Stains

"Brew Ha Ha" by Dar Freeland

images & text © 1997-2011 dar freeland | all rights reserved

Relating can be such a challenge this moment in time. Discussions seem fiery and combative, our moods are curt and our stability in the storms around us seem rickety at best. It all feels like a good balancing act is required to keep things mindful and at peace.

How much do we absorb the negativity around us? The first response I hear most often - is that "I don't listen to that stuff or let it affect me...". I believe this to be a thought, versus an actual experience that is conscious. No one really wants to see the level of unhappy that is surrounding humanity right now - yet to deny it exists, makes us part of the problem instead of the source of the solution. "Down" thinking is pervasive at every turn right now - and we need to start looking up, fast. It doesn't mean that to acknowledge our reactions - we are somehow giving up our power or admitting defeat; we are not even taking responsibility - only saying, "ya know, I did feel a little lower after that exchange...maybe I should change things up a bit". If we admit that a thing is negative, even if it is someone or something we love, we aren't betraying it - we are finding a solution to the pain of it, and this is the first necessary step. We absorb, and we don't even know it. For your "evidence", watch a child - they absorb EVERYTHING. The only change that happens with age, is we become capable of spinning our perceptions and words into denial and reasons. We are still absorbing.

For example...the white lace doily from my departed Grandmother's kitchen - it didn't ASK or INTEND to absorb the spilled coffee that made its way into the fabric, and is there now FOR LIFE. It didn't ask or consciously choose, but because of its position and proximity to the spilled coffee, it did what it does without thought or intention, it absorbed the spilled coffee. It is in fact the doily's nature to do so, since it absorbs as a general rule.

We are no different. We absorb what is in our proximity, whether or not we think we do. Our ego will tell us, "hey, got a handle on that" - but it simply does not. Our ego's job is to protect us - and it will tell us everything is under control so we feel secure, but it cannot stop a doily from doily-ing. We are absorption machines, and other people's opinions, silent or spoken judgments and criticisms, praises, put-downs, and general doomsday rhetoric - all makes it into the weave of our psyche and has an impact and eventual consequence. If we are mindful, and watch the results (carrying on a yelling tone with others ie.) - link them properly with their sources, then we have the understanding and power to consciously choose what we want or don't want to absorb.

The world is a toxic place right now, and we need to make clear that our focus, is on removing our precious selves from that toxicity - before we are in fact stained for good.

We can still love coffee, without spilling it down our shirt.

--dar freeland

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