I woke up yesterday with my neck in complete lock down. This occurs 2 to 3 times a year. There are various reasons this happens. A combination of physical, emotional and circumstantial causes. This time around the cause seemed not so much physical or circumstantial. My usual explanation is that my neck has a hard job keeping my head on straight!
The pain was making it so doing or thinking of anything else was next to impossible. I called my massage therapist and booked an emergency appointment. I then found myself thinking that I didn’t ‘deserve’ a massage. In my judgment, I haven’t been working hard, producing anything, contributing anything, putting myself ‘out’ in any way. But, what about ‘needing’ a massage? My essential self rolled her eyes and went back to sleep after she told me to wake her when me and the lizard were finished. Basically, I was telling myself that I did not warrant this ‘treat.’ What the…?
Really? Seriously? What is the deal with ‘deserving?’ I still believe that if I am a good person, and I work hard, pay my taxes and do what’s expected of me, then good things will happen for me. But, of course life has proven to me (over and over) that this is just not true. And conversely, if I do ‘bad’ things, I ‘deserve’ to suffer. I can think of dozens of people who do NOT pay their taxes, are not nice people, do not do what’s expected of them, and good things happen to them. I’m sure bad things happen to them too, but for some reason I believe that good things shouldn’t happen for them. I am also pretty sure that I have been granted grace in many situations that I could have suffered but didn’t.
Somehow I have obtained the power to control good and bad and I wear myself out trying to be one and avoid the other. Do advertisers, religions, parents have me so programmed that I can’t get over this ‘law’ which is not a universal one? The laws of the universe are completely non-judgmental. If someone steps from a cliff, he will fall. The law of gravity (which is a law of the universe) does not care if he was ‘good’ or ‘bad.’
I spent most of yesterday working through this belief and have (hopefully) come to realize that I can just decide what I want, like, need without a judgment of right, wrong, good, bad or deserving. And, that things that happen to me are not ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but lessons about, say, the law of cause and effect (another universal law) to learn or even maybe a gift of some kind. Like the gift of giving myself a break from striving, like I did yesterday.
What about you? Any thoughts, beliefs about ‘deserving’ that you’d like to share?
The pain was making it so doing or thinking of anything else was next to impossible. I called my massage therapist and booked an emergency appointment. I then found myself thinking that I didn’t ‘deserve’ a massage. In my judgment, I haven’t been working hard, producing anything, contributing anything, putting myself ‘out’ in any way. But, what about ‘needing’ a massage? My essential self rolled her eyes and went back to sleep after she told me to wake her when me and the lizard were finished. Basically, I was telling myself that I did not warrant this ‘treat.’ What the…?
Really? Seriously? What is the deal with ‘deserving?’ I still believe that if I am a good person, and I work hard, pay my taxes and do what’s expected of me, then good things will happen for me. But, of course life has proven to me (over and over) that this is just not true. And conversely, if I do ‘bad’ things, I ‘deserve’ to suffer. I can think of dozens of people who do NOT pay their taxes, are not nice people, do not do what’s expected of them, and good things happen to them. I’m sure bad things happen to them too, but for some reason I believe that good things shouldn’t happen for them. I am also pretty sure that I have been granted grace in many situations that I could have suffered but didn’t.
Somehow I have obtained the power to control good and bad and I wear myself out trying to be one and avoid the other. Do advertisers, religions, parents have me so programmed that I can’t get over this ‘law’ which is not a universal one? The laws of the universe are completely non-judgmental. If someone steps from a cliff, he will fall. The law of gravity (which is a law of the universe) does not care if he was ‘good’ or ‘bad.’
I spent most of yesterday working through this belief and have (hopefully) come to realize that I can just decide what I want, like, need without a judgment of right, wrong, good, bad or deserving. And, that things that happen to me are not ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but lessons about, say, the law of cause and effect (another universal law) to learn or even maybe a gift of some kind. Like the gift of giving myself a break from striving, like I did yesterday.
What about you? Any thoughts, beliefs about ‘deserving’ that you’d like to share?
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