From Warrior Dialogues (new pre-SWEDA waiting area at the inner forum)

There are no good things ahead for any of us. There are only good things here and now, and there is nothing grandiose about them.

Settle for the little that you know and begin to discard the rest, based on the knowing that it might well be a delusion, and that if it is, there's nothing to lose by discarding it, and if it isn't, it will stick around anyway.

Truth is the one thing you can count on to never let you down.

It is only the mind that says we cannot know anything. And the mind is right: IT cannot know anything, including that WE cannot know anything. The intellect assumes since it can't access reality, then nothing can. But our bodies know all sorts of things, and so do our hearts. Try listening to them for just one day, one whole day, ignore your mind, and see how that changes your perspective.

***

Family relations: The main thing is to find and reestablish our own boundaries. Then it will cease to feel (so much ) like other people are doing something to us, because their actions won't be interfering with our own orientation and space, except when they really are, which is when those boundaries are being crossed. Then we will know it and are free to respond with all the anger and hostility (protective energy) the situation calls for.

Being surrendered isn't about being Ghandhi, or a walk-over for all our family and friends. Anyway, the AA is to learn about being a warrior, not about surrendering. That comes later.

There is nothing wrong with direct confrontation with other people, provided we aren't trying to change them, only their behavior around us. "This is acceptable, this is not." If the other, or the mother, understands our reasons for drawing those boundaries, that's great. If s/he doesn't, it's not our business. They can at least respect them, and we are entitled to give them hell when they don't. The trick is to give them hell from a place of openness and not a place of hardness. That's when you can really have some impact!

In simple terms, it is more effective to express your anger calmly ("I am really furious with you now and here's why") than to let our anger possess us. ("Fuck you, you bitch, I fucking hate you!!")

***

Being all at sea reduces our options. All the paddling and thrashing we do may help or it may not; chances are it's superfluous, because the wind and the current is going to determine whether we reach shore or not, and if we don;t even know which way the shore is, then stillness would seem to be the only reasonable option.

Observing the signs may help, however. Birds are usually a signal that land is close. And floating debris.

I am certainly feeling all washed up myself these daze. Is the advice of the fellow shipwrecked worth anything? Perhaps more than those still sitting comfortable on their ships, at least, unaware of the iceberg ahead.

As for people depending on us: are we sure that's true? We are responsible to our own story, our own truth. No one does anything to a warrior, so then a warrior isn't beholden to others. Our life intersects with those of another, or others; does that mean those lives are then conjoined? If we experience others' dependence on us as a heavy load, it's safe to say we are becoming a burden upon them. A warrior sees all beings as equal, whether a king or a cockroach. He never alters his coarse out of a sense of duty or obligation to another, because to do so would be to assume he knows better than that person what they need. Not only that, it is to assume he knows better than the Universe, since, whatever predicament that person finds themselves in, it was the Universe that brought them there.

The only question then, as ever, is does this path have heart? To leave our path because we perceive others as depending on us is to let everyone down, starting with ourselves and ending with the entire Universe. And our paltry compensation? Knowing we did "the right thing"?

If we can't do right by ourselves, and keep to that path with a heart, how are we ever going to do right by another?