Patterns

I am not always certain what I am seeking from the time spent with my teacher. I am clear that I hope to find a way to honestly meet, forgive and love myself in a manner that has previously eluded me. I think only then can I recognize and authentically nurture connection with others.

This needs to be sought as an end in itself and not with the objective of being the best little boy or the brightest most-enlightened spiritual student in the eyes of my teacher. It requires abandoning machinations and manipulations. It requires trust that his love is. Whether I am awake or not.

Yet the yearning for external approval and the propensity for self-hatred at times feel indefatigable. Lifelong patterns to be recognized and replaced. This is not easy, especially when one recognizes these as self-truths rather than patterns that can be replaced. It feels possible they are so ingrained that an alternative way of being is not even imaginable.

Years of therapy, twelve-step programs, shelves full of self-help books and biographies of individuals gone mad who ultimately found a way to exist. Countless attempts to analyze why these patterns exist within me, to mantra and positive-affirmate them out of existence. Fourteen thousand miles logged on a bicycle.

And in all of this, the question, “Is this absolutely necessary?” remained unasked.

So as I encounter and recognize these as patterns, I try to ask myself, “Do you believe this is necessary?