Tag Archives: self-sabotage

Wake Up!!! TorahCycle Korach

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KorachI recently had a brush with death. Sadly I’m not exaggerating. Another 5-10 minutes faster by the fire or slower by the alarm company and poof: gone or burn ward. I’m still processing it. But when I realized the next parshah was Korach, I laughed.

On the surface, it’s about a rebellion to displace Moses as leader. A full bore, get outta here you’re fired attempt to take charge. It’s really about our persistent ability to be unconscious. What looks like a story about rising up and being cast into a fiery pit is really about our unconsciousness’s nasty habit of using complacency, forgetfulness, and mindless acts of stupidity to create confusion and chaos.

Raise your hand if you’ve never blurted the wrong word to exactly the wrong person or missed a critical deadline. Give yourself a gold star if you’ve never sliced your thumb instead of the bagel, hit another car, or tweaked your knee trying to do too much too fast.

When you’re so close to manifestation–making it to your personal promised land–along comes your inner saboteur. Your unconscious. Your stubborn ability to take a good situation and make it bad.

This reading is about screwing up in a serious way. The kind where you really blow it. Get very close to the edge of that deep pit. Maybe even get charred and smokey from the billowing sparks.

Disaster can happen in an instant, even if you build up to it slowly. Unconsciousness can take many creative forms, even seemingly passive ones like laziness, procrastination, and failure to see the big impacts of small choices. Mostly it’s about not being present in the given moment, whether that’s by distraction or entrenched patterns of behavior.

Staying alive means being fully present, not sorta kinda half-assed being here.

Korach has a simple plot. A lot of Torah does. That’s part of why the phrase “Bible stories” conjures simple picture-book imagery. Like us, it’s a collection of stories that describe and define us. Each family has stories that any relative could tell in virtually the same words and with the same timing, pausing for the laugh lines and moans. They’ve become myth, iconic, and archetypal: The time when……

We also carry personal stories. Deeper ones, sometimes never even told, about people and passages long closed or others longed for but never manifested, the places we’re longing to get to. We tell stories of our promised land, even if we haven’t seen it yet.

Torah cycles around every year so we can keep peeling back the layers of its stories. Keep learning from them. Maybe not make the same mistakes over and over.

Unconsciousness keeps us stuck in an old story. It’s a lifestyle that hobbles you, keeps you walking around the same old same old until you either totally check out or something happens so big and dramatic that you have to change. Because being unconscious for too long can propel you into a %^#^&%%#ing mess of a story like a car wreck or a fire that forces you to pay attention. Really pay attention.

Better to wake up now and tell better stories. If you really wanna get to where you’re going, it helps to be alive.

What’s It Gonna Take? : TorahCycle Va’eira

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Va'eirah-2013After fruitcake and holiday sales is the New Year and everything that beginning represents. We start new cycles at other times, but the annual ritual of making resolutions is hard to ignore. Planning to get kinder, lighter, more focused or frugal…. Fill in the blanks with your own special challenges of this incarnation.

This week’s reading is about seven of the ten plagues. Various forms of discomfort and warning to deliver one message: Time and past time for change. P.S. The more you resist, the crappier it’s gonna get.

Moses and Pharaoh duking it out. Let my people go! Yes…No! Our own inner pharaoh knows this dance. We specialize in resistance, and are creative self-saboteurs, committed to keeping things as they are (no matter what or how much we say we want them to be different). We’re complicit with our oppression; with all the unhappiness that insight packs with it.

Why the push-pull? The list is tediously familiar: resistance from fear, guilt, laziness, shame, inertia. Stubbornness in every shape and style.

We each carry our own karma. Health challenges in one person manifest as emotional trauma in someone else. Family dysfunction, relationship problems, body shape and image, self-esteem. Pick a card, any card. All yours to wrestle with.

You know what works and what doesn’t. Know when you’re stuck, aimed in the wrong direction, faking it without real commitment, or otherwise avoiding what you say you want to do more or less of. Many of us spend huge amounts of time, effort, money, and enthusiasm making things worse instead of better.

A favorite line from the internet: I wish I weighed what I weighed when I decided I needed to lose weight. That kind of non-progress. Because knowing alone isn’t enough to make change happen.

This story, leaving slavery, is a very big deal. The first and biggest step towards freedom is overcoming resistance. Real change. Yikes!

So what’s it gonna take?

If we need to terrify ourselves with literal or metaphorical blood, darkness, frogs, or boils, then so be it. Hopefully you won’t do too much damage along the way. But it will likely be as annoying and persistent as buzzing flies.

Wouldn’t it be grand if we could don a biohazard suit for the duration, to prevent our emotional toxicity from leaking out? Maybe we’d change faster if we didn’t have others on whom to project our crap.

There’s a great John Gorka refrain: We’re all flashes in a great big pan and they’re turning up the heat. Our holy spark cooking in the heat of our collective, flawed humanity.

But throughout these goings on, this testing, we are slowly waking up. We’re learning something strong and powerful about who we are, what we require, and what we’re willing to sacrifice for what we most truly need.

So take some time during this year-end for reflection. Between the festivities and toasting, find a little quiet time to look at your thrashing, at all the ways you make life harder and more anxious for yourselves and those you love. Think about how to ease the process, and how to prepare for the changes that are coming. Keep that resolution and good will follow.

Your Evil Twin: TorahCycle Toldot

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Toledot 2013

We’ve all got them. Not just one; more like a handful. They usually appear as counterpoint to however we’re trying to be. Typically at inconvenient, even critical, moments. The shadow sides of who we aspire to become, even if we generally act more evolved.

There’s no mistaking when they show up. Like an anti-fantasy. You’re aiming for charming: out comes the truth teller or the boor. Need to be articulate or persuasive: stupid brain takes over. Your evil twin embarrasses you. It also steers you to self-sabotage, both active and passive, decisions both made and avoided.

To be clear, your evil twin might be something I aspire to. My best self might be someone else’s evil twin. We’re all here doing learning different lessons. So our shadow selves take different forms and bring different lessons.

This week’s reading’s about two brothers. Opposites: bookish vs. hunter, sly vs. forthright, strategic vs. wanting immediate gratification. The one who lies and cheats to gain an inheritance? After his own tough homework, he’ll transform into a revered patriarch. There’s hope for us all.

Torah’s enacted in a time when we lived more outside. Sat by the fire after dark. Looked at the stars and shared stories. Who a person was, was in part who they were told to be.

Who “you” are is how others speak and think about you, as well as who you feel on the inside. A gap between aspiration and action can exist even when it’s just you watching. But when your twin takes the wheel, your foibles are prime time.

We tend to see what we want and surround ourselves with folks that seem to like and accept us. If our shadow has little need to appear, we can coast pretty easily through our days. No need to look into our darker corners.

But each time your inner twin reaches for the foresworn chips or chocolate, picks a bad relationship, acts stubbornly, selfishly, or foolishly is a chance to look deeper. To ask what your hidden, hungry, unfulfilled self really wants.

We’re attracted to certain types of people or situations. We know when we’ve met our kin, whether that’s religion or voting pref, profession or sexual orientation. Your twin feels safe, and less likely to act up or out.

Other times we seem predestined to butt heads. Things and people that don’t fit so nicely, no matter how you might want them to. That electric bristling of not liking. Nothing seems to come out right. Murphy’s law condemns every word and action. What a playground for the evil twins!

These people and situations are in our lives to teach us. Yes, the lessons reflect a side of ourselves we’d rather not  be known for. But seeing and naming are good ways to bring your shadow into the light. Not always pleasant but necessary to grow,

Think about people and situations that push your buttons, where your not-best-self pops out of the woodwork. What do they have in common? Knowing will show you the parts of you that need more work and integration. They’ll almost certainly offer you more chances to do your karmic homework.

Oh So Very Very Close: TorahCycle Chukat

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ChukatDo you remember from Psych 101 that rats on a treadmill run faster when they get closer to goal? What about you?

This week’s reading’s after a big ellipse in time. Forty years, gone with the turn of the page. The Promised Land so very very close. But the troops are cranky, whiny, and thirsty. HaShem tells Moses water will spring from a rock if he asks, but when it doesn’t flow and gush, Moses gets angry and strikes the rock with his staff. For which act he’s told he will not cross into the Promised Land.

He takes it surprisingly well. Better than I would’ve. By me, after 40+ years of tough slogging and cajoling, he’s earned his gold watch and pension. Milk and honey and a cozy place by the fire.

Perhaps he knows himself so well he understands the consequences of his actions. His angry self is mirrored in the folks tugging on his robe. No one’s worse to be with than yourself when you’re in a bad mood. Wherever you go and whatever you do, there you are, crabby, too-sensitive, and annoying.

Some of us are like the treadmill rats. We find that extra sprint you see in racehorses and runners. The last burst of energy and endorphins amped towards goal because you are so very, very close.

Others of us inexplicably punch on our brakes. Do something rash,  or stupid, or both. Some form of screwing things up so we taint the prize and possibly even our ability to achieve it.

Why? Which of those people are you? Does it depend on the goal? Or your age? Or your health, wealth, love life, or general state of happiness?

Each of us has an Achilles heel. In the physical domain, I’ve been wrestling with mine for two years. And the metaphor’s not lost on me. I’m eyeball to eyeball with some of my most vulnerable parts. The ones that I need to make peace with if I’m gonna emerge fully into what I call Helen 3.0. My own promised land. Different for each of us, but a vision, if we’re lucky, that we’ve had, that we cultivate, and that we aspire to.

I’m trying to befriend my Achilles heel; trying to heal her. Do you know yours? Can you name the part of you that, like Moses’ anger, flashes at exactly the wrong moments. The part that’s like the dinner guest who says something rude and wrong too loudly in that exact and  awkward moment of silence that sometimes descends on groups.

Odds are this part of you is a consistent mechanism for your self-sabotage.  Whatever the trigger, this is how you act out.  Even if you can’t eradicate the underlying dynamics in your psyche, you can identify both this behavior and some interventions, a system of bells and whistles that’ll alert you that you’re about to hit the rock and hurt yourself. It’s gotta be worth a try.

Question for the week: When you’re triggered, how can you act in ways that won’t cause you remorse? What will inspire you with clarity, vision, courage, and stamina?

The Rebel: TorahCycle Korach

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KorachGetting to goal takes longer than we want. There’s lots of muttering Are we there yet? Nope. This week’s about self-sabotage. The part that of you needs something to rebel against, even if it’s yourself.

There’s times, individually and collectively, historically and personally, where rebellion is appropriate, honorable, and necessary. Times to resist injustice, to stand up for what’s good and right. When your integrity’s in collision with what’s going on around you, stand up, even if you put yourself or what’s dear to you at risk. This ain’t that.

I walk in the early morning when wild turkeys also stroll about. As I get close, the big toms puff up their plumage and brush their wing feathers against the road. It makes a deep, rustling sound. It might threaten another turkey. But for me, that tom challenging for turf is a distraction, not scary. He’s all show, no power. And shouldn’t stop me from staying on my path.

The week’s story’s about why we cling to false displays of strength instead of embracing our better inclinations. It’s about why we heed what holds us back. The habits that keep us treading quicksand until we’re submerged and swallowed. Our inner enemies, cloaked in all their self-righteous finery. The voices that lead us down the wrong road, or keep us from the right one.

Why don’t we change? Why don’t we listen to our higher selves?

The reasons are pretty consistent. A messy stew of denial, resistance, inertia, stubbornness, laziness, fear, guilt, shame, doubt, and probably others my denial won’t let me recall.

Pay attention when your inner rebel speaks. Listen carefully. Then look carefully at what it’s asking you to say Yes or No to.

Several years ago I made a deep commitment about how I wanted to use my time here, and what it would take to get ready. I knew my Yes would become an axis for my life. Would require leaving narrow places of my own making.

My inner Korach has rebelled often. Yikes. Enough. I don’t have the discipline this journey requires. But time and again I’ve been guided back, sometimes kicking and yelling, and others through gifts of joy and leaps of faith. I believe each of us, no matter how habituated our resistance, deeply wants to live our best self, not our worst one.

It requires making and keeping to your deepest intentions. To persistently shining light into every dark corner. To believing that becoming the people we aspire to be is possible. But to emerge into wholeness, we first need to confront and channel our inner rebel. Need to let the old pains and hurts we’ve shoved down deep come fully to the surface. Need to experience all the sorrow, anger, shame, and tears that accompany that release. Not fast or easy. But necessary.

Only then can we find the courage to say Hineini: I am here. I am ready.

This week: Look at an aspect of your life where you’ve consistently fallen short of your goals. See what patterns keep you from moving forward. Set an intention to change at least one of them.