How do you return to love when you are upset? Feeling attacked?

[Ron Alexander]

In our profound in-depth dialogue group on Eckhart Tolle's book A New Earth - Awakening to Your Life's Purpose, we dialogued in depth about that question.
Here is Tolle's summation: Whenever you are upset about an event, a person, or a situation, the real cause is not the event, person, or situation but a loss of true perspective that only space (I call spirit, some call beingness or consciousness) can provide. You are trapped in object consciousness, unaware of timeless inner space of consciousness itself. The words "This too, will pass" when used as a pointer can restore awareness of that dimension to you.
Another pointer to the truth in you is contained in the following statement: "I am never upset for the reason I think."
Eckhart is talking about the "perception of the ego, instead of Spirit." We all agreed.
An inquiry into "what really upset me" can lead me to the inner space of consciousness where peace and quiet can help reveal the answer.
The key is to take a moment and go to Inner Peace, and transform the "attack" back to what is it all about as ACIM states "An attack is a call for love."
Linda's great question: "What if we could be grateful for everything?" can be applied here - to go inside and come back with a "thank you (for asking for my love).
Byron Katy goes further when she is being verbally attacked: "she pauses and goes inside and then states: thank you, I can find that (for example being called a "judgemental bitch"). We all have everything anyway so it really diffuses the situation if we admit it.
"In our defenselessness, our safety lies." ACIM What does this statement mean?
How do you drop your defenses and return to love? How do you respond rather than react?

[Linda Lawson]

Hi Ron,

What a beautiful and timely question.!...and response.

I want to ponder this a bit and see what comes up.

[Lee]

Hi Ron, and thank you for the question....

When I am feeling attacked, I respond one of two ways. The first is the inappropriate defensive response that we are likely all familiar with. The second can happen only when I am aware of the emotions that arise as they arise. That is to say before my defensive posture kicks in I must have observed its approach into the situation. For me this has taken practice in observing my thoughts as Eckhart suggests. On the occassions that I am observing, and I indeed observe the approach of my defenses, I ask myself what lesson is attached to this emotion.

If a situation has brought this to the surface, then indeed the situation has brought me an indicator of a place where I feel insecure or lacking in some way. I can often trace the source of the emotion to the statement that triggered it, and a little less often I can trace back further and discover a recent event that correlates to this emotion and therefore this re-triggering may feel more intense. Occasionally I can trace back to a core belief in my life and see why the event and the current situation bother me so deeply as to remove myself from useful interaction with the situation and becoming defensive. It is when I can correlate back to this core belief that I have a chance of returning to real communication and/or useful interaction, because then I can question that belief, and make it part of whatever process is taking place, be it a conversation with another, a series of events that are not moving along satisfactorily, or maybe just not feeling satisfied with the outcome of a project. To date every time I have made it that far into the process, I have found the core belief at the source of my emotion to be either a cover for an insecurity, plain ol' misinformation, or part of my childhood programming that I have not yet questioned.

An example:

There was a time in my life that I felt productivity was the measure of my success as a being human. Over and over again I would bump up against feeling let down if I did not meet a self defined goal. After beginning to observe thoughts as they happen I was able to see this let down coming and correlate it to the goal I had set for myself. Up until then I the let down would overwhelm me, and I didn't really know why I felt so bad as I would initially deny it because surely I wasn't so rigid with myself as to cause myself grief over not hitting a goal. Once I got past the denial I was then able to see the let down coming and correlate it to many other similar instances in my life which allowed me to see at least some portion of the scale of this issue in my life, and it was beginning to look massive. Rather recently I was able to move beyond the events and I found the core issue. I was literally trying to impress those that loved me, because productivity is the measure of my success. I had this core belief instilled in me by a social system inclusive of my family, my school, and my church as a child to the point that it was unquestionable. This was no one's intention, but rather a perfect combination of events that led me to an erroneous interpretation of the world that was so much a part of me that I never even asked anyone about it. It just was. Throughout my life I had been one of the most productive people I knew, and I kept setting my own bar higher, because that is what we do, we try to be better. My measure was productivity, so that was what I needed to be better at. Of course it all had to happen within the moral guidlines I was taught as well, but the point is that once I saw this I asked myself, "self, how do you want to measure your success as a human being?" The answer was loud and clear, "I want to measure my success as a human being by how well I love". Therefore I am no longer much more than an average producer, and quite fond of being just that, because it gives me a lot more of myself to share with other humans, each one grand in their own way (but none quite so grand as my daughters).

Again thank you for the question. When I start into an answer like that I never know where I am going, but by the end I have always learned something, and that holds true here.

Lee

[Ron Alexander]

Lee, that is an excellent response? Thank you, I add you as another fine teacher on this magnificent site.
I would like to add a couple of my favorite quotes from your profound writing:

I was literally trying to impress those that loved me, because productivity is the measure of my success.
...
...self, how do you want to measure your success as a human being?" The answer was loud and clear, "I want to measure my success as a human being by how well I love". Therefore I am no longer much more than an average producer, and quite fond of being just that, because it gives me a lot more of myself to share with other humans, each one grand in their own way (but none quite so grand as my daughters).

Lee do these sentences pretty well summarize your great conclusion? a cosmos of gratitude, ron

[Ron Alexander]

Lee, It sounds like you believe that "An Attack is a call for love."? "Perfect love casts out all fear." ron

[Linda Lawson]

Oh, you wise birds. Please allow me to add the view from where i sit or ...fly.


on the attack thing, I have come across several reasons they occur :

1. i may be attacking self in some way and this is being mirrored to me .this is often the case and the one that is most challenging to see. thank you to those ones who provide the reflection.


2.i may be judging those who attack me or others..in which case, I attract what?? yes, even more of those who attack me or others giving me opportunity to release the judgement on them by releasing that very activity in myself.


3.. i have outgrown or am now growing in a different direction than the people/group i am trying to relate to closely, they feel my perspective betrays the agreements we met in being together thus far when really i just have a more expansive way of being.


and of course, i t may be none of these

4. Perhaps it is Love tugging at me to reach my potential . Love without condition. How else can I learn it? I am like most people. I love easily that which aligns with me. Can I love one whosse ideas or background differs?





warm regards,
Linda

[Lee]

Ron Alexander said:

Lee, It sounds like you believe that "An Attack is a call for love."? "Perfect love casts out all fear." ron

Yes I do believe an attack is a call for love, most of all self love. For me, at this time in my life, an attack is calling attention to something I am not conciously aware of, and I agree with Linda's four points. I am most familiar with 1 and 2 and feel that all of the first three are ways that number four can act in our lives. Number three is especially interesting to me right now though as I have been struggling with this exact issue. As of yet I can not tell when a relationship has run its course and when I am running from something uncomfortable. I do not often run, but I am setting more rigid boundaries as I grow, and in doing so I feel I have made good decisions, but it is tricky. I feel that if an attack triggers no emotion in me then that attack is not for me but rather for the attacker. Therefore if I am often attacked in a given relationship, but feel no emotion (anger, fear, etc..) when attacked, I am unable to assist the person attacking, and there is nothing positive left in the relationship for me, do I move on? After typing that question the answer seems obvious, but why is it then so hard to actually move on?

Perhaps it is a call for love yet again that I am having trouble moving on. So when this happens, just as when one is attacked, I could ask what emotion is keeping me here, and what thought or event is this emotion attached to.

Loneliness is a tough one, maybe the toughest.

Linda said:

1. i may be attacking self in some way and this is being mirrored to me .this is often the case and the one that is most challenging to see. thank you to those ones who provide the reflection.


2.i may be judging those who attack me or others..in which case, I attract what?? yes, even more of those who attack me or others giving me opportunity to release the judgement on them by releasing that very activity in myself.


3.. i have outgrown or am now growing in a different direction than the people/group i am trying to relate to closely, they feel my perspective betrays the agreements we met in being together thus far when really i just have a more expansive way of being.


and of course, i t may be none of these

4. Perhaps it is Love tugging at me to reach my potential . Love without condition. How else can I learn it? I am like most people. I love easily that which aligns with me. Can I love one whosse ideas or background differs?

[Ron Alexander]

Thank you, Linda & Lee for your in-depth answers - it appears to me that Silja summarizes it all with her comment below:

Comment by Silja Saareoks on June 17, 2009 at 2:08pm
The unconditional love can make us forgive everything,
no matter what the people do.
It is just the question of how we want to feel.
By choosing the love to be the first priority the "other feelings"
will go as there is no place for them.
If we try, we can find something positive in everyone.
Blessings for you all! Silja

What do you'll think?

[Ron Alexander]

WORD FOR THE DAY (gratefulness.org)
Wednesday, Jun. 24

All attack is a call for help. When you know this,
you begin at once to look deeply into the
question of what kind of help is being called for.



Neale Donald Walsch
Tomorrow's God

[Linda Lawson]

HI Everyone,

I'd love to share the perspective of one Personal Growth practitioner...me:

Emotional and psychological clarity practitioners will say to" feel as u feel" in the moment as a place to start,regardless of the question we ask ourselves. That's what the present moment is giving us to learn from.

Lee shares practices and perspectives that are helpful to observe for over a period of time when one is regularly stuck in the panic of a feeling. I was. And it took a few tools to release that.

We may know and want to feel unconditional love and deep woundedness is blocking our ability.

No need to dwell there in the wounding.Give yourself some gratitude for the courage to feel it ,release any judgement, and re-choose something new to feel. Perhaps unconditional love, perhaps tolerance,or patience....some new possibility for the heart to grow into..


For some of us unconditional love is a big jump from where we usually hang out. Its a wondrous goal.And one I choose often.
I find the biggest help to me is to really anchor myself in the expansiveness of all of who I am ...my whole being, which for sure knows unconditional love.It is connected to the source of love ...to source itself . So any attack to a bit of me , means so little.

In my humble opinion, i t probalby matters how much " stuff " or "baggage" we are carrying what our experience with loving unconditionally, will be.

warm regards,
Linda


warm regards,
Linda