Author Archives: Guus

Managing life?

I just wrote about how my life was unmanageable earlier today; and still kind of now. And that post brought me to think about manageability, like what is healthy managing my life, or any life. And that brought me to something like ‘if my Higher Power takes away the things that block me from managing my life, living my life, what would that mean to me’?

And what I wrote above brings me to two things, like what is ‘managing my life’ and what is ‘living my life’.

Managing my life

So how would I manage my life? And why would I do that? And what does management mean? Or life whatsoever?

So what is ‘management’. Well, a search for ‘managing’ gives me a Wikipedia page about management. And that is mainly focused on business management. And it starts with “Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it be a business, a not-for-profit organization, or government body. Management includes the activities of setting the strategy of an organization and coordinating the efforts of its employees (or of volunteers) to accomplish its objectives through the application of available resources, such as financial, natural, technological, and human resources.”.

And strangely enough the ‘disambiguation page about management‘ also points to a lot of things, but not really to anything related to ‘life management’, at least not at first sight. The starting sentence gives some clue though what something like ‘life management’ could be: “Management is the directing of a group of people or entities toward a goal”.

So it seems in order to manage something, like my life, or your life, we first need to have a goal. And maybe something like ‘life goal’ already indicates a problem, at least for me, as I don’t think I have a clear goal for my life. So, well, if there is no goal there is nothing to manage, isn’t it?

But I guess it is pretty easy to formulate a goal for my life as there is some sentence in my head from one of the tapes from Louise Hay that says something like “live a happy, prosperous, fulfilling life”. That would do for me I guess, at least there comes nothing in my mind right now that I would wanted to add. Happy, prosperous and fulfilling sound pretty complete as life goals.

So then managing my life would be something like ‘directing my life towards happiness, prosperity and fulfillment’.

And I am listening now to one of her tapes about health where I thought that statement was, but I found another statement, a definition about good health: “Good health is having no fatigue, having a good appetite, going to sleep and wakening easily, having a good memory, having good humor, having precision in thought and action, and being honest, grateful, humble and loving”.

So maybe I will add health to the life goal I stated earlier: “live a happy, healthy, prosperous, fulfilling life”.

Living my life

So for now my goal would be living a happy, healthy, prosperous, fulfilling life. Quite something it seems, but also kind of normal I guess. Don’t we all want to live a happy, healthy, prosperous, fulfilling life? Maybe more important how to do that, as right now I am living a pretty unhappy, unhealthy, poor and hardly fulfilling life. But maybe that is also a good starting point for the management of going from an unhappy, unhealthy, poor and hardly fulfilling life to a happy, healthy, prosperous, fulfilling life. As as far as I know management has also something to do with measurement, checking where we exactly are and where we want to go and what the difference is.

So what would ‘happy’ mean to me? Well, I guess something like having enough money to do the things I want to do, having a good enough love life, doing the things I want to do and, maybe most important right now, getting rid of that terrible feeling, especially in my legs, that I mostly have. As that feeling blocks me from doing almost anything and stands in the way of virtually everything related to ‘happy’ or even ‘doing’. But then again, maybe a good starting point, as at least I have defined that doing something about that feeling may be the highest priority to work on. And as far as I know a solution for that may indeed be working the Steps. Another terrible feeling I have is about not having enough income and being very much in debt, so bad that recently some notices came in, one of which made me feel pretty terrified.

The healthy is pretty well defined above, so I’ll stick with the “having no fatigue, having a good appetite, going to sleep and wakening easily, having a good memory, having good humor, having precision in thought and action, and being honest, grateful, humble and loving”.

And what would ‘prosperous’ mean to me? Well something like feeling rich, being rich, like having at least USD 5 million or EUR 5 million in the bank, as I believe that is an amount I could live from, so I wouldn’t need any other income to sustain myself.

And I am not fully sure what ‘fulfilling’ means to me right now. To me the above would already be fulfilling, but recently ‘fulfilling’ also means meaning something for someone else, meaning something for other people, doing something for other people. And I can’t really state how that would look like, but it is part of the reason I started writing here, started sharing a lot here, no matter how awkward sometimes, or how private.

Ah, happiness, yes, that would include marriage, preferably with Lee, the love of my life. I often play the song Beautiful in White from Shane Filan and it is just playing now. When playing that song I often think of Lee in white our wedding ceremony. And that is crazy as he abused me so much and especially recently says such nasty things to me and about me. But I am learning more and more that he must be trapped in similar things as I am, that he must also be sick in a similar way as I am sick, me being codependent and trapped in my emotions. So I learned to love him again, love him more, recently, probably also meaning I am starting to love myself, maybe for the first time in my life.

And the last paragraph also came to be from something I read today:

One Day at a Time: Sept. 19

An Al-Anon member with a particularly serious problem was told by another at a meeting: “I just wouldn’t put up with it!”

The answer came: “I am not, as you say, putting up with it. I am trying to correct my own faults, keep my mouth shut when I am tempted to yell and scream at him, and keep hands off his problems. You see, I never want to forget that I have a commitment to my husband. I want to live up to that commitment which I made, willingly and solemnly, when I married him.”

Today’s Reminder
Any marriage made in expectation of lifelong bliss and freedom from care is bound to bring us to some shocking realizations that life just isn’t like that. An adult point of view recognizes that alcoholism and its train of troubles is only one of the disasters that can happen to a marriage. We would face others with courage, why not this? The commitment to the person we married demands that we do everything we can to correct our problems. What to do, we learn in Al-Anon. How we use it is up to us.

“. . . in sickness and in health, for better or for worse . . .”.

And the last statement has always been very important to me, even though I have not always lived up to it, which I regret now. But who can, who is perfect, especially when things are tough, unimaginably tough and crazy? And no, I am not fully sure anymore if I will stick to my non-official vow, as I have my own life to live and it is not healthy for me to stay in an abusive relationship. But I will do everything I can to make it work, probably through working the Steps more seriously.

Goals and actions

Well, the ‘management’ brought me to something like goals and actions. And keeping track of where I stand. So that would mean kind of a table, maybe with scores about how happy or unhappy I am, or how healthy or unhealthy I am or feel. Let’s see what I can start now:

Area	Score (1-10, 10 is highest) September 2017	Goal	Activity/action	Comments
Happiness
General feeling	4	8	Just be happy, see My Ideal Loving Higher Power
Powerlessness over my emotions	2	6	Work The Steps
Health
No fatigue	4	8	???
Good appetite	6	8	Cook at least one meal myself once a month
Going to sleep and wakening easily	4	7	Give to my Higher Power
Having a good memory	4	6	Give to my Higher Power. Maybe I can do something with drums or Bisaya.
Having good humor	2	6	Maybe do something with funny movies
Having precision in thought and action	4	6	Be more conscientious, more precise in everything I do, like now, making this table. Just be more aware.
Being honest	5	7	Share more with more people in an appropriate way.
Being grateful	4	8	Maybe make a daily list, but needs to be something small.	I have already made progress here, a lot I think.
Being humble	4	6	???	I need to find the right way to be humble. Still a struggle.
Being loving	4	8	Maybe work on defining love or loving better, write about it here, in this site.
Prosperity
Loans/arrears	2	6	Communicate and try to make agreements that are manageable for me.	Ask my Higher Power to help me as I am suffering so much from this.
Daily needs, current cash/finance	5	6	Pray	Ask my Higher Power for help
DoctorsConnect	4	8	Leave to my Higher Power	I really don’t know what to do, except some little programming and some little follow up.
Fulfillment
Share my experience, strength and hope	7	7	Keep writing here

Ah, yes, I know I need to be very careful with ‘actions’ as I am easily overwhelmed if things are ‘too much’. And as I feel very, very weak I need to make sure I can really do the actions I state, otherwise it won’t work. Ah, yes, I remember now, I need to make baby steps.

My life has become unmaneagable

Leave a reply

Chaos Today, this morning, my life had become unmanageable again. I felt fully overwhelmed and was not able to do anything. I felt completely paralyzed. And I still do, although I started moving a bit and started writing here now.

And it is still so strange, feeling completely overwhelmed, not being able to do anything, or at least not anything useful. I still believe I ought to be able to control myself and ‘start working’, start doing something useful. But I just can’t, or at least couldn’t.

But yes, did I change. Wow, I think I changed a lot. The blame has gone, or at least seems to subside. As somehow indeed what is happening to me when I feel completely overwhelmed is out of my control. So maybe right now I am starting to understand or practice Step 1 really. The hard part is still how frustrating it is knowing that I am wasting my time, that I could use my time so much better, to work, to earn or whatever. Not wallowing in this terrible state of, well, I don’t know how to call it.

So is this rock bottom now? I have no clue. But yeah, I guess this was quite some bottom as I realized somehow I am suffering from something I cannot control. And that something has taken over my life, is making my life unmanageable. As I really couldn’t do anything this morning, I didn’t see any way to get out of that state, get out of bed, get moving and do the things I actually wanted or thought I needed to do.

So am I willing to do ‘anything’ like working The Steps seriously. Or more seriously than before? And would that really be a way out of this miserable existence I feel I am in? Ah, I hate discipline so much, like ‘working the Steps every day’ or something. That is just not me. But yeah, I also learn more and more that I am just human, that I can’t be perfect. And that in the end any ‘working the Steps’ may just be good enough, in that or this moment. Like really working The Steps seems so impossible, even though looking back I made enormous progress by just doing it my way, just my limited way, mostly by just reading the, mostly Coda, materials, listening to meditation tapes, recently praying more, and ‘doing nothing’ where I wanted to control ‘everything’.

Ah, yes, the writing, the journaling, which I prefer to dp here, helps, at least I think. Even though I often feel ashamed and guilty writing here, as it is public and not anonymous. And as thoughts are supposed to be private or something. Or a journal is supposed to be private. Ah, yes, maybe there is also some pride involved in writing in public, as I still want to be rich and famous. But I am just thinking, did Melodie Beattie (own website) not also write a lot in public? And maybe here is where I pull myself down (again), as why would I not be a good writer? At least I am a writer as I wrote 99% of the text in this site. And no, I don’t earn from it, but does that make me a bad writer or no writer at all? Ah, yes, it would be so nice to do the things Melody Beattie was able to do, like paying back all her debts and such. But I am not there (yet) and right now I still have no clue if I would ever recover enough to live at least a normal life again. But as the program says, everybody’s journey is different and hers seems to have been so much easier than mine. But who knows if it really is and does it really matter? I guess what matters most is that I would feel better and be able to achieve my dreams and desires in a more normal way, instead of lying on the bed paralyzed, not able to do anything useful, or at least that is how it feels in such moments. But then again, I could have never written this post if I hadn’t been in that situation this morning, with a complete relapse in being swallowed in emotions.

And yes, I know now that “this too shall pass” is true, as I am writing this right now and I feel a lot better, at least doing ‘something’ and even planning to do some work later, if I feel like it. But not easy knowing that, believing that, when I am on my deepest down, like earlier today. Knowing it makes me feel calmer though, even in those moments, and I am more patient now just letting the time come that I can move again, like now.

And yeah, I feel a bit drunk now, but at least much more relaxed. Not sure if using alcohol for that is good or bad, but right now it helps me be more relaxed, feel more relaxed, more in control of things. On the contrary of what one may believe related to this it feels good, so can something that feels good be really bad? As what someone said to me, if it feels bad it is probably bad.

And I was looking for an image, yes, mainly for SEO purposes, about unmanageabilty, so I searched for something like ‘chaos’. Amazingly, none of the photos tagged with chaos really looked chaotic. I saw beauty in all of them, order in all of them. Maybe on purpose, as people wanting to make a ‘professional’ photo may somehow stage something like ‘chaos’. But still, even the less staged photos had something organized, something beautiful in them.

And just a few minutes ago I was thinking I can start about manageability, like how can I live my life in a more manageable way. And that brings me to the idea of ‘planning’, and something like executing that plan. But not in a forced way, as that does not work, as I know e.g. from the dog training I do.

And right now that terrible feeling is coming back. And no, it seems I still can’t control it. I also somehow know I have been writing too long, have been doing too much right now. So instead of managing my time, making a plan or something, including some rest and relaxation, I am back to compulsive behavior.

So no, still don’t know what to do right now. ‘Working the Steps’ is working again, where I just need to relax, just need to rest. So maybe just do that, no matter how hard that is for me now.

My beliefs

Leave a reply

Awareness

It is a short while ago since I started this post, maybe a few weeks, and I think changing my beliefs already started having some (positive) effect. And strange, it seems all have started with me working the Twelve Steps and it all seems to start with awareness, yes, truth.

Starting to believe

I am starting to believe(?!) more and more that I have some powerful beliefs that stop me from doing almost anything. As lately I have hardly done anything, at least that is how I feel. Like I have hardly worked on DoctorsConnect, on extending and improving the functionality, and that is pretty important and it is something that I (technically) can do pretty easily, if I just spend the time. And time I have; I have enough time. But somehow something stops me from doing almost anything. And I am not fully sure what it is, although I have some clues, like I have no desire to live anymore, so yes, without desire virtually anything is impossible, also according to the ideas of Napoleon Hill.

And not easy finding an image that matches what I want to show and discuss and write on this page. But the image I found on Wikipedia suffices for now I guess. And I found something like faith is not belief. Anyhow, I don’t want to elaborate on that now.

My main issue is that I have complete lack of desire. Basically I don’t want to do anything anymore, don’t want anything anymore. And it may go back to depression, but there may be some more behind it, so I will start writing some beliefs or possible beliefs that keep me in this state of paralysis.

My current beliefs

Initial thoughts about my beliefs, beliefs that stop me from doing anything, from making any progress especially in love life and business:

I believe that no matter what I do things don’t work out, won’t work out, something like the Universe is against me, punishing me for past behavior, for past mistakes.
I am the one who always has to pay, no matter what, I have to pay.
I believe my desires are wrong, like wanting to be rich and famous and wanting to have a prosperous, good life, a life like I had before.
I believe I am being punished somehow. I have no clue why though, as I don’t think my mistakes were that big, until I ran out of money, felt like I ran out of options.
I believe my life until now has been a waste, especially related to my love life wants.
I believe that I am getting too old to catch up with the love life I wanted.
I believe God does not want me to be successful with my business. Or maybe He wants, but I am not sure why He is not helping me or does not let things happen to make it easier to move forward, like meeting the right people to build a team.
I believe I need a team, or at least some people supporting me with DoctorsConnect.
I believe I am useless in this world, that nobody really cares for me, that nobody is really interested whether I am here in this world or not.
I believe that no matter what I do, I cannot do anything, until God or The Universe helps me, supports me. And I believe that is not happening right now, and I don’t understand that, as why would The Universe or God not help me?

Wow, how negative

Wow, what a negative beliefs I wrote down in the previous paragraph. How can those beliefs ever create a prosperous healthy life? But how to change them? Well, maybe just counter them with facts, as above beliefs are stated pretty bold, where I am sure now I can counter some of them with samples where they are not true or not fully true.

The truth (changing my beliefs)

Well, let’s state some truths about above belief, as with these beliefs I will go nowhere.

1. Things (don’t) work out

“I believe that no matter what I do things don’t work out, won’t work out, something like the Universe is against me, punishing me for past behavior, for past mistakes.”

At least this is stated way too one sided, especially the “no matter what”, as not ‘everything’ is not working out in my life. I am still alive and pretty healthy and many things I do do work out, like just 99% of the daily things I do just work as they are expected to work.

And “The Universe” being against me sounds like bullshit, as why would “The Universe” be against me, even if I made mistakes?

And yes, there are quite some crazy things going on in my life right now that really don’t make sense. Like how my phone was broken and how the refrigerator is broken and how Globe cut us off and how I don’t manage to find work, income somehow.

So yes, “The Universe” seems to play some weird tricks on me and around me that don’t make sense, but somehow I also believe “The Universe” is a fair Universe.

Maybe I better say something like “There are some strange things going on around me and I don’t fully understand why or how. Maybe The Universe is playing some kind of weird tricks on me and it may have to do with past or current behavior or past or current mistakes. This doesn’t mean things will stay the way they are and it is very possible that things in the future will be better and more to my liking”.

2. I am the one who always (->sometimes) pays

“I am the one who always has to pay, no matter what, I have to pay.”

Also here there is this very one sided statement with the “always”. And this definitely has to do with codependency and it also seems to go back to my family of origin, to my mom, who also thinks she always has to pay and also does.

Paying something is still a choice and feeling trapped like “having no choice” or having to choose between two bad choices is still a choice. And I may, or probably am, mostly giving in way too much with all kinds of things that may be able to be solved in different ways, ways beyond my understanding.

I could rephrase this a bit into something like “I may feel forced way too early and way too often to pay something when there may be other ways to deal with the issue at hand. I may want to relax a bit, or a lot more, with everything that goes on around payments and observe and think first what to do, before paying anything I feel obliged to pay to prevent (further) problems.”.

3. My desires are wrong (->right)

“I believe my desires are wrong, like wanting to be rich and famous and wanting to have a prosperous, good life, a life like I had before.”.

Wow, another very bold statement that doesn’t make any sense and does not even hold up. How could my desires be wrong? They may be bold or difficult to achieve or impracticable, but they are just my desires and there is nothing wrong with being rich or famous or wanting to have a prosperous, good life or a life similar to the life I had before. I even had the things I mean with “the life I had before”, so those things can be achieved, can be had. I even had them, so why can’t I have them again?

I think rephrasing this one may indeed turn my life around. What about “My desires are wanting to be rich and famous and wanting to have a prosperous, good life, like the ‘good life’ I had before. This may not be easy to achieve, but it is certainly possible, especially when I perform the right actions and plan well.”.

4. Punishment -> praise

“I believe I am being punished somehow. I have no clue why though, as I don’t think my mistakes were that big, until I ran out of money, felt like I ran out of options.”;

Strange, that I still somehow believe in punishment, in a punishing God. I know now that is completely crazy, just and idea from my religious past, from the bible. So there is no punishment, maybe except for the punishing we do to ourselves, yes, based on what actually?

I know I am good enough as I am, that I am just good as I am, nothing more, nothing less, I am just who I am, I am just what I am, I just am. Nothing good or bad about it, just something like ‘existence’, like a stone or an animal or a star or whatever. How strange humans can think, thing about themselves, create something like ego, create something that is kind of self destructing. How strange.

I guess the only belief to replace this would be something like “I am who I am” or just “I am”, something neutral, nothing good, not bad, just ‘being’.

Or maybe something like opposite of punishment. Yeah, what is the opposite of punishment? Praise I think. Then it would be something like “I believe I deserve to be praised for still living, for not having killed myself because of what happened, because of what life gave me, what life dealt me, because of my wrong believes, because of my beliefs from childhood.”.

My life is (not fully) wasted (anymore)

“I believe my life until now has been a waste, especially related to my love life wants.”

Another bold statement, which, if it even would hold (some) truth, can hardly be true. As no matter what I do, no matter how many wrong or bad things I do, not everything I do can be bad or wasted.

Like I am sure that my dog training activities help people, make people and dogs more happy. And I guess even my daily sending of daily quotes must have some positive effect somewhere, with someone, some day or days.

So a better belief would be something like “My life, me living, me being here on this earth, at least sometimes has some positive effects.”.

…

My new beliefs

My new, more productive beliefs could be:

There are some strange things going on around me and I don’t fully understand why or how. Maybe The Universe is playing some kind of weird tricks on me and it may have to do with past or current behavior or past or current mistakes. This doesn’t mean things will stay the way they are and it is very possible that things in the future will be better and more to my liking.
I may feel forced way too early and way too often to pay something when there may be other ways to deal with the issue at hand. I may want to relax a bit, or a lot more, with everything that goes on around payments and observe and think first what to do, before paying anything I feel obliged to pay to prevent (further) problems.
My desires are wanting to be rich and famous and wanting to have a prosperous, good life, like the ‘good life’ I had before. This may not be easy to achieve, but it is certainly possible, especially when I perform the right actions and plan well.
I believe I deserve to be praised for still living, for not having killed myself because of what happened, because of what life gave me, what life dealt me, because of my wrong believes, because of my beliefs from childhood.
My life, me living, me being here on this earth, at least sometimes has some positive effects.
…

My planning weakness

Leave a reply

I was thinking about my planning weakness: not really able to work under deadline pressure. As it seems when I am working under a deadline I tend to freak out and finally stop, just becoming paralyzed, or at least not being able to work under time pressure. I guess my need for freedom is part of that.

So what can I do to overcome that weakness, to get things done without putting too much deadline stress onto myself. Well, I guess it would be something similar as the ToDo list I created a while ago, but now related to my main project: DoctorsConnect. As for the last weeks I have hardly done anything related to programming due to some kind of “programmers block” or “depression block” or “stress block”. Ah, and it is not only programming I want to organize somehow. I also want related tasks to be organized in a way so I can handle them without feeling too much ‘deadline stress’ or ‘progress stress’.

So well, let’s list some items to be finished and go from there:

finish the finance functionality up to some kind of ‘usable’ state, like at least everything is visible and can be found and everything can be edited;
work on the members part, improve the flow so the system is more usable;
work on the members part make the SMS functionality work for the dentist reminders;
create a Virtual Private Network (VPN) between all my systems/computers;
create a secure mySQL connection between draco.megaheights.net and sirius.megaheights.net;
create the master/slave mySQL setup I have in mind;
…

So well, maybe I can plan ‘something’ for tomorrow, as today it is already late, even though I feel pretty guilty or uncomfortable not having done any programming today for DoctorsConnect. But yeah, I did quite some things today, even though my codependent mind tells me ‘not enough’. But no matter I have done today, it is almost 11 pm and that is supposed to be enough for most people I guess, so why not for me?

So well, I guess tomorrow I can try to at least finish the edit functionality for the finance records. Should not be that much work. And if I feel like it I could work a little on the VPN functionality

My ideal (loving) Higher Power

Leave a reply

Struggle

I am still struggling with the idea of ‘God‘ and ‘Higher Power‘, especially related to LOVING Higher Power or Loving God. And yes, while writing, I am also struggling why in the Twelve Steps in Step 2 there is a mention of Higher Power and in Step 3 it is about God. As if God and Higher Power are the same. But maybe they are not.

Photo

Photo that appealed to me related
to Higher Power right now (found on oalifeline,
I have no rights for this photo)

I just put the photo, based on my feeling, which did not make sense to me. But later I saw the clouds, the sky behind the dog, representing The Universe, Higher Power to me. And I just realized that my dogs, including two Rottweilers, like on the photo, support me so much recently, seeming to feel what I feel, feeling so bad, and still wanting to be me, as close as possible. That is such a great feeling, such a great gift.

A (loving?) Higher Power of my understanding

I wrote below the characteristics of what a loving Higher Power would be to me, like when a Higher Power would be loving. And I realized I ended up writing my definition of a Higher Power, which I realized could be interpreted as ‘playing God’.

Then I thought further and defining ‘loving Higher Power’ or ‘love’ in my understanding would indeed be something like defining like I did. As if a loving Higher Power would not match my definition it would not be a loving Higher Power in my understanding. Then it could still be a Higher Power, but not ‘loving’.

And looking at the things I wrote I expect from a loving Higher Power implies that Higher Power would have unlimited power, be able to do ‘anything’ in my life, in the world, in The Universe. And of course that goes back to my understanding of ‘God’, the God I know from the bible, the God that is all powerful. And that God is also like the God of Islam and such.

So if a/my Higher Power is loving in my understanding and all powerful, then why does He or She not give me what I want and think I need? Well, i guess those things go back to understanding life, to the dilemma of life, the dilemma I guess we all struggle with.

Characteristics I relate to loving Higher Power

Anyhow, I was thinking I could at least write down what to me the characteristics of a Loving Higher Power would be. So here we go:

A loving Higher Power would give me what I want, no matter what, or would at least help me get what I want.
One of the things I would expect a loving Higher Power to do right now is to give me enough money to do the things I want to do, or at least enough money to provide in my current needs, provide enough money ‘to pay the bills’ so to speak.
I would expect a loving Higher Power also to take away my current suffering, especially that terrible feeling I mostly, or lately always, wake up with.
I also would expect a loving Higher Power to help me use my talents in a way, yes, that I want, like use my talents to make some decent income, or at least make sure I have enough money so I could share my talents for free. As I love to work, use my talents, yes, provided that my work is somehow appreciated, which I feel it is not right now.
I would also expect a loving Higher Power to give me the love life that I want, the love life I think I need and deserve, like sleeping together and yes, making love, having sex, preferably with who I consider and want to be my lifetime partner, preferably with Lee.
I would expect a loving Higher Power also to find a way so I could visit my mom at least one more time before she dies, or before I die, as she would love so much to see me and I would also like to see her.
And yeah, I would expect a loving Higher Power to help me restore The Malasag House, renovate it, make it beautiful again, hopefully with the same spirit in which Lee and me occupied it long time ago, in 2006.
And yeah, I would like my Higher Power to take away the burden of my loan away, just pay it, just let it go, just leave it in the past. And I am not sure how much I learned from that experience, of how that loan all came to be, but it was not only my fault, my mistake, there were also others involved in that.
Ah, yes, I would also want my Higher Power to help get YokYok and Arf together, so we can be a family again, together with all the dogs in one place, happy together.
He or She would certainly not want me to do things I don’t want to do or don’t like to do.
Communicate often, show my love often, let Him or Her know I am here/there.
…

My part

Next to thinking about what a loving Higher Power would be to me I was also thinking to add what a loving Higher Power would want from me. And what comes to mind now, maybe also what a loving Higher Power would want to give me:

A loving Higher Power would want me to be happy and enjoy life, enjoy all the things there are in the world, all the things there are in ‘creation’.
A loving Higher Power would want me to be careful with everything in His creation.
A loving Higher Power would want me to love Him or Her back: “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn, Is just to love and be loved in return”.
A loving Higher Power would want me to do the things I love to do, do the things He created me for.
A loving Higher Power would want me to communicate often with Him or Her often.

What next?

So what is next? While writing it came to me that I can at least do my part. As by the nature, the definition of Higher Power I cannot control my/a Higher Power, whether of my understanding or not.

And then indeed, it is up to my Higher Power to do His or Her part. At least now He or She now knows more about what I would expect from a loving Higher Power, how I look at ‘love’ or ‘loving’. Maybe He or She could consider my thoughts on that.

So my part would be:

be happy and enjoy life;
be careful with anything in this/His/Her creation;
love Him or Her as I want or expect to be loved;
do the things I love to do and/or He or She created me for;
communicate often, show my love often, let Him or Her know I am here/there.

Sounds pretty simple, so let’s start from here.

Preliminary result

Writing this page, the above, a few days ago has had some kind of positive influence on me, as it gave me a way to focus on my part whenever I am angry or confused or whatever. Like I just found myself chatting to a friend “I hate God for …” and that brought me back to the fact that my part does say to “love my Higher Power”, not “hate my Higher Power”. It also made me realize that I can maybe only love someone or something if I can also hate him or her or it. Somehow anything also relates to its opposite, like there is no love if there is no such thing as hate.

It also helped me leave the things I expect from a loving Higher Power with my loving Higher Power, so I don’t need to ‘work so hard’ to achieve those things.