When Good Friends Turn Bad; Or Do They...

I have been asked over the years a similar question by quite a number of people. What is interesting is that I am often asked questions to situations which I have dealt with personally on more than one occasion and have quite a "history" of  experience dealing with it behind me.

I was once again asked the same question in a comment on a previous post on here very recently, and decided to devote a post to it.

The question is about friendship and why we attract to us those friends who use us a "whipping posts" when it suits their needs, and there never follows an apology for their actions. And, why do such people exist.

I want to dissect this a little because over the years, I have had my fair share of encounters with individuals who have treated me and our friendship this way.

First off, that kind of behaviour is abusive. Plain and simple. But sometimes, there is a deeper meaning and  reason to why we are attracting such people into our lives.

Like an onion, we must uncover the layers, and in each layer there contains a hidden meaning and a potential misunderstanding. Sometimes, the onion is large with many layers; other times, it is small and getting to the bulb is easy. As the person standing on the outside looking in at the complete onion, not dissecting and uncovering each layer; it is hard to know whether its simply a big onion with thick layers, or a big onion with lots and lots of layers... or in even more simple terms, baggage.

First of all, to understand abuse one must look a little into the premise of abuse and what is the drive behind it. A man hits a woman, did she simply "piss him off" and his violent nature was to strike out and hit her? The situation that lined itself up for the end outcome of physical violence is never one that is simply a surface matter. Violence and rage has deep seeded seeds which have been planted long, long ago. Most people may not even remember when or where the seeds were planted, this takes work and working with someone who can help guide the individual who is truly willing and wanting to work at finding the seeds to eradicate them.

Abuse simply stems from a need for power and control. That is the basis of any and all abuse.

When an individual strikes out physically or verbally (even sexually, as in the case with sex abusers), they are in a place of complete and total lack of control or power of themselves or a situation. The only way they know how to regain some of it, and feed their ever starved EGO, is to take it from someone else who does not, or will not, or can not, stand up for themselves and who allows it.

For an individual who is on the receiving end, this can not only be detrimental, but etheric psychology begins to create a pattern which puts an individual into a cycle. Similar to the cycle of one who lives in an abusive relationship.

The abuser is one who generally has very low self-esteem even if they cover it up with a mask that suggests otherwise. There are subtle flaws in their mask that could easily identify them in the presence of an individual who is keenly aware of such characteristics. Certain words spoken, gestures made, looks given can often betray the individual who has potentiality for abuse.

In the situation of a friendship, as time progresses and people become more comfortable around the other, cracks begin to appear in the facade and portions of the true Self begin to show through. Sometimes, it is a layer that is not wanting to be shown, a vulnerability that needs to be kept hidden for reasons known only to the individual. If an "outsider" (and by that, I mean any person outside of the Self), catches even a momentary glimpse, or the individual feels threatened in any way, shape, or form by a word, an action, a gesture, or a look; they can easily begin to strike out.

As in all abuse situations, it begins slowly. It is a grooming process. Maybe something said in a joke or in simple passing, all calculated "tests" to see how far they can push. While the individual acting in this way may not be cognitive about it, their entire MO has become such that the psyche is always working in that direction.

Often, it is a protective mechanism. As a friend, you might be aware of their past, or some aspects of their past, so it might be a bit more easily identified as to where their attacks are originating from. But, often we do not know, we simply become the target.

As I have mentioned in past posts, how we react to situations is a way of how our psyche sees a reflection in a mirror. We react in a joyful and happy way, because what we are witnessing or experiencing is reflecting a part of ourselves that we love, we adore, we have fun with. When we react in anger or annoyance (or any negative emotion), it is important to stop and ask ourselves what it is about ourselves that we are reacting to. What mirror image are we seeing that we do not like about ourselves.

I am sure I have shared a story about the time I was studying Kabbalah with The Kabbalah Center, but for the purpose of this post, I will share it again.

At that time, we often had large seminar-type meetings open to the general public who wanted to learn more about Kabbalah as well as understanding Self more. The meetings cost money to attend, and while it was not a huge cost, it was still a cost nonetheless. Most people pre-registered to attend, and many had already pre-paid.

My husband and I were very active with the Kabbalah group here in Phoenix and we often volunteered our time in helping and doing our part to help build the group up. So this particular weekend, my husband and I were working the registration desk. Through the day, we had various people stopping by and asking simple questions, some paid at the door to learn more, others just wanted a quick overview and then went on their way. For many, the whole "Is this the same thing that Madonna does?" drew them in to learn more. It was all routine stuff for us, we'd heard it all before.

Just before registration ended and the seminar was to begin, a older lady and her son arrived. He had pre-registered for both of them and all that was needed was their registration number and their money to get in. He had no problems with all that and my husband was taking care of it. Suddenly his mother started with a barrage of questions for me, but not simply asking but asking in a manner that was argumentative and aggressive. She seemed like she was looking for a fight. She demanded to know where the money paid was going, why they had to pay, what was the point in it all, etc... etc... etc... For about ten minutes she stood there, confrontational and to some degree, I felt she was quite offensive. I answered her questions and tried to stay as level-headed as possible to her seeming attacks.

Each word out of her mouth seemed to cut me deeper.

After she and her son went into the seminar, I mentioned something to my husband. Now you have to understand, my husband is one of the most laid-back, roll-with-the-punches guy you will ever meet. He's either completely oblivious to confrontation unless its right in his face, or he just does not get affected by things like I do (and yes, I can be quite a hot-head at times, I admit). True-to-form, he answered my statement of "WOW! What was up her ass? She was really offensive and with no cause" with "I didn't notice anything. She just had questions, and she might have had an attitude with them, but I didn't think she was being offensive."

This got me thinking long and hard about what had taken place and especially at my reaction to it. On Monday, I made a call to my teacher with the Kabbalah Center, I told him of the events and said to him these exact words; "Yehuda, I have gone over and over in my mind this whole "mirror thing". I can not understand where I was seeing myself reflected in that woman and her attitude. I would never talk to another person the way she talked to me. So why am I reacting to the degree that I am?" I really was confused, had been for two days. I'd replayed it over and over in my mind and I simply could not see what it was that was reflecting back that I was reacting to.

When Yehuda answered me, it put the whole theory of the "onion" into perspective for me. Often, we look at an onion as a whole, we don't think of the individual layers that create the whole image. So, when we react to something that is a "mirror" back to us, it is not necessarily something that we are seeing reflecting on the surface, but rather it is contained in a layer somewhere in the mass of layers.

He told me that possibly I had "trust issues" because the woman's reaction and her questioning was obviously of someone who lacked trust, who was questioning because she did not have the trust in what was simply being presented.

The moment he told me this, it was like a light-bulb went off in my head, it was a complete "a-ha" moment for me. He was right. Most of my life, I had major trust issues, it was something I kept close to myself but I never opened myself up to anyone, I always held much of myself closed in and closed down. I felt that any little piece of "me" that I exposed, would easily be exploited and used against me. I'd had good cause for these thoughts and feelings from experiences in my past. And as time moved on, I often found myself in situations with individuals where I would allow myself to open up just a little, only to be taken advantage of and my issue of trust forged an even greater and thicker protection and barrier as I shut myself down more.

I finally "got it". I understood. And I knew that that woman had actually presented me with a gift. It was something that was being dredged up, but that needed to be addressed.

We "attract" individuals in to our lives who treat us in certain ways because they are truly showing us areas of our lives that we need to focus on, dredge up, contemplate, meditate on, understand, and finally let go.

Being a "whipping post" for people is not easy. Not in the least. Those who do the whipping also have issues which needs personal introspection and finding release from. But those of us who have been the whipping post, we need to understand why it keeps happening to us. What lessons are being presented time and time again that WE need to learn.

Many of us can say this about ourselves, "I am not a person who retaliates in conflict". But to what nth do we allow ourselves to stand at the post and be whipped by others who feed their need for power and control. When is enough enough and the proverbial straw that breaks the camels back finally the last straw? When can we stop giving our power and control away to others, and take a stand and understand why it is happening over and over again? This is where it starts to get interesting for us because we have to ask ourselves;

"Am I truly ready to find what is buried and let it go? Am I truly ready to be done with this? Am I ready to move forward and free myself?" 

We do not need to retaliate in conflict, what is important is that we find strength and love of our Selves that is so strong and deep within us to make a stand and say "enough is enough". Simply stop it. Sometimes, we must have conflict to finally end the cycle. Often, we must show that part of ourselves that we deem ourselves worthy enough to never allow this to happen again. It's not an easy thing, it's not comfortable to do; but often,

The things which are the least comfortable for us to do, have the greatest long-term benefits. 

Once we start standing up for our Selves, once we delve deep to understand the pattern that has been painted before us in the individuals who we have drawn to us, and the abuse that has been dished up to us; then we can begin to trace it back to the originating seed. Once the seed is found, dig it up, throw it out, and let it go. Find forgiveness, and find gratitude in all those who have (over the months and even years) brought this to the surface for you to experience, seek, find, and then release.

In love and in gratitude, release that which keeps returning in a cycular pattern, and in so doing release the energies which continue to attract them into your life. 

Once you do this, you will find that the individuals in your life who are continuing this pattern, will make their exit and you will be free of that pattern.

To attract healthy individuals into your life, I suggest taking time to really reflect on the type of friends you want to surround yourself with. Focus on their qualities. As you take time to do this, get out a piece of paper and begin noting down all the positive qualities you would ideally like those you surround yourself with, to have. The more you focus on the types of people you want to surround yourself with, the more you will also become the type of person who is cognitively and etherically healthy enough to attract such individuals into your life.

The more we focus on something, the more we create it into being.

My suggestion is to not put down such outlandish things that you are not yourself; for instance, if you are an artist-type, but you decide that it is important to surround yourself with scientists or business people, you need to ask yourself why that is important to you, and what would you honestly have in common? I suggest being more general in attributes that would appeal to you. An example of what your paper could look like would be focusing on attributes such as:

Open minded

Spiritually aware

Non-judgmental

Generous

Healthy sense of humour

 Healthy awareness of boundaries

Mature

etc...

You could even list similar likes to you on there, such as "enjoys wine and cheese tasting", "likes the theatre", etc. 

Post your "list" someplace where you can view it often; it will like a "vision board". As you evolve into the person who is ready for friends with such attributes, you'll find your Self expanding in a direction geared towards your list. For example, if you've always wanted to open yourself up more to spirituality, but had more of a religious up-bringing than spiritual, you might find yourself attending lectures or discussion groups on different spiritual paths. Within those groups, you might meet a group of friends who also "fit" as far as other aspects of your list goes. 

What most people don't realise is that life, and living, is a process of evolution. 

While we can easily see the "evolution" from infancy to childhood to adulthood and then old-age, what we can not see is the etheric and psychological evolution that takes place in all of us. Each experience we encounter is nothing more than a expansion of mind as we evolve further on life's-journey. Embrace it as it arises, understand it, apply it, and then let it go to move on to the next experience and journey.

_/|\_

Namaste

©Leyla Hur

All Rights Reserved. Copying, altering, displaying or redistribution of this material without written permission from the author is strictly prohibited.

My Awakening

Over the past few days, I feel like I have come into a new Spiritual Awakening, a complete and total understanding. To keep this locked up inside of me would not service me, or whoever might be reading this.

For too long, I have tried to find “understanding” within the walls of religion. Recently, I had a comment from someone that was very negative in its very words, but in comprehending, pondering, meditating, and then understanding, I find myself sitting here tonight with complete understanding.

The individual who wrote to me accused me of having an “identity crisis”, they told me that I should have “gotten over” my identity crisis years ago. While my initial reaction was one of complete shock and hurt at the words, I now am grateful for those words because it caused me to open my heart and my mind to complete and total opening up to my Self.

Over the years, I have traversed many spiritual paths, gone on spiritual journeys, and tried very hard to find my sense of “belonging” within the walls of organized religion.

This started in my mid-teens when I was in a foreign country attending school in a distant location from the town I was living in with my Grandparents. Alone, lonely, away from “home” (the home that I had grown up in with my parents), and without the friends I had known most of my life, I was friendless in this town. The only people I could consider as “friends” from school lived in the city, a distance from where I was.

In that loneliness, I was introduced to the Mormon Church via members of the church who embraced me and accepted me as one of their own. At 16-years-old, it was no wonder that their complete, total, unconditional acceptance appealed to me and drew me in. Whether I actually believed in the teachings of the church, I felt that I had found my place of belonging.

After I was baptized in to the Church, I found myself leaving within 9-months. I began my true “journey” through many different paths and religions, returning often to the Church, but never staying long.

For so many years I could not understand why I was not “satisfied” to just give up my life and any other beliefs that I might have and remain within the bonds of the church; at the same time, I wondered why I kept being drawn back to the church.

So when I was finally “out” of the church, my name removed from their records as if I was never even in existence; in essence, wiping me away from the mind and the cognition of God, I felt freed and relief. Now, I was finally released to truly explore my own truth.

After my father died, I delved in to the religion of my ancestors, my father and my birth; Islam.

Initial study taught me that Islam was more a way of life; it was a spirituality where Allah (God) was everything, not merely IN everything, but actually WAS everything.

Removed was the belief and teaching that God was a mortal man, an image that I simply could not comprehend since first learning about this “white-bearded Deity”. My mortal conceptualization of an omnipresent being contained within a body of flesh and bone seemed overtly limiting to me. The idea of a Holy Ghost and Son seemed even more foreign to me.

So, as I delved more into the study of Islam, things began to make sense. And that is why when I was first harassed by what are known as “haraam police” (haraam meaning “forbidden”), I was shocked. These individuals claiming that their “correcting” me was “sunnah” and that if I was to be a Muslim, I had “better get used to it”.

Often, I felt like I was a mere child being scolded continually by individuals whom I had never met and whom I did not know; strangers, that were labeled as “sisters” simply because we were both Muslim.

I became increasingly frustrated and angered at these people who were correcting my every thought, my every belief, my every action, and most often these individuals were much younger than me.

A couple of times, I came close to giving up the entire aspect of Islam because of the nastiness that was spouting out of these individuals, followed up by the prevalent “I say this because I love you for the sake of Allah”. What the hell did that sentiment mean? They only “loved” me to keep in the ‘good graces’ of Allah; and that “I”, the “you” they were correcting, had no matter, no meaning, no worth?

I began to withdraw from a lot of the social and religious activities within the community as the offense of more than one unnerved me. I was told by the select few I confided in to just “ignore them”; but in my doing that, I was continuing to give them permission to act in such an abusive manner.

An individual with my background does not accept abuse by simply rolling over and taking it. I have long-learned to open my mouth, stand out strong and tall, and shout out against abuse.

In my frustration, I tried to understand why I kept delving back in to different spiritual paths. Why was I not simply satisfied with “me”? What was I truly searching for, and would I ever really find it?

In a moment of complete and sheer frustration, I unloaded on a dear friend, and divulged a part of myself to her. I let down my barriers and opened up to a secret I kept long buried. In my doing so, in her amazing response, and in my thinking about her words, I finally saw clearly the whole picture. I finally understood myself, my frustrations, my “need” to hide behind organized religion.

This was a process that first began last year, but I could not let myself go enough to be honest and truthful with who I was and “why” I was.

In this openness that I finally began embracing, I began to SEE and see for the very first time.

I began addressing issues that I had seen crop up time and time in religion, and especially what I had recently learned within the confines of Islam “the religion”.

One of the biggest issues was the idea of covering in the hijab. When I first covered, I did it for myself. I did for my own reasons and it had nothing to do with the common misnomer held within Islam. And I had often questioned myself if my own reasons for covering were “in line” with what was common thought within the religion itself.

The verse in the Quran says; “And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty…” Qu’ran 24:31

And when I finally came to understanding, I realized that when God speaks, He speaks in the whole sense of the explanation and it is us mere mortals who understand in literal, and in so-doing, MIS-understanding.

“Guarding” one’s modesty is something that most of us do already. What is “modesty” in the true understanding of the word? In the online Princeton Wordnet definition it says that modesty is freedom from vanity or conceit. When we guard against this, we are removing EGO (Edging God Out) from our lives.

So covering the body in “modesty” as the literal translation has been interpreted, might not be what the original belief was.

When I meditated on “lowering their gaze”, I realized that this was not something that was also literal, but realize that this was the precursor to guarding modesty. Again, I finally understood it to mean that we need to be aware of our surroundings. When we lower our gazes as we walk, we are being cognitive of the path ahead of us. While this is indicated towards us as individuals, it has a much bigger meaning to it. A deeper, more spiritual meaning and not the literal translation that has kept so many women covered in cloth for so long.

I questioned why, if modesty was such an important thing, were we all born naked and emerging out of our mother’s naked vaginas. And then I understood the complete picture…

We are already “covering our modesty” as we emerge out of the womb, as we are forming IN the womb. Our “covering” is our physical bodies, and this covers that which “drives” our bodies, our soul.

In discussion with my husband, he asked “So does this mean that we’ll all be naked in heaven?”

No. We will not be naked; we will not have the bodies which we have now, because we are nothing but forms of energy.

We say Allah is everything, not just IN everything, but IS everything. How could that be? What is true omnipotence? The concept is difficult to comprehend on so many levels. But as we transcend in Spiritual awareness, it makes complete and total sense. Upon shedding of our mortal bodies, we too are omnipotent in that we can be in more than one place at one time because we are nothing more than energy forms.

Does this concept align us with Allah and “enjoin” us to him? Yes and no.

Yes we are aligned because if we truly believe that Allah is the creator of all things, therefore OUR creator, we hold a strand of His DNA within us. This is shown in the mere fact that we are alive, we are breathing and we are feeling. We have a soul, and in that soul, He holds a part of us. This is what is called Divine Connection. This is also what links each and every single person upon this earth to each other.

Does this mean that we are in essence “Gods”? Yes and No. Yes in that we are creators of our own destinies, and no in the literal sense of the word. We each hold a part of God in us through that Divine Connection, but we are NOT Gods in that literal sense of the word, at least in my comprehension.

In answering my husband’s question, no we will not be “naked” because we will have no form to be naked with, but rather we are energy.

Someone asked tonight “how can God judge us, and why God would like some of us or dislike some of us when he doesn’t have a character and human emotions?”

I replied, “From what I have learned over my years (not IN religion), I have learned that this "judgment" is truly that Divine source in all of us (our soul connectedness) that will be responsible for judging us based on experience culminating with the intensity of Love on the Other Side, as well as complete and total understanding of the ages once removed from our physical form and limitations as well as human, earth-held, understanding. I have a very difficult time comprehending a "court" with the energy force that is Allah at the head handing down judgment and "sentencing".”

And I truly do believe this. It just makes complete and total sense to me. I suddenly “get it”, I understand and I feel completely freed in my understanding.

I no longer feel confined within the bounds of man-made religion. I finally can understand the concept of living and experiencing without the man-made rules and regulations.

Am I no longer “Muslim”? Yes I am, because I understand the meaning of Islam being “to submit” or “to surrender”, from the Arabic root word “Peace” (Salaam). Muslim means “one who submits”. But again, I do not believe that it means this in the literal sense, but rather in the limitless sense. 

We all submit and surrender in so many aspects of the meaning, being “submissive” does not mean the same thing which many have come to understand the meaning.

As a tree bends in the wind, so too we bend with the winds of change. It is a natural process.

Life is as easy or difficult as we choose to make it. For me, I choose to make life easy, without all the confines of rules and regulations, rights and wrongs. I choose to simply Be.

The true purpose of life; is to experience, and in those experiences we learn, we expand our minds, and we live.

©Leyla Hur

All Rights Reserved. Copying, altering, displaying or redistribution of this material without written permission from the author is strictly prohibited.