Clash of the Egos: Battleground for the Spiritual Seeker

I often have flying and dancing dreams. I love those. I dreamed this morning that I’d been walking carrying a big wooden basket around me (imagine wearing a barrel and holding it up around you). It was very heavy to drag and I had forgotten what it was and why I was carrying it. Then a wind came up and the big balloon that I had unknowingly been dragging behind me filled with air and I rose high, high over the rooftops. It was an exhilarating ride and from up there, everything was so clear. It was one of those dreams you want to last forever and wake up wanting to go back into.

On Facebook yesterday, I gave a link to the day’s blog post: When friends misunderstand, because we each see things as we are. I never use the real name of anyone I’m writing about because I write to show my thought patterns and how I work though stuff as it comes up. The point is not to air anyone else’s stuff, just to give my account of what happened to me. I let people throw their own stuff on display if they want it out there.

After my post, Sharon Kumuda Janis commented: “Hey Andrea, since many of your friends already know the conversation was between us due to the previous post that you’ve since deleted, it is only fair to show the actual conversation. http://www.spiritual-happiness.com/facebookconversation.pdf . I’d been coaching a mutual friend for his “2013: We’re Still Here and Love Abounds” project, and when he wanted to make it more about my cat’s name and likeness, such as making the domain name buddybaba. com, that didn’t make sense to me, and I told him so. He said okay, but then Andrea came in to push for it.”

Andrea replied: “Kumuda, thanks for posting our conversation so people can decide for themselves. I deleted the previous posts so that only the few who were in the thread would know who I was talking about, since it obviously bothered you. And BTW “Tony” in the post is not only you, now that you’ve outed yourself.

With all due respect, you also misunderstand Jeffrey if you think he wanted to make the project “more about Buddy’s name and likeness” – that was simply a suggested trademark icon for any merchandising. He wanted you to feel included. I am sorry this is your perception. And now as I reread our instant message, it becomes clear why you used particular language in it, not for me – but cuz you knew you’d be posting it online.“

Friends wrote that she’d taken her link down after several comments, so I put one online for them and wrote on Facebook: “Well Kumuda has now UN-friended me. She will next have Buddy (her cat) un-friend me and then she’ll create another name to friend me by since she knows I accept everyone. That way she can make sure I don’t spend my days writing all about her. Ah well, I will miss her. We all have our personality struggles with ourselves. I’m no exception.”

Later I posted, “A friend has UN-friended me cuz I didn’t meet her expectations. To anyone I know that I may royally piss off, know that no matter how horrid your own ego makes you treat me afterward, I have no hard feelings and will never reveal any secrets you ever entrusted to me. Why? Cuz it’s all God’s will and if we’re in the midst of God’s will, how can we not rejoice?

No one can weave with you a bond of discord if you contribute no strands to the weaving.“

And that’s really how I feel. I’ve been through this before. Even though she promotes herself as a spiritual author, she records devotional songs, the Guru Gita and the Diamond Sutra, when you are on the path and do this kind of work, every day opportunities present themselves to let you show what you know, and who you really are.

It’s like when you ask the Universe to give you patience. That doesn’t mean you wake up the next day with patience LOL. That means you will begin getting new opportunities to practice being patient. You may run into more traffic. You may have car trouble. You may get stuck 9th in line at Publix behind three sniffling, screaming kids. You will get lots of chances to practice being patient. Until you remember that is what you asked for and make the connection and get the lesson.

The Universe may have your best friend for decades even betray you publicly in order to see just how patient and understanding you can be. That’s how you acquire the patience you asked for.

So, after Kumuda made her post and revealed our private conversation, I had several friends instant message me and call me to let me know what she had posted and to see if I was upset. I wasn’t. They asked why someone who pretended to be so spiritual would act and react as she did, and in such a public forum. Because she’s human, because she’s not being mindful and thinking it through, because she’s reacting through her emotional ego-self. We all do it. That doesn’t mean we’re not spiritual.

“Being spiritual” means we’re working on being more spiritual. In moments of illumination, we have realizations and we strive to achieve that point in consciousness again. If we’re smart, we write down our thoughts during this time so we can refer to it later for our own further illumination. I know exactly how to do chin ups and can write all about it. I can’t however, do a chin up. Those who know, do... period.

It’s not productive to judge, especially if a friend is doing it to me. An eye for an eye just leaves everyone blind. So will I miss her now that she’s cut me off? Sure; the friendship was real on my part. But there’s also a relief, a release of tension I wasn’t consciously aware I was holding. It’s exhausting to want for someone something they don’t want for themselves. To spend time encouraging them and giving suggestions and cheering them on, even when it’s one sided. This must be what it’s like to have kids and want for them. I even suggested she join Facebook and befriend all my friends, so she could get a quick fan base. I tell everyone that.

I felt – my ego at work – that if I could just convince her of how it all really works, then her life would change for the better and all my effort would have been worth it. Plus she’d be more fun to hang with, with a little more optimism. Oh, how funny to think it would be that simple. Clients pay me big bucks to do just that, and here I couldn’t even give it away to her. And now, after being kicked to the curb, I am finally released from constantly wondering what more can I do to help her, and let the Universe deliver to her what she attracts on her own.

I felt as I did when my younger brother Bobby died at age 22. He’d get into fiascos and I’d get the late night phone calls and I was always wondering if he was ok. After that final call came, I knew finally he was free to be at peace, and so was I.

After the realization that she was no longer my project to worry about, my (self imposed) burden was lifted, I had new energy and I was revitalized. The good news is that I can no longer use her as my excuse to retain resistance, no longer try to figure out how to make something work by force rather than by vibrational matching. I know better, but I just so wanted to let her be right this time. Even if doing so introduced resistance into my own vibration and affected what I allowed myself to attract.

But she is actually the last of a particular group of friends that we were all working on similar issues the past dozen years. Her firing me releases me from that karmic tie. Funny what we do for love and friendship, huh?

I’m learning I can’t take all my friends with me.
Good thing there is no shortage of friends.

Andrea de Michaelis – Creating my own reality, one thought at a time

THIS IS MY PERSONAL BLOG

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