Thank you arrogance

It feels odd sharing myself in such a vulnerable way,  but today I feel simple.  There are heavy feelings of embarrassment and broken boundaries, but mostly I feel forgiving and genuine.  Maybe a little like that Jerry Maguire moment where genuine expression doesn't bloom immediately but when it does... I think I have expectations of myself that can be rigid.  I am only a man.  I know that my arrogance is scorned by me and most social norms, but it has helped me survive.  Knowing it has contributed to what makes me who I am, allows me to forgive it, embrace it,  and thank it.  With each tribulation it comes to my rescue and I am gradually getting better at greeting it and redistributing its energy into productive thoughts and behaviors.  Spending this time thinking about how I can be arrogant and poetically applying metaphors to it, has helped me reach a forgiveness point.  I think as I grow and encounter new people, places, situations, and phases I will recognize the messages that my arrogance can be sending.  I may be overwhelmed enough to let my arrogance run wild, but I like to think that as I age I will encounter more humbling circumstances than antagonistic ones.  In my shadows lives an arrogant set of tools that at one time in my life kept me alive and functioning.  When I am stressed and restless I can fall back on arrogance as a coping strategy for feeling valued.  Despite me forgiving me, I long to be forgiven for mistakes made while using these arrogant tools.

Arrogance puts up blinders

I've described my arrogance as an alert system, a shield, but worst of all it is a blindfold.  It is a blindfold for my eyes, heart, and mind.  It causes me to bump into obstacles, overlooking subtleties, and confuses images with bias.  It influences my ability to recognize others putting their hands out to either guide me, hold me, or distract me.  I lose my keen ability to distinguish the finer actions, emotions, or thoughts that cultivate love.  It blinds my heart from accepting the subtle love signals.  It blinds my heart from knowing where to send my own love signals.  It blinds my mind from gathering the correct information for making healthy decisions by blocking out the spirit of ideas.  The spirit is the capsule for intention.  It distorts my understanding of who I am and how I interpret who you are.  It is a shadow quality, born in adolescence and lingering now in adulthood. 

The Arrogance shield

Arrogance has not only been an alerting system for my extreme self concept, it has been a safeguard against vulnerability.  It keeps me from being seen as incompetent, weak, sad, scared, lonely, wounded, inadequate, offended, embarrassing, and poor.  I realize I am all of these in some form.  Being perceived as one of these is enough to activate arrogance, creating a shield to conceal my vulnerability.  This fear of being seen for who I am is enough to short circuit my genuineness and compassion.  My heart is a source of thoughts, not physiologically but metaphorically.  My heart holds my most genuine expressions.  When my arrogance is alive and functioning it not only protects me from being seen as lessor, but also blocks my hearts expressions.  There is a quality to vulnerability that I must investigate further to trust that negative perceptions and interpretations, both external and internal,  are not worth deteriorating my dignity with arrogance.

What's the purpose of arrogance?

I think as my lifestyle has changed, so has my attitude.  I still have the quality of arrogance, but its lurking in a new set of beliefs.  I realize now that despite my introspection and self work, arrogance will and has survived.  It may not be as obvious now that I have been improving as a person.  I think wherever confidence can thrive I'll find arrogance waiting for the perfect prideful conditions.  What are these perfect conditions?

One thing comes to mind is lack of fear.  I think the disregard for consequence takes root in success.  And in these conditions of fearlessness, humility is gradually forgotten.  Risks do not seem as daunting, emotional profits seem endless, and thoughts are undignified.  This is how carelessness and thoughtlessness can create opportunities for breakdown.  Arrogance is an alerting system.  It is the quality and characteristic that must warn me of mindlessness.

How can I detect arrogance?  What will remedy an exaggerated self concept?

The greatest sin might be...

Refusing to be loved.  It has been easy to look for love, speak of love and write about it.  The most difficult aspect to love might be receiving it.  I spent a lot of time on this blog idealizing about loving, but recently I have found that its just as important to receive love.  It might even be the greatest sin to reject it, disregard it, and take it for granted.  I have found that in all my work to learn to love I have ignored the importance of accepting, appreciating, and recognizing being loved.  In my love experiences I have been conceited.  I have been arrogant.  I have been foolish.  And I have been careless with the gift of love given to me.  Thinking more about my shortcomings, it is hard recognizing that I can be such an advocate for love, but hypocritically deny it in many ways.  The hot steaming pile of empathy, has helped me see that reciprocity is critical to love to.  Love needs love to be sustainable.  I am a man who does not hold love in a symmetrical way.

To those who have tried their hardest to love me, despite this offering being too late, too little and possibly never received, I thank you.  Needing to be forgiven and potentially never receiving it, might be the best empathy.  Please forgive me for all the ways in which tenderness, opinion, ideas, offerings, time, emotions, and requests can be rejected.  To speak of love and not be experienced in it is foolish of me.  Not all curanderos workbenches would allow for such stupidity, I hope this one does.

Empathy...the currency of heaven

Life has taken an sad turn of events.  Events that have me doubting and mistrusting myself and others.  Life has unfolded a new perspective on being perceived.  This is both tragic and opportunistic.  I am being routed into uncharted experiences.  Consequently I have fallen into empathy.  A good hot steaming pile of empathy.  It has helped me believe that the currency of heaven is empathy.  Until I can fully be an empathetic witness to other's experiences, I cannot achieve understanding.  If I cannot reach understanding then there will be no room for compassion.  And compassion is my proverbial "Hillary Step" to empathy. 

There are two areas of misunderstanding that have become excitedly clearer for me.  The first is the quality and insecurity of not being desired.  I occasionally reminisce and ponder how I could have been a better husband.  I remember the importance of being wanted and needed and how that distorted my perceptions of closeness.  It also motivated my actions.  This has me wondering.  I currently and often question my potential to be a good husband.  I can be a selfish and independent person, some might say to mine and others detriment.  I see how balance is necessary.  Closeness, Can I maintain it?   There are times when I feel capable, there are times when I mistrust myself, and there are times when I think it might be best to never try.  I have come to a conclusion.

My conclusion is that what I chose to believe is an orientation. If I believe that I am gonna struggle then that is the direction I am going to take.  If I believe that not trying is the safest, then life might be isolated.  Once I have an orientation then I must muster up some motivation.  My needs are my motivation.  I have struggled to find my genuine needs.  I often get distracted from what I need by what I perceive others wanting.  I am learning to be a better judge of my genuine needs, but coming from a collective culture I have a tendency to compromise my needs despite my clarity.  My will and intentions are the energy I use to take each step.  Each step represents an action, behavior, or thought.  As I progress on towards my destination I'll fail, stumble, hustle, rest, and even re-orientate. Failures in my past have been seen as obstacles. Now with age I have grown my patience and experience. I know that they are indicators of risk and preparedness.  The health of my choices are an important quality to choosing each step.  Where I end up is the exciting unknown.  I know I can be a healthy husband, I am not foolish to think that I won't make mistakes, and I am fairly certain that I don't want a lifetime of solitude.

The second area of misunderstanding is the value in being perceived and interpreted.  This is still revealing itself to me.

Dedicated to a brother, friend, and motivator....I love you Brad Fagan...An active duty Husband.

We are only an instance.

Fill it with smiles for as long as possible.

Courage

Once again my little monster flexes her courage.  She rode her first major roller coaster.  This is exercise for life's metaphorical daunting rides.  She has in the past been afraid to ride roller coasters so to see her trying scary things and taking risks is exciting to me.  Efficacy is contagious.