Oy, my dog is NOT a soppy, snuffly one! ;-) Cold nose, yes, but only when he nudges to get my attention since he doesn't bark much and speaks mostly with his eyes. A lot of people "aren't dog people" (I'm not, myself - wouldn't have this one if it weren't for my child) but this fellow is actually relatively well-mannered as dogs go. By the way, Jean, I have trained cats but only when they wanted to be, which I think really means they trained me! :-o
7 pm in France is 11 am here. I can work with it; I'll just set myself an appointment for an early lunch break.
15 minutes this morning. I'm in process of repairing my commitment. :-)
I'm taking a short break in the office, Moose (4.30 pm on Friday afternoon) and thinking about your remark the other day about feeling jealous - a brave admission indeed. One of the students just came by to say Happy Holidays, as she's off to sit on a beach in Malaysia and write her phd for a few weeks. I felt so jealous of her youth and having the freedom and money to go away for several weeks. So I shut the door and sat quietly and tried to be with the feeling until it felt ok, instead of pushing it away. Ooh, tough. But it did soften and dispel and leave me feeling more accepting.
The cat and I both sat quietly for 20 minutes this morning.
(btw I AM a dog person, especially soppy snuffly ones, quite as much as a cat person. But I live in a small, flat in the city and there's no one in all day - not a dog-friendly situation. One day perhaps I will retire to the country and have a menagerie and not mind at all if they interrupt my meditation practice.)
Is anyone else finding the blog template here not showing on the front page? I have to click on the date and then I get into the comments, but the front page simply has a line of enigmatic technical stuff below the banner ...Is it Blogger or me I wonder.
Now I am wondering. My mother, with whom I have a problematic history, is an extremely jealous person. Envies everyone everything. Is that why I rarely feel anything close to jealousy? Because I am damn determined not to be like her? Because underneath I *must* feel my own lack and the abundance of others in comparison. It's not natural not to.
Do I 'sour grapes' things? Where have I put this natural ability for comparison? I have no idea, but I am genuinely happy for other people's successes, goods, advantages, loves...
When I feel someone's envy of me (though who knows why), it is one of the most excruciating feelings and tears me apart and I do everything I can to alleviate their erroneous impressions.
Now is that because I'm still trying to 'fix' my mother's envy of everyone and her resultant unhappiness with herself, her life?
My doggy and I are walking about 2 hours to get a paycheck that's, sigh, all going to storage costs, and so I will make it a walking meditation on mothers and jealousy.
The front page looks ok to me, but these things happen, come and go, sometimes affecting many and sometimes only a few, I think, and don't require any action unless they go on for a long time.
And so, Mary and Ruth, I will see you tomorrow :-)
I took down my earlier post because on re-reading it could have given the impression I was making fun of something someone had shared. I wasn't, but it could have been read that way.
I sat this morning 10-15 minutes.
I struggle with jealousy too. Thanks for raising the subject Jean and Moose.
I am aware of differences and do compare, perhaps too much. But mostly I feel content enough with my own circumstances (or at least philosophical enough about them!) that jealousy is a relative rare emotion for me. Mostly, as Brenda said, I feel happy for others. I'm happy when they're happy. Seeing them happy makes me so. So those times I feel jealousy, I've learned to prick up my ears and say to myself, "What gives? In what way are your needs not being met?" Perhaps because it's rare, it's easier for me to see. And I find it an ugly kind of emotion to experience so I like to weed it out pronto. Usually, I find I can alleviate it with something small and satisfying, or with a remembering of how and why I choose how I am, or with a moment of conscious gratitude. The last is quite effective.
However, I think that now in the grim winter time to see someone setting off apparently blithely to sit on a beach a few weeks, full of hope and ambition... and symbolic of some of the hard things you've been thinking about recently in your own life, Jean... could tip the balance for me, too. But I see so much more in you than a moment of unbalance, Jean. You give so much with your thoughtful, intelligent and warm presence here and elsewhere. I have faith that your menagerie will one day be possible.
Mary, the blog page is working fine for me.
Mary, Ruth and Jean — I'm excited for you. You'll have to blog about your experience together!
Jealousy -- gahk. I grew up in a family which was often dominated by my aunt's intense, paranoid jealousy of her sister, my mother. Because that aunt had a daugher my age, the jealousy got transferred to me too. What Moose and Brenda said rings for me: it's an emotion I try to notice when I feel it, and root out as quickly as I can. but of course I do feel it - or at least "envy" - it's human to feel it and to compare our situations with those of others. becasue of that family situation and because of being good in school, I was subjected early on to being on the receiving end of jealousy, and that is also very painful when you've done nothing to deserve it. (This must be a difficulty for people who are born with striking good looks - for all the admiration and attraction, there are also the sniping comments born out of jealousy.) I think it's too much to ask of ourselves to never feel negative emotions, thought hat can certainly be a lifelong goal. The task is to notice them more quickly and sit with them rather than being "taken over" -and to also have some compassion for ourselves and simply go deeper into undertsanding why particular emotions arise, without judging. Not that I am good at this, but I'm trying to learn!
A very helpful comment, Beth, thank you. I find envy is one of those emotions that I feel very physically in the body (in the throat and chest/diaphragm) and I just try to breathe and soften those physical areas when I feel the emotion.
Mary, I have had several unsettling experiences over the last few days with blogspot sites - the worst was the better part of a day of no access to any, including my own, but even now I keep getting the page that says I don't have permission to access, and then if I click again I do get in just fine to the site. It's bizarre. Makes me wonder if Blogger is having problems because I don't have similar problems with other kinds of sites. Either that or it's a regional issue, I suppose.
I want you to go South, Jean, and sit on a beach and write a beautiful book of longing and love and insight, ripe with the poetry within you, passionate, dark as the ocean depth, luminescent, bright as the sun, with the clarity of the stars at night... That's what I felt most when I read your comment this morning. Your creativity is needing some sun and sand and time to unfold! Here's to that wish coming true very soon- xo
13 Comments:
Oy, my dog is NOT a soppy, snuffly one! ;-) Cold nose, yes, but only when he nudges to get my attention since he doesn't bark much and speaks mostly with his eyes. A lot of people "aren't dog people" (I'm not, myself - wouldn't have this one if it weren't for my child) but this fellow is actually relatively well-mannered as dogs go. By the way, Jean, I have trained cats but only when they wanted to be, which I think really means they trained me! :-o
7 pm in France is 11 am here. I can work with it; I'll just set myself an appointment for an early lunch break.
15 minutes this morning. I'm in process of repairing my commitment. :-)
I'm taking a short break in the office, Moose (4.30 pm on Friday afternoon) and thinking about your remark the other day about feeling jealous - a brave admission indeed. One of the students just came by to say Happy Holidays, as she's off to sit on a beach in Malaysia and write her phd for a few weeks. I felt so jealous of her youth and having the freedom and money to go away for several weeks. So I shut the door and sat quietly and tried to be with the feeling until it felt ok, instead of pushing it away. Ooh, tough. But it did soften and dispel and leave me feeling more accepting.
The cat and I both sat quietly for 20 minutes this morning.
(btw I AM a dog person, especially soppy snuffly ones, quite as much as a cat person. But I live in a small, flat in the city and there's no one in all day - not a dog-friendly situation. One day perhaps I will retire to the country and have a menagerie and not mind at all if they interrupt my meditation practice.)
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Is anyone else finding the blog template here not showing on the front page? I have to click on the date and then I get into the comments, but the front page simply has a line of enigmatic technical stuff below the banner ...Is it Blogger or me I wonder.
Now I am wondering. My mother, with whom I have a problematic history, is an extremely jealous person. Envies everyone everything. Is that why I rarely feel anything close to jealousy? Because I am damn determined not to be like her? Because underneath I *must* feel my own lack and the abundance of others in comparison. It's not natural not to.
Do I 'sour grapes' things? Where have I put this natural ability for comparison? I have no idea, but I am genuinely happy for other people's successes, goods, advantages, loves...
When I feel someone's envy of me (though who knows why), it is one of the most excruciating feelings and tears me apart and I do everything I can to alleviate their erroneous impressions.
Now is that because I'm still trying to 'fix' my mother's envy of everyone and her resultant unhappiness with herself, her life?
My doggy and I are walking about 2 hours to get a paycheck that's, sigh, all going to storage costs, and so I will make it a walking meditation on mothers and jealousy.
The front page looks ok to me, but these things happen, come and go, sometimes affecting many and sometimes only a few, I think, and don't require any action unless they go on for a long time.
And so, Mary and Ruth, I will see you tomorrow :-)
I haven't sat yet today, but I did do a bit of snow-shoveling meditation while my not-at-all soppy & snuffly dog turned himself into a giant snowball.
7 pm in France is 1 pm here on the US east coast, so I can do that.
I took down my earlier post because on re-reading it could have given the impression I was making fun of something someone had shared. I wasn't, but it could have been read that way.
I sat this morning 10-15 minutes.
I struggle with jealousy too. Thanks for raising the subject Jean and Moose.
I am aware of differences and do compare, perhaps too much. But mostly I feel content enough with my own circumstances (or at least philosophical enough about them!) that jealousy is a relative rare emotion for me. Mostly, as Brenda said, I feel happy for others. I'm happy when they're happy. Seeing them happy makes me so. So those times I feel jealousy, I've learned to prick up my ears and say to myself, "What gives? In what way are your needs not being met?" Perhaps because it's rare, it's easier for me to see. And I find it an ugly kind of emotion to experience so I like to weed it out pronto. Usually, I find I can alleviate it with something small and satisfying, or with a remembering of how and why I choose how I am, or with a moment of conscious gratitude. The last is quite effective.
However, I think that now in the grim winter time to see someone setting off apparently blithely to sit on a beach a few weeks, full of hope and ambition... and symbolic of some of the hard things you've been thinking about recently in your own life, Jean... could tip the balance for me, too. But I see so much more in you than a moment of unbalance, Jean. You give so much with your thoughtful, intelligent and warm presence here and elsewhere. I have faith that your menagerie will one day be possible.
Mary, the blog page is working fine for me.
Mary, Ruth and Jean — I'm excited for you. You'll have to blog about your experience together!
1:00 pm EST on the 16th works fine for me.
Jealousy -- gahk. I grew up in a family which was often dominated by my aunt's intense, paranoid jealousy of her sister, my mother. Because that aunt had a daugher my age, the jealousy got transferred to me too. What Moose and Brenda said rings for me: it's an emotion I try to notice when I feel it, and root out as quickly as I can. but of course I do feel it - or at least "envy" - it's human to feel it and to compare our situations with those of others. becasue of that family situation and because of being good in school, I was subjected early on to being on the receiving end of jealousy, and that is also very painful when you've done nothing to deserve it. (This must be a difficulty for people who are born with striking good looks - for all the admiration and attraction, there are also the sniping comments born out of jealousy.) I think it's too much to ask of ourselves to never feel negative emotions, thought hat can certainly be a lifelong goal. The task is to notice them more quickly and sit with them rather than being "taken over" -and to also have some compassion for ourselves and simply go deeper into undertsanding why particular emotions arise, without judging. Not that I am good at this, but I'm trying to learn!
A very helpful comment, Beth, thank you. I find envy is one of those emotions that I feel very physically in the body (in the throat and chest/diaphragm) and I just try to breathe and soften those physical areas when I feel the emotion.
And the blog looks fine to me now.
Well said, Beth.
Mary, I have had several unsettling experiences over the last few days with blogspot sites - the worst was the better part of a day of no access to any, including my own, but even now I keep getting the page that says I don't have permission to access, and then if I click again I do get in just fine to the site. It's bizarre. Makes me wonder if Blogger is having problems because I don't have similar problems with other kinds of sites. Either that or it's a regional issue, I suppose.
I want you to go South, Jean, and sit on a beach and write a beautiful book of longing and love and insight, ripe with the poetry within you, passionate, dark as the ocean depth, luminescent, bright as the sun, with the clarity of the stars at night... That's what I felt most when I read your comment this morning. Your creativity is needing some sun and sand and time to unfold! Here's to that wish coming true very soon- xo
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