Hiatus

Taking a break... Sending you all off with this creative talk.

 Fearing Love?

I am not going to lie to you, but the trust needed to believe is gone. I am not much different of a man than I was yesterday, last week, or last month. I'm a different boy though. I'm inspired because I came across some lingering love you left behind. Inspired for what is still to be seen.  Non the less inspired.


I'm not wanting to make sense.  I write in paradox because I like to think its the language of love... Double Messages...not so much to deceive but mystify.  We can't hear anyway because there is too much noise coming from our attitudes. I have found my beautiful enemy.  Not the enemy we as man more commonly despise, but the lover that agitates me and likes to  put gum in my hair.   I have found my enemy to love.

I have found my dark forest. I have found that area, region, and place where everyone else turns back. I have found the entrance to the forest that makes men disappear. I reached the darkest and most dreadful decision that an adventurer must make do I enter, do I go on?

It is here. I must learn how to love intently. Can I learn to love completely without encountering the depths? Must I make love a difficult task?  It is in the murky waters where I have been afraid to look, much less dare to enter. I have a bucket to empty these waters but symbolically I have to dig that out too.  It has often been very easy to walk away from this fork in the path.  We'll see!

One direction will take me into the messy unearthing of more of my soul The other will continue to delight me with the most superficial of pleasures. I know which one I fear, and I know which one I am addicted to...it is the one I choose. I know regardless God is rooting for me. Fear can be a guide...and for now I fear the greatness that can be created by love.

by Ron Estrada

Act of forgiveness

I would never have been able to think of both my parents in the same sentence using the word forgiving.  But as life continues to grant me time, I now can.  When I went through my divorce I accepted how much more responsible I felt for the deterioration of my marriage.  It gave me the courage and context to look critically on my parents relationship during my childhood.  What I found was so many misunderstandings and misinterpretations that left me having to chose sides, defending, and feeling caught in between.   I knew I couldn't let this be recreated for my daughters.  So I confronted the scariest of unknowns,  the details of my fathers reasons, the worries of a young mother, and my own unwanted memories.  Forgiveness and confronting seem to go hand in hand.  I have described forgiveness synthesis and with it comes the encountering of the wound.

What answers I found were sacred understandings  of who my parents were.  I was able to see myself in their sadness, because I was in my own divorce, I was dividing my own family.  I could not hold onto the discomfort, created by years of avoiding my pain, any longer.  I saw my dad as a young arrogant but eager boy trying to live in a world of accolades while being asked to humble himself in order to be a father.  He only had training in one area... basketball.  He never spent endless hours practicing how to be a top notch husband or father.  My mother was a young naive girl seeming to be dazzled by attention.  She was caring, selfless, and exhausted by the realities that come with being a mother responsible for holding together an adolescent family.  This is what I can share, there is a depth that i cannot share but it is a hard look into the suffering of two people torn apart by immaturity, mishandled love, and the fatigue of disregard. 

How does this fit with forgiveness.  I have moved past the need to understand my parents.  I have gradually accepted how they treated each other.  My expectations are no longer sticky.  My hope for happy reunions no longer were a distraction.  My fears for witnessing resentment and animosity have become dull.  And to be clear it wasn't the expectations of them to "get back together" but for the simple experience of having two parents who could value time shared and the creation they made.  That is hard to say and it makes me cry happy tears.  I accepted their pain for the obstacle it was.

This is leads me to yesterday.  My mom and dad shared a happy moment.  For the first time I watched as they both shared a smile and joked.  I watched as they both were genuinely delighted.  There was no agenda, nothing to be gained for being pleasant, just a sunny day and a giggle that brought two people who once loved each other deeply enough to hate, into a joyful instance.  A simple 2 minutes of nervous excitement helped me forget a lifetime of endured resentment and tension.  Forgiveness had broken through.  Un Milagro!

Perception, Appear, and Perceive

The more I think about human connection, a diagram is surfacing.  A trinity of awareness.  I have a Self-Perception.  I give a Self-Appearance.  Then there is an Other-Perception.  This is who I am.  Self-perception is the critical and loving understanding I have of my history, present, and hopes with my feelings, emotions, and thoughts.  My self-appearance is the person I'd like the world to see me as.  It is my behavior, actions and expressions.  Other-perception is how the world interprets me.  It gives me feedback completing a connection loop that leads to union or division.  All three pieces are alive.

There is one last synthetic piece, and it is Other-Appearance.  This is how I can picture when others interpret and describe how they would like the world to see me.  This is not alive or who I am.  It is a complicated translation of encounters with my trinity described above.

Longing

There is a longing, a void to be acknowledged, attended too, and loved.  It is human nature and likely a living quality to be recognized.  In my experience it is the need to be desired, appreciated, and understood.  Likewise there is a more difficult yet important piece to the formula.  In order to be accepted I need to learn to accept.  The concept of reciprocity is a nutrient to the growth of connections between two people.  This is the basis for a friendship.  Acceptance is a quality of understanding and receiving.  Acceptance brings to mind the key principle to most faith based systems, lack of judgment.  This is an area where I can strengthen.  I feel like in my attention to be understood, attended too, and loved, I, more frequently than I'd like to, lose focus on others.  My prayer is to keep in balance and health my ability to love and be loved.

As soon as I move to objectify my need to be desired, I begin to measure it.  As soon as I compare how much attention I have with how much I want or need, I have lost sight of my ability to satisfy  other's needs.  Satisfying the needs of friends and myself is a difficult dance.  It is unfair to believe that I can understand a friend's needs fully.  It is impossible for me to keep constant attention to other's needs.  It is unfair to ignore a friend's signals and cues for longing.  It is unfair to become frustrated with being unable to satisfy a friend's needs.  It is fair to believe that sadness, fear, and confusion can distort how signals and cues communicate that we want to be loved.  This reciprocity dance is easier to learn when listening to music from the heart, and extremely difficult when being distracted by noise from the mind.  I hope we slow down our lives enough to learn these dance steps at an effective tempo.


Dedicated to William Poehner, An active duty warrior of light living in radical grace.  I Love you, I love what you do, you are an amazing source of intellect, strength, and compassion.

Seeing Potential when the self can't

I love crossfit for its ability to help me believe in miracles.  Miracles are those events that happen when most no longer believe they could.  Miracles are the moments that defy doubt.  It might be as simple as learning to stand on my hands.  It could be as complex as stringing 5 ring muscle ups together, or more importantly calming my pride, ego, and rascal.  I compete with myself, and crossfit has helped me compete in ways I never thought possible, you might say a miracle.  The hater in me  succumbs to comradery.  I love the philosophy that you win for participating.  You are one small step better with each healthy thought. You are that much more able with each attempt. You are that much more prepared with each success. Before you know it, you have a collection of milestones to build a foundation of wellness.   I no longer lose when I compete with crossfit...not to say I always come in first...but I am balancing.  Every failure means I was living, attempting, and creating space for accomplishing. My dream is to give the gift of efficacy to as many people as possible.  Hearing someone believe in themselves is good music.  I have been a cynical person and crossfit has smoothed those edges. The cynic is not dead, but respected and for now calm.

3...2...1...

Self perception can paralyze potential

Dear Arrogance,

I'm writing to let you know I don't hate you.  I know you don't care what I think.  I understand you function in realm beyond emotion or reason.  I still need you to know that I see you.  You are not a healthy quality, but there is a sparkle to you.  You have a bad smell, but when I look in your eyes I recognize your sadness.  You are slippery, but I don't want to trap you.  I thank you for being born, despite realizing you were born of loneliness, abuse, and neglect.  You are not a beautiful site to see, but you have a charm and it's cleaver in small doses.  Your humor is bad, but a smile in bad taste is still a smile.  You have put us in some bad situations, and I am sorry for putting you in charge when all you wanted was to inform me of how things are down in the depths.  We are a team, and I love you.  We'll make it a little further and I'd like you take a good rest.  Humility has asked to be your roommate, please take it into consideration.  Oh yeah, you can let your hair grow, be natural, take your tie off, there is no dress code here.  I'll be checking in on you, not out of mistrust but to make sure you are comfortable with the changes going on around here.  I need you to be you, nothing more nothing less, because when you contribute in healthy ways we are a champion.  Oh yeah, you'll be doing some housework with Confidence.  She'd like to get to know you.  So I hope you take this well and these words express my respect for you.  Take care and see you around.

Regards,
Ron