You Can't Use the "G" Word

I've been told time and again that you can't use the "G" word.  Which means they are saying that I can't talk about G*d.  I've been hearing this for almost 30 years now, people warning me away from mentioning G*d, saying it's too scary, too religious, too heavy with implied meaning, too traditional, too old-fashioned, and that's just for starters.

I'm so sad at all the ways religion has destroyed the name of G*d for so many of us, sad at all the ways that it means something bad, awful, negative, hurtful, hateful, destructive, meaningless, irrelevant, restrictive, and misunderstood.

My own relationship with G*d isn't about religion or even belief.  It's about experience.  The experience of complete belonging, of unconditional love, or unquestioning acceptance, of peace and purity and power, of all the good things ever imagined embodied in one divine being.

So I don't know what to do with people saying I can't use the "G" word.  What else is there to talk about?  What else is there to say?  How could I talk about my life without G*d?  I've tried to accommodate these concerns, dance around the name, use language that might make others more comfortable.

But the reality is that I'm completely comfortable talking about G*d.  I'm even comfortable saying "He", since English offers no better gender-neutral pronoun.  And I think if I get distracted by everyone else's limitations, I can't express what I have to share.  Otherwise I'll have no room to just be able to talk, use ordinary language and normal conversation to communicate.


I don't know the way around this, so I'm just going to have to go through it.

Mad

Do you get mad?  Probably.  Who doesn't?  I wonder sometimes at just exactly what happens to me when, in an absolute split second, white hot rage sears through me in an explosion of angry-ness.

And I know the correct word is anger, not angry-ness, but that's what it feels like, and it's completely beyond my control.  I can mostly control what I do with and about that rage, but I seem to have no control over its presence.

If you've ever had serious acid indigestion, where acid spills out of the safe container of the stomach and spews up into your esophagus, throat and mouth, burning every soft mucous membrane along the way, you have some idea of how powerful rage can burn, and how much beyond any control it feels. 

I have practiced a kind of meditation for years that says that anger isn't a natural human state, but it's what happens when we are out of balance and out of connection with the pure love and peace of our true and eternal state of being.  And I don't disagree even a little.  I agree completely. But I know how angry I can get and how quickly it can happen, and I have to say it's one helluva hard habit to kick.

I don't do drama.  I rarely, if ever, act on that anger, at least not without waiting until I can think clearly again and understand why it's so intense.  But I cannot believe its power and presence.  And how quickly it separates me from those whom I otherwise feel warm or kind or loving towards.  Because when I get angry, and it feels like that anger is burning up inside of me, I want to get as far away from the trigger as possible.  Which means there's a chance if I'm angry, you'd never know.  I'm just gone.

I'm drawing no conclusions here, no judgements of even any real understanding.  Just observing myself and how far I've come and yet I'm still in so many of the same places I've been.

Emotion and spirit and so interconnected, and yet not the same.  And there are spiritual traditions that say emotion is just reaction, and spiritual power means always choosing your response to situations, not merely reacting.  And it sounds right.  It sounds great.  But life isn't some sterile theoretical environment.  It's messy and tricky and unclear most of the time.

So I won't consider anger a failure, but a chance to learn more about myself, who I am and who I want to be.  But I think, in the meantime, don't make me mad.

Full

There has been a huge emptiness within me for such a long time I can't remember it another way.  And various people and things have come along and filled up that space, and I have moved out of the way to accommodate their presence.  I have stepped aside and given over what belongs to me willingly and without hesitation.

But this model simply doesn't work any more.  I am full now.  I am full of myself, my own energy completely inhabiting every inch of myself, every inch of my life.  There's no room for a succubus to hide away and feed off of what doesn't belong to it.  There's no room for entities and ghosts of the past and of sorrow to reside within any part of my mind or heart or psyche.

I have taken it all back, and I'm full, satiated, settled, complete.  Not done.  Not over.  Just full.  And joy drips from the simple sensation of contentment and belonging and purpose.  And empty vessel makes a terrible noise.  A full vessel makes none.

I Wonder...

I have a dear friend that I love.  I know I love, but I wonder...  I wonder how much my affection is mixed up with a certain kind of uncomfortable familiarity that reminds me of my father, a certain sort of chaotic energy that I 'get', not because I like it, but because I know it and have accommodated it in order to accommodate a relationship that I couldn't bear otherwise?

I wonder about the foundation of my affection, and that makes me kind of sad, to question the nature of the friendship.  There is lots of love.  But also confusion and chaos and discomfort.  And I hope, hope, hope that I am not ignoring something important about myself to enjoy this friendship, discounting something integral about me to make room for it.  And that I'm strong and emotionally healthy enough to know the difference, to appreciate what I can, and step away from what I should.

I worry that I get mixed up with the people I love the most.  That my porous boundaries will betray me in some way that ultimately destroys everything I've worked for, that on some level my coolness is masking a desperation to connect that I have never admitted to myself, and so I am always just one move away from the destruction of everything I've worked for.

I've constructed a life of clarity and integrity and insight and calm, but I always wonder if, just underneath all of that, is my complete undoing at falling utterly and ridiculously in love.  I've avoided the temptation, skipped past the danger, zoomed around the edges but with sufficient distance to feel safe. 

But I'm not sure how long I will be able to hold on to so much measured interaction, such detached observance, such nonchalance before I succumb to something else.

I Quit

Dear G*d:

I quit.  I have tried to mold my internal reality to a spiritual identity that doesn't suit me very well at all.  It never did.  It protected me in the ways that I was psychically and emotionally wounded and vulnerable, and I'm eternally grateful for what it did offer.

But it came at the cost of my own identity and any kind of original, creative self-expression.  It cam at the price of shoving myself into little boxes with clear, sharp outlines, defining me in ways that felt so violating and suffocating and yet inevitable. 

I knew humility and detachment demanded that I give up the urge to be truer to myself, and that there was no greater cause for which I could sacrifice the mundane needs of my own ego.  But I was never at home in that environment.  I never relaxed into to the role, never accepted its limitations as permanent.

I thought it was what You wanted, and for You I would do anything.  I did do anything.  Or should I say there was so much I didn't do for You - so much I gave up and ignored and avoided.  I didn't even acknowledge so much of what exists in the world since it conflicted with what I wanted to do for You.  And in that small way, I was content with my choice, content with choosing You over everything and everyone.

But at this point, with some clearer perspective and the passage of time and reality falling all around me, I can't quite remember how this made so much sense and for so long.  I can only imagine how terrified I was if those choices seemed the safe and right ones, how I was willing to trade dead inside for afraid. 

People do it all the time in the name of G*d and religion.  They build walls so high and secure that it seems all evil has been banished, and that it is the most right thing to do.  But evil isn't so simple, and walls never keep it out.  Mostly they keep it in, because it doesn't come from some external enemy at all.  It's the weaknesses in our own hearts and minds, and trying to hold such tight control is only just exhausting, not effective.

I am not a prophet.  I do not speak for You and I cannot begin to know what Your children, in all their myriad needs, require.  But I know that Your love isn't predicated on me making some horrible Sophie's choice between who I am at my best, engaged and warm and loving, and some kind of cool detachment that keeps me distant most of all from myself.

I know that relationship with You is about fulfilling potential, about awakening and caring for the gifts You blessed us with with, about accepting our place among the family of humanity and caring enough to make a difference. 

So I quit.  I quit the detached, uninterested, purely spiritual, it's all illusion anyway approach to life.  And I'm digging in - to the dirt and the soil and the messy-ness and whatever else is going to show up.  I can do this.  I have You, so I know anything is possible.  And I know that doing nothing isn't an option any more.

Men!

I love men.  I love masculine energy.  And I love the differences between the sexes.  I love what we bring out in each other, and how the soul, bathed in the hormones that belong to each of our particular bodies, influence how we engage with each other.

And for years and years, and I do mean years, I have put that love of men aside, concentrating instead on my love of G*d.  And my love for G*d is pretty big.  It had, for a very long time, become everything to me.  But I find that it isn't sufficient for everything. It is sufficient for all the things it is - but so insufficient for what it isn't.

I miss who I am in relationship with men.  I miss the energy of exploring relationships and connections and possibilities where the only thing you can really know is yourself.  I miss that feeling of how satisfying it is to make a place of comfort and belonging for a man, for that kind of taking care that women especially seem to enjoy.  I miss the excitement of discovery in relationship in all the ways it unfolds.

I miss the satisfaction that comes from cooking and cleaning and showing love in all sorts of practical little ways, of letting someone know how special they are, and that they are special to you.  And I miss being that myself.

I know there's nothing perfect about human love.  I know that the only eternal, unchanging and perfect love is G*d's love.  But what would I be if I didn't share that a little wider than the circle of my own small heart?  I don't think even G*d would be happy about that.

Bound to the Earth

Astrologically speaking, I'm a fairly earthy person.  I have two planets tightly conjoined in Taurus, and three others in Virgo, also in close conjunction, and all these planets trine each other.  Meaning there is great harmony among the earthy and practical energies in my life.  And yet.

And yet I have spent years reaching up, trying to free myself from the bonds of earthly, human life, hoping to liberate myself of the ordinariness of daily living and the trappings of my body, and its needs and requirements and all the ways I have to take care of it.  And most importantly, wanting to be free of the dependencies that creates on others.  I have hoped my spiritual effort would be enough to elevate me beyond such things, connecting me instead to the Divine, the non-physical, the purely eternal.

But recently, very recently actually, something slipped inside and turned around when I wasn't paying a lot of attention, and suddenly I like the whole aspect of this earthiness, of being bound to the earth, being a part of this planet, this family of humanity.  It can be a messy business, but I'm not sure what else exactly I should be doing instead.

Maybe if I stop trying to escape the inevitable reality of human nature, I can be useful in ways that I've avoided before.  I can dive in and have a voice and make a difference.  And I can find places where I belong and people with whom I belong, and let others know they have a place too.

I'm not sure how this happened.  But I want to dig my toes into the earth, wiggle them around, claim some land as being mine, not just keep waiting for it all end so I can be done thinking about it.  My absolute certainty about my future is gone, but the possibilities in its place feel like they've actually got room for all of me.

The Only Way I Know

I'm an observer.  I watch people and keep an eye on what's happening around me, noticing all sorts of details and nuances and energies floating around, trying to get a handle on what I'm dealing with, knowing that the obvious is often the least interesting thing going on.

It doesn't happen on purpose.  It's just how I take in information, how I understand the world and the people in it.  I'm not suspicious exactly, just not very trusting of what I see on the surface.  And like a dog with an extra sense of smell, I sniff out what's underneath the interaction, the exchanges, the conversations.

And like a dog who will sniff away at something invisible to humans, I see the invisible energy passing through people, between people, within people.  Which sometimes makes it hard for me to pay attention to the obvious stuff - to the words and the stories that are supposed to tell me who someone is.  But I can see it anyway.

I know what I can trust and I know what makes sense or doesn't, and I can see if someone's heart is true or their mind is clear.  And when I can't, I just keep watching, waiting for the way into greater understanding.  It doesn't always come.  And when it doesn't, I know enough to leave things alone, not try too hard, to not push where I don't belong.

Which is why I'm not an easy socializer, someone who just likes to hang out with a bunch of folks, swapping stories and shooting the breeze.  Because there's so much more grabbing my attention, pulling me into the invisible reality that never goes away.  And I don't need distraction from it.  I'm the fascinated scientist wanting to explore and experiment.

I wish it were a little easier for me to just relax around people, but full on is really the only way I know.  I want to be present - fully present - when I'm present.  And then back to myself when I'm not.  To refresh and restore and rebuild and refresh.  So I'm ready for the next time.

Habit

Sometimes the greatest change comes simply by being patient enough to let old habits die and new ones form.

Self Acceptance

Meaningful, real spiritual growth is not possible without self acceptance. All the rest is just trying to manipulate reality with wishful thinking about the things you still cannot bear to acknowledge about yourself.

Comfort

A scared child needs comforting, not questions. I think this is also a good approach with grown-ups.

Terrible Habit

I have a terrible habit of playing this punishing game with those who care about me who I want to care about me.  It's a dare of sorts.  Oh yeah - you think you're going to care about me?  Well, fuck-you.  I'm not going to let you care.  I'm not going to let you know I care.  So there.  We'll see who wins this one.

And then I sit back and scrutinize every interaction or lack thereof for clues, trying to figure out what's going on, to see if there's enough caring happening.  And if not, I get panicky.  And if so, I get panicky.  And no matter what, I don't want the game to stop. I don't want you person to get bored or actually stop caring.  And I don't know what to do if you care too much.

Because I want there to be caring and connection, but I can't stand the intimacy, and I also can't stand the isolation.  Which means there's about a micron-thick space between me and you that feels comfortable, and it's certainly not room enough for us both, so I have to keep picking, keep deciding, me or you.  Who am I going to care about today? 

It's a bad game.  There is never a winner.

The Full Picture

It has taken me 46 years to put together the pieces of my life into one cohesive picture, where I can finally see all of it coming together to tell a simple story, but for so long I didn't recognize the simplicity of the story.

All I've been able to see are the disparate pieces, and the ways they didn't fit, not with each other and not with me either.  And I've been so confused by that, not understanding how they could be do disconnected.  How life could feel so foreign and how, for all my competencies and capabilities, there was always underlying fear stopping me from...just about everything.

In the Ramayana, Rama gives Sita a clear message to stay within the safe boundary lines of protection he puts around her.  And she violates that boundary to disastrous consequences.  I was so familiar with disaster beyond my control, and so afraid of disaster of my own making, that I drew a line around myself tight and close, and not only didn't I venture outside of that line, but I never, never let anyone come past it either.  This kind of protection is effective if safety is your only concern.  But it's very lonely too.

If safety is your only concern, then sitting atop a mountain contemplating the nature of G*d makes a lot of sense.  But if you want to get to the heart of G*d, to the heart of yourself, you have to step right into the middle of it all.

I feel like I'm deep in the middle of it all at the moment, but also tangled up in that line of safety and protection still surrounding me.  And I'm trying to cut myself out of the mess of tangled line, but still holding onto the superstition that therein lies my safety.

Human nature is to cope - to manage.  And when faced with extraordinary circumstances, we cope however best we can, and we go on coping, sometimes long after it's required.  And our coping begins to look like who we are.  But it is not.  Who we truly are still exists deep inside, hidden away.  And if we can learn to put aside the coping skills we've relied on, the essential self can still emerge, still shine with pure expression.

I could say I believe the shining light of the soul exists no matter how much darkness covers it.  But I don't believe it.  I know it.  I live it.  I experience it.  Every day in my life.  And I see it in others too.  It's not spiritual belief or psychological understanding.  It is my life.  It is my reality.  It is, more and more, my story, and I'm learning how to tell it with all the pieces put together.

I Love My Body

I love my body.  Not the way you might think.  I don't mean that I love the way my body looks.  At this point in my life especially, I don't.  I'm carrying much more weight than I had, and I don't care for that.  And I've lost some, but not nearly what I need to to feel healthy and good.  But I mean something different than that.

I mean that I love my body - I love the collection of atoms that have collected in various cells, to become various organs and structures and fluids giving me physical life.  They give me a physical, tangible, 3D reality with which to interact with the rest of the 3 dimensional world.  Without them, and the way they form into my body, I'm just a soul, a spirit, unable to participate in life.

We each get one.  A body that is.  And these bodies are our responsibility for as long as we inhabit them.  Which can be such a pain.  Feeding and clothing them takes a lot of time and money and fashion sense.  And getting it from place to place and taking care of it along the way - ugh.  Can you imagine how much easier travel would be if we never had to find a bathroom or worry about an upset stomach or jet lag?

But the upside of all of it is pretty far up.  The upside is the chance to participate in life in 10,000 different ways, to experience and express and invent and create and enjoy and behold and...(fill in your own verb here).  So when I say I love my body I don't mean in the Dove commercial self-affirming all-women-are-beautiful kind of way.  Seriously.

Our bodies are amazing, but they are continually degrading collections of cells designed for a specific purpose for a limited period of time.  I'm not too romantic about that.  But I still love my body for all the things it allows me to do through it, this magnificent instrument through which I get to play the music of my life. 

Just spend maybe one hour noticing all the ways your fingers are such incredible tools.  How magnificently your lungs breathe in and out without any thought on your part.  How your eyes take in so much information and your brain processes it.  How your heart just keeps beating and beating and beating.  How your network of veins and arteries keep your blood oxygenated.  How your toes help keep you balanced and your knees bend just so and your arms rotate in all sorts of directions, and your nails grow just exactly in the places you need them most.  And your skin covers it all and keeps your blood from leaking all over the place and ruining your carpet.  I know it might not all work perfectly.  Mine doesn't either.

But I'm delighted to have one at all, and I'll make do with this one for now.  And if I have any resolution for 2011, it's to work lovingly with this amazing collection of cells that comprise my body, for this lifetime, to be a better reflection of the best qualities of its current occupant - me.

Dating 101

I'm pretty clear about who I am in most aspects of life, but in terms of relationship, intimate, emotionally connected, committed relationship, that same clarity has been elusive.  I've not been sure where the center of me is in relation to a man I could take seriously, and this uncertainty has been unnerving and disorienting.

I'm sure I'm not the only person struggling this way, but I take these sorts of things very seriously, and was acutely bothered by the internal discomfort, so much so, that I pushed people far enough away to not feel it.  I have only ever fallen in love with men who could never be mine, and then pine over the distance, though in subtle and quiet ways.  It is safe and predictable sorrow to love someone from a vast distance, and safe and predictable to make such a choice.

But it occurs to me now, at this somewhat unusually late stage in life for these kinds of revelations, that intimacy isn't some sort of awkward test of worthiness, and that not only am I equally entitled to my share of it, but that I can actually bring something of benefit and value with me.  It occurs to me that I might be a great partner to some lucky man if we shared our lives with each other.  Perhaps my years of working on and refining my character make me a wonderful match for a spiritually mature man, and him for me.

I have only previously considered this as some sort of fantasy, but from where I sit now, it looks like a very do-able reality.  Not all rose petals and romance, but interesting, engaging, juicy real life.  And I'm up for it.  Which I didn't know before, but I know now, and am delighted to see in myself.

Complicated

It's not nearly so complicated as it has seemed for a while now.  You just have to take it out of the box and get it in the air and light and give it some breathing space, and the complication falls away just like dust.

What seemed like complication was simply what happens trying to stuff it all away in that little box you made for it, hiding and protecting it, and thinking that it needed hiding and protecting.  That's complicated.

The heart functions so much better wide open and free, holding onto nothing, letting love pump through it with every beat, bringing in and sending out nourishment and life.  Try to hold on for even a second, try to stop the beat even once, and you've got complication all over the place.

I Didn't Read the Book; I Saw the Movie

I occasionally participate in a a film discussion group, and the film topic of one of the meetings was the movie "The Reader".  My response to this Academy award winning film, starring Kate Winslet & Ralph Fiennes?  I just hated it.  I found the stories and characters underdeveloped and unformed in any way that made the movie engaging for me.

When I voiced my opinion, another woman in the group said that if I had just read the book first, everything would have made sense.  If I had just read the book, I would have understood the characters' motivation, their emotional lives, the nuances of the story historically, and so on and so on, and then I would have liked the movie.  Or at least understood it.

But here's the thing.  In the film discussion group, what we do is watch movies and talk about them.  I didn't read the book; I saw the movie.  And from a critical perspective, the movie needs to be able to stand alone.  If it's a good movie, I don't need the book first to make it so.  The book is not the movie.  I didn't read the book; I saw the movie. 

And now this is my catch phrase for so many things in life that are incomprehensible on their own, and can only be understood if you get the back story.  All the ways that people and situations are confusing or unpleasant or difficult, and how we convince ourselves that if we just try harder to understand, everything will sort itself out.

And women especially work hard on understanding, supporting, accommodating, and trying again and again to make 'it' work.  We talk to our friends, consult experts, and think too hard and too long to get ourselves comfortable with what we know makes us uncomfortable.

We read books and magazines and watch talk shows, trying to figure out how to adjust ourselves just so to make the things that don't work work better, certain that if we can just get to a place of deeper knowledge, that the discomfort will disappear and the disappointment will ease and the anger will turn to love.

But in reality, what's in front of us is just exactly what's in front of us.  And knowledge and understanding can change how we feel, and can soothe the mind and heart, but we can't simply discount what's there.  No matter how good 'The Reader' might have been as a book, as a movie it didn't speak to me, it didn't touch me, and it took up a lot of time I could have spent better elsewhere.

And no matter how deeply we can love, how hooked into the drama of difficult people and situations we can get, how truly sincere we are in wanting to help, we also need the clarity to recognize when we are doing that to our own detriment, when we are sustaining the problem instead of solving it.

For me, the hardest part of change is breaking old habits.  Change takes place at the exact speed at which old habits are broken, and new ones created. The little things you stop doing ~ the small details you have sculpted your interior landscape around that no one else even knows exist ~ this is where real change starts.  Big dramatic flourishes aren't so hard.  Sustaining that change in the midst of ordinary, every day life is the real test.  

I don't think the right answer after seeing a movie I don't like is to go read the book to find out why.  And the right answer in the face of confusion, disappointment, chaos, and discomfort might be just that simple too.

Disappointment

This is a good time for me.  A very good time.  But in the middle of all of the good stuff, lurks the ghost of disappointment.  A deep and old habit of disappointment and anger.  I'm not sure I brought it into this life with me, but it's been swirling around for years and years, filling up any empty space, warning away anyone who tries to get too close, who tries to push past the mistrust it feeds off of and survives on.


It jumps in between me and any man who who could maybe get close to me, this ghost of the habit of anger and disappointment.  It can be cold and ferocious, so protective and capable, sharp and quick and hard working.

But the ghost is fading, the energy that created it losing focus and strength.  And that's a very good thing.  I don't need that ghost as my protector.  I have character and virtue and G*d and a good mind and heart for that.  But there's some sorrow at watching it dissolve, some feeling that I have been trying to hard to make things work a certain way, that I have completely betrayed myself, and in doing so, lost my center, lost myself, lost the chance for real intimacy along the way.

That chance is still there, and nothing is lost forever, but there have been losses.  Wonderful opportunities have also opened up in that same space, but the opportunities now don't require a choice between me or others, me or men, intimacy or G*d.

I know there is a place for me in the world of human relationships, and this ghost won't scare me off or anyone else now either.  But when there's loss, even the loss of a haunting ghost, there's some emptiness, some hesitation, some sadness, some feeling that nothing will be the same, even if what's next will be better and already is.

Forcing myself onto people and into places I don't belong, hiding away from the people and places I do, and being indifferent to where I already am, isn't a very good reflection of anything true about me.  And while I gain this new sense of balance, I'm a little wobbly, missing the constant company of my ghost, feeling a little lonely in its absence, but optimistic nonetheless.

Jerusalem

I have been drawn to the spiritual from the time I can remember anything.  I wanted to know the Truth with a capital "T", never content with the answers or lack thereof that permeated religious conversation.  I found inconsistencies and illogical conclusions and ideas about faith that fell apart with even the slightest bit of examination.

And then I found a place to rest my weary soul, a philosophy and practice that gave me a context and framework for every one of my questions, that talked openly and clearly about G*d and sin and virtue and the nature of time and space, all of it anchored as firmly in the ancient past as the distant future.  It came to me from India, and a culture and tradition shaped by all the greatness of Eastern thought.

It was a study and practice that gave me such solace, if for the simple fact that I could end the endless struggle against human ideas about G*d and their terrible insufficiencies.  And I could consider G*d as real and personal and belonging completely to me, and me to G*d, and it was a huge relief to not fight against the deep comfort this offered.

And it is still with me - this knowledge, this practice and especially this comfort.  But this summer, I traveled to Israel, and had an experience I never did have when I visited India.  Which was simply this.  Standing at the Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem, surrounded by people and politics I'm deeply unsure about, I knew I was standing on Holy ground, that the holiness had been there for thousands of years, and all of was now in our hands.

Not just my hands, but our hands, the hands of all of us who feel this same connection even when we don't know exactly what it is we are connected to.  I do not know what has pulled me toward Judaism and this community and that land, after being so certain of where I belonged before, but I know enough to pay attention and see what comes next.

There is something in all this about compassion - something about taking the best of what we know about G*d and humanity, and sharing it clearly and openly with all the souls who are so in need of comfort and belonging, just exactly as I was and still am.  I'm trying to see my way through to how I can connect my Israel experience to my ordinary day-to-day life here in the Kansas, and what will bridge the gap between the Middle East and the Midwest.

Letting Go

I find that when I search my soul for the things that weigh me down and bring heaviness into my life, they are the things I'm inevitably holding onto myself.  I may not know why they are there or how they came to be, but still I'm clinging to them as if they are some sort of treasure, holding tight when all I really want is to let go.

I have a great gift available to me, and that is the ability to see the very best and truest nature of another soul.  Even when there is darkness and confusion clouding over the light, I can focus in such a way as to be able to see the pure potential that lies beneath. 

What I so often can't see is the very same thing in myself.  I cannot see with the same perspective and clarity, I cannot see with such razor sharp precision or with nearly the certainty that others appear to me.

And so I drag around the habits and fears and concerns that don't need their home in me, confusing what has value with what does not, what has meaning with what has memory, what I've acquired with what is truly mine.