A little Divine Drama

Do you court drama in your life? Not just conflict, but being the center of a gripping story that swirls around you and drags everyone along in its wake? Do you only feel alive when there are things going wrong for you to complain about? Are other people real, or only actors in your drama?

There are people that feel alive only when their world is crumbling around them. They don't know how to cope with what they claim will make them happy, so they sabotage themselves and then beg for pity. And because they are experts, there is always someone around to give them that pity. They burn through people, using other people's emotional resources for their own amusement instead of growing their own and learning how to stand on their own feet.

I don't know how a person becomes drama-addicted, but I do know that it's a dangerous addiction, both to the person involved and the people around them. Instead of trying to improve their own life and the life of those around them, they try to drag everyone down. A success for someone else is a direct threat for the drama-addicted. Only bad things are allowed to exist in their world for long.

Drama-addiction hurts people. It smothers flames and destroys lives. No one can thrive in that situation.

Now the hard part: drama is something we all must deal with at times. Not only that, but it does have appeal. Being at the center of things and having people scurring to try and solve it can give a tremendous sense of power. There is a constant lure to let the drama continue that we might revel in the attention longer. There's also the desire to deny one's own drama and make people go away, to reject the help and hide out of embarrassment. We must find a middle road.

We deserve help from our loved ones when drama happens, and we should equally support those we love. But we need to be careful that we're nurturing Flames and not using drama to replace them.

Questions:
When do you indulge in your own personal drama? Why?
Do you get easily drawn in by drama-laden people? Do you enable the drama?
How do you evaluate when people need help and when they're just wanting attention?

Possessions

We all like stuff. Some of it's important: shelter, clothing, food. Some of it isn't: name brand clothing, fancy shoes, gourmet food. That doesn't mean we don't want it, and that doesn't mean it isn't nice stuff. Simply that we don't need it.

So what should we do with things we do need, and things we don't? What's a good way to handle our desires for things we may not need? how do we balance desires?

There's nothing wrong with desiring physical objects. We desire beauty in our lives. The Universe and the Divine are beautiful, and to appreciate that beauty is a good thing. So it's no surprise we want to surround ourselves with that beauty.

However, there is a fine line between appreciation for something and gluttony. When our desire overcomes our sense, it becomes gluttony and is twisted. When we hoard simply because we can and refuse to share we deny the rest of the Universe.

There's nothing wrong with having. And there's nothing wrong with desiring. But we must also provide for our futures and care for those around us. Sensible use of money is much more important than brand names, expensive foods, and impressing one's neighbors.

It is good to be content with what you have. It's easy to desire more, to want clothing and entertainment and as big a house as possible. But when you live more frugally and comfortably, you can plan for the future and care for those around you, and that's a very good thing.

Questions
What do you desire? Why? Is it worth buying?
What do you buy that you shouldn't? Why shouldn't you? Why do you do it anyway?
How do you prepare for the future? Is it enough? How much do your plans depend on circumstances you can't control?

A criticism, a critique ...

How do you criticize people you disagree with? Do you work by building them up, or tearing them down?

How we give and receive criticism is a sign of how we deal with people in general. Critique is painful, because we want to believe we're already good people doing good things. We don't want to hear that we can be better than we are, because it means we're not currently good enough.

Giving critique is one of the most difficult things to do well that we run across on a regular basis. We want to get our point across, but we often also want something more: either to improve the person we're talking to, or to prove our own superiority. Which of these we're attempting says a lot about ourselves and what we really are. How we come across is also important, and we have to strive to make certain that we're coming across correctly. But if our intentions are bad, no amount of prettying up is going to matter.

We are all of the Flame. Every single person is precious and special, and needs to be treated that way. Yet when we criticize each other, and approach each other in a critical spirit, we often try to tear each other down. It's as if we believe there's a limited amount of happiness or life that can go around, and when one person holds too much, they must be ripped down to share with everyone else. When we do that, we diminish ourselves and the people we critique.

Every time one tries to smother another person's Flame, one shrinks one's own as well. It's easy to be critical, to treat other people as though they're just not smart enough or good enough, as though all their ideas are garbage. But it destroys both ourselves and others.

When we build each other up, we all become greater. When we tear down, we shrink ourselves. Our Flames are not limited by the Flames of those around us. There is no scarcity of spirit, that one must be hobbled for another to grow larger.

Questions:
Do you build people up or tear them down? Why?
How do you react to criticism? Can you tell the difference when someone builds you up or tears you down?
What does it mean when I say that spirit is not scarce? Do you believe it?

Someone you love is Divine ...

How do you handle it?

Love is complicated. We like to think it's simple. That love is an answer, not a question or a process. But love doesn't give us answers. It demands work and effort even as it gives fulfillment.

The biggest problem with loving someone is the blurring of ego boundaries. It's very easy to look at someone you love and see that person as a part of yourself. To deny that person's individuality and see only what that person does for you. But that's not love: that's when love goes wrong. Love is appreciating a person as they are and wanting the best for them. When we're talking about romantic love, that often includes a strong desire to be with that person as much as is feasible. But it's still wanting to be with the person as they currently are. When your definition of love involves molding the person into something "better", what you have is not love.

Familial love can be trickier. We see ourselves in our children, and our parents see themselves in us. It's difficult to see a child's individuality, especially since it is the job of the parent to guide behavior. Finding love instead of domination can be difficult for some people. It's easy to see oneself as part of a family and forget the individuality of the people involved. But family, especially parenthood, involves helping the child grow into the best individual the child can be, not living out one's own dreams through the child.

Love involves a lowering of ego boundaries. When we love, our Flame grows closer to that of our beloved. Love nurtures our Dark Flame and brightens our Bright Flame. We lose something of ourselves when we refuse to love, and we become greater when we open our hearts and let our Flame dance. When we refuse to risk our Flame by opening up to those around us, we stifle our Flames and sputter in our lives.

Love fails and turns into something else when we fail to recognize other people as separate individuals. Love can blur boundaries, as we put the happiness of those we love as a condition for our own happiness. But we are not the ones we love, and they are not us. Celebrating their Flame requires seeing it as not part of our own.

Questions:
How does love blur ego boundaries in your life? Who's ego gets subsumed: yours or the one you love? Either?
Flames burn bright when they burn together. Do you share your life with the ones you love? Do you cling to your ego barriers, or lower them to share your Flame equally?
Do you nurture the Flames of those you love? Do they nurture yours? Can you share love without counting the cost to yourself?

We need a hero!

We all need heros. We dream of people that will swoop in and make things work when everywhere we turn, things seem to be a mess. We pray for them, worship them, incorporate them into our images of what we wish for society. And yet, when we find them, we search for ways to prove them flawed. We crave and fear our heros, because we want to find them in ourselves.

The truth of the matter is, we each need to be the heros in our own lives. No one's going to swoop down and save us from our problems. There is no mommy waiting to sooth our scraped knees and broken hearts of the soul. We have to fight our own battles or resign from the playing field already lost.

What does it mean to be our own hero? How can we live that way? We need to start by refusing to wait for someone else to bail us out of our problems. As much as we might wish for someone to save us, as long as we sit and wish, we aren't moving forward to solve things ourselves.

A hero is a perfect person that solves things the way we wish they'd be taken care of. This person comes and solves all the problems, saves us from ourselves or the bad guy, and flies away without asking for anything for themselves. People like this don't exist. We might wish they did, or even wish we were them, but it doesn't work that way. We all have day jobs, lives, things we need to do that prevent us from being able to just rescue people. Daily life and our own families come first, and have to come first. And we can't just drop everything to rescue strangers every time someone needs to be rescued. Often, we don't even know the problem is there.

We need to learn to be our own heros. To rescue ourselves from our problems. As long as we wait for someone else to do it, it will never get done.

Questions:
What do you want to be rescued from? What keeps you from doing it yourself?
If you could change anything about your life to rescue yourself, what is it? Can you focus on the possible, or only on the dream?
What value does the dream of a hero hold to you? What would you do to be a hero yourself?