Question:

Théun, can you please give me some guidance on embarrassment? I have felt embarrassed all my life. I feel embarrassed for not having been the son my parents wanted me to be. But most especially do I feel embarrassed that I was never like my father who was seen as a man with great sexual prowess, and whom I admired for this. But then later I found out that my father did NOT really have as much sexual prowess as I had believed he had, and this then too made me feel embarrassed!

Théun’s Guidance:

Let us keep it simple for now, do you agree?

What is embarrassment? Is it not merely one’s self-image that has taken a BIG knock? It is quite different to REMORSE, for remorse implies that we feel BAD about having come to REALISE that we have done WRONG towards another. I wanted to point this out to you because you so often confuse these two “feelings” in yourself.

On the one hand you “feel” embarrassed because in YOUR perception of what your father THOUGHT of your sexual prowess, you are less male than he had wanted his only son to be. You also “feel” embarrassed because you went out and proved this to yourself. But, on the other hand, you also “feel” remorse because in YOUR perception of what you THOUGHT your father wanted for you, you were NEVER the male he so much wanted YOU to be! Then again you felt remorse when you discovered that he was never the male he had led you to believe he was, but neither were YOU! LOL! What a CON-FUSED mess between father and son!

My friend, there is only ONE thing that you NEED to do right NOW! Start by LEARNING how to FORGIVE yourself for having been a failure in the eyes of both your father and your mother! And the way in which to tackle this is to say to yourself, “To HELL with this stupid self-image I have been trying to FIX for my whole life!”

What is causing you embarrassment is the fact that even YOU find your self-image to be unacceptable, and therefore you are TERRIFIED that others will see it for what it is! And what is causing you remorse is the fact that YOU believe you failed both your father AND your mother! But you know what? The REAL source of embarrassment in you is that you are HOLDING ONTO your rather miserable self-image when you KNOW that it is NOT serving you! And your REAL sense of remorse comes from KNOWING that you are UNDERMINING yourself by holding ONTO the belief of being a good-for-nothing failure! So a good place for you to start learning HOW to forgive yourself is to forgive yourself for your rotten self-image! LOL!

I KNOW that people believe they ARE their self-images, but believe me, there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY on the Warrior’s Path that ANYONE’S self-image CAN survive the onslaughts of power! LOL! Either you PROTECT your self-image like crazy, and try your best to use the teachings to FIX your self-image, in which case the warrior in you HAS to be defeated sooner rather than later; or else you ABANDON your self-image as quickly as possible in order to allow the warrior in you to surface and FIGHT for its life, NOT fight for your self-image, but FOR your LIFE! Do you grasp, my friend?

What makes for cultivating a self-image? And what makes for fighting FOR your life? B-:) You cannot possibly fight FOR your life whilst you are still judging yourself and blaming yourself for somehow being BAD! But this is SUCH a difficult concept to get across to ANY apprentice, for MOST apprentices are completely IDENTIFIED with their self-image, and because of this identification, utterly and hope-less-ly HOOKED to the approval of others! But perhaps if I use an OBJECTIVE example, you may be able to get a FEELING for what I am saying. I will use the example of myself.

In the work I do I attract to myself as much admiration as I attract disrespect! In this regard I am not unlike your father! There are those who love me, admire me and respect me, just like you admired your father. And then there are those who do not trust me, who are suspicious of me, and therefore follow my every move in their attempts to discredit me and prove me a liar and a fraud. And yet, if I truly AM a liar and a fraud, why would such people spend so much time and energy trying to discredit me? Why not just write me off as yet another crackpot, like the great many others they write off in their lives without even another thought? But they can’t just write me off! Why? Because something in what I stand for and teach gets to them, and because it gets to them they CAN’T just write me off! But WHAT is getting to them? Me being a liar, a fraud? Or the fact that the truth speaks for itself?

Whilst I am out there speaking the truth it makes them feel uncomfortable, and because I make them feel uncomfortable they want me either gone, or else proved a liar and a fraud. And because they cannot discount the truth, nor stop me from speaking the truth, they do the only thing they CAN do, that is, they try their BEST to discredit me! LOL! So, yes, if you go onto the internet you will find that there are those out there that have called me every vulgar name under the sun!

So what am I to do, my friend? Shall I cultivate a self-image based upon those that love and admire me? Shall I cultivate a self-image based upon those that hate me? Or shall I attempt the IMPOSSIBLE and cultivate a self-image based upon what BOTH camps think about me, and spend the rest of my life being unutterably CON-FUSED as to whether I am lovable or unlovable, Arthur or Martha?

So what am I to do, eh? Well, did you know that the warrior can hold his own even in the face of impossible odds! And what is it to hold one’s OWN? It means holding onto one’s knowledge of the TRUE self within!

So, quite frankly, my friend, I think it is MUCH too late for me to try to FIX whatever self-image I may or may not have had prior to resuming my duties as nagal in this lifetime! Instead I will allow others the dubious honour of trying to FIX or DESTROY my image! LOL! The only thing that TRULY matters to me is that I have LEARNED how to LIVE WITH the CONSEQUENCES brought forth by my ACTIONS! In other words, I have forgiven myself for being me! LOL!

*This article is taken from the website www.toltec-legacy.com with the permission of the administrators. tag: theun mares

Question:

Théun, I am feeling a revulsion towards my father. He disgusts me. He is so fat and ugly and does not take care of himself or have any self respect. He tells lies constantly and shovels sentimental crap at me about when we (siblings and myself) were kids (mostly remembered in some fantasy not truth). Dad was a real bully and has always been quite nasty. He did have a wicked sense of humour and made us laugh a lot too. But I cannot abide the lies. He is always living in some dreamworld of winning the lottery, he feels sorry for himself, I could go on….and on………

Now maybe he is reflecting my ‘excellent’ qualities back to me. I shall address this.

Then I am feeling pity for dad, none of his family speak to him except me. Poor old git all alone in the world etc. That is an unhealthy way to feel for sure. Guilt is not supportive to the heart.

Then I am thinking well, he is my dad and I have a responsibility towards taking care of him.

Then I am sad, he will not live for much longer, he has had his moments when he has taken care of me and after a fashion does love me - I think, I feel, I dunno.

Then I get mad at him for being such an energy leech, as if he is using my life to live his. But I am choosing to let him, so why get mad?

Then sometimes we actually have a good time together.

Blinking Hell, I am going round in circles. Help.

Théun’s Guidance:

My friend, what I am going to say now is NOT going to be what you want to hear! LOL! But here goes anyway, and then you can shout at me all you want to.

We ALL, even you, choose our parents for a reason! Now we do not yet know why you chose the father you did, but choose him you did! So as a warrior it is now YOUR responsibility to learn why you chose him to be your father. Having said this I must also add that there is NO reason as to why you should accept your father’s behaviour. From what you have shared it appears that he is very lonely and with no real purpose within life. Perhaps all he really needs in order to pull himself towards himself is to have a REAL friend spelling out for him what he himself is trying to avoid. So what I would suggest is that you sit your father down for an HONEST chat, and then be totally ruthless with him. Don’t spare his feelings, but be totally FIRM as well as GENTLE in telling him what you think of him, how you see him, and how you feel about him and his behaviour. But in doing this you must take CARE to FIRST spell out to him that you DO want to have a relationship with him because you CARE about him.

I am not saying this is going to be easy, but you do not have too many options open to you. You either CONFRONT him, or you choose to do nothing and let him go to pot completely. I myself had to do something similar with my own father many years ago, but my father would not listen to me beyond the face value of my words. As a result he stormed out of my home without even saying goodbye and left. I let him go, knowing that there was nothing more for me to do at that time. I did not hear anything from my father, or see him, for over a year. But then one day he contacted me again as if nothing had ever happened, except that he had changed totally towards me. From that day on until his death we had a very close and meaningful relationship. And in looking back upon my life I CAN see that he had been the very best possible father for me!

With warm regards,

Théun

*This article is taken from the website www.toltec-legacy.com with the permission of the administrators. tag: theun mares