Warts and all

A movie I watched last night was thought provoking. Nights In Rodanthe. It's about finding this perfect love, whereby 2 people being together become the best they can! I believe it's hard to find that but that it does happen , rarely, sometimes, maybe....If we all waited for that the world would certainly be less populated...but WoW what a world it would be. The movie was a real tear jerker because after unhappy marriages where the vibes were definitely off!! these 2 beautiful people found that but then one of them goes and dies .

An unrealistic notion, however the romantic, the perfectionist, the things are black or white in me wishes it could be so. Of course 2 of my favourite actors were those people in the movie, but life is not lived on a stage and we all think when we choose partners that we have that, however shit happens and one day we wake up and notice the prince or princess we thought we had has turned into a toad! in fact that both of us have become toads reacting off each other.

Of course it goes without saying that we are on a journey to find out about our buttons or warts and to do our best to grow as humans and eliminate them so that we have no buttons and that takes time and lots of effort... Often we remain with the toad and muddle thru, and they remain with us, their toad. And we try to see less of the warts because they are not too big, it is hard to walk away when the toad is not all toad and you remember the good times you shared and still do sometimes. And if we are both working towards no buttons it can be good

Sometimes the warts just get bigger and so we have to move on because to remain would end in us becoming less because if those buttons we are still working on eliminating continually get pushed , progress can just be too hard, we are after all human .

I believe the greatest asset anyone can bring to a partnership is respect for each others little warts, when we discover them, after the first passion has gone as it usually does, and to allow their dignity and to be flexible and non judgemental. And that goes for all relationships whether it be a business, or personal relationship, or even just a tiny interaction, eyes meeting, a prince or a beggar . Respect for where that person is at and understanding for what brought them there, respect no matter how different they are to you.

Everyone wants happiness, its what we are all striving for , do you know anyone that doesn't want happiness. Some of us go about finding it in strange and negative ways , some are ill equipped to start with and just need a helping hand. I like the quote "Ihave learned that a man has the right to look down on somebody, only when he is helping him to get up" Gabriel Garcia Marquez

And yes it is hard to let it go when someone seems just plain nasty and you want to cry out in hurt or lash out and hurt them too, however if we dont feel forgiveness we can have compassion.

I've done both lashed out and more lately the passion has been turned into compassion for them and for me also, because we are here to learn and the sooner we stop reacting to the pressing of our buttons the happier we can be. I think I was born with big buttons and the others are there to teach me, so now i try to cool off before reacting with fed up, pissed off, anxiety and whatever other out of control feelings arise, sometimes it works and I dont mean suppressing or allowing someone to act badly towards me, in those situations you need to set boundaries, its just finding equinimity for me and remembering the person saying, doing hurtful things has lots more lessons to come! Kharma is like that.

So when you come across the others be glad for they help you to grow and it gets some kharma out of the way that you wont have to deal with again, and next time round you just may meet the prince or princess with little tiny teeny warts and have less of them yourself.

Getting back to the movie the actor is Richard Gere and on one of my Buddhist Dharma dvd's he speaks and he says whenever he goes down the road he looks at everyone and as he comes near he says in his mind may you be happy, may you be happy and I have tried that and it is true it makes you feel happy .

Of course none of this is meant to be derogatory towards toads, cane or otherwise, I love frogs and toads and snakes and spiders they all have a place and if you believe in reincarnation that cane toad you think you should hate may be your mother next time around......and so you better treat it with respect or it will come back and bite you .......