Episode 61: The Makings Of A Supervillain ☠️✨

AN IMPENETRABLE IRON WALL!!! METAPHORS ARE BACK!!! No one is coming to save you (again)!!! I ONLY WANT WHAT WANTS ME (Again? Really?)!!! MISERY INCARNATE?!? HOPE, a thing with feathers!!! OUR THOUGHTS SHAPE OUR REALITY!!! The rules are crumbling and who’s to say what makes you a decent human anymore!!! NON-DUALISM (again)!!! I'm NOT READY BUT WE'RE DOING IT ANYWAYS (again?)!!! LAUGHING IS A SELF-DEFENSE!!! OUR GUARDIAN ANGEL IS GONE!!! ABSOLUTE GARBAGE!!! & I can’t afford to fall apart now. I’ve got an empire to build. Ohhhhhhhhh…. this is how supervillains are created. I see it. Oops. Well, can I at least be a hot supervillain? That would be fine.

Btw you have to get past me talking you through the dharma before you get to the juicy parts at the end. You're welcome. I did that on purpose.

Excerpt:

“I do not wish I rock bottom on anyone. But there is power there. There is peace in the depths stripped of everything but your essential self. But those of us graced, yes I said graced, with the gift of a rock bottom, are given something that cannot be understood by anyone who has not clung to the edge of life, who has not utterly been the architect of their own distraction or been destroyed by forces beyond their control. This something — is the way the light glimmers on the leaf of a plant as the sun fades down. This something is the understanding that no matter how hard today is there will be a tomorrow full of different moments than this one. Everything suddenly becomes a scale of relativity instead of stark duality. We begin to search for moments of sweet inside the bitterness of life. We learn, over and over again that nothing will be worse than the depths of our suffering. A sick day, lying in bed with a fever, or a migraine, is never as bad as the worst of our life. Everything, and I mean, everything, becomes a giant scale of relativity. Well, this heartbreak is bad, yeah. But I’m not in the hospital dying, I still have my work, my dog, my life. I am still whole on my own. This moment is par for the course. I have proof, living proof, that I will laugh again — that I will hold joy like a basket full of flowers in my arms — find grace in the words of strangers and friends. There comes a dogged resolve. In order to live the life I want I have to walk towards it, every day, by choice. I am the architect, I am the contractor, I am the designer, of the course my life will take. I can wake up and choose joy even inside of suffering, I can choose to see the color of the light. I do not have the luxury of choosing pain, because if I choose that it will become me and become me. Pain, heartbreak, loss, it will come, but so will joy, so will the sunrise, so will wild nights that remind me why I’m alive. So I will make my pain a monolith. I will paint it gold. I will keep walking. I will keep fighting. I will wake up, in a week, in a year, in a month with the memory of a golden statue, and a whole new life. Even if it all looks the same. I believe that most of our suffering is created by ourselves. Is how we frame our lives, that comes from constantly looking at what we don’t have, instead of working towards what we want, reaching for instant gratification, a quick fix, instead of moving slowly towards change. I have learned, in my (let’s remember) few years on this earth, that the phrase ‘all good things come with time’ is one of the only true statements out there. I also believe that sometimes beauty falls in our laps, when we are least expecting it, or anticipating it. But mostly, good things take time, dedication, effort, and follow through. But often not the kind we think. When I say that you might hear, like, oh my god my life will be an uphill battle… and if that’s what you believe then it will be. But what I really mean is that all we have to do is show up. That’s it. Mind you, you have to show up for it all. For the hard conversations, for the awkward situations, for the uncomfortable unfathomable unknown. But in showing up, in bringing willingness, you are already most of the way there. Yeah, you might have to read a few books, have a few meetings, and do some things you don’t necessarily like to do, but you are already there. Once you’ve shown up you’re in it already and that’s all just par for the course.

Life is lived, only in this exact moment in time. And in this moment there is a choice to be made. You can check out, walk away, put it all down, or you can stay and see what happens. You can search for the light, the way it moves across the plants in the garden, the way it slants through windows, the way it touches your skin. You can put on a song, dance, you can create, you can imagine, you can open up to everything around you. How can you turn it into art, how is your own life a living masterpiece? Now I’m not saying my life is just freaking magical and sparkly all the time, and that there aren’t things I wish were different. But most of the time that’s not what I’m focusing on, I’m not focusing on the negatives, what I lack, what I can’t do, what holds me back. I’m searching for a spark — for a moment, for beauty, for the arch of the wings of a moth, the dappling of shadows spread across my table. And I don’t wake up like this every morning. As a matter of fact most mornings I wake up feeling like a pile of hot garbage, and have to really psyche myself into it. Or more presence myself into it. But, I also don’t let the garbage heap I feel like define my whole life. There is more, there is always more, to me, to living, to the day before me.

I keep coming back, lately, again and again, to the quote ‘there is pleasure in the pathless woods,’ for some reason, or so many reasons. First because sometimes it is in the wandering that you find the most beautiful things, where you weren’t supposed to find them. And because there is pleasure here, no matter how far out you go, how deep into the forest you are lost. There is birdsong, there is the rustle of leaves, there is silence, the absence of the responsibility of life.

But sometimes. Sometimes there is an impasse (back to my earlier point) that we reach with people who have not lived the suffering we have lived. Where all they can see is our past, is our pain, is our suffering. And what they cannot see is all the bright, all the living, all the joy we find. They do not understand, that for us, life just goes on. That, as they say in the program, there are ‘no big deals,’ and it took me a while to understand that. I mean to truly grasp it. But to me, it means this: my birthday (for example) is not some massive party or celebration anymore. There is no celebrating, beyond what is an everyday celebration. It is not more sacred, more special than any other day. For in fact, if I am doing it right, every day is that sacred. Is that celebrated, is that cherished. A moment of heartbreak, or loss, is not any heavier than any other day. It’s par for the course. It’s just a pivot. It’s a reevaluation: what’s working, what’s not working. And sure, there are days that feel like the universe is just piling it on, is just relentlessly asking more of you than you have to give. But again, just another day, in a larger tapestry that is unfolding. And if you are rooted — deeply in your own faith — there are no big deals. Life moves like a river, tomorrow comes and washes the last day away, and life is swept up in the current. In addiction counseling, in spiritual practice, in Reiki even. The fundamental truth is all the same. In the program it’s ‘one day at a time,’ in Buddhism it’s ‘the present moment, is all we have,’ and in Reiki, the first Reiki teaching, the first words of the Reiki precepts are ‘just for today.’

‘The secret art of inviting happiness,

The miraculous medicine of all diseases:

Just for today,

Do not anger,

Do not worry,

Be filled with gratitude,

Devote yourself to your work,

Be kind to people.

Every morning and evening join your hands in prayer.  Pray these words to your heart and chant these words with your mouth.  Usui Reiki treatment for the improvement of body and mind, the founder, Mikao Usui’

This, this is what we learn to live by.

How simple, and yet, to remember it in every moment — is much more difficult.

Nowhere, nowhere in there does it say, I must be perfect, I must fast, I must purify myself of my sins, I must become a martyr, I must achieve great things, it doesn’t even say I have to believe in myself. It doesn’t say I cannot forget them, it does not say I cannot fail sometimes.

I truly do believe, that no soul wants to suffer. But many of us have never learned how to not create our own suffering. Many of us have not learned to let go of attachment, to an outcome, a person, a version of ourselves even. Like folks… if this is as good as I get, flawed and trying, with good days and bad days, upset and grateful, then I’m ok with that. It is this idea, that there is some grand moment or thing or state of being better than this one, that gets us into trouble. It is our attachment — even to our ideals, our selfhood — that brings us suffering. If we are attached to an ideal, a way we should look, then we look at other people and compare ourselves, see our own flaws, and we suffer. They make more money than me, they have a nice house, a big family, they have so many close friends. And I don’t, and that’s what I think my life should look like, so I am unhappy. In truth, the happiest people I have met, they live with so little. They are unattached to the comings and goings of people, and they hold steady love, and give freely of everything they have. And love comes back to them. They have rid themselves of the childish idea that life will be fair, that they will always be paid what is owed them, and they simply work — in harmony with the universe — having made peace with themselves and their simple place within it.

Now I am not by any means saying I am one of those people, although I am becoming one, the closer I am to the dharma, the more devoted I am to service, the less I think about myself. I call this getting out of my own way, which I am constantly trying to do. Now, I trip over my own feet daily. But that’s not the point. The point is, that it’s all JUST FOR TODAY. If for this day, I can stay sober, can stay humble, can stay calm, can be kind, or do my best, then I am walking in the right direction. I am walking away from suffering and towards peace.

Alright well, that was a rant I’ve been holding in for a while. Cool. Now we’ve gotten that out of the way. There have been some interesting things on my mind lately. And as an old lover of mine ally metaphored the other day, (yes I know that’s not a word, well it is now)… I’m headed into the arena for my boss fight (i.e. my licensing and certification as a sexologist) and I have to fight the big boss soon, and I have a lot of studying to do before I get there. You know before I defeat the boss… and then in a shocking plot twist become the boss myself. Yes, this is my new favorite metaphor for my life. Y’all I’m a gamer and it really got me. Well since I’m headed there, I have to make strategic moves. And I can’t let anger and frustration, worry and doubt get in my way. At least, just for today. So on that horrible rhyming note, I don’t know if y’all ever noticed but as much as I love poetry and music I also kind of cringe every time something rhymes, which in itself is another rhyme. God damn it… I’m broken. Anyways.

I have 2 songs for you. And really if I had my way, this show would just be intermittent talking, with these songs playing over and over again in the breaks in between. That’s how much I’ve listened to them in the last week. But I won’t subject you to that cruel and specific torture. Or will I? Anyways we will go from low down to upbeat I think, instead of the other way around. Because ohh I don’t know, nothing actually matters anyways. Ohh look! Remember I told you I would get weird and jaded again at some point? Well, folks there it is. And it all comes full circle eventually doesn’t it. Stay tuned as next week I shave off half my hair and become bitter again. Who’s ready? I thought she was more fun? What about you? Soft never really looked good on me anyway. I mean I can love people and also be an impenetrable iron wall? Right? Asking for a friend. Ok well, that jokes gotten old fast. Anyways, so about 3 anyways ago I was going to tell you that the first song, ‘Only Living Thing,’ has reminded me of a dangerous trap I have seemed to fall into for some of my life, and it’s gotten me thinking a lot about that lately, but I’ll expand more on that later. So the first song I have for you is ‘The Only Living Thing,’ by Adam French, followed by the new KOOKS! And ohh my god it’s perfect, and that will be ‘Cold Heart.’ And no I didn’t plan it, but the universe just seems to be loving the irony again. So I’m rolling with it.

And thus ends my 16-minute long rant. Stellar.”