This year has been a rough one for me. Last year was worse. My wife had started drinking again which turned into a very awful downward spiral that took the piss out of both of us. By the end of last year I realized that I may lose everything I had. I didn't have anyone I could talk to and I was having trouble sorting through my own feelings. That's when I made the decision to start this practice because it was the only thing I could think of that might help me deal with what the uncertainty of what was to come.
She quit drinking a few months ago and we overhauled our diet as well. (Another very serious and crippling addiction of hers.) Keeping with the theme of anxiety and uncertainty these past two years have also been our weakest financially in quite some time. I've always tried to be an optimistic guy, and can always see a bright future down the road, but navigating through my current reality can be tricky sometimes.
When her habits were really getting the best of her I got hung up on blaming her. After all, she was engaging in those habits. I don't drink at all, never cared for it. Nor do I have any issues with food. But I was also keenly aware of the hurt she was using these substances to suppress. Her childhood was extremely abusive and she finally took the steps to eliminate the abusive element in her life in accordance with the advice she had gotten from a few psychologists. In her case it is her mother. She didn't get a loving mother. She got a malignant narcissist. But even though her mother is awful to be around 99% of the time, there is still a fundamental need in her to maintain the relationship and even try to please her mother, even though it is impossible.
But I didn't know how to help her. My attempts were almost always met with anger. I felt at the mercy of her temper tantrums. My family wasn't very supportive and I couldn't make sense of it all. Three months ago she promised me, of her own volition, that she would stop drinking entirely and observe a healthy diet. The day before she made that change she freaked out threw a kitchen tool in a fit of rage and put a dent in the side of our van. It has served as a very sobering reminder of what we are up against and so far so good.
I buried my anger and resentment deep inside of me. I'm still weeding through that mess. My life feels like a mess. Her spending habits while she was in addict mode put us into a considerable amount of debt, which has been tough to sort through. I got hung up on blame and feeling the victim for a while.
Through all this shit practice has been guiding me. I used to get really hung up on what was "right". The irony is that I actually was "right" a lot of the time, but in the context of a suffering addict I wasn't always approaching things in the most complete way. In my mind I created expectations of her and silent rules I expected her to follow. When those expectations weren't met, no matter how noble they were, I would get frustrated and derailed. I would want her to get healthy, but I was approaching it in a deceptively selfish way. I was still expecting her to do something for me, even though I was convinced it was for her. As a result I was distracted by my frustrations which turned into arguments. I wasn't looking at this pile of shit from all angles. She was a suffering person with an inability to properly express herself to me.
About a week after I discovered Treeleaf we got into a heated discussion about something. I knew I was "right" and I wasn't letting go. Then I thought about Jundo's hammer video I had recently seen. I told myself to put down the hammer. I momentarily took myself out of the situation and I actually heard what she was trying to tell me. it has been a day by day process but we are working through all this much better and our relationship is very good. She has accepted that she must remain sober to live well and we are working together to create an environment where that is possible. For me, I had to recognize the limits of my good intentions and to see how thin the line between selfless and selfish is. Through this Bodhidharma's four practices (suffering injustice, adapting to conditions, seeking nothing, following the path of equanimity) has been a great source of inspiration. I cannot silence myself or how I feel, but if I am to be a loving and compassionate person I have to cut through my own shit, and my wife's shit, to get to the real shit. And that shit is sacred.
Gassho
Sat Today
She quit drinking a few months ago and we overhauled our diet as well. (Another very serious and crippling addiction of hers.) Keeping with the theme of anxiety and uncertainty these past two years have also been our weakest financially in quite some time. I've always tried to be an optimistic guy, and can always see a bright future down the road, but navigating through my current reality can be tricky sometimes.
When her habits were really getting the best of her I got hung up on blaming her. After all, she was engaging in those habits. I don't drink at all, never cared for it. Nor do I have any issues with food. But I was also keenly aware of the hurt she was using these substances to suppress. Her childhood was extremely abusive and she finally took the steps to eliminate the abusive element in her life in accordance with the advice she had gotten from a few psychologists. In her case it is her mother. She didn't get a loving mother. She got a malignant narcissist. But even though her mother is awful to be around 99% of the time, there is still a fundamental need in her to maintain the relationship and even try to please her mother, even though it is impossible.
But I didn't know how to help her. My attempts were almost always met with anger. I felt at the mercy of her temper tantrums. My family wasn't very supportive and I couldn't make sense of it all. Three months ago she promised me, of her own volition, that she would stop drinking entirely and observe a healthy diet. The day before she made that change she freaked out threw a kitchen tool in a fit of rage and put a dent in the side of our van. It has served as a very sobering reminder of what we are up against and so far so good.
I buried my anger and resentment deep inside of me. I'm still weeding through that mess. My life feels like a mess. Her spending habits while she was in addict mode put us into a considerable amount of debt, which has been tough to sort through. I got hung up on blame and feeling the victim for a while.
Through all this shit practice has been guiding me. I used to get really hung up on what was "right". The irony is that I actually was "right" a lot of the time, but in the context of a suffering addict I wasn't always approaching things in the most complete way. In my mind I created expectations of her and silent rules I expected her to follow. When those expectations weren't met, no matter how noble they were, I would get frustrated and derailed. I would want her to get healthy, but I was approaching it in a deceptively selfish way. I was still expecting her to do something for me, even though I was convinced it was for her. As a result I was distracted by my frustrations which turned into arguments. I wasn't looking at this pile of shit from all angles. She was a suffering person with an inability to properly express herself to me.
About a week after I discovered Treeleaf we got into a heated discussion about something. I knew I was "right" and I wasn't letting go. Then I thought about Jundo's hammer video I had recently seen. I told myself to put down the hammer. I momentarily took myself out of the situation and I actually heard what she was trying to tell me. it has been a day by day process but we are working through all this much better and our relationship is very good. She has accepted that she must remain sober to live well and we are working together to create an environment where that is possible. For me, I had to recognize the limits of my good intentions and to see how thin the line between selfless and selfish is. Through this Bodhidharma's four practices (suffering injustice, adapting to conditions, seeking nothing, following the path of equanimity) has been a great source of inspiration. I cannot silence myself or how I feel, but if I am to be a loving and compassionate person I have to cut through my own shit, and my wife's shit, to get to the real shit. And that shit is sacred.
Gassho
Sat Today
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