A Temporary Setback

Once someone showed me this astrology-related book which was divided up into passages about the 52 weeks of the year; each week has a theme. So, for instance, if you were born on September 29, as I was, the theme of who you are would be The Critic. And people doubt the veracity of these arts.
If anyone out there is more critical than me, I wish you very good luck with your life. You will need it.

All this is to say that though I consider myself to be a compassionate and caring person, I realize I can't stand myself when I'm sick. The neediness, the helplessness, the hopelessness, the fear, the misery, etc, etc, are very disagreeable to my critical faculties.

I have not been dealing. I have been in lost-it mode. I have gone to my crazy, dark place. In my crazy, dark place EVERYTHING is fucked up and no wonder I'm feeling like this. As a critical person who is very observant I get close to this place frequently. For instance, last night Dave told me that some people he knows who work in agriculture told him that farmers around here routinely soak their whole crop (e.g. wheat, lentils) in Round-Up to dry it to harvest it. Everything dies but the seedy bits are easy to pick up or something. FUCKING ROUND-UP! (I find it fucked up enough that people liberally use Round-Up, which is a controlled substance in Europe, to kill their weeds. I mean who cares about any kid that might want to sit on the grass or stick some in his mouth, not to mention drink it eventually in his drinking water, as long as there are't any dandelions?) Can anyone please tell me why this is not so obviously fucking evil and insane that only a psychopath would do this to food real humans will eat? As you know, there are endless examples of such insanity in all fields of human endeavor.

For some reason, I can't fucking let it go, this shit. Especially when I'm sick. Right now I'm trying to remember how I (sort of) let it go when I'm not ill. I do that fucking Serenity Prayer. I enjoy the beauty of my own life. I think of the way I have moved forward with love in my life and a nice stable home and my art. I particularly and overly rely on the perfection of my daughter in her beauty and wonderment and intelligence and openness. And I do come back to my feeling that people would rather be good than not, they often just don't know how or don't feel safe. (See HBP Blog from May 12, A Natural History of Peace). Sometimes I can believe that, like people I do healing work with believe, energy is rising and humanity is moving forward--that all the fucked-upness is actually useful to make us change.

Critical me, though, I say the pace of change is too slow and the fucked-upness is too cruel. Why, especially, do children have to suffer? The spiritual answer is that we all came here making spiritual choices about being here.

Though I am not yet able to fully accept the spiritual answer, I do accept that on some level I chose it and that it is teaching me about love for myself and serenity and how I don't have any, or enough. I also accept that I need to be the change I want to see in the world. It just seems so hard all of it. I realize I'm still a long way from growing up and accepting reponsibility for myself.

What I teach other people--and I am a perfect example of the adage that you teach what you need to learn--is that you can only start where you are. I also advocate the taking of baby steps. So thanks to some reminding from various helpers in the last little while, I realized I needed to reframe and work on shifting the old attitude:
I am going through a temporary illness.
This is a temporary setback.
I am healing and growing up.
I am loved.
I love myself enough to work toward my own serenity.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.

The critic in me says it's all too inadequate. But it's all I can do.