Tag Archives: God

Raw Step 3 work

I was just working Step 3 and felt like sharing it here.

“Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.”

Step 3 questions and my answers on September 3, 2020

What does “made a decision” mean to me?Chirrut Imwe

Right now I am not sure. I still feel very worried with Iwa, I feel the urge to want to “do something”, now. But it doesn’t really make sense. I have been here before with her, and yes, sometimes I go to the vet. But today still doesn’t really feel good, although I am worried.

And actually I already decided to go tomorrow, not today. I have no clue why, but that is what I decided. I just can’t seem to accept that decision.

Chirrut ImweHow do I know when I need to let go? How do I let go?

I can’t let go of Iwa, of life, of everything. I just can’t let go. Maybe start with accepting that. Life seems so pointless. I was born, I live, and one day I will die. And it feels like everything will just be gone by then, everything will have just been a waste. But I know it isn’t.

What does “as we understood God” mean to me?

It means something that my old “God” doesn’t work for me. The Christian God resembling my father. It means I need to find Something Else to help me through the day. Or maybe make my life agreeable.

How can I make myself (more) happy today? What can I do to feel more happy? Today.

Am I ready to let go and let God have a hand in managing my life?

I guess I am, provided that God has not only good intentions, but really supports me. My dad had good intentions, but it didn’t work, it harmed me.

Ah, and I already know the intention of The Universe is not to harm me. And I know ‘reality’ is something weird I make up in my mind, even though it is there.

It just “is”.

And pain and such is to protect me, not to harm me.

So maybe go to the pain and ask (it) what it means, why it is there?

It says something like “something is wrong”. So maybe find out and see if I can do something about it.

So maybe just ask the question “What is wrong”.

What does “to the care of God” mean to me?

I am still trying to understand this one better. It is the positive part in this Step. It means God is caring (and not punishing). But I was punishing Arf, because I want no harm for him. Is that how God works? Is that how parents work?

What does “turning it over” mean to me?

Ah, this is maybe a good one, as I just decided to give Iwa the Broncure, after reading the label. And after I heard her cough again. Somehow I did turn that decision over.

Still hard not to be in control, as I don’t want to loose her. But one day I will loose her. And one day I will be gone myself.

Is this where I let go of results? How does letting go of results help us to work this Step better?

I know more and more I can’t control the world. But I also know I do have influence on results. Or do I?

So what is God? To me? Now? Today? I guess something like the force that makes everything work? But it is an ‘anonymous’ force. That force is not conscious. And it is not “God” as a Christian or Muslim God. But yeah, the last is a human invention.

So yeah, I believe right now, today, that consciousness is something emerging from, well, I don’t know what. Something like the theory from Lawrence Krauss. So there are only fields? Energy fields? Multiple fields?

Or only a single field?

So turning it over means something like “have The Universe have it’s way”. And I don’t mean that negative.

How can I be in touch with my Higher Power’s will for me? In what ways does my Higher Power speak to me?

Wow, interesting question, related to what I thought and wrote earlier. My Higher Power, The Universe, just speaks to me in energy, in waves, through fields, or through “The Field”. Or through “The Force” as per Star Wars?

Maybe that would be some Higher Power for me, thinking of something like “The Fields” or “The Field”. Connected through waves with everything that is.

And yes, that is how I believe right how is how the Universe works.

So what does that Higher Power, that Force, that Field, that “All That Is” want from me? Just to live I guess, just to experience. Enjoy. Enjoy everything, enjoy “Everything That Is”, enjoy “Everything That Has Been Manifested”. Or everything that is manifesting itself?

What does “my will and my life” mean to me?

Wow, this is going really deep today.

My will is something like I want everything “now”. I want the settlement done, I want Iwa to stay alive forever. I want Arf to stay alive forever. I still want a boyfriend or something, no, not a partner, a boyfriend now I guess. Much safer, as then I can be in control, just enjoy.

And “my life” I have no clue. Something like consciousness experiencing, well, life, experiencing what is happening in The Universe.

If I cannot trust myself, how can I trust my Higher Power? How do I practice trusting?

Well, I guess I didn’t create myself, so it would be very hard to trust myself. Trusting my Creator would be better I guess. But then again, who is my Creator? The Life Force I was talking about earlier? But that is not a conscious creator. And yes, while writing a non-conscious Creator can be trusted I guess. As it wouldn’t have any agenda. Something like what I always teach about dogs, about dogs only being mirrors to ourselves.

So how do I practice trusting? Well, I have no clue. Maybe indeed just something like “Letting go and Letting God”.

From Punishing Higher Power to Loving Higher Power

Still searching

Supporting Higher PowerI am still struggling with things like the word love and Loving Higher Power. So I keep searching the internet to find solutions and I found this article: finding a new Higher Power.

Find below my first attempt based on the suggested exercise in the article: first describe my current view of God, then my ideal view of God.

What do I think God is right now?

Somehow I still think God is that kind of old bearded man on the pulpit of the “Grote Kerk” in Vriezenveen. It seems I can’t really get rid of that image, that picture in my mind.

So it is a man, a man of like 60 or 70 years old. And he has a long grey beard, like Khomeini. And is giving all these laws, these rules and regulations, rules and regulations that I try to follow, but often don’t manage to follow, like I was not able to keep my relationship and I was not able to keep my jobs.

And some of my own rules, like not getting in debt, not having debt, and paying all my bills. I couldn’t even keep that simple rule, as I lost most of my money and was not able to earn enough. So humiliating.

God right now is almost always disagreeing with everything I do, with everything I want, with virtually every decision I make. And he lets me know, as he lets me fail in almost everything I do, e.g. does not allow me to meet the right partner, does not allow or help me to find the right team members for DoctorsConnect, does not allow or help me find team members and friends otherwise.

It is a very dispecible God as he mostly lets bad things happen to me, gives me hope at first, but then takes things away, like with the dog training recently.

It seems he finds pleasure in making my life as miserable as possible, including giving me these dreadful feelings of anxiety and such so I can’t even work, can’t even succeed, like putting time and effort in things I still want to do, still try to do, including doing Step Work and such.

So it seems my current God of my understanding is more like the devil, not like a loving God, helping me and supporting me. Recently I am starting to wonder why He even created me, as I am doing everything wrong in His eyes anyhow.

The worst of this God is that I can’t even escape Him in death, as He will keep haunting me in eternity, in life after death. So even suicide is not an option, as He will just continue annoying me after I die. He will just laugh at me, like, see, here I am again, here I still am, you can’t escape Me.

The kind of funny thing is that He created everything, and many or most things are really beautiful in this world, in this universe, even though of course there is pain and suffering. But yes, it seems most living creatures don’t suffer as much and as long as I am. Kind of weird, as how important am I to God anyhow. Just one of those six billion people or so, so why would He care to bother me so much, give me so much pain and suffering.

Or is that indeed love, finding a way to get my attention? Well, I guess He got it now. Except I don’t know if so much negative attention is really what He wants or needs from me. Wouldn’t He rather see me happy and satisfied?

Another image of God I have right now is some kind of universal force, but a force that is kind of neutral, a force that comes from ‘energy’, from the things I now know or believe the universe is made of, like strings from string theory.

Strange that that second image of God, of Higher Power, is kind of neutral. That force would not allow me or anyone else suffer so much. It would just be neutral and support any effort to create something, like me creating DoctorsConnect and get rich; or me earning enough in some kind of way.

If I could have anything I wanted, any God I wanted, what would that be?

Supporting Higher PowerIf I could have anything I wanted, any God I wanted, that God would give me everything I want and need. Or at least He would support me in my decisions and in the things I do. As to me that is what the word love implies: giving someone everything he wants, so he would lead a happy life, would enjoy life.

And of course this God might or would just use the worldly things to help and/or support me, like putting the right people on my path to help me with DoctorsConnect, even though there might be miracles, like letting go away my mental disease of having so much emotional pain and anxiety. And yes, he might let me win the lottery or something, so I could pay my debts and such and live a happy life without being a burden to other people. He would certainly not use my mom to let me survive financially. He would have allowed and allow me to visit her every year or so, by giving me the means, the financial funds to do so.

He also wouldn’t let me wait so long for my ING internet banking code, even though that long wait seems to have helped me with keeping my ABN AMRO account or something.

That God wouldn’t have made me like feeling guilty and ashamed almost all the time to other people and towards Him. As how could I be responsible, especially to Him, about who I am and about the decisions and choices I made?

He would never put me in the embarrassing position I am in now, not even being able to buy the normal daily things from the money I earn.

And I think I am just writing too much here. To me a loving God or a loving Higher Power would just give me anything I want and need to lead a joyful and loving life, being able to enjoy life myself and help others if needed.

And He wouldn’t come with those stupid ideas that I already have enough, that I already have what I want and need.

Yes, of course I have already what I need, like a roof over my head, a bed to sleep in and food to eat every day. I even have more, like a computer and internet access and people around me. But is that really all I need to be happy and joyful?

And yes, looking back He may have given me what I need in the form of suffering, of being poor, of loosing everything, so I know more about life, about where other people stand, how other people live. So yes, that is certainly a good thing. But I guess it is only a good thing if He would somehow find a way to give me the things I want, like money and a car and maybe a nice house again, this time in a way with having the funds to maintain it and such.

Ah, and he would certainly not have let my mom, and my dad before, to suffer financially. Or emotionally, like not allowing me to go home, go to The Netherlands regularly, like every year.

Going back to the exercise as described:

He would sound very nice, maybe whisper to me what I need to do, could do to be successful or something. Yeah, He would whisper guidance to me all the time, so I would make the right choice all the time. He would leave no doubt of what He means, unlike the God from the church, from the bible, who just tells me to be obedient and do His Will, without giving me any clue about what that exactly means.

He would not really think anything of me I guess. He would just let me be me and be successful. He also wouldn’t need to, as I guess He would be busy enough taking care of all things in the universe, so I wouldn’t really need a lot from Him. I can just manage alone, as long as I have enough funds and such. If He would give me enough money now I am pretty sure I can manage most things myself, without needing further assistance from Him. I would just want him to see me enjoy life, see me do good, good in the sense of material stuff I would enjoy, as well as me doing good to other people, do good in the world. He would laugh in a nice way, enjoying seeing me enjoy life, enjoying seeing me travel, build businesses, helping other people be happy and joyful.

Right now He would say about me something like “Hey, see, that is Guus. He suffered so much, but I gave him money, gave him what he wanted, and see him now, see how much he enjoys and how he does good in the world. Take a sample in him, as he overcame all this suffering, didn’t kill himself even, no matter how much pain and suffering I gave him, but he endured and finally got what he wanted and is living a perfect life now, a life as how I meant life to be”.

And I am not sure how He would look like. Maybe like a younger version of me, but then more handsome, like someone I would be sexually attracted to.

The God Of My Understanding

Now

I was not satisfied yesterday, as I usually am not satisfied with any post, or sometimes page, I write. One reason is that I could not find, or actually did not make the time, to find an image for this post, this ‘page’, and it seems I am, or my ego is, compelled with finding or putting an image on every post or page I write here. And yes, of course the reason is Search Engine Optimization (SEO), as Google is said to rank internet pages lower if there is no image or if there are no images. And if there is no image, no page image, I cannot properly share this post in Facebook, as of course if I share something there must be an image, otherwise people won’t like my post so much, or not click on the link, not ‘see me’.

So yes, it seems all those rules I set for myself seem to be related to ‘be seen’, to be recognized. And as I know now, that is the ego that wants to be seen and recognized.

And right now I am not satisfied either, as this text, this chapter, probably belongs to another post, another page, not this page with the title “The God Of My Understanding”.

And strange, the image I found when searching for ‘ego’ in AllTheFreeStock.

.Alter Ego

And right now my ego is causing me a lot of stress as the image is not uploading fast enough to my liking. Ah, and that is what I wanted to share, that I am trying to learn a lot recently from the teachings of Eckhart Tolle. I was just starting to listen to his book of which a spoken version is available on YouTube.

And weird, right now the complete opposite is happening to me as to what is being taught by Eckhart Tolle: my ego seems to have taken over completely and I am trying to do many things at the same time instead of staying in the now, what would give me peace, what would give peace, what is the only thing that probably is important: staying in the now.

Yesterday

For quite a while I have been very angry with God. Or at least I am very much struggling with the issue of “God’s will (for me”. As I have the feeling God’s will for me is completely opposite to what I want. I have the feeling God is completely against what I want and wants me to do something else than what I want. And this goes so far that I have virtually completely given up wanting anything, as God is against it anyway. So why would I want something and even do effort for it if God is against it anyhow. As also in my belief system is that God is all powerful and that nothing that God does not want will happen. And what God wants will happen.

So today I found myself verbalizing what I believe God wants from me, what God’s will for me is in my understanding. And I found myself writing something that God wants me to go to the US working in some kind of ‘simple’ job like cleaning in order to pay for my livelihood, for my food and such. And  what God wants from me would imply I would need to leave my house and the dogs behind, and basically leave everything behind and start anew somewhere else, somewhere in a strange place I have no connection with, don’t know anybody and things like that. He would also want me to leave my computer systems behind, a computer system that holds all my data, including a lot of history and photos and web development stuff and such, a computer system I have put an awful lot of effort in building, even though I can’t fully maintain it the way I want it at the moment and was even confronted with a disk crash yesterday where part of my data was kind of lost. A pretty ‘impossible’ situation, as normally I keep almost everything in duplicate and next to that keep backups of my most important data that cannot be replaced or cannot easily be replaced.

Actually that disk crash was the starting point of a pretty bad mood in which I started writing down those thoughts about God’s will for me. And that might actually be a good thing, as it made me verbalize, realize what I believe God’s will is for me and what keeps me trapped in virtually doing ‘nothing’.

The strange things about my belief in what God’s will for me is, is that He always answers my prayers related to the dogs. As Ulla died at home, for which I prayed very hard and serious and Arf survived a very bad situation and Iwa’s tumors are gone. And with Ulla I even got more than I asked for, as I only asked for her to come home and die at home. God gave her even half a year more to live. And Arf’s tumor appeared not to be a real tumor and he survived as I was guided to the vet at the very last minute. And Iwa’s tumors disappearing recently is a real miracle. I could have never believed that really as it appeared to me she would die very soon as the tumors started to spread very quickly. And suddenly they just disappeared.

So God answering my prayers about the dogs is kind of contradictory to me for leaving them behind. And God wanting me to do a simple cleaning job or something is kind of contradictory to having a more than higher IQ than average and even having a Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering. And don’t get me wrong, nothing wrong with any job, whether simple or complicated or whether requiring intelligence or not. But it just doesn’t make sense to me God gave me a more than average intelligence and not wanting me to use it (in a job). And I have a back injury, so not very convenient for me to do a lot of physical work. And having this pretty advanced computer network at home and giving it up also doesn’t make much sense to me, even though I don’t really need it anymore. But just letting it go is just too much to me and doesn’t make much sense, which is why I am still kind of keeping it alive.

So thinking further it appears to me that the God of my understanding is (still) completely against anything I want, except maybe when I pray for something with the health of the dogs. And thinking further a God who is completely against everything I want sounds more like a (the) devil to me than a (loving) God. As to me ‘loving’ implies helping and supporting the thing or person one loves. And being against everything I want and blocking it feels more like torture than like love to me.

Related to ‘love’ I often compare God’s relation with me with the relation I have with my dog Arf as I indeed want Arf doing what I want and not what he wants, regardless the fact that I love him very much. And that hurts me often, as I want to give him so much more freedom, but I don’t want him to fight with YokYok, which is why I keep him on a leash, and I don’t want him to get hurt in an accident, which is why I don’t want him to go out of the compound, out of the garden.

Anyhow, it is still weird to me that God does not seem to want to help me with restoring my relationship and with my career, with my business, the two things I want most, as my (ex-)partner still does not want to be my lover and partner again and I am still alone with my DoctorsConnect business, without clients or beta-testers even.

And yes, I understand God would not want to change my (ex-)partner as He gave us, humans, free will and He wouldn’t want to mess with that, even though I read many stories in the bible where God changed the mindset or thinking of human beings. I don’t understand why He didn’t let me meet the right people to either build a team or to find clients or beta-testers. I strongly believe God is capable of arranging something like that, and after more than three years that still did not happen. And I think “I did my part”, even though a few months I kind of gave up and decided to “let God” make my project happen as I think I did enough and have no clue what else to do (if God is so much against my project).

Enough for now I guess. And I hope you won’t consider this as a ‘negative’ post, as it kind of helped me writing down the truth about my thoughts and feelings about “God’s will”, love, and what I really want.

My ideal (loving) Higher Power

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.

The love of God

I recently started a post A loving Higher Power. And maybe I better continue extending and improving that post, but somehow I wanted to start from scratch again as I am struggling so much with ‘Love’.

And today or yesterday the definition as given in The Matrix came back to my mind. It was said by, well, I forgot the name, but I will put later. The guy from the Machine World that Neo meets in the railway station. Found it: Rama Kandra.

Ah, and I feel so restless, not really in the mood of writing. But I also know writing is good for me. And so many things to do…

And it is a few days after I started this post now. And I just had a phone call with my mom in which she told me what she put on the grave of my dad: “God is love”. Not sure why she mentioned it and she did not know why she put it. She said it just came to here to put that.

And that brings me back to writing here, as this page is exactly about that. And I guess it cannot be coincidence that she mentioned it, even though I mentioned to her about my struggle with ‘love’ in relation to God, in relation to Higher Power.

And I thought I put a link to ‘Love’ as written about in Wikipedia, but apparently I didn’t. Or I did somewhere else. And this may be an important paragraph about it in Wikipedia:

Ancient Greek philosophers identified four forms of love: essentially, familial love (in Greekstorge), friendly love (philia), romantic love (eros), and divine love (agape). Modern authors have distinguished further varieties of love: infatuated loveself-love, and courtly love. Non-Western traditions have also distinguished variants or symbioses of these states. Love has additional religious or spiritual meaning. This diversity of uses and meanings combined with the complexity of the feelings involved makes love unusually difficult to consistently define, compared to other emotional states.

And I remember the word agape mentioned related to the love of God, I think from a religious meeting or attending church. Not much in the article worth copying here though at first sight, so I guess I have to write myself a bit more and/or do some more research.

And I am pretty tired and still kind of upset, as today it was confirmed Iwa, one of my dogs, has a tumor that needs to be treated. And unfortunately the vet is on holiday for two weeks, so I feel pretty stressed and confused, as I am thinking of cancer spreading. And I would like, love(?!) Iwa to stay quite a bit longer, as she is not that old yet.

So yes, I feel like stopping now, need some rest. And yes, I will try to pray, hoping God will cure Iwa. Not easy believing in a loving God with things like this, like sickness and possible death from that.