Gift-sharing

A thought, last night.

Every wisdom tradition on the planet speaks of the importance of forgiveness, yet has little to say about the method to do that. The Buddha taught us that attachment leads to suffering, but beyond "just let go," the method is still kinda... pretty... weak.

Last night, I (re-)encountered my attachment to my old employment. I loved--LOVED!--doing theater tech. With what I could do with and for them, together we could make miracles.

And now I can't. Not there, at least. I've been doing with/for them for decades. And now it's over. The last time I was in the room of the theater, I could feel the dissonance between the spirit of the room and myself. I don't belong there any more. The room itself pushed back against me. And yet, I was still very, very, very much attached.

Trying to "unattach" just wasn't working, somehow. Why? Well, I guess, I wasn't really ready to really and truly "just let go," as easy as that sounds. (Easy. Yeah, right...)

But here's the "something new." Instead of "just let go," I tried something completely different.

Give it back.

So, from whomever/whatever/whereever such things come from... With thanks, I give it back. It was wonderful. DAMN it was wonderful. Really, really wonderful.

And now, I give it back. Whoever/whatever/whereever it came from... I give it back. It was for me; now it's for someone else. I give it back, so that whoever needs it can receive it. The place in which it happened... the Enterprise will receive what and who it needs, to take them to the place they need to be taken. The Universe wants someone else to receive its blessings, to lead it where it needs to go, to teach its inhabitants (student, parent, faculty, administrator, whatever) what they need to learn.

I am not the one it needs. And what I can do... is help it find the one it needs. I give it back, with thanks and blessings, and a prayer that those who need it may now find it.

And some very powerful accompanying meditations, trying to help my heart free itself of all the weight it has been carrying around.

This morning, I'm making tea, and I'm thinking "stage tech" thoughts, and I realize I'm having these thoughts just for fun. Not colored by "how I'm going to save them" or "how I'm going to transform them" or "they'll probably want to know/use/whatever" that I was thinking about. THEY never entered anything. All I was thinking of were... ideas. For fun. MY fun.

A big improvement, this was!

So us MSers (and us humans, in general) all lose things we love. So, instead of fighting with yourself to "let it go," instead...

Give it back. With a prayer that those who need it, can now so much easily get it, because you're not hanging onto it and keeping it from moving on to the next person or people who need it.

It's no longer loss. It's a gift.

Give it a try! A space of generosity is certainly more fun in which to reside than loss, and who knows... You may do some good, without realizing it.

Why not share the gifts of MS? Not The Disease, of course, but its gifts?

Time to spread them around.