We have a winter storm warning here in Houston. Unbelievable. I can only imagine what you Northerners are going through! Bundle up people! It’s a great time to sit in a cozy chair, wrap yourself in a blanket, drink a mug of hot cocoa and read through the archives!
Me: If you were to be yourself on Earth again, knowing what you know now—I mean really knowing it—how would you handle life? For example, how would you cope with mean people; how would you cope if you had no money?
I hear Jamie laughing in the background. I wonder what he said to tickle her.
Me: How would you cope if things never seemed to go your way?
Erik: Ho, shit!
Me: Oh, wait. I’m asking for all of us humans in the world who have a hard time bumping up against the unpleasant realities of the world.
Erik: Damn, Mom. I don’t know if I’d come back if I had to remember everything I know now!
Me: Why?
Erik: Cuz it would suck!
Me: Well, tell me why? If you know all the spiritual stuff you know now?
Erik: Well, yeah. If I got into a body, and I couldn’t move through the wall to get to the other room, and I had to walk my ass around or if I couldn’t travel to Italy by just thinking of it, if I couldn’t get to the racetrack just by thinking of it? I’d have to get into the fucking car, drag my ass, prep, pack food, buy food. That’s a pain in the ass.
Tell me about it.
Erik: If this person is kind of saying emotionally, okay, with being human?
Me: Mm hm. Yes.
Erik: Going through all the emotional shit and logical shit?
Me: Yeah.
(Pause followed by Jamie’s giggles.)
Jamie: He’s thinking. He’s fussing with his hat and moving it, and he’s looking up and to his right. You can hear he’s making sounds like, “oh, well, uh, yeah, well, hmm…”
I chuckle.
Erik: Yeah, I could do that; I could do that, and I think if I had to play it out in my head, I’d know that mean people are mean, because they’re mean to themselves, and I wouldn’t want to be around that person or do business with that person anyway. I would get myself out of the situation no matter what it took. If I had to protect myself, walk away, teach or explain, I’d do it.
Me: Mm hm.
Erik: If I had a shitload of stress, first of all, knowing what I know now, I don’t think I’d end up with the stress—
Me: Okay, wait. I’m going to ask that one later. How would you cope if you had no money, for example, or if things didn’t seem to go your way?
Erik: Well, if shit didn’t go my way, I’d instinctively know that I was trying to push for something that I shouldn’t have gone for, that I’m letting my head get out of balance with my heart and my intuition, like something’s not balanced, so I’d reassess, and I’d pull back, and I’d follow what I really want, then I’d reset my boundaries and go for it again. I would know that it was not the end of the world.
(Pause)
Me: Or the end of life.
Erik: Yeah, or the end of life. I wouldn’t be afraid of dying; I wouldn’t be afraid of taking care of someone else and losing myself, because I’d know I’d never lose myself, and I’d put a hell of a lot of fucking emphasis on making myself happy first, and—
Jamie (laughing): He said, “I’d flip the bird” then he gave me the bird.
Me: Erik!
Erik: I’d flip the bird to anyone who would describe me as being selfish because I was choosing my joy over anything else.
Me: Yeah, they have to be responsible for their own joy.
Erik: Right, and it’s a concept that people are learning, but right now they’ll still use it as a judgment rather than a learning curve. Then the other one you asked is about stress.
Me: Well, let me finish this one. The blog member says her kids, now young adults, have had to learn to curtail their sweetness, enthusiasm, naiveté and innocence in the face of those who seem to get pleasure in putting other people down in order to be on some kind of power pyramid. It’s a waste of time to come to this planet and be forced to self-protect in order to guard against such types. She calls it the avoidance game.
Erik: Is there a question in there?
Me: Well, I mean, I don’t know. Do you really have to curb your sweetness, naiveté and things like that?
Erik: No!
Me: I can’t imagine why you’d have to do that. That seems like you’d be damaging your vulnerability instead of being emotionally honest.
Erik: Go with it, Mama!
Me: You have the floor now!
Erik: No, you’ve got it. That’s exactly the way it is. If you’re changing yourself to meet the expectation or the need of someone else, then you’re fucking up, not them.
Me: So, you really have to go the “Fuck you; I don’t need you in my life” route?
Erik: Yeah, but people are so afraid to cut their losses, because they think what they’ve built is so damn good, so they’re going to fight. Mentally, they’ve told themselves, “I’ve got to fight to be at the top,” because that’s the whole American thing. No pain, no gain. That’s bullshit. BULL. SHIT.
Me: Well why do people try to maintain their relationships with these kind people, and why do they feel like they have to curb their emotional honesty in order to do it?
Erik: Mm mm. They’re missing the lesson. They’re missing the point. But there are so many people out there who will accept them for all of their emotional honesty, no game playing like in their corporate career. They will find their highest place in whatever position they want to be in without compromising themselves. It’s a no-compromising game!
Me: Why do they do it though? Why do they compromise?
Erik: That’s what they were taught, Mom.
Me: Oh.
Erik: It’s unacceptable if you are not polite and well-mannered in a proper way.
Me: Oh!
Erik: Fuck that. It’s unacceptable if I’m lying to your ass and being polite. I should be fucking telling you what I’m really feeling!
Me: Yeah. That’s disrespecting them on another level. You don’t have to be rude, right? You can do it respectfully.
Erik: No! Totally, yes, you’re right. When you’re emotionally honest and sharing what you’re feeling and saying, you don’t gotta be bitchy about it—not defensive. Take the teaching role. I don’t know what’s wrong with people that they feel like they have to pull out their freaking guns and knives to make a point. You got your words. They’re strong enough. Teach. Teach people where you’re coming from.
Me: Yeah. These are teachable moments. Is that what you’re saying?
Erik: Yes!
Me: And you can choose to be in that teacher role or not, whatever brings you joy and still honors your emotional honesty.
Erik: Yes! That’s true. And learn to cut your losses. You can’t make another person change!
Oh, now he tells me. I’ll have to apologize to my husband. (Just kidding, but you ladies out there understand where I’m coming from.)
Me: Did you have trouble with this, Erik?
Erik: Yeah.
Me: Okay.
Erik: It was strange, because with my trouble, it was like having two people locked in the same room, and I never knew what set of emotions I was going to be able use in that certain situation.
Me: Mm.
Erik: I didn’t know if I was going to react like “me” or “weird me”.
(Insert sad face here.)
Me: What was “weird me”?
Erik: You know how I’d get trapped in my head, and I really couldn’t like talk and stuff like that?
Me: Mm hm.
Erik: I would just “faze out.” That was weird me.
Me: Oh, yeah.
God how well I remember.
Erik: It’s like the personality got sucked up by a straw somewhere in the center of my head, and shit stopped making sense, and doubt was bigger than life. Then when it all deflated, and it all came back into my body, I could kind of put in line, put it in proportion. Those were moments where I was straight-in connected to life and loving it.
Me (with sadness): That must have been nice.
I wish he had had more of those moments.
Erik: It was nice.
Me: Well why couldn’t you have done exactly what you’re doing right now but led a normal life and died at a normal age like eighty or ninety?
(Pause)
Erik: I don’t think my mouth would have been dirty enough.
Me: No, for real.
(Very long pause)
Jamie (to Erik): Do you know that answer, Erik?
Erik: I don’t know, but I’ll take a shot.
(Long pause)
Erik: Honestly I think if I had stayed, my battle would have been so difficult that I would have been so disillusioned with life I wouldn’t have wanted to help people with it.
Me: Yeah. You would have been miserable, right?
Erik: Yeah.
Me: Oh, gosh. Well would you have gotten married and had children?
Erik: I would have tried.
Me: Mm hm.
Erik: I don’t think, I wouldn’t have seem myself getting it to the degree that I wanted.
Me (again, with sadness): Yeah.
(Poignant pause)
Me: Okay, as I’m sure you experienced times stress when you were here, and don’t say marijuana is the answer!
Jamie laughs.
Me: Why do we have it? Why do we have stress?
Jamie: I’m laughing at him because I’m like, ‘Dude, you’re getting called out! You’re like the marijuana king, here.’
Me: Oh wait. I turned the page and I see there are many components to this question so I’ll get to it next session.
