You Can't Be Loved Until You Make Peace With Betrayal

I watched Helen Hunt’s movie (Then She Found Me) yesterday. I watched all the special features today, including the movie with director’s voiceover. I recommend the movie. I found it moving: funny and sad; insightful, true.

Turns out I had written about some main themes in this movie 14 months ago (below) – because I had read Helen Hunt being interviewed about it and I was really moved.

I watched the movie and didn’t realize it was THAT movie until it was done. I’d ‘accidentally’ bought the DVD at goodwill for $4 because it had great people in it.

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Monday, June 02, 2008

Hi Friends,

I haven’t seen Helen Hunt's new movie, J & Y weren't overly impressed by it.

But, I received some treasure from reading about her process with it. This is from an interview Redbook, May 08:

I spent a lot of years writing, then put the script away because I just couldn't get it made. The best movies have one sentence that they're exploring, a thesis, something that people can argue about over dinner afterward. I couldn't say what that was.

At the time, I was wanting a baby. April's younger in the novel, and I thought, You either have a baby, want a baby, or don't want a baby, but you don't nothing a baby if you're in your 30s or 40s. Then a friend sent me an essay by James Hillman [author of The Soul's Code] called "Betrayal." I studied and studied it. I started to realize that people will think this movie is about adoption or motherhood, but for me it's about this issue of betrayal. April feels betrayed by everybody. She betrays herself. She feels betrayed by God. I finally landed on the idea that you can't be loved until you make peace with betrayal. With that, I had a compass for the movie.

I read this line and I was arrested by it:

you can't be loved until you make peace with betrayal

WOW, That sets an interesting and useful context for issues I have been chewing on and struggling with in the last few years, and for most of my life. And it is not just me, I see other folks that I am close to be “hooked” around the issues in this arena.

So, of course, I immediately found this essay (last night), and I am already profiting from it - and I expect I will continue to find continued blessing as I dwell here. Hillman presents several aspects to this issue of betrayal that I find to be useful places to stand to consider my own world-view and experience; it has already given me useful insight into others’ choices around things like intimacy and leadership, as well.

If you are interested, here is a link

http://www.blacksunjournal.com/psychology/18_betrayal-part-1-of-3-by-james-hillman_2001.html

(remember, eat the fruit; spit out the pits)

hope you are enjoying your cycles of love and learning,

in life,

wendy

in case the above link disappears, I put a copy of BETRAYAL here 

Mountains are not better than valleys. Valleys are not better than mountains.

I have been getting schooled in some things the last couple weeks - the main message of which, I keep getting as:

Mountains are not better than valleys. Valleys are not better than mountains.

Which is the picture and words for the general concept:

dichotomies, or opposites - just Are in this reality, and are not (on a spiritual level) to be set in competition (including judgment) with each other. Mountains and valleys each just Are.

I may Prefer one thing to another at a particular time/space, but in and of itself on a spiritual level -

left is not better than right

fat is not better than thin

old is not better than young

rich is not better than poor

death is not better than birth

war is not better than peace

you probably get the idea...

(Of course, spiritually, one becomes more or less beneficial for me the moment Gd says - 'go left', or 'sell all you have and follow me'. I am bringing this up to be clear, but this is an aside from what I am learning right now...)

In context, a couple weeks ago, Gd started me working with Jesus on a Big healing project - basically integrating 2 large ‘bags of energy’ = basically 'lost parts' of myself. (one bag can be called ‘shadow stuff’; one could say the other bag is a ‘male’ counterpart to myself).

This full integration will probably take about a year, but the perception of change within (and outside me a bit) is palpable. The enjoyable part has been that I feel increasing more whole – remarkably so – like Swiss cheese getting filled in. Or like I was filled with billiard balls and now all the spaces are getting filled with sand – it is bizarre! The interesting part is learning to ride the wave of different emotions and ‘ways of being’ that are surfacing, that I haven’t had to ‘handle’ consciously as I am now – like male aggression! The challenging part energetically is – there are many reasons why I separated these parts of myself (beliefs, experiences, limits, lies, judgments, etc). So, predictably, as I reintegrate these ‘lost parts’, it is intense and stirs up many things that I need to allow Gd to wash away, if I am to keep going and not pop / die / go insane - whatever!

So Jesus has encouraged me to work with Lao Tse (yeah, the ~4–6th century BCE Chinese Philosopher, founder of Taoism, who the wrote Daodejing)

Lao Tse has been extraordinary in assisting me to let go of the many things that cause me to be ‘bent’ and reject my *self* – things like judgment, etc. These issues caused me to separate myself from myself. And now, these issues are in the way of re-integration…

Lao Tse has been assisting me SO Much with these changes. And with helping me to open to receiving energy from Gd that helps me to release judgment etc, allow more balance, and continually let go. I have been calling the energy equanimity, which is probably accurate, but doesn’t feel big enough. I have found reading a definition of ‘Pu’ (a major concept in the Daodejing) feels like it may be a more well-rounded description of the energy I am receiving from Gd, and foundationally what I am learning from Lao Tse (I have some stuff below on Pu if you are interested)

Anyway my picture for this learning of non-judgment and balance is – The mountain and the valley next to each other – juxtaposed – with no prejudice, no preconceptions, no better-ness between them…


Pu

lit. "uncut wood"

translated "uncarved block", "unhewn log", or "simplicity".

represents a state of receptiveness, child-likeness.

Pu is a symbol for a state of pure potential and perception without prejudice.

In this state, Taoists believe everything is seen as it is, without preconceptions or illusion.

unburdened by knowledge or experiences.

no right or wrong, beautiful or ugly.

only pure experience, or awareness, free from learned labels and definitions.

It is this state of being that is the goal of following wu wei.

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an associated post, with Lao Tzu: Finding Balance: let the waves come, let them go