh...
So, I surrender. My soap is $10. per bar or 3 for $20., (+ shipping) and
there is something quite perfect in that the karma that may be triggered
washes down the drain instead of flowing to me! I make great soap, too...
I got testimonials! LOL!! That is funny too...
What is also funny is that since I started making soap, I have lost 10
lbs. Someone suggested I might be symbolically putting my own fat into the
soap... ??? So maybe it does contain some snake oil... ;) Oil of Serpent...
ROTFMAO!!!
>I found this when I gave up everything, my job, my savings, even my
>husband, to help the poor it was false compassion!!! I had to
>experience it to realise it. All I did in fact was boost my feeling of
>pleasure to help others, as well as boosting my ego. I was so enthused by
>what I was doing that I lost all 'sight' of why I was doing it, and the
>veil of ignorance blinded my vision to the real reason. When I was
>finally honest with myself and dared to 'look', I realised that I only did
>this for self-pleasure and not really to help others. People called this
>compassion, I eventually 'saw' and called it self-pleasure!
How very magnificent! From that place of knowing, you can enjoy being
charitable for your own pleasure, without projecting neediness onto those
you give to. It is excellent, really healthy.
I call this "enlightened selfishness." Always look for the self
centered motive in anything you do, and especially in the things that you
think are selfless acts. An illusion of selflessness is ego, but looking
for the selfishness is Truth, and it is the best focus for loving the
Shadow self into integration. Look for it, embrace it.
You are All that Is, all you can see or know is yourself reflected... so
what you think someone else needs, must always be illusion.
Selflessness leads to burn out. There has to be a balance, you cannot
give and give without refilling the well, somehow. Way back when I first
inherited this list, I chose to be very conscious that I was doing it for
myself, because I loved this space and by owning it I could be sure it
would always be around to enjoy. That others also enjoy it is nice too, but
"service to other" was not a motive that would sustain me in the long term,
and I did fall into burnout a few times when I lost sight of my selfish
motives. Nowadays, I have mostly moved onto other things, but happily
there are others who love this place too, the co-moderators pick up the
slack. Bravo to Hillary, Stephen and Susan!
I find, addictions aside... that the things that give you the most
bliss are probably the things that are in alignment with your spiritual
growth. You traded everything- job, savings and husband - for insights that
are precious beyond measure.
You did not know that is what you were doing at the time, you thought
it was about what other folks needed. There are no others, you are All.
Goddess lead you to where you needed to be, to get from it what you needed
to get, even though it was nothing like you expected, going in. She does
that... :) Tricks us into growing!
I watched a show on TV last night, "Women Mystics of the Middle Ages."
The "expert" being interviewed said that the modern mind could not
comprehend the extreme levels of poverty, self abuse, deprivation and
humiliation these female Saints subjected themselves to in the name of
Jesus... So severe that the two saints the show focused on (both of them,
born royalty) died before the age of 30 because their abused bodies gave
out on them.
No mystery to me. They did it because it gave them pleasure. These
women were suicidally masochistic and into severe humiliation, and focused
on the icon of the crucified Christ as an acceptable outlet. Trying to
emulate and empathize with his suffering... but ya know, Jesus had one
really bad Friday... he did not suffer his whole life long. He did not
whip himself or starve himself unreasonably, he did not wear a hair shirt.
When I was in high school, I had a conversation with my religious
studies teacher. I'd made an appointment to talk to him because I was
puzzled by the chapter on mysticism. I had experienced so many of the
symptoms the lesson mentioned but could not believe myself to be some kind
of Buddha in the making, and where could I go to sort it out?
Somewhere in the conversation I explained to him that people do what
they do because they enjoy it, on some level. That Mother Theresa does what
she does because it makes her feel good about herself. I'd learned it,
reading books by Richard Bach. He thanked me for the insight, and told me
that such unexpected gifts from students is why he enjoys teaching.
I was disconcerted by the reversal, of being his teacher and did not
really integrate the gift he gave me in return. I thought if I already knew
more than him then he could not teach me anything... heh.
Whups, 2 pm already! Time is slipping by... Thanks for posting!
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