Teaching workshops——personal development, sex and sexuality, etc.——this tag line “Love yourself” often comes up. I then challenge back—-”Okay, what are you doing on Thursday to love yourself?”
Most times the room goes silent because the answers are tied up in what we want others to do for us or have done for us or our propagandized visions of what that should look like/be.
The Knight in Shining Armor
No one is coming to save you. Ever. No, really. No one is sitting around, on piles of money, thinking if only they could find YOU, they would save you and love you forever and ever, just because you exist. One of the delusions I often break for people is that no one will ever love you unconditionally—-even Jeffrey Dahmer’s mother refused to visit him in court or jail. There are conditions and limitations on how much people will love and care for you. Some more than others, some less.
Planet Earth
Working with both children and adults, I often hear: “It’s not fair.”
I ask: which planet they live on?
The majority of them answer Earth.
I point out that they, nor I, live on Fair.
You don’t live on the planet Fair.
Life is not Fair. It never has been. It never will be.
You know what I think is unfair and I grouse over time but I have to do it?—-filling out applications for so many things—-dentist, doctors, jobs, promotions, direct deposit, etc. etc. etc. etc. Sitting places and having to fill out stuff over and over and over.
I tell folk that the belief in Fairness should be fading by the time you’re about 10 years old. It’s one of the ways you can measure as the crossed line of adults to adulthood. But when you accept that nothing is fair, though there is still space for justice, you learn to take responsibility for everything, including your emotions.
Responsibility
Ah, now we’re getting somewhere.
Taking responsibility for yourself, your actions, AND all of the things that happen to you, you suddenly become a more empowered human being.
Now yes, some of the things that happen to you are out of your absolute control. (I’m thinking glancing out the window on the 85th floor of Tower 2 and seeing a 747 headed your way….) But we can choose how to feel in those or lesser situations. Acceptance vs. screaming terror. Because at some point, all of us will have to accept death over screaming terror. Hopefully, we will all have a moment to decide and make peace with the reality of what is happening.
Boundaries
“Back the fuck up, back the fuck off, and no, don’t put that in my ass.”
Depending upon life, you’ll have to tell people this pretty regularly throughout life. Hopefully not that exact language every time, but some variation.
I regularly tell beggars that I choose not to give to (it seems to be an Industry in NYC): “No, thank you.”
I make eye contact and say, No, thank you.
I say that because I’m choosing not to participate in that exchange or resources/energy and I make direct eye contact because whatever state of need or conning that person is in, they are still a person, a child of God, a creation of the Universe, in my belief system. I acknowledge that. I simply choose not to participate in their exchange.
Now, snatching in the above—-sometimes they challenge back—-”Why not?” or “I’m hungry.” or “Etc.”
And I challenge back back back—-that just as they have the right, the human right, to ask. I have the human right, even if I have hundred dollar bills spilling out of my pocket, to say No.
Because I choose to. I choose to say no. I then ask them am I mandated to say Yes because they think I should?
Befuddled, they admit No.
I nod politely and walk away.
You have a fundamental, human right to say Yes or No for yourself (and perhaps others in your charge like children, or the elderly in your care, or your naïve chubby cousin.)
Old Books
You might subscribe to the writings or teachings in an Old Book. I write books, I know how perverted, disrupted, and distorted all writings can be by the reader, the writer, the translator. So I choose not to adhere to any Old Book. Primarily because it’s an Old Book.
Shrug.
Work
We all need to work on something. Even if you’re a billionaire and you spend every day counting your nickels. Whether it’s to create or produce or to ease life for others. Work is useful even if it’s not massively changing the Earth or it’s of a mental nature or a cyber nature. Do something.
You Get What You Catch
If you work and you get rewarded for it in some sort of exchange then it’s yours. That’s part of the material exchange here on Earth. There’s plenty for everyone but there are yes, access blockades, systemic issues, social and personal issues. Yup.
But that doesn’t take away the abundance. Focus and repeat seems to be the main way to do and get.
When people talk about super taxing billionaires I often chuckle. it will never happen. They’ve been protecting their money for decades before you came along. They'll simply move it or raise prices or stop producing. And billionaires and super millionaires (no one ever says we should go after millionaires——$1 million or $999 million) are simply people who own/control things with amassed wealth. Like the stock was $1 when they bought it and now it’s worth $1000 a share. There is nothing evil in growth. Maybe we need to have parallel discussions in where help could be given and how to help people not be poor in very long term, deliberate ways?
In all of this, combining with working for 30+years——I like steak.
I generally have one, at least once a week. A good ribeye. Just for myself. For me. For being Kyle and doing all the things I do. Which leads me to my last point.
Giving To One’s Self and Others
I give to others.
Here, this post is for you. You just read this. You’re welcome.
And in workshops and a myriad of other ways—-but I don’t go on and on and on about each way.
But I also give to myself. A nice steak. Boots (maybe from the same cow!) Books. Peace. Quiet. Those little apple pies. 100% cotton clothing. I work, I do, I hunt, I get, I make boundaries and I give to myself.
I think a combination of all of the above is how one love’s one’s self.
#KylePhoenix
#TheKylePhoenixShow
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