I thought I was undoing my own abundance issues. I was approved for expedited food stamps and should have received them in a day or two. The month's worth of food I had brought to sustain us was used communally, taken for granted by those who had their own. Because the food was eaten up without impunity, my cash for incidentals was quickly gone through. Wednesday.
Thursday no card, no surprise, I'm at ease with apparent lack, I know I shall for each day what I need always. Meanwhile, the family who ate through all my food while splurging on snacks for themselves, alcohol to drink, etc met a glitch in the system and their food stamps which were due did not come in. Panic hit them. I breath. I'm still at ease for I know. Proving or triggering, it serves me. They're not quite as evolved and that's why they sought me out and wanted to "help" me. My children eat maybe two meals per day. I'm vegetarian and the children are mostly. Due to circumstances 2 years ago they were re-introduced to meet and haven't completely transitioned back yet. That's fine with me. Snacks, candy, that sort of thing, they'll taste and the rest might sit for a weak or even a year. I don't have to monitor or limit them. We're self-regulated, naturally developed minimalists. The ones we are living with haven't developed that yet. Three meals per day, snacks and devouring manner...like vacuum cleaners. Their main sustenance is meat. I get that. So, no triggers for me. I love the hell out of them and they love the hell out of me and my children. Their children go to public school and so are lacking in proper sleep. Unless children are going to bed at 6pm, any school aged publicly educated children are going to be short on sleep. The feel hungry and lack and most will point to needing more food and more things when in fact it's a shortage of proper sleep. It's just a fact issue-packed that is not going to change over night ---parent's working hours, perceived need to work, cost of daycare otherwise due to change in how much family members support one another.....So, the sense of lack of abundance begins and is fused into our entire being from kindergarten. There's no judgment. I'm simply choosing different for my children.
Friday- still no card and I'm fine, my children are content, the rest of the household is in a complete state of distress. Suddenly everyone has cravings and is "starving" which puts pressure on adults who feel responsible, inadequate and desperate (normal response by the general mass consciousness to perceived potential of impending doom). I pointed that out and kept on in my state of ease. Spoke to a neighbor and asked if she knew of an organization we could call who would bring by like just a box of pasta and some cough medicine (all the children, one by one, started getting wicked coughs and fevers) . Instead of referring me to anyone she brought us cold medicine and a week's worth of groceries. I was surprised and pleased. My housemate cried in relief. We put a bunch of party pizzas in the oven. Some neighbor children came in to play and asked if they could eat with us. I was looked to. "I would, there's plenty". Through all these past few days my daughter had been asked what was the one thing she wanted. "Chocolate". Every store run brought treats for everyone, minus her chocolate. Having brought in an abundance and knowing my housemates had plenty of treats stashed in their room away from the rest of us, I felt it was OK for me to take the little bit of change I had left to get just a small piece of chocolate for my daughter. I biked to the store and sat outside to count my change. I heard a voice "Are you counting change?". With a joyful smile on my face and a heart rejoicing over the abundance: "Yes" and explained I was just getting a piece of chocolate for my daughter. "Well, let's go in and get her some", he said, "OK, thanks!". We sat quietly taking in the beautiful night air while he finished a cigarette, friendly conversation. As we waited in line to pay for the chocolate a man asked if I had a quarter. I did. I rode home feeling the flow in ease, joy and gracefulness...synchronicities and generosities were lining up beautifully. THAT is me, my state of being.
Saturday-holy crap, still no food stamps on either front. Not a flinch out of me: we have a week's worth of food! I'm in complete ease. Dinner time came and a giant package of chicken was prepared with more than plenty for everyone to have a piece each, including the neighbor children who showed up asking for some again. Not a problem, each a piece and fill the rest of the way up with the mashed potatoes and corn we had prepared with it. "We don't have enough! Only when my kids have eaten, if there's some" snapped my housemate. "Are you serious?!", thought me. We had a week's worth of groceries for everyone, they obviously had SOME money stashed up with the extra food her husband was buying for himself, eating separately, hardly ever leaving the bedroom except to rant and put everyone else at disease (which never affect me-rejoiced in my and my children's proving: we were not even tempted to be compelled to join the dis-ease), going out to buy beer (not to any extreme, no drunkenness happening, one or two, a six pack between the two of them)....I saw food being brought into the bedroom to be hidden.....That's where my tearing up began. I rode my bike around the corner and allowed it to happen. Crying. Bringing the perspectives popping into my head into balance with the opposite extreme. The sense of being a victim in this situation came like a girdle wanting to wrap it's self about my middle. I thanked it, felt love and appreciation for it like an old friend I hadn't seen in a long time but no thank you, we are not victims in this situation and I really don't want to embody that energy. That extreme would be met, usually be a 'righteous' rant, recruiting other's opinions to attack and criticize to stew 'justified' animosity...ugh, thank you for coming to my defense but not going back into that...heart broken tears finally come to an end and crooning of comfort begins. I hug and lean upon a tree as I do this for me and soon I am again centered, in a state of ease. It's not OK what is happening and I could not say I had come to a sudden realization or resolution in any way. I was simply trusting I was seeing in me everything I was feeling and I sensed as if two aspects of me sat upon their knees facing one another with hands grasped, sharing a seeing of oneanother's perspective thought not agreeing....I would have to allow it to be worked out subconsciously.
Sunday as I lay relaxed half asleep in the morning I felt an orgasmic burst in my lower body rise up my left side. Ah...subconsciously, last night's tearing and coming undone has been resolved in me. A beautiful thing. No chance of food stamps for either party but plenty of groceries and they're still spending the "little, precarious" amount of money they have which I'm not inclined to feel is any of my business. They bought stronger cold medicine for my son because what we were given wasn't doing it. It worked, his fever broke and cough was less. Their children were getting over theirs. All was more than well from my perspective. I lie my perspective so I wasn't inclined to feel compelled to join in their continued distress. I was able to comfort during the worst of it, bring singing and dancing to all the children while the man kept himself separated and comforted with his stashes fo rhe and his wife.
Monday, still no food stamps and I finally broke softly with my housemate. It is not like me to minimize another's situation and compare it to mine. I know the philosophy with which we were raised: "The man works and deserves to have good things for his work...the perks". So, as gently as I could muster with the force of the courage it took for me to "come clean" and tears of release as I spoke boldly.... I explained I was not sorry but really, she could not be nearly as troubled by this as me. I had absolutely nothing, she had alcohol and snacks and meals hidden aside. She was fine in comparison to me. I told her I wasn't trying to me mean and it is her home and she didn't need me criticizing, I love her dearly and really do fear creating animosity. This time it was she who did the comforting. A proving---I have been upgraded in the company I have been attracting. Normally I would have been kicked out in short order no matter how timidly I said anything.
As she and her husband went to go to the store, she thought of me and an idea was given her: maybe, just maybe the mail had been late this day. In the meantime, we still had meatloaf in the fridge as well as a huge pack of chicken legs. The chicken legs I knew she would want to prepare when she was ready and the meatloaf would probably never get eaten. So, I popped the meatloaf in the oven, made mashed potatoes to go with it and threw together a bean salad with canned stuff in the pantry. her children were complaining there was nothing for after school snack to eat. My "excuse" for cooking-an after meal snack to hold them over until mom cooked dinner of the cheese and bread they were off to get at the store (yes, with all the food in the house they felt there was nothing for dinner and were off to spend their "little" money and no, I didn't care, I was experiencing inspiration). Rather quickly my housemate and her husband returned. There HAD been late mail delivery and in it WAS my food stamp card! Loud cries of delight. I would be off to the store to get the cheese and a few other things. Her children were spouting off the list of things they would be getting as were the parents. uh, er, "MY food stamps ?!" They have money. I didn't mind some cheese and of course I'd get treats but she was expecting me to fill the entire pantry for their entire family (of 8) with what is supposed to last three for 4 weeks because well, their food stamps would come any day and "of course" they would be buying for me (what THEY-her husband- felt we needed if they didn't overspend.......) As we set off I explained to her daughter who HAD to come with us with her back back to 'help' carry 'everything' "All that was decided was needed for today was cheese, we can go tomorrow if we need more, we don't have to get everything today, it's getting late". She was horrified "We're only getting cheese?!", angry and beginning to cry. "No, I am setting the perspective so we don't overdo it unnecessarily". So, we came up with a quick list what we would use that night and treats. Toward the end, the request came: could she get some burritos for her husband (who obviously wasn't go to eat grilled cheese with the rest of us). "OK" and then: "Can he get a soda?". I snapped there "We already got two big bottles of soda and you have snacks and food for his dinner stashed in your room already and cash on hand you had planned on spending before my food stamps came" "All, right, all right, shhh", she looks around us. "No, nobody cares." I went inward as we finished up without getting the extra soda. "What had come over me?", I wondered. It's not like me to say no to something and especially not like me to be so blunt about it." "We had only $500 on Friday and now we only have $100, he's stressed because we didn't pay our bills with it". All three backpacks were filled and lighter bags to carry. On the walk home it quietly came to me: The idea that a man works and makes the money and has a right to special treatment alienates him from the family. He feels isolated and alienated and alone. "OH!". The wife explained ot me he goes days without eating so "we" can eat at times. That is simply th eopposite end of the spectrum for symptoms of the very same thing: he must suffer, set aside, apart from, alienated from the family. It's ingrained into his familial and community programming: he's being "The man of the house".
When we arrived home the children who stayed behind had candy and juices, he had bought himself burritos already. He decided to spend the "last" of their money on food and treats anyways. Their only bill was a washer and dryer rental. They have a list of groceries for me to buy for what she wants to make for dinner in two days.
I began with a true story:
In a jungle a woman was filmed for a documentary. She had a house full of children and pigs. The pigs were a status symbol, not for everyday eating. They were brought out for special occasions like weddings where prestige of providing the pig for the meal was demonstrated. So, the pigs' food was farmed for and given priority. The woman was being interviewed "My children are starving because we cannot grow enough food for them, we need white man's help here, we're desperate and suffering". My housemate had the same reaction I had originally "She's swimming in food, that's alot of bacon!". Food could be planted for the children instead of the pigs and the pigs could be eaten while the farming produce was being transitioned. But no. That is poverty consciousness and in her mind, her situation REALLY IS precarious. I explained ot my cousin while she was still in that strong reaction "THAT is what I see happening here", pointing to the bedroom where food and husband were stashed. I explained why I was given to react as I did over a simple soda and the understanding given when I asked why I was given such a strong reaction. "Your husband needs to be invited out of that bedroom to 'bleed' with his family. I do not see it as my job or mission. It is not an agenda I shall be adopting". She got it. She agreed that was indeed the problem. She took one of the snack cakes I got for the children and myself despite having a stash of snack cakes in her closet which her daughter showed me just before we had left to go grocery shopping right in front of her mother. The consciousness of lack isn't cured in a moment. It probably won't even begin to change until after I get into my own housing. We (people) are that way. We don't usually make it our own until the carrier/embodier of it leaves us on our own. While it's not "fair", men don't change unless they perceive a need. The loss of a wife who wants to move into a higher consciousness is one of the few things that could initiate it. The wife in this case was raised with parents who stayed married unto the death of one and the remaining souse never remarried. She worries about what her father would think of her if she left her husband. Leaving with 6 children and an outdated skill set for employment, no family to take her in: to her it's impossible. In some respects I had it easier. My parents divorced and so I am not limited by a perceived need to stay married. I understand her perceived predicament and certainly wouldn't push for her to do any such thing. They are a sincerely devoutly loving family who have studied the Law of Attraction and such things. They DO want to improve their state of consciousness. They have come a very long way already from harsh military drill sergeant and upbringing in my family(wrought with alcoholism, etc.). I love and appreciate them dearly.
I shall be taking things day by day in ease again. It is now Tuesday. I shall honor her lists to an acceptable degree each day until their food stamps come in. Not as any form of discipline I suppose I should be administering, but out of self-preservation, respect and honoring of their self-created situation. It wasn't primarily any undoing I was needing but insight I was being given for a deeper understanding of poverty consciousness. A gift to them should they receive it. The gift of quite a bit of proving for me. My consciousness was why I wanted here and each time I stand up and speak boldly, I am reminded: THIS is why I have been brought here. THIS is on what they are depending from me. THIS is what is appreciated. It's not my mission but it IS a gift to them and to me.
