The problem with the idea of punishment is that it becomes harder and harder to differentiate between punishing another for the wrongs they did, punishing another for your own past sufferings, and punishing one's self out of pure habit.

What do you think?

Here's another confession I have: I dislike affirmations.  Like the following:

I am important.  I am the Most Important Being in Existence.

This is so because of the oneness of All That Is.

What's there to disagree with?  It goes to the heart of what humility is, what false humility is, and addresses that the perception of separation is what creates problems in the first place. It's not about arrogance, but about letting go.

The problem is that it's nice in theory, but the execution of getting to truly know this has its own problems.

My first taste of affirmation was as a teen.  I was in a fairly screwed up family dynamic — the pushy, British stiff upper lip Borderline Personality Disorder mother (not to use labels or anything!) — and being expressive, I showed my pain.  This was uncomfortable for those around me, so I was sent off to healers who of course focused entirely on me.  One of them, a rebirthing therapist, actually helped — doing rebirthing (conscious, connected breathing) gave me an experience of what it was like to feel intensely without too many labels.  Yet another thing she did was to send me home to do affirmations.  30 of each one, handwritten on paper.

Lines.

We are in New Zealand! This is a place that stayed under my radar for a long time, alternating between being "so far away" in my mind and "not that interesting," at least not when compared to more exotic places like India.

I couldn't have been more wrong.  Oh, it's far away, all right.  But it's a gorgeous country with lots of spiritual significance and we've only as yet explored a wee bit of it.  Matthew has been perfecting his Kiwi accent while I am determined to sample every odd-sounding culinary delicacy (today was chicken-flavored potato chips).  I am convinced that you can best get to know a culture by eating its food!