One of the notions I’ve worked hard to explain over the years to Mediation Offices’ clients and Loved Ones in my life is that one of the foundation steps to take in your personal development journey is to learn to have good boundaries. To approach using your time and energy to help others in a way consistent with your heroic type and your archetypal personality. I can’t count how many times talking with clients I’ve used the analogy: When a plane is in distress, passengers are told to put on their own oxygen mask first and only then help others put on theirs.
Today I’m offer you a redacted copy of a letter I sent a dear friend today–not to spin out its contents and analyze it in the context of the My Bliss Path™ course material–but for you to read it and see: This is one of the many, many examples of what love can look like. I am sharing the letter with you as an EXAMPLE of boundaries which I chose to put up between myself and a dear friend whom I love very much. I’m offering this to you because I find in modern culture we don’t get the opportunity to witness healthy, loving behavior in action that’s, from a certain perspective, NOT NICE. Yes, Loved Ones, this is one of the infinite manifestations possible of love when one has basic sanity. May it resonate with you in any way that benefits your personal development journey.
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Dearest [Name Redacted],
Since you texted me I have spent time thinking about your and my friendship, your current health challenges, and your request for me to provide you with information to address your current situation.
I’m writing to let you know that I’ve decided to not provide you with the information you’ve requested and because I love you I explain why below.
Here is my experience with you these last few years:
- We bump into each other. You explain that you’re seeing a therapist because you’re unhappy. I share with you that I’m a happiness teacher and offer you to support your journey to happiness. I offered you Bliss Revealed’s My Bliss Path program material for free and lent you a book on the Enneagram. I offered to work with you through the program materials for free for your benefit and to help me hone the program materials to benefit others.
- You do not take me up on my offer and continued doing things as you were.
- We bump into each other. You explain that you have a restraining order situation and would like my feedback as a family law attorney about your next steps. I reflect back that your behavior is that of a stalking nature and that you (and she) would benefit by you addressing your behavior on your own and otherwise to extract yourself from contact with her and move forward to become the type of man who would not act as you did.
- You do not give my feedback any weight and engaged in a month’s long process of being enmeshed in a situation with her and did not work on the underlying motivations that caused you to do the things you did.
These two experiences have given me the impression that you realize on a sub-conscious level that I have both high quality information and a deep desire to share it, but when it comes time to consciously start working with the material I provide to you your ego’s self-protection mechanism kicks in and you reject it.
Now, here you are basically in the throes of late stage dis-ease and you’re asking for my help. This is something I have the capacity to provide. I can give you high quality information written by doctors and scientists to address your situation. I could support you in sorting through that information and making the best decisions for yourself and how you want to care for your body. But, I have two concerns that prevent me from offering to do so.
Steve Jobs Syndrome
My first concern is Steve Jobs Syndrome. In some ways, Steve Jobs was a dull crayon in the box. Obviously, he was “smart” about creating a world-dominating company, but he was completely in denial about having a body and about the fact that all of us, including him, need to work to keep it healthy (for instance, he took the grounding element out of all his hardware; long story, but really toxic for the health of Apple users). Years ago, when he found himself on practically his death bed from cancer—after exclusively using conventional, chemical, Big Pharma doctors to guide all his healthcare decisions through his cancer journey—he decided to turn to Traditional Chinese Medicine as a last ditch effort to cure his terminal cancer. When he did this, most of the natural healthcare community cried out, “No!!!!!”
No, don’t provide natural health care to a man who’s so ill. Simplistically, it’s TOO LATE to easily start taking care of your body in that way. Similar to Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda, Indian’s ancient wisdom healthcare system, is based on human dis-ease having six gradations of diagnosis which range from asymptotic imbalance to terminal. Ayurvedic doctors marvel at the shocking incompetence of the conventional, chemical, Big Pharma system as it only starts to identify dis-ease and offer “health care” interventions at stage 5 and 6 of dis-ease. From an Ayurvedic perspective, the patient is basically on death’s door by then. Ayurvedic doctors, taught in the traditional wisdom methods, identify the very sunrise of dis-ease in the body around Stages 1-3. Ideally, you stop dis-ease BEFORE you are even symptomatic or right at the beginning.
It’s true that both Traditional Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda have breath-takingly sophisticated treatments to treat people with the bad luck of not getting health care prior to becoming catastrophically ill, and they are often successful. But these treatments require sometimes arduous and INTENSE intervention, adherence to months-long health protocols, and a 100% commitment by the patient to do what needs to be done to heal from such an imbalanced, unhealthy starting point. But that doesn’t mean that Traditional Chinese Medicine or Ayurvedic doctors can guarantee the person will heal, especially if the patient is unable or unwilling to commit to do what needs to be done.
Basically, Steve Jobs was going to die an ugly cancer death and the Traditional Chinese Medicine doctor who took him as a patient at the end of his life was practically committing malpractice by doing so. When a few mainstream media headlines blared out, after Steve Jobs died, something like (admittedly off the top of my head): Jobs Dies Under Care of Fringe Chinese Medicine Doctor all of the natural health care community hissed with anger at the unfairness of this characterization.
I’m sorry, [Name Redacted], but you’re too sick for me to support you as I’d be signing up for giving you information and resources to help support your healthcare decisions for potentially months, and even risk you not getting better and then blaming me and natural health care, which would, of course, be undeserved. In short, you’re super-sick because you waited too long to get high quality information to care for your body and you have no track record for doing what needs to be done to care for you body in natural ways.
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Tea Cup With A Hole Syndrome
My second concern is Tea Cup With A Hole Syndrome. In eastern philosophy the metaphor of that teacher/student dynamic is that of a teacup which has a hole in the bottom. The teacher can pour the tea in, and pour more tea in, and it just pours out the bottom to not be collected and drank by the student. It is seen as a huge waste of tea. Teachers are taught to identify this dynamic and avoid it. Best to put your teaching energy into cups that are uncovered, whole, and ready to receive and hold the tea for ingestion and enjoyment.
As you might have guessed I know A LOT about the current situation that is called “The COVID Pandemic.” For instance, a dear girlfriend of mine who is a doctor with a large GP practice asked me to write a long article for her to review, edit, and then give to her patients on how to avoid getting sick with upper respiratory symptoms. I spent two days writing it and was honored for the opportunity to use my hard work—doing things like reading studies, taking scientists’ online classes on virology, epidemiology, and emergency protocols—for the benefit others. (BTW: Prevention is always the key.)
Also, I’ve had friends who started to get upper respiratory infection symptoms contact me immediately so I can send them healthy, easy healthcare protocols written by doctors and scientists which I’ve reviewed and collected over the last two years on how to stop upper respiratory infection symptoms in their tracks in a matter of days. They’ve easily gotten healthy again. (Yes, there are a multitude of doctors and scientists from around the world who are easily curing, even super sick people with multiple co-morbidities, of symptoms that are labeled “Covid.”) (BTW: Quick action is always the key.)
In contrast, you’re super-ill and only thinking now to reach out to me for information and support. Sort of like it’s a last ditch effort and therefore doesn’t really have value to you in your world.
I’m sorry, [Name Redacted], but I don’t believe that deep down inside you value the information I provide and I don’t have any confidence that you will actually utilize the information I provide to you or use the discipline it takes to really change how you approach caring for your health. I’ve experienced you as someone who takes the information I work hard to provide to you and then you ignore it.
This does not mean that I don’t love you. I do. I treasure our friendship and the memories of the many good times we shared in college. I am wishing you well in your healing journey. You are always dear to me.
This does mean that I’m here for you at any time in the future if you come to me ready to prove that you’re not a tea cup with a hole in the bottom, that you will treasure the high quality information I can provide which is given to us by heroic people thinking independently, critically, and generously from ancient days to today.
I wish you well on your healing journey.
Thank you.
Love, Unmani
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Unmani Saraswati, JD, LLM became the Chief Happiness Mentor of Bliss Revealed after a successful seventeen year career as a divorce mediator-attorney and law professor. A lifelong student of how to how to have a vibrant experience of life, she earned her credential as a Certified Massage Therapist from the Institute of Conscious Bodywork in 1997 and graduated from Trika Institute’s Seven-Year Tantrik Yoga Study Group Program in 2010. As a Chief Happiness Mentor, Unmani draws on her ongoing study of ancient wisdom concepts and life-skills, nineteen years of daily mediation practice, and her work supporting thousands of clients to bring out their best selves in the midst of crisis through mindfulness and education. She teaches the self-paced online program My Bliss Path™ and live streams with subscribing members of the Blissverse Locals community. Also, check out her free videos and blogs. To find out more about Unmani’s mission for everyone to have a Healthy Body, Strong Mind, and Happy Heart go to: https://linktr.ee/blissrevealed
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