{"id":3130,"date":"2013-08-14T17:01:06","date_gmt":"2013-08-15T00:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.coolkarma.com\/dharma\/?p=3130"},"modified":"2013-08-14T17:03:41","modified_gmt":"2013-08-15T00:03:41","slug":"the-scarlet-letter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/?p=3130","title":{"rendered":"The Scarlet Letter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

– Abandonment<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I remember when I was in middle school and reading Nathaniel Hawthorne<\/a> for class and my mother said to me some version of \u2026 <\/span><\/span>you know the secret sin isn’t adulty, its masturbation<\/span><\/span><\/em>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I found it even odd for Mom. But Mom was rather blunt and odd in her motherly norms. Its four and a half years since Mom opted to opt out of my life. I think for much of this time, I’ve looked on it as some kind of temporary hiatus. A\u00a0sabbatical perhaps, because Pat was an academic for much of her life, so maybe she was taking a parenting leave of absence.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But lately, I realize \u2026 she’s not coming back. My daughter went to go see her last spring. Just showed up on her doorstep, and Pat was bubbly and pleasant as if nothing was strange .. strained. But the fact is, she doesn’t talk to any of us anymore. Not me .. not my kids. And no one who has seen her, or spoken with her in the last few years will even broach the subject of WHY? She can mention my name in passing during their conversation \u2026 but there’s never a word spoken about the fact that she won’t receive my letters, phone calls, emails or photographs that I send her in the mail.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Mom abandoned me. I don’t often use that word. Because afterall, I’m an adult .. damn .. I’m 50 years old. You can’t be abandoned by your 70 year old mother. You’re two old for that. At least that’s what my logic brain says. But abandonment can take many shapes and forms and it can happen to a person at any age. At some level we all have deep abandonment issues. A lover that left us \u2026 a colleague at work that lets you down \u2026 a bank that once was your ally that now is making your life hell.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Abandonment can have many faces. Maybe you feel that in some way, it is YOU that have abandoned your Self. How can you not take better care of yourself? Why aren’t you setting appropriate boundaries for your life?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

We well up when we see pictures of lost or missing puppies, or worse when we see pictures of abused pets or other animals, because that Scarelet Letter \u201cA\u201d touches us at a very deep scare on our heart. No matter if we had a wonderful childhood with loving parents and oodles of opportunity, we all seem to KNOW what it feels like to be abandoned \u2026 or abused.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

So what can we do with our issues of loss other than mourn for them or put our head in the sand and pretend it doesn’t apply to us? Sometimes, its enough to just express the pain out loud \u2026 even in the silence of your own room. To acknowledge that we feel abandoned in some way shape or form. We can also open our hearts and understand that everyone we know and meet along our journey is also feeling this sense of loss or has at some point in their life.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

One of the things that I like to do in my practice, is a mediation exercise called TONGLEN<\/a>. Below is an example of how you can do a tonglen meditation right now. For me, I start by saying something like this:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

“I am feeling abandoned right now,<\/span><\/span><\/address>\n
it hurts and I feel very sad and small.<\/span><\/span><\/address>\n
I know this pain, because I have carried it for a long time.<\/span><\/span><\/address>\n
I also know that right now there are other people at this very moment who are experiencing this pain.<\/span><\/span><\/address>\n
Since I am feeling this pain anyway, I am going to choose to breathe in the suffering for those that are feeling abandoned just like me.<\/span><\/span><\/address>\n
And I am going to breathe out a deep sense of connectedness and peace to everyone who is feeling like I do.”<\/span><\/span><\/address>\n

 <\/p>\n

Remember, when we breathe out \u2026 we are also sending this wish to end suffering to our self. We are PART of the people we are breathing in and out for. Tonglen is about wishing everyone well .. and YOU are a part of All That Is.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Breathe in \u2026.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Breathe out \u2026.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I do tonglen breathing for five minutes or much longer depending on the level of activation I have around an issue.\u00a0 A surprising thing can happen when we willingly open our self up and we stop trying to avoid suffering. The breath connects us to not only this present moment, but to all other sentient beings who are also in this very moment breathing alongside us. And of course, when we see our connection with everything around us \u2026 the notion of abandonment shifts from something that is a thorn in our sole to a key that opens us up to the Whole.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Namaste.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  – Abandonment I remember when I was in middle school and reading Nathaniel Hawthorne<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dharma"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3130"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3142,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3130\/revisions\/3142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}