Those Goddam Toltecs Again

Some things I've found interesting in my perusal of the ins and outs of the spirituality practiced by the Toltecs . . . 

The word "resentment" is French in origin and it literally means "to feel again."  There are so many great analogies tossed around in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous but one I really like is that a resentment is like taking poison and hoping that your enemy?  opponent?  average person who is pissing you off for the most trivial and stupid reasons? dies.

And the Toltec aphorism in slightly different words: "This is what resentment is: self-inflicted suffering with emotional poison we wish for another."  I think about the many low-level discussions I've had in my mind with Hot Tub Guy who - and I can guarantee the accuracy of the following statement - has never once, not ever, thought about me for one minute.  I'm taking the poison.  I'm the idiot taking the poison even though he's the real idiot.

"You also need to forgive yourself - you were doing the best you could at the time; there is no need to beat yourself up."  I like to apply this principle to people who have had a significant effect on my life.  I take great comfort in migrating from the idea that my parents didn't give me what I needed to the one that they were doing the best they could with the tools that they had and while - I may add - dealing with a nightmare of a difficult, depressed, defiant teenager.  In that light they did a pretty good goddam job.

"Don't subjugate yourself with 'I have to.' "  Man, the time I spend criticizing what I have left undone would fill up the Panama Canal.  It's never enough with me.  Never.  Enough.

"Nothing anyone does is because of you.  It's never personal, even if someone intends it to be so, as you are simply standing in the target zone."  Or in A.A. speak: No one is thinking about me.  I spend all day thinking about myself and not one goddam minute thinking about you yet I continue to live in the fantasy that everyone else is always thinking about me.  Goddam I'm an idiot.

"If you have clouded your Personal Dream with resentment, the first step to changing this is to become aware of it."  How much of my life was spent pre-recovery seething at all the slights and sins and arrows and darts shot my way while protesting that nothing was bothering me.  

EVERYTHING was bothering me!  You're bothering me right now!  Stop what you're doing IMMEDIATELY and quit bothering me!