The night before I went in, Tuesday, I began to see the deep wound I have around entitlement.  The baby that woke up absolutely everyone in the Shelter last night is entitled to our patience.  She's about 18 months old.  That's about where it starts to come to an end. 

Right now I'm sitting in a local coffee house with free wireless.  I'm having tea and eventually I'll have a breakfast burrito.  All in all, I'll drop about $7.65 in here today, not including tips.  That's alot.  I don't wanna do this both weekend days.  That would be about $30 out of every paycheck.  But I'm not just buying tea and breakfast.  I'm buying something else that I've felt entitled to for so long that I was struck dumb the other night when I was told I couldn't have the computer in the Dorm.  There's no interweb in there, but I could still could have constructed a post on notepad and saved it until I could hook up.  I need relative peace and quiet in order to write.  So, even though it's okay to have the computer in the Activities Room, it's so crowded and noisy in there, that I wouldn't be able to get anything done anyway.  And I have absolutely zero privacy anymore.  Except when I go to work early in the morning on weekdays to have my tea, set up the room for business and have my breakfast.  I have around 3 hours to myself, provided they let me keep doing that.  But I'm not entitled to it, so that may not last.  I'm trying to stay out of there on the weekends, but I think I'll have to make a few adjustments in order to manage it.  I don't want to overdue it. 

I feel this incredible, ever-present sense of fear now that I won't be allowed to have what I want, or what I have been able to have for so long now, that it seems like a need.  At any moment, I could have something - anything - that I feel like I need taken away from me.  It could become oppressive.  Especially if it was fighting against a competing sense of entitlement.  But it's no longer doing that.  So, I can bear it.  I just sort of pat myself on the arm and give myself a hug and say, "I'm sorry that you're hurting."  Instinctively I'm doing what probably wasn't done for me when I was around 18 months old.  As a result I'm able to gradually adjust because my desire and disappointment are not disrespected.  This is the mirroring that is so important for small children so that they learn to contain their difficult emotions and not ...   well, not go crazy.  And as I adjust and accept my circumstances, a brand new feeling is emerging which I'm really not used to: gratitude. 

Last night, as I lay in my uncomfortable, assigned bed (#4), I was being flooded with it.  It was dark in the Dorm, they turn the lights out at 9, so nobody saw me laying there with my arms outstretched and hanging off both sides of the bed and this big grin on my face, breathing a free air that my lungs have never felt before.  There is always so much hurt and anger sitting in my gut, my diaphragm is always taking shallow breaths because it senses that it's not okay for me to breathe the air.  I'm not worthy of taking up such a valuable resource.  I do need air.  Well, I do if I'm going to live.  But I have a different relationship to survival now.  Having a "right" to life seems very different to me now.  The very idea of civil rights is so destructive to a natural developmental progression that human beings should naturally go through - but, I guess didn't.  So, they became necessary. 

So, I guess I feel pretty blessed right now.  In fact, I think I'm really enjoying this.  It makes me smile because I wasn't expecting it. 

I was reading this interesting newsletter that I get from this guy who is really good at helping people recover from Attachment Disorders, and he was saying that under stress, we regress to a level of development that we were at just before we were damaged.  Regressing to entitlement is a logical place (for a small child) to go when I feel like life's demands are asking too much from me.  I think that's why the civil rights thing can be destructive.  When you're using it to counteract primitive abuses of power that the world is waking up to and no longer putting up with, it's a great thing.  But when you've basically never had to struggle for survival a day in your life, like so many people in the world do, it's regressive. 

In many ways, that's all relative.  And I think that is the Great American Confusion.  We're standing on the edge of a new sense of being in the world and we're seen as both decadent, spoiled whiners on the one hand and the vanguard on the other hand.  Both are true.  Many parts of the world really need to move into their own era of civil rights.  But I think it's time for us to move on to something better.  It's starting to hold us back. 

I don't know if anyone is really in the Shelter long enough for a true hierarchy to form, but for sure the most war-like among us establish dominance in a hurry.  I'm not sure who's on top in the Men's Dorm, but I picked up on who's Top Dog in the Women's Dorm sometime on Friday. 

It's fascinating.  I think I've got it in me to respect her power.  I'm not really from her world, but our worlds are sharing the same space at the moment, so I sort of have to figure out how to respect her.  I made a comment yesterday that, I think, put her at ease.  I think we're okay.  But since I am somewhat of a mystery, she may eventually feel the need to test me.  I think I know what to do.  I think the right thing to do is tell her straight up that __fill in the blank__ belongs to her and she's the boss.  I'm not sure if eye contact will be allowed or not.  Something tells me, no.  But I don't know. 

This reminds me of certain hymns and prayers and psalms...

Our Father, Who art in Heaven,
Hallowed be Thy Name.

Thy Kingdom come
Thy Will be done
On Earth, as it is in Heaven

Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our trespasses
As we forgive those who trespass against us

And lead us not into temptation
But deliver us from evil

For Thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory
Forever and ever
~Amen

LOL
Wow.  So that's what they were doing back then!  It was a pack-like gesture of submission!  I guess that was something everyone understood back then.  Instinctively.  But not so in today's civilized world.  That cracks me up! 

Maybe after I pay the required homage, she'll stoop to being curious about my world.  But I doubt it.  She's very materialistic.  I don't think she'd likely be interested in philosophy and psychology.  And probably not the spirituality that I'm interested in. 

I was thinking about this yesterday and I think every human being is capable of caring to extremes, but the focus of care is different for different levels of spiritual or emotional development.  War-like people increase their care for their own kith and kin - keeping it within the same boundary, only increasing in intensity.  More evolved people expand the boundary of their care to include more people groups - increasing in reach.  There are benefits of both.  Small boundaries mean life is simpler, the rules are easier to keep track of and they seem to be more correct, more certain.  Larger boundaries mean there are more rules to keep track of and their correctness is less certain - but there is less of an impulse to fight about it. 

Oh, dear.  I'm starting to feel sleepy.  And there's no place to lay my head.  I might have to sleep in the Park.  But I don't have a blankie.  I'll freeze. 

There's a big wing-ding in the Park tonight which we're allowed to go out to - special permission to stay out later than 6pm.  I had to sign a sheet in advance so they know.  I suspect we'll all be in one big group. 

I'm really starting to like our group.  This morning on my way from the coffee house to Church, I passed by several fellow folk and enjoyed the contact and comradery.  We're all in the same boat during the day on the weekends: stuck out here with nowhere to go.  I saw several of us at the coffee house too, them at their coffee and me at my tea and wireless.  I feel connected to people at a really great level.  It's the great equalizer.

Okay.  A few more chores and I've got to find a place to lay my head down. 

I am on the downhill side of food-poisoning.  I went to the big wing-ding at the Park that I mentioned before and attended a BBQ.  I got there late and hadn't seen the food prepared.  I trusted the guy who was doing it, he had nothing to gain from making people sick and seemed interested enough in cooking to know how to do it right.  But no.  Or something else went wrong that I just don't know about.  He says the meat I ate was from someone else's batch, not his.  So, one way or another, I got sick.  I've never had food poisoning this bad in my life.  Ever.  Sunday night I might have gotten 2 hours of sleep.

But that's not the real story here.  The real story is that there is no place for me to go when I'm sick.  The Homeless Shelter kicks everyone out at 8:30am every day and shuts down until 5pm.  Thank God it didn't really hit me until after I got to work yesterday or I would never have made it to work at all.  I was able to explain my situation to people at work and one of the Staff told me that I could stay on her day-bed all day if I needed it.  I gladly accepted.  So I finished the Staff Meeting and then went to her house, took a pain pill (high fever, body aches, stomach filled with razor blades, headache...) and just went unconscious for 5 hours.  Bless her. 

But I'm not the only person who got sick.  What about those other people who had no friends to help?  Where do they go?  The Staff at the Shelter are willing to drive people to the Emergency Room. 

That's it.

This is not the only hole that Homeless people can fall through.  The entire landscape is riddled with holes, just like in that movie, "Holes".  People with pets are not allowed to stay there.  If for whatever reason you don't show up by 6pm or call before to let them know what's up and you have a good excuse, you get kicked out for 7 days.  And, no, "my kids are visiting from out of town and my friend wants to put us all up for the weekend so we can visit and spend some quality time together" is not a good enough excuse.  One elderly man is deathly ill and can hardly stand.  He can't even stand in the food line long enough to get his meal.  He has to wait until the lines are gone, then quick get up, get his food, then go sit down again and eat.  They're happy to drive him to the Emergency Room, though!

Not being able to have my computer in the Dorm is a pretty lame excuse for getting upset compared to this stuff. 

So, I'm still really sick.  I keep hitting the wrong keys when I type, so I'm going really slow.  I need to stop.  But this is one of those times when my sense of entitlement is firing pretty high.  It's hard to keep sitting up.  I need to get off this thing and go lie down.  I just wanted to regester this experience live so that I could look back and say, "Oh, yeah. That sucked. I wonder what can be done about that." 

Gotta go...

Last night I did yet another brave thing.  I took a shower at the Shelter.  Previously I had been showering at my Mother's house because I wasn't sure I could do it quickly enough to not really upset people.  But I decided to take the risk.  From the time I turned the water on to the time I turned it off, it was 26 minutes!  Yay!  That's really a huge victory considering that it usually takes me at least an hour. 

Long showers are a leftover self-comforting behavior from childhood times of taking a long time in the bathroom.  It was the only time I felt I had privacy.  Or the only time that others didn't seem to think they were entitled to knowing what I was doing.  Or the only time I felt like I didn't have to come up with a justification or excuse for doing what I was doing.  I guess I had that feeling when I was punished by being sent to my room too.  No one pried into what kind of mess I was making or when I would be finished or how productive it was or what I was learning or whatever.  I was just left to myself.  By the time I was 8 or 10, what had previously looked just like neglect was now blessed relief from judgment. 

I guess I feel entitled to relief from judgment.  No wonder I didn't quite buy into the huge guilt-trip that sometimes accompanies conversion to Christianity when I was 15.  Very often it's delivered as, "You can come inside if you first pay the toll of confessing that you're a terrible sinner worthy of death."  I had a big argument with my friend about that.  I had all sorts of sophisticated and philosophical reasons for having a problem with that, but the reality deep inside was that I was already burnt out on guilt.  What I thought I was hearing in "The Good News" was that it was time to retire from my life-time labor of feeling guilty about simply living.  As the years went by I sorted through my feelings about what "sin" was and the concept evolved as I matured.  It has a whole different meaning now than it did back then. 

So, somehow I have been able to break through the outer shell of feeling entitled enough to get underneath my shower issue.  This is just outstanding progress for me.  Amazing. 

And to end that little story on a funny note, I'll segue into the next story...

While I was in the shower, I noticed that the drain wasn't flowing well, and there was a bit of hair around it.  By the end,  I saw that there was alot of my own hair there too (it's a different color), and I made a mental note to clean that up when I was done.  When I finished, I used the hand-held shower to rinse things down and get the scum cleaned up from the drain.  After I put my jammies on, I was gonna go get a piece of toilet paper and clean up the hair, but there was someone waiting to get in, so I let her go and told myself I'd do it when she was done. 

Just then there was an announcement that there would be a mandatory house meeting in 5 minutes!  Fear shot through me.  Instantly, all that carefully placed short term memory was purged in favor of being available for whatever was coming.  I put my things away, checked if it was okay to show up in my jammies and fuzzy slippers and then went in to the dining room on pins and needles. 

I guess these meetings are held once in a while to read notes out of the complaint box and go over rule changes or upcoming events or whatever.  So, one of the Staff women opened up the complaint box and read the first note.  "Please don't leave hair in the shower drain in the women's bathroom!!"  And they talked about consequences for doing that and they were dire and so on and on. 

Crap.

That's the kind of stuff that happens to me all the time.  I'm so conscientious, it's pathetic.  Really.  It's sickening.  But if something happens that disrupts my memory storage between making that mental note and the time it comes due - I'm screwed.  'Cuz it's gone.  Long gone. 

This has been a problem for me in jobs.  I feel really intimidated by bosses.  Power relationships of any kind have been traumatizing for me.  It's one of the main consequences for having an attachment disorder.  Many bosses have eventually gotten this impression of me as dim-witted because I can't remember what I've been told over and over again, point-blank.  The key phrase there is "point-blank".  Because many have this tendency to deliver instruction very impersonally and with this "do-it-or-else" kind of spin that effectively prevents me from remembering what they're saying. 

And it's easy to see how it would escalate.  On their end, they just keep increasing the force.  On my end, I end up actually generating resistance.  Passive aggression prevents me from acting on instructions that I'm given - and I actually want to comply with - but can't because they are terrorizing me by increasing the threat while they are giving me the instructions.  Sometimes it takes days before this cycle starts at a job.  But usually, it starts within hours or minutes.  There's no way to tell from the interview how they're going to be, because their motivational skills don't actually go into effect until after you're on the team.  Too late.  Oh, well.

Even with all that going on, I've only ever been fired once in my life.  It's amazing.  I guess it's because I've overcompensated with extreme conscientiousness and I can be trusted with money, keys, effort, ability to get along with co-workers and all sorts of things of that nature.  Those are valuable in retail.  That's where I used to work.  Never again.  I'm no longer willing to let myself get traumatized like that.  I did it for years until I couldn't do it any longer.  I was failing and was not going to get better at it.  Increasing the fear only made it worse.  So, I needed to try something different. 

But back to my story.

So the House Meeting was very interesting.  There were two Staff Women running it, and one of the women, who is usually the more stern was being the "Good Cop" while the other was playing "Bad Cop".  It was an impressive show of force.  And, of course, it energized the corresponding "opposing force" in the community - until the hammer came down.  The bottom line is that the Shelter is supplying a service to the community: They offer a roof over our heads and food to eat as long as we are actively pursuing permanent housing.  It's not meant to be a "flop house" or "hotel" or other such place where there are no demands upon us (That's not what was being asked for, but this is the standard answer to anything that they don't want to offer). 

Translation: "You have no rights. And if you don't like it you can sleep in the gutter."

It's actually the same kind of threat you get in prison.  If you don't like the level of security, you can always sit in that fancy electric chair down the hall and your days of getting jumped in the shower will be over. 

The place was buzzing with acting out for the rest of the night.  People tattling on one another and lots of blatant defiance.  A little while before "Lights Out", there was a bed check, where the drawers under our beds were checked for stashed food (totally against the rules but one of the women had been tattled on - see next post).  I saw how my drawers were checked and it wasn't very thorough.  There was no food "found", even though I heard several of the women whispering that they were probably gonna get in trouble because they had this or that stashed in their drawers.  I'm not sure what they think they were accomplishing.  I guess that was saber-rattling.  Or maybe they let us win that one so that we'd chill out.  I don't know. 

Fascinating.

Something very interesting happened last night as I lay in bed.  I found myself thinking of a way to "punish" or "hurt" this Top Dog woman if she should ever turn on me.  I didn't notice myself feeling particularly afraid of her at the time, but I guess some part of me sensed danger. 

At the House Meeting earlier, she openly tattled on one of the other women in front of the entire community.  I had never seen this other woman cause her any problems or anything, so it seemed pretty random.  It was just a blatant, public display of her untouchability and dominance.  She could do this to anyone at any time.  No one was safe.  It was horrifying to me.  Very Jr. High.  This kind of thing usually intimidates me so badly that I repress my urge to retaliate and I just cower.  I've been the kind of dog that just tucks her tail between her legs and goes and lays down outside the circle, in the dark to avoid being targeted.  Then after the fact, I rehearse over and over what I "should have" said.  It's a dreadful way to live. 

But I've been making an effort to not do that anymore.  It just leads to more victimization.  So, out of my depths came this preparation and cunning that I've never really felt in contact with before.  I think I've developed what might be the decisive end to a very short fight.  I never knew I had it in me!  LOL  And I'm quite proud of it.  I don't need to act on it.  Hopefully, I never will. 

Mostly, I still feel very benevolent towards her and I hope she and her family have a happy future.  She lives in a very different world from me and in that world, these behaviors make alot of sense.  I hope she has the good fortune to settle down in a community who shares her values so she can find a suitable place and sense of safety for herself and her possessions (her klan is included in with possessions).  But, I really believe that I wouldn't feel any benevolence at all if I wasn't able to connect with my own inner Crouching Tiger.  If I felt defenseless, my fear and rage would be intensified exponentially.  As it is, I now feel as if I have everything I need to protect myself should the need arise, so there is very little fear taking up space in my amigdala.   

I would like to improve on this even more and make it an even more prudent show of force.  Just enough to stop her and then disarm her.  My plan, as it is, would end up displacing her from her throne and that would motivate her to retaliate and that may never end.  Besides I don't want that.  I don't want to sit on any thrones.  What a waste of time and energy!  I would much rather see if we could co-exist.  I think that would be much more interesting. 

Or not.

I tried to talk about my progress with my sense of entitlement yesterday at a meeting.  A meeting that I was running.  But I was stopped.  This is another example of how I get in trouble with my conscientiousness.  Half way through my spiel this woman burst out with something, but quickly stopped herself.  I tried to keep going, but I was so significantly derailed by that that I couldn't easily get back on track.  Another minute or two later and she cut me off completely. 

She asked if I was the kind of person who shamed myself for being angry and, after hearing only what she wanted to hear in my answer, off she went.  My simple awareness of entitlement energized her own urge to justify entitlement - as if I were shaming or blaming about entitlement.  The rest of the meeting had to be about why we deserve "free" health care or she would have felt too threatened.  I've been her, and to some extent, still am her.  So, I sung her back to sleep.  Anything else would have been just mean.

Simple awareness really isn't.  "Simple", that is.  Whether I put judgment on what I'm aware of or not, people often perceive it as judgment, regardless, and they can get quite upset.  And usually, once I'm perceived that way, I'm a threat forever.  I've dared to point at a pink elephant in the room and doing so threatens to disassemble one of the most deeply unconscious beliefs in their survival scaffolding. 

All I was trying to do was get well. 

I happen to know that my own survival scaffolding needs to be awakened to and gone over very consciously and carefully: "Is this really working for me now?  Is this getting me what I really want?  Is there a better alternative that can also function as a safety the way this was intended?"  Continuing to do stuff unconsciously that doesn't work prevents me from getting what I want and prevents others from getting what they need and want from me as well.  I don't need to shame myself for it.  I don't.  When I made the decisions to do those things, they made sense at the time and they worked.  I'm glad I made those decisions.  I'm alive now because I did. 

And change is inevitable. 

I guess this is the kind of thing one has to entrust to a private Therapist who can understand what I'm really doing.  The general public may not be ready.  I don't want to dumb down recovery tho.  I don't like it when that is done to me.  I get so sick of meetings that don't have some really high quality recovery/sobriety.  Bleh! 

I don't know.  I'm frustrated about that.  Maybe that's because I feel entitled to being in a community/family where I am not more emotionally mature or less needy than my "superiors".  I feel terribly abandoned if I am.

I'm feeling very sleepy now.  Very vulnerable.  I've been at work typing these last 3 posts into notepad, ready to upload when I can connect.  It's very tempting to just lay down and fall asleep, but I won't.  I'm too afraid that I'll be discovered and shamed or that I'll sleep past 6 and turn into a pumpkin.

I guess it's Love, really. 

Last night I had a close call.  I was working until 10pm and was given until 10:30 to get home.  The week before it was plenty of time.  But this week it wasn't quite.  I walked through the door at 10:29 and I was scared to death. 

As I packed up my things to bring home, I caught myself doing something that I didn't "need" to do, but only wanted to do.  I recognized the problem.  My time was short and the threat was dire, but I was "dawdling" as my Grandmother would have said.  "Why am I doing this?" I asked myself.  The answer was immediate: Because I feel entitled to having enough time to take care of myself.  As soon as I saw it, the impulse and the resulting terror dissolved and I suddenly regained the freedom to choose what I was doing.  I finished the small task I started, then got back on track without feeling compelled to resist. 

All the way home, I grew more and more terrified.  Arguments with Staff formed in my mind about why I was justified to do what I needed to do.  I grew angry and saw that I was on the verge of belligerence and fury.  Again I recognized my situation.  Without judging myself, I prudently decided to redirect my sense of entitlement to a better target, and leave these people out of it.  This was a very complex institution that could not be managed at all if  everyone just did what they felt like they needed to do.  I knew they might cop an attitude with me, but that was a result of institutions being what they were and them not having any better alternatives.  I made a mental note to improve the alternatives for folk who do institutions to help people and then dropped my rage.  The fear melted.

I came in under the wire, and the Universe "rewarded" me with my favorite Staff person being on duty.  He was totally accommodating and kind.  We ended up talking for some time and he told me about his experience.  He was the first resident at this particular Shelter who got out by getting permanent housing.  Such a sweet guy.

On top of the clock issue, I had forgotten to arrange for my chore to be done while I was gone until later that day when there was no one on Staff to call.  I only hoped that they would do what needed to be done to fix it and then give me mild consequences for the oversight.  That's that conscientiousness issue I mentioned before.  I was so worried about making sure everyone was informed that I was working that night and not to expect me until late, that I purged the short-term memory of the chore in order to deal with that terror.  It's amazing as I look at it now, how much of my life has been defined by running from one terror to the next and from that to the next.  Endlessly.  I amaze myself. 

So, not only did I drop my attitude about being late, but I also didn't need to be defensive or angry about the chore.  I simply apologized.  And this guy put my fear at ease by telling me he switched my chore to a morning chore so it wouldn't conflict with work. 

Dang!

So, I retreated to the darkness of the Dorm to decompress.  It was a rough day.  Not only was all this stuff about the Shelter sitting on me, but under all that were heavy burdens of having to keep the sensitive secrets of people I work with and for and respect their confidentiality and privacy.  Deep pain and humiliation and shame and trauma.  In the last 1/2 hour of work, someone told me something that was unbelievably horrible that happened around them.  It triggered alot of stuff for me.  I don't know if she felt the way I would have felt about it if it had happened to me, but I took it really hard.  I'm having a delayed reaction now that I'm able to take the time to unpack it.  I wanna cry or throw up.  God!..

Even anonymously, I dare not talk about it.  it's just too risky. 

Alot of people have been unburdening themselves to me over this last few weeks.  It's part of my job, but it's also what I live in as well.  I do this work 24/7 now.  I'm in public right now.  There are times I wish I had my privacy.  I would just sob.

But last night, I quietly tip-toed in and got my jammies on and laid on my bed and twitched.  It took a long time to fall asleep.  But as I lay there, that feeling came back to me of enveloping benevolence and love for all these people.  Even a newly felt compassion for my boss who has triggered me alot.  I just really love them and care about their lives and happiness.  It just washed over me in waves...  in...   out...   in...   out...  for an hour.  It gently rocked me to sleep. 

I know this is a direct result of getting underneath this sense of entitlement.  I just didn't expect it to last this long.  I expected it to fade after a day or two.

I can't quite figure out how to talk about these people I love without messing up privacy and confidentiality.  I love them!  Maybe I'll tell a bit more after they move out.  In every case, I will only speak to honor them and their story or journey.  I have no wish to tear people down or compromise them. 

This morning I got a final email from a really cool newsletter type thing that I subscribed to and it had a Rumi quote in it that I haven't seen yet on zaadz.  Lots of Rumi here.  Love it. 

"The entire world consists of Love.  Anything else is but a cry for help."

I would alter it if I could by saying that the entire world consists of love, everything that appears to the contrary is but a clever disguise.  But I basically agree.  Over the naked flesh of Love we cover ourselves with rags of violence and fear - and these are really cries for help.  I've always known this.

I'm connecting with people on some very intimate levels and learning so much about our disguises.  I'm so grateful for this chance to learn and love others.  

I don't really get the mythology and metaphysics around chakras, but I instinctively understand the different types of energy they all have, and their individual languages and powers.  They seem to correspond as well to the different layers of brain structures that we have.  There is alot of activity in the lowest three chakras at the Shelter, and no real open expression of much more.  I think more is there, but it is kept under wraps.  The higher levels are delicate, like specialized measuring devices.  If they get bumped or banged around too much, they no longer take accurate readings.  So, they have to be kept in special containers to protect them.  The lower levels are like bulls in the china shop.  They're fun and funny to watch and sometimes scary.  And they're always fascinating.  But I can only take so much of it before I need a break.  The genuine and deep laughter I was hearing last night as I lay in bed was a beautiful open expression of enjoyment of one another.  The group there now is experiencing some wonderful affection.  It seems to be bubbling just over the gut chakra, ready to splash up into the heart.  But it won't.  it does for a few people here and there, and they pair up and go off to their safe containers.  But as long as the bulls are lose, the door to the china shop needs to remain locked. 

Whoa!

I was up late last night at the Shelter because I was feeling overwhelmed by what is happening to me.  I actually came out into the office in my jammies with my laptop at around 11pm and asked my friendly Staff-person if I could go into the room across the breezeway to work.  Since the only room open was the TV room and it was blaring some cliche film with a bunch of violence against a hooker, I asked if he would let me into the dining hall so I could have some peace and quiet.  Being the wonderful guy he is (I wrote about him earlier. He's the guy who was the first resident to get housed out of the Shelter and is now working there.), he let me.  Its normally locked after a certain hour.  It was dark and quiet.  This is what I wrote:

"I have been broken open. 
I am the Universe and everyone are my children. 

One of my children has bent a rule to let me work in a quiet place. 

I was being blissed while laying down my head to rest - which has been happening regularly lately - and I remembered that I needed to get a special form to fill out and do so in private.  So I got up quietly and snuck into the office under cover of the really loud air conditioner, and got the form.  I told this rule-bending child of mine what I needed it for and he urged me to go through with it.  I was actually not going to do it, but he changed my mind.  I didn't want to write someone up.  But he told me that it needed to be done because M "needs to get off her high horse" and he really respected my opinion.  He made it clear that the staff opinion didn't have the weight needed to get the job done, so he really wanted my "client input". 

I went back to bed but was unable to stop awakening to what was happening.  The Light was shining from me.  It was being sought out.  People needed it.  Then I recalled what kinds of things people have been saying about me, to me, lately and I started to become overwhelmed with what C.S. Lewis called "The Weight of Glory".  I hugged my blankie. 

So this is what is required of me:
I am being asked by the Universe to say something about M to the Staff here at the Shelter.  M is Staff. 
I am also being asked to say something about L.  L is Resident. 
I am also being asked to love B, A, J and D.
Not to mention L, L, J, M, R and M and just generally everyone else here. 

I cannot contain all this emotion.  I started to cry.  L was snoring next to me and sleeping fitfully, and I could hear her whimpering in her sleep, like a lost little girl.  I could hear her as a little girl, and also hear her now as a grown woman who terrorizes so many people.  I so badly wanted to reach that little girl and embrace her and soothe her...  but she would not let me. 

The way I normally contain this is by writing.  It puts it in a place besides my heart so I can observe it and talk about it.  But it does not keep it in my heart.  I think what I need to do is meditate with it, instead, and learn to widen my heart to contain it. 

Regardless, I need to begin my work for M and L. 

M is a special woman with very special gifts and talents.  It is difficult to see what her motivation is.  Maybe she is trying to suppress things in us which are primarilly hated within herself, such as beligerence.  For people in 12-Step recovery, this is about Character Defects.  Most of Staff here are in Recovery and so are many clients. 

It's so easy to be seduced by this.  I have been.  I have been seduced by my own beligerence and indifference. 

I have to sit on the floor.  It is too uncomfortable sitting at the table and chair.

Tonight on the way home, one of those floating seed-pods that we called "wishes" when we were kids, was flying along side of me while I was riding my bike in the busy street.  It was like the Universe playing with me.  So I smiled and blew it like we always did. 

I don't want M to be punished for doing what we all do.  We all do it.  She does it with great aplomb and has gotten caught.  She's very entertaining, and I think she could take the show on the road.  Some of us have been dreaming about having an open mike night event where we have singers and comedians come and entertain people with recovery stuff.  She would "kill".  I would love to see her do this.  And I would love to see her get with a Sponser (and eventually the whole crew) and talk about her Beligerence issue.  I can still see the smile and wide eyes she gets when she's talking about penalizing someone who has a sense of entitlement... "

That's as far as I got when he came in to tell me that it was time to go to bed.  It was 12:17am. 

Since I'm reading "The Four Agreements" right now, I recall the Toltec vision in "The Smokey Mirror". 

"Three thousand years ago, there was a human just like you and me who lived near a city surrounded by mountains.  Thehuman was studying to become a medicine man, to learn theknowledge of his ancestors, but he didn't completely agreewih everything he was learning.  In his heart, he felt there must be something more.

One day, as he slept in a cave, he dreamed that he saw his own body sleeping.  He came out of the cave on the night of a new moon.  The sky was clear, and he could see millions of stars.  Then something happened inside of him that transformed his life forever.  He looked at his hands, he felt his body, and he heard his own voice say, 'I am made of light; I am made of stars.'"

I also hear the Voice of Dave in 2001 saying, "The thing's hollow - it goes on forever - and - Oh, my God! - It's full of stars!" 

All these people felt like my children and I care so much about them.  I've felt this way many times before under strange circumstances.  Everyone seems to be equally fragile and unpredictable at the same time.  Anything could happen.  They could bless me or kill me.  It's really all sort of random - except that it isn't.  It's all perfectly understandable and obvious and so, so forgivable.  I can't believe these feelings are growing instead of diminishing. 

So, I have a job to do.  The Staff needs to be supported by the Client/Resident community in bringing up a character issue to a Staff-person.  I'm the "man in the gap" for the moment.  I want to be "impeccable". 

Ruiz uses a sort of enlightened self-interest kind of motivation for this agreement, but that doesn't really work for me.  I have my own motivation.  I have embraced my own character defect and self, which grounds me in Grace so I can embrace others.  This is not pumped up or manic.  It's just silently ready to be drawn on like still water at the bottom of a well.  It's safe and out of sight until it's needed.  I have no doubt.  No disagreement.  When I love others, that love is reflected back to me in response.  I am surrounded by love - everywhere - like a joyous hall of mirrors.  M is in no danger from me.