Deserve?

A friend asked if I pre- write my blogs. It seems like they ‘percolate’, bubbling up until all of a sudden they are ready to be written.

Yesterday I had the prompt that this one was READY!

The prompt was a Facebook comment. I had gone on an overnight retreat Tuesday and had outlined what a great time it was , one of my friends commented “Well deserved...”

About a month ago my husband mentioned that he didn’t think the kids ‘deserved’ lunch money. The reaction that I had was confusion- what does that even mean?

It seems that we have set up an economy of deserved ness. Depending on how much you suffer, you will be given your allotment of nice. The amount will be in direct correlation to how much you believe you are worth- with extra credit to you if you have some sort of pain, struggle or victim hood.

The amount will be completely arbitrary depending on the person, and I'm noticing that most people think someone else's suffering is worse than their own. Unless of course they have denied themselves long enough to hit "what about me????".

Can you see how this economy is self perpetuating and keeps us in a cycle of suffering punctuated by small oasis of happy or good or nurturing?

How often do we justify meeting our own needs over another's needs because of this concept "this will hurt them, but dammit- I deserve it". I don't have a problem with this except for because we are One- any acts of separation will ultimately feed guilt, keeping the whole machine in perpetual motion.

We have elevated cancer to the realm of awful where you deserve everything! We were cracking up at a golf tournament when I revealed my bald head and 'puss in boots' face to be the next table up to the buffett.

When I meditate on Deserve I find no such concept in Love. Or another way to look at it - an all encompassing idea- All deserving all!

All deserving All? It's so foreign to this world that the mind goes -what? Crazy talk Fawna- that can't work?

The concept of punishment and reward is deeply embedded. I'm only suggesting 'what if?'.

What if you deserve to be happy as a birthright? What if you stopped denying yourself or your people dependent on perceived worth? What if we trusted that our needs and others would be met without our continual interference in the form of "this is fair and this is not fair" that is handed out from a very limited space of awareness. Wow- longest sentence ever! What I'm saying is, we don't have the big picture- on our selves or anyone else, we can agree on that, right? Yet we continually think that we know who deserves what, and how much. The formula is complicated and unique dependent on how you were raised, no wonder we disagree so much!

Continually on this journey I've caught myself going to turn the tap of receiving down - or off- "okay- that's enough- a week in Santa Fe, stop the good for a while- you have your cup full". We all know that person "no, I'm good, I'm fine, that's enough.". That's enough? Says who? How do you know?

Have you ever had that sense that when things are going great that there is some form of payment lurking in the background? Some sort of suffering will need to balance out this goodness. I know a lot of us with healthy kids live with this "I have so much- what's gonna happen?". Some of us will self limit in the hopes of preventing having to 'pay' for good.

And of course there are the the ones who never have enough!

This reminds me that in Truth we want Love- no other commodity can replace it.

We all deserve Love, all of it, tap wide open. It's the only currency that multiplies as we give or receive it. The retreats, gifts, goodies of this world are stand ins. It is a process though, accepting the good here is a way to start embodying your self worth.

We have laughed several times over the past few months about my "get out of jail Free card".

My process over the last few months has been a giving control over to God (the Universe, consciousness, whatever you call it). This idea of deciding/knowing who deserves what- both suffering and joy, seems to be one that has so many unintended consequences when I think I am qualified to be the judge.

One way to help with this process is appreciation, I love how this is also a word we use for growing money. When we appreciate receiving we seem to avoid thoughts of too much or not enough. Truly grateful for this forum to share thoughts!

I think that's all I have to say about that...

Love,
Fawna