To Linda on living conditions

[Guest guest]

Om Namah Shivaya Linda,

 

Again we share some similarities in our histories. I am also one of "such

people," raising a son without child support, on a very modest income. After

being raised in an upper middle class environment, being pretty spoiled & never

in need of anything, more than once the pendulum of my circumstances have swung

towards the opposite direction. One of my siblings re-embraced me, after I

moved into a dream house, in a dream area. Now that as a single parent, my

income is what it was 20 or more years ago, that sibling very seldom responds to

me.

 

On the other hand, my sister who has a myriad of problems, including severe

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (it IS a truely valid diagnosis, despite what some

medical professionals may think), who lives on disability, is the one family

member who sent gifts to either my son or me this year.

 

Living on the more prosperous side of the fence, easily & insideously inflated

my ego. Living on the more humble side of the fence has opened my eyes, & makes

it easier to look at peoples' hearts, rather than their false fronts. God looks

at our hearts, so the financial struggles have given me such a huge gift.

 

It's also raised my level of compassion, to a degree I doubt it would've

reached, living in such comfortable cirsumstances. Even as a preteen, I saw

that the more I got, the more I wanted. In that wanting more & more for myself,

I was thinking less & less of others.

 

As you know, we've been given a lot of valuable lessons. Our circumstances are

truely prasad from Amma. As for our families, they're acting out of ignornace.

With Amma as our Guru, we're most likely richer in the true wealth, that lasts

forever.

 

With love,

 

Sweta

 

nierika wrote:

....

 

When I was working, I was not one of "such people," if I had ever thought of

them that way. Mostly, I don't think I did. In one of my jobs I worked with

victims whose family members had been brutally murdered or attacked. I did not

deal with the ones who had committed the attacks, but aside from the

occasional empathetic emotional pain and anger I felt with the victims, I did

not

think of the ones who committed the acts as different from myself. I had seen

my own dark side; in fact that job was part of what brought it to the fore and

helped me make peace with that part of myself.

 

But now that I'm on the other side of the economic fence, I find myself

feeling like one of "those people," poor, living in hardscrabble circumstances,

ill ... and it is very difficult for me not to judge myself badly for ending up

in this situation. Part of it was trusting the wrong people (my parents);

part of it was the vicious judgement and actions they directed toward me; and

part of it is my dependence of the government to have even any kind of living

at all, and my dependence on my hubby.

 

I have always been independent. My illness and inability to work has put me

in the position of feeling like one of "those people." In my family, they

would have called people like me "poor white trash." Sometimes I wonder if they

think of me that way, or if they have any awareness at all of how their

actions (wooing me away from my home in Maryland with many promises, now

broken,

and taking a significant amount of my inheritance) have affected me. I don't

think they do, and that is a mystery to me. They live in total denial.

Everything is still a party, but it's a party I'm no longer invited to.

 

So where, in my past, my sensitivity and empathy, led me to not view any

group of people as "other," this same sensitivity is causing me to judge myself

as "other." I cry out to Amma to help me accept my illness with grace, to

accept my living circumstances with happiness that I have a place to live, and

to

not give up on myself. Sometimes it seems like the hardest thing I've ever

had to do. But then, every time I've dealt with something sticky (like my own

darkness), I always feel, "this is the hardest thing I've ever done." LOL So

there is always more learning.

 

Blessings to all, to all, to all of us, for we are One family, One with the

Divine, One

Jai Ma ~ Linda

 

 

 

 

 

 

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