How A Witch Taught Me Love

When I began meditating a number of years ago, I did so because I was locked into living in my house with a witch of a woman, who could control my emotions, and make me angry and upset with her oft times incessant nonsensical bitching and badgering. She could make me want to knock her out. Her regular "fits" of rage were so bad that I had to put a lock on the inside of my bedroom door to keep her out. At first I could not resist arguing angrily with her, even through a closed door. Later I resorted to wearing headphones while watching TV in my bedroom to tune out her haranguing until she wore herself out and went to sleep in her room. But it was the painful awareness of not being able to deal with this situation properly that eventually made me realize that until I got control of myself, and my angry thoughts and emotions, I could never hope to become a real man...nor find the solution to this miserable living situation I brought upon myself. So one day I began to meditate with the idea that I must learn the art of separating from my thoughts and emotions, and find the means to gain control over myself.

Although I did not like my lack of emotional control, the awareness of my lack would eventually morph into a longing for the ability to remain unmoved in the face of torment. What other alternative was there? So every morning I would awake to observe my thoughts. Soon I would grow in increasing ability to put on the armor of objectivity...and prepare myself to deal with whatever awaited me "out there" in the world beyond my waking meditation and bedroom door.

At first I only seemed to get worse but realized that I was only seeing more clearly what I was already doing wrong. This lead to tears and the deep realization that I needed Gods help. But I persisted in my meditation and began to develop a palpable growing immunity to this womans angry, jealous, possessive and hateful words and games...so that gradually they disturbed me less and less as I grew calmer and calmer. I learned to stop resenting her out-of-control behavior and began to use her antics as daily practice in remaining detached; within and without. During this time I also relearned how to speak to her, sternly at times, fatherly other times, but at all times with less and less angry emotion.

My progress did not escape her notice. The hysteria, tantrums, and taciturns she would take in reaction to my growing "calm and unemotional resolve" served to test and strengthen me because only that which is exercised grows stronger. I continued to get better at enduring her outlandishness and soon my growing `calm' had unexpected results. First, in spite of herself, I saw that she found it increasingly difficult to react badly for long...her bouts of rage became less intense, and less long lasting. She would retreat to her room faster, more often and for longer periods of time, leaving me with more and more peace. I could see that she was discovering the feedback of "pain and fear" that emotional non-reaction can wreak, and it wasn't long before she was actually compelled, of her own volition, to move out of my home and thus resolving the issue for me without effort on my part.

What I have learned through this woman was the means to stop the outside world from getting inside me; to grow an increasing immunity to emotional reactions from the outside world, and from things I can not change. This, gratefully, has left me progressively freer to put the focus within myself...to see clearer where I am and have been wrong...allowing me to passively work with God to uncover and heal the damage my early conditioning and sin have done within.

Presently, I am intently "watching" my conscious mind and yearning to understand, all the way down, "what makes me tick". I am glimpsing the origins of my compulsions and appetites...while appreciating that as long as the mind remains in the dark we can not hope to be free of sin. At the same time, I am experiencing the liberation from sin that things willingly observed in the light brings.

I am beginning to understand the tyranny of ALL the voices in the head...especially the ones once thought of as good. I am learning that freedom does not mean we shall never be tempted with old impulses and desires, but that temptations and impulses of some kind will always be there to test where our loyalty lay. I am learning that when it comes to temptations and impulses, we have the means within to overcome with a quiet loyalty to good, and that simply watching temptation objectively has the power to dissolve it.

But most of all, I am discovering that living in the current moment is the most liberating thing of all. For to the degree that we are objective to, and separated from our thoughts and emotions, we live in the ever present moment where also lives Power and Grace. It is here that we become transformed, and grow in ability to successfully meet whatever adversity and trials life throws at us...leaving us free to take the most remarkable inward journey.

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