Rewiring

Reading this amazing book titled Mindfulness and the 12 Steps. Today I spent some time thinking about how to rewire my emotional patterns. Jacobs-Stewart talks about how our internal responses to external events bring about our suffering (dukkha.) It reminds me of what one of my spiritual teachers calls a situational sequence.

Just today I recognized an emotional pattern or situational sequence. This time last year my therapist invited me to write a letter to my ex. I couldn’t do it. So, here I am almost a year later. I have a session on Thursday. Last month I was asked to write a letter to my ex and I still haven’t done it. I do not want to do it. I don’t have anything to say.

Well, I should say I don’t have anything but angry, bitter words to say and I really do not want to go there. I also realize that this whole letter-writing thing reminds me too much of the past. Writing letters to someone who is too afraid (and really too emotionally sick) to communicate. Writing to her was a desperate act. I’ve grown weary of baring my soul to have it dishonored with lies, deceit, and manipulation. Now that I know what I know, I’m not willing to put myself out there. Ego, ego, ego.

Yet, I remind myself I have no control over another. I realize my own attachment, my own expectations, my own fears. So, just because I write a letter, it doesn’t mean I have to send it. If I send it, I do not have to expect a response. If I get a response, I do not have to read it. There are plenty of choices. Not sure which one I will take but I do know it will be the “right” one for me.

I will continue to pray. I will continue to meditate until “the mind is calm enough to see things as they really are.”

Namaste.