Does Wanting Cause Spiritual Illness?

In Tolle's '"A New Earth", I was introduced to the concept of wanting as the cause of spiritual illness. The idea seemed rather simplistic to me at first yet as I reflect back on it- the truth seems undeniable.

Let me offer two extreme and true examples.

I had an acquaintance once, a friend who through real estate investments- turned a hundred thousand dollars into about 10 million. This included a successful real estate business that his wife owned and operated. In fact, that business dominated the local market. One day, I saw my friend at the bank. We struck up a casual conversation. Reflecting on how well he had done financially over the course of our lives, I asked him when he was going to retire. Just sell out and go live the good life. I asked him if 10 million was enough and he replied, "I don't know. There are other things I want."

I remember that conversation well. In my world, 10 million dollars was an absolute fortune.

I also knew a man worth two or three times that. I was talking to him about his personal jet- a plane which he had just sold. I was curious. He was explaining his jet dilemma. Once he had purchased his jet, he had to pay for pilots, fuel, insurance, and storage. He said he never flied often enough to justify those expenses. And he added, no matter how big and fast any of his planes had been- he always wanted a bigger and faster one.

The problem with wanting is simple. It dominates our thoughts. As a culture, we are forever wanting bigger houses, nicer cars, more money. We want youthful appearances. We are bombarded with advertising which takes advantage of this giant flaw of ours. All of this wanting and coveting eventually flowers into a sort of insatiable greed that is never satiated. In turn, unsatiated wanting causes frustration and unmet expectations. It is the insanity of our culture. We are never satisfied.
At our worst we are never grateful, and perhaps even deeply depressed- when we don't get what we want. Or worse- when we don't get what we think we deserve or are entitled to.

This lack of gratitude for the gifts we do have- is exchanged for smoldering resentments and perhaps even jealousy- as we constantly want we don't have and we see others getting what we desire.

Several years ago, I was able to identify and diagnose this spiritual illness in myself. Today, I am incredibly grateful for the things I have. A little house, a car, a motorcycle. I am grateful for so many things- including my relationships. I don't really need anything else. I am very content.

Happy people are grateful people. They recognize the gifts they have been given.

As I was researching the "four noble truths" of Buddhism- my first stop at wiki- offered this. This was the exact same process I had found and applied- I was completely unaware that Buddhism teaches the very same process. I have included it here.

Illness, diagnosis, and cure

In the Buddhist tradition, the Buddha is often compared to a great physician, and his teachings are compared to medicine. The teachings on the four noble truths in particular are related to a medical diagnosis, as follows:^[q]

1. The truth of dukkha: identifying the illness and the nature of the illness (the diagnosis)
2. The truth of origin: identifying the causes of the illness (the etiology)
3. The truth of cessation: identifying a cure for the illness (the prognosis)
4. The truth of the path: recommending a treatment for the illness that can bring about a cure (the prescription)

This analogy is said to emphasize the compassion of the Buddha—that he was motivated by the desire to relieve the suffering of beings.^[44][46] It also emphasizes that the Buddha was presented as physician, or healer of the spirit, rather than as a meta-physician or someone who spoke of supernatural powers.^[r] For example, Pico Iyer states: "The Buddha generally presented himself as more physician than metaphysician: if an arrow is sticking out of your side, he famously said, don’t argue about where it came from or who made it; just pull it out. You make your way to happiness not by fretting about it or trafficking in New Age affirmations, but simply by finding the cause of your suffering, and then attending to it, as any doctor (of mind or body) might do."^{[web 12]}
Contemporary Buddhist teacher Tamara Engel also emphasizes the Buddha's reluctance to comment on metaphysical matters:^{[web 10]}

The brilliance of this medical model is that the Buddha offers a complete spiritual path that does not depend on metaphysical speculation or belief—no speculation or belief about God. No leap of faith is required. The illness the Buddha refers to is a particular kind of suffering, and there is nothing metaphysical about it. We all experience it. In fact, it is said that the Buddha would never enter into a metaphysical discussion. He stated, “I teach one thing and one thing only. Suffering and the end of suffering.”

There are many examples both in the original suttas and in traditional and contemporary commentaries that compare the Buddha to a physician.^[s]

Does wanting ever cease or become satiated? Perhaps, but I think wanting can only end when it is recognized as the source of continual emotional suffering and frustration and replaced with gratitude for those gifts that we already possess.







 

How I Repaired My Life- Epilogue

So what's in this for me?

Nothing. I simply wanted to show people that it is possible to get emotionally well and to be genuinely happy. It will require some commitment from you.

It's been the better part of seven years since I unzipped my old life, stepped out, and found a new life. It probably took the better part of two years for me to make consistent and healthy decisions.

I think the hardest part of this past 7 years was resolving the amount of guilt that goes along with recognizing mistakes and taking responsibility for them. That's been pretty difficult for me at times. Ultimately, I have to simply accept that I did not know better at the time. I do now.

My life is calm and serene. I have never felt better. I am no longer enmeshed in crazy situations and relationships. I am grateful for everything that I have been blessed with- including clean socks.

I have restored the relationships with my family.

I spend a great deal of time working with others. I use those emotional items I enumerated in Part 4 on a daily basis. I try to help others understand those concepts and regain some sanity and control over their lives.

There are so many pitfalls and lies embedded in our culture that it's a wonder any of us are sane. There are literally thousands of ridiculous and untrue beliefs- beliefs that have us scurrying about non-stop- engaged in some mindless activity with every spare moment that we possess. 

Somewhere on this blog, I think, you can find some answers. Thank you for stopping by.

Brian

The Student Appears- How I Repaired My Life, Part 4

A series of miracles. 

Before I start in on this section, I think it is very important to make a big distinction.

In order to get emotionally healthy, an individual must actually make a commitment to resolve their issues. More specifically, you can't simply suppress your anger and superficially believe that you have resolved your anger issues because sooner or later they will come back. You can't simply go to a therapist and listen to what they have to say and somehow magically absorb what they tell you without application, commitment, or work.

You must be willing to end your emotional misery- permanently. That is going to take some effort on your part. If you are unwilling to do that- the problem may not be serious enough for you or perhaps you actually enjoy some feeling of misery. Stuffing emotions, listening to therapists, or swilling alcohol cannot fix us long term. I know because I tried those things. So I think we must diagnose and actually resolve our issues with solutions that make sense to us. I cannot overstate the importance of this enough.

In the fall of 2007, this student was ready. I packed my Jeep and headed for New Orleans. My first room mate in New Orleans had been arranged by a mutual friend. He was a horrible drunk- just out of his 4th rehab and drinking. I could barely tolerate this guy. As I tried to stay sober that first month- this dude was drinking every morning, beating his dog, continually referring to his black co-workers as niggers (they beat the hell out of him one night and he got fired) and stealing from me. One night, he showed up with a deer's head that he had cut off a road killed carcass. I was in awe at the amount of turmoil and chaos this guy brought with him.

I'm not sure I have ever seen anyone more emotionally sick. Like something out of a Dickens novel, I think this dude was placed in my life at that very moment to show me how bad things could get. Within weeks, I had moved out and found a much nicer place a few blocks away.

I had been sober 33 days when I walked into my first AA meeting, Nov 12. I listened. I was astounded and awestruck by one thing. People actually told the truth about how self absorbed and sick they had become. In many cases, they went into great detail. I had never heard that blend of honesty and humility anywhere. People also talked about solutions to their emotional problems. I knew almost immediately that many of the solutions I needed were here.

The first of many miracles were about to take place.

Each morning, I would get up and walk to a coffee shop on Magazine St. to write. In the afternoon, I would walk on the levees, play golf, read, or play cards at Harrah's downtown. One day while playing cards, I struck up a conversation with a woman that I had never seen before. We had a lot in common. She told me she was reading a fascinating little book called "The Four Agreements." She said it was about smoke, mirrors, and light and that she had only read 20 pages. This is the only information she conveyed to me. I actually wrote the title down on a napkin.

Now I have to tell you that I have spent thousands upon thousands of hours at poker tables. I have never received a book review by a fellow poker player. For reasons unknown to me, the next morning I walked into a bookstore near the coffee shop and bought this book. I took it home later that day and read it. About 3-4 hours worth. It changed my life almost immediately. I didn't actually read this book- I absorbed it. I instantly recognized that I had broken agreement 2 all of my life. I took everything personally. I read that chapter over and over, until I finally realized that people do in fact- act on their own personal instincts. They are all acting out some script inside their heads and not only do I not know what that is- it is never personal. Often they do what they do, irrespective of who or what is around them.

That simple chapter changed my life forever. I quit taking things personally. To this day, I do not. I've had people ridicule me, nearly kill me, belittle and berate me, and very rarely have I responded to any of that madness in an angry way. I have made a couple of calculated verbal attacks to stop and prevent further maliciousness. I realize and accept that people must make others feel bad to make themselves feel better or superior. It is a spiritual sickness- part of the insanity of the planet and it is an illness that I had for 46 years.

By the spring of 2008, I had managed to string nearly 6 months of sobriety together and I was feeling better than I had ever felt- I was smelling flowers and salt air, paying attention to people, fully enjoying my life. I was still battling 2 or 3 day skirmishes with depression when one evening- a gal during a speaker meeting began talking about depression. What she said floored me.

She said that whenever she was depressed she found that she was missing the following things. Someone to love, something useful to do, or something to look forward to. Anytime she was feeling two, or perhaps all three of those things were occurring in her life simultaneously, she would find herself in a bout of depression.

I did not hear another thing she said. I instantly played back my own tapes. Was that true? Were those things missing in my life during times of depression? I have to say that her explanation was undeniably true for me. To this day, I can instantly recognize or more purposefully avoid small bouts of depression. When I feel the slide- I instantly schedule a vacation or something else to look forward to- which takes my mind off of me. Not thinking about me is another miracle.  

I should also mention here that there are 100 shades of depression. Mine does not tend to be debilitating nor do I compare my episodes of depression to other, more serious cases. So I consider myself lucky. Others may be worse off.

Gratitude was another miracle. I had never been grateful for anything in my life. I practiced an "entitled" mentality. This mentality is so common in our culture that I often hear healthy, good looking, educated and wealthy people- whining about their lives like they are victims. When I hear or see this- I stay humble by remembering that I was once exactly the same way or worse. This is always a reminder to me- of how it was. Gratitude is a miracle for me. Whenever I feel any self pity- I call on my my new found sense of gratitude to extinguish it.

I did a lot of reading in 2007-2008.

I had a friend refer Tolle's, "A New Earth" to me. If the "Four Agreements" changed my life- "A New Earth" became grad school. Not only was I able to identify my false sense of self or ego- but I actually harnessed and diminished my ego somewhat. Trust me when I say- my giant ego needed a lot of diminishing. That was another miracle. 

Somewhere near the 6 month mark, I began to compile a list of instructions that I carried out each day. There were 12 things on my particular list. I would meditate for 5 minutes and then go over my list. I did this every day- by doing this not only was I emotionally prepared for whatever came my way on any given day- but I could respond in such a way that I did not feel shame, or guilt, or anger. To this day, when someone fires a torpedo at me- I very often simply watch it cruise by. I do not launch counter offensives or even defend myself because confrontations always end the same way. With anger, shame, and guilt. I don't choose to live my life feeling anger, guilt, and shame.

I compare it to arguing with atheists. The outcome is determined long before the arguing begins.

So what I'm going to do is give you the list that I used and went over everyday (after I meditated for 5 minutes) for about a year.

1. I will not drink no matter what.
2. I will not take anything personally- nor will I intervene or offer opinions to other people. People are free to live and act as they choose. What they do is none of my business.
3. I will not act on my first impulse. It is almost always wrong.
4. I will keep my expectations of others at a minimum. People fail. That's what they do.
5. I've made mistakes. I will no longer beat myself up or feel guilty because of them.
6. I will practice unconditional acceptance. I'm not going to fight un-winnable battles.
7. I am grateful for the things I have- I refuse to feel pity for the things I don't have.
8. If I cannot accept people, I am free to remove them from my life without feeling guilty.
9. People make time for the things that are important to them. Never forget this.
10. Quit judging people including yourself. Good or bad. You don't know anything about anybody anyway.
11. My ego and fear (false self) are my biggest problems. Do you want to be happy or right?
12. You are responsible for all of the problems or happiness in your life. You are never a victim.

Each day I went over this list, sometimes I added things. I made an emotional commitment to change my life. I was committed and dedicated to resolving my issues. Yours may be different.

It took a long time, about two years, to fully assimilate this list into my life. I had setbacks and made mistakes. Every once in awhile I would lose my temper. So the system wasn't foolproof but I will say this- my life improved dramatically. The proof that this is working is in the marked change in the way others see you and respond to you. I think people are genuinely happy to see me now. That certainly wasn't the case in 2007.

Often but not always, I actually think and care about other people. That is a miracle. 

Will I ever quit judging people? Of course not- however I am completely aware that this is an insane and destructive behavior. Fortunately, I have considerably diminished my propensity to judge others.

I had three really weird things happen to me. I realized I could no longer engage in my former profession of judging others as I was gaining tremendous tolerance and understanding. There would be no going back- I couldn't be happy doing that any longer. I was beginning to find a power greater than myself and my fear of death was diminishing.

I was also becoming spiritually calm. Some people call it being comfortable in your own skin.

I have one other piece to write. I am hoping to have that up next week.

The Jumping Off Point- How I Repaired My Life, Part 3

Today, I thought I'd start with a couple of explanations that I think should be inserted somewhere.

I don't promote this blog. The reason is- is that it is intensely personal. I don't link it anywhere and very rarely do I tell anyone about it.

If you are here, chances are you arrived here in some roundabout way.

Secondly, there is no value in telling half truths. Half truths are half lies. In my examination of my life, I came to believe that every one of us is taught to omit the truth and to resist self disclosure. I observed this behavior in virtually every one that I have ever gotten to know. People simply cannot disclose things that are embarrassing to them, things that may open them to ridicule, or things that might cause others to judge them in a negative light. I understand all of that.

The problem of course- is that nobody learns anything from that. When somebody tells me a half truth, I learn nothing other than the speaker is one of millions of people who are essentially dishonest. That's what we call it- isn't it? When people fail to tell the whole truth- we say that is dishonest. Why then is our entire culture geared to that level of dishonesty? Clearly it is culturally acceptable- in fact it is expected.

I am going to try and be as honest as possible. I cannot possibly cover every detail; however I will talk about things that are relevant or pertinent to this discussion.

People fail. It is a fear of being judged and diminished which keeps people from telling the truth. That fear is so overwhelming and pervasive that it penetrates our culture at every level. You will find many blogs of mine on this very site- that talk about fear. Fear is the single greatest motivator on the planet. Fear moves us. Fear has killed millions upon millions of people in every culture. We abort children because we fear the ramifications of their birth. And we say that is acceptable. Fear is the root of all evil. I am absolutely convinced of it. That is the insanity of the planet. 

So I have to overcome that fear to tell you it's alright to be human. It's ok to fail. It's ok to not feel like you fit in. You don't have to fit in. 

To say anything of value- I must tell the truth. A complete truth. That is as honest as I can be. The only thing I am qualified to tell the truth about is my life and observations. Everything else is simply an opinion and a potential half truth or lie.We have all heard lies- so it is the truth that is becoming rare.

The Growth Years 22-46

I became a full time police officer in in January of 1983. I was a jailer. One of the guys I worked with was a huge drinker and we became good friends. I think in a way, and I am certainly not claiming victim status here, he recruited me. We drank a lot together. He died, smoking and drinking, at the ripe old age of 44 with throat cancer. His life and death- had a dramatic impact on me. I have always thought his life was an undiagnosed case of bipolar disorder which he interrupted with nightly bouts of blackout drinking.

It never dawned on me back then that people drink to change the way they feel. When people don't feel good about themselves, when they are flooded with shame or guilt, when they believe they don't fit in- and can't stop the judging voices in their heads- they alter their conscious state. They pull the plug on their brain. I did that too. At 22- I had a good start on a serious drinking problem. I am not prepared to say that I was a full blown alcoholic at 21 or 22, but I was well on my way.

Law enforcement is a noble profession. I owe a great deal to law enforcement. It forced me to plot a straight and narrow course for my life. I didn't always obey the law- particularly when it came to rural speed limits or a few other traffic related sins- but for the most part I tried to be as honest and law abiding as I could be. A good cop. After a year or so I landed a job in patrol.

In terms of addictive habits- habits which change the way you feel- I had at least three of them. I used tobacco products regularly and heavily,  I drank light to moderately most of the time and generally every day, and I also gambled on the weekends.

I saw absolutely nothing wrong with any of that. I remember thinking, "this is who I am." This is what I do. I never had any kind of intervening force come into my life and say these things are indicators of a larger, underlying issue. 

I want to talk a little bit about self promotion here. I have seen some fantastic self promoters in my lifetime. Some of these are people that would have you believe that they somehow can walk on water. They never miss a chance to overtly or subtly promote themselves. It is part of their life plan to rise to the top and usually, make more money. There are other people who are simply good people. They don't overtly self promote- because they are pretty squared away to begin with. I think that many people fall in between these two types- somewhere. Unfortunately, I tended to be more of a self promoter although I desperately wanted to just be a good person. The truth is and was- I was simply incapable of pulling that off. I didn't know how to be a good person. I simply lacked the spiritual tools.

Had I discovered them earlier- I would have moved mountains.

After 7 or 8 years, I was promoted by our new Chief to Sergeant. My ego, my false sense of self, began to blossom. My ego didn't primarily manifest itself into some superior sense of self but that was certainly part of my ego development. I became very critical and judgmental of other people. I began to resent people, many of them people who worked in other areas of the criminal justice system. I particularly disliked lawyers and the county sheriff. The circumstances for why I resented these folks are not particularly important- what is important is that I had no method of removing those resentments. Instead of diminishing in scope- my resentments grew larger. I began to accumulate several resentments. I was frustrated and angry at other people because I believed they were dishonest and that somehow I was morally superior.

Of course, that was not true. I practiced my own brand of dishonesty and I was not morally superior. However, my false sense of self or ego, adamantly believed that I was.

I did do a lot of good things. But I think emotionally, my problems just swamped and overwhelmed the good things in my life.

I was promoted to Captain a few years later. My resentments grew. I tried to bottle them up but they spilled out in casual conversation. My marriage suffered, my drinking got worse, and so did my depression. I had no spiritual solution for any of that. I was completely self absorbed but I bottled up most of it. In 2000, they promoted me to Chief.

The first couple of years were tolerable. A couple of years in- the city got a new Mayor. I saw her as one of the most nasty, critical, self absorbed people I had ever met. Of course my feelings for her found their way back to her and she in turn retaliated which kicked off a 5 year war. She tried everything she could do to get rid of me.

It's not important who was right or wrong. I figured that out years later. That Mayor was like an ignition switch. I am actually grateful for her now. My issue, once again, was that I had the same problem with the Mayor that I had had with all of the other resentments I had accumulated over the years. I simply did not know how I kept getting them or how to emotionally dispose of them. I simply lacked the skills. In fact, I did not know that such skills were available.

So those five years were terrible. I was a spiritual wreck. I was depressed constantly, I could not sleep, I drank heavily, and my health deteriorated. My marriage was on the rocks with several separations and an affair. I was racked with guilt and despair. I was hyper vigilant, extremely critical, combative, angry, and distrusting. By the time 2007 rolled around, I was in the midst of a complete physical and mental meltdown. I weighed 300 pounds. My doctor lectured me on my drinking. When my divorce was made final in May that year- I had had enough. I quit.

In July, I hopped on my motorcycle and toured the entire U.S. It was the trip of a lifetime. When I got home two months later, my last remaining friend and I had a falling out and my girlfriend had left for parts unknown and was with someone else. I think if I had owned a dog, he would have left me for the dog catcher.

That level of depression and spiritual sickness is what some of us refer to as the jumping off point. For two weeks I didn't eat, I didn't shower, I didn't go outside. All I did was drink and wallow in self pity, anger, and blame everyone but me. One beautiful fall evening, I sat in a park like setting and for the first and only time in my life- I contemplated killing myself. I also contemplated killing a few of my "perceived enemies." That night, I eventually drank myself to sleep. It was Oct 8. Oddly enough, I had no idea that Oct 8, 2007, would be the last day that I ever drank. I still don't know that it will be.

The next morning I hopped in my convertible, head throbbing, and headed for Las Vegas. At the last second, I changed my mind and headed for my girlfriend's place in Santa Barbara where I confronted her. I decided that evening, after speaking with her, that my drinking days were over.

I had no idea what was about to happen to me. Let's just say, I believe in miracles. I've got two more parts to write. I should have the next one up by Apr. 6.   



















  

I'm Back

I can't believe I've been gone 7 months. Wow.

I had every intention of finishing this series about what happened to me...last fall. I was just getting to the good part and then...ugh.

I missed a couple of emails and I apologize for not returning them promptly. I cannot believe time travels so quickly- it's like someone threw a fast forward switch.

So I am going to start writing here again.

In a world full of wars, infighting, mansion sized egos, religious zealots and atheists, political animosity, class warfare, inflation, and outright thievery...we have to make time for some spiritual sanity.

Sometimes I focus on the wrong things. Sometimes I get back on track. Please stay tuned.

Did Somebody Hit Me Over the Head?- How I Repaired My Life, Part 2

This part of my life, from age 14 to 22 or so, is the nutty part. This is where I went off the rails. I really can't explain what happened to me. It's as though somebody came along, whacked me over the head, and I just sort of  slept my way through this part of my life.

This was a time in my life when my ego was forming and was at it's very worst. That false sense of self that we present to the world. We become the lie. I was certainly not immune to this. If we tell ourselves lies often and long enough- there is a dangerous chance that we may actually begin to believe them. This is who we become.

Years ago in New Orleans, I was sitting in a coffee shop trying to sort out and convey these life events that I am writing about now. I wasn't able to do it. It sounded like a pity party because I simply could not see the value in all of the bad things that had happened to me. I hadn't found any solution yet.

I am writing here now because all of that has changed for me. I see tremendous value in all of the bad things that happen to us and even in some of the bad things that we do to others.

One caveat that I would like to warn you about here. There is no solution in taking on a victim role. Even if it is justified. Victims get hijacked. I don't care if you grew up in this worst house on the planet with parents dealing dope and turning tricks. That kind of environment would certainly have a negative impact on you. However, there is no solution in self pity. We simply take stock of what has happened, how that has negatively effected us, and we plot an emotional solution. It doesn't matter if your father beat you up 100 times- we are here to get well- and getting well will not require us to wallow in self pity or demand apologies. Your dad beat you up. That is over now. It is time to fix us. Heaping shame on someone else for their mistakes will only cause more damage and waste additional time. How do I know this? Because I have made every one of those mistakes.

We want to spend our energy on getting well- not wasting time demanding apologies because our fragile egos think we need one.

I don't think it's really necessary to list all of the stupid things that I did in this time frame. But I think I need to describe it a little. So I will just speak about many of these things in a broader sense. By the time I was a freshman in high school, I was routinely drinking and smoking pot. I was still playing sports but my grades started to deteriorate. I was sneaking out at night and stealing stuff, shoplifting mostly, and returning home before dawn. I was still playing sports but I wasn't doing too well.

My father had moved to Idaho and was working a new job and that provided a little relief for me. The war zone between my parents had a temporary cease fire. After only a year or so after that move, our family moved to Idaho. So the cease fire, as it turns out, was rather short lived.

Idaho was like getting tossed in the deep end of the pool for me. I didn't like it. I often look back on my life and think that I developed a bad attitude that I carried for a long time- shortly after my arrival in Idaho. I was 15, going on 16 that year.

I quit smoking pot after arriving in Idaho. I never really liked it anyway. School was so much easier in Idaho that I didn't have to do much to get by. Sports were far less competitive so it didn't take much to land on the varsity football and basketball teams. I landed a decent job after school during the weeknights and I bought a hot rod. I wrecked it in a drag race, drunk- 6 months after I got it.

I got in a lot of fights with my parents. Some physical and violent. By the time I was 16, I started fighting back. That slowed my parents down. My childhood from age 8 to 16 was just another part of that war zone my parents called a marriage.

Drinking was becoming a bigger part of my life. I graduated in the bottom third of my class, primarily because I just didn't care. I had no plan beyond high school. I was living my life day to day, unconsciously. My father got caught cheating and that was the beginning of the end. That happened the night before I graduated from high school. The day of graduation, I was drunk. In fact, I think I went on a three day drinking binge about that time. I went to work for my uncle in Wyoming that summer and my drinking just continued to get worse. So that was my theme all the way through college and into my working life. I drank to feel better about myself.

I didn't examine this behavior of mine until some 25 years later. This was that unconscious part of my life where I developed an out of control "survival" ego that was completely self absorbed and self centered. All I ever really thought about was me and I think I learned this because my parents were so fully self absorbed themselves. As long as I got what I wanted- that was all that mattered. In fact, I didn't even know that there were people who didn't live this way. I just assumed that everyone took care of their own best interests in some dog eat dog- sort of fashion.

Deep down, I never really felt good about myself. I always thought I was a bad human being and I honestly thought I was responsible for the war zone that was my parents' marriage. I compensated for all of that by drinking. Drinking became my biggest coping mechanism.

I had developed some other issues as well. I didn't have the slightest clue on how to have an intimate relationship, yet here I was running around and dating women, doing all of the stupid stuff that young adults do. I had anger issues and abandonment issues. Think about this. The only relationship guide I had was my parents' constant fighting and their marriage. Wouldn't you have just loved to date me? I was a neanderthal.

It is a quirk of the human ego, that we all think we are incredibly smart. This is a shame- because as a result of this vast intelligence that we think we possess-we sure create a lot of heartache and damage. Imagine how much better off we'd all be if we collectively decided we were stupid. We would be forced to behave with humility and kindness. We would be a whole lot less judgmental because we had already decided we didn't know much. We would be humble and kind because we would know our place as students rather than teachers. Oddly, I think the world would be a much kinder, gentler place- if we could all simply agree that we really don't know how to get along that well. That we are all a lot less smart than we think we are.

So that's it. By 22, I really didn't know much about anything but I thought I did. In college, I had switched majors twice. In 1982, I graduated from college. From full fledged juvenile delinquent to police officer. As odd as this all seems, it makes perfect sense to me now.

Addictive personalities constantly want to to change the way that they feel. I was one of those types. I chewed tobacco, I drank daily, I gambled every chance I had. I couldn't engage in drug use because it was such a no-no for law enforcement (polygraphs) even though I knew a couple of cops who did.

Relationships were impossible. I had no clue how to "have a relationship.". I just knew I didn't want to fight every day like my parents. I figured that much out.

I think I tried very hard to be a "nice" guy in as much as I was capable. I still had a conscience.

I became a cop shortly after my 22nd birthday. It was January, 1983. I had a lot to learn and life doesn't really care if you are ready or not- it just does what it does. The world turns.

Life's a Candy Store, How I Repaired My Life, Part 1

In order to write something of value, I am going to have to speak honestly. A lot of what I am going to say in these essays is intensely personal.

There is simply no other way of conveying truth. Very rarely, and certainly not within my family or circle of friends, do people expose their innermost vulnerabilities. People have been taught not to disclose their innermost emotions. Most people see disclosure as a weakness that leaves them wide open to attack and ridicule. Undoubtedly, we have all felt the sting of that.

But my mission here is to convey how I acquired all of my inaccurate beliefs and how those beliefs negatively impacted me later on in my life. So please try not to judge my family or myself too harshly as you read this- everyone was trying to do the best that they could. 

My parents both came from rural Montana. They both lived on farms with large families. Other than their own personal experiences coupled with strong beliefs and hard work- they really didn't have much     in the way of formal training on how to raise children. Most importantly, they each came from families with moderate amounts of dysfunction and bad beliefs. That point is key to this story. In fact, I never paid too much attention to the levels of dysfunction in my parents' families until I realized the importance of it. Once I understood dysfunction and how it is passed down- I have tried very hard to find the causes of it in my parents. In many cases- I've been able to sort out why they behaved in certain ways and still behave in ways that have not changed much over 40 years or so.

All behavior is learned. My parent's dysfunctions and bad beliefs had to come from somewhere. Of course this makes sense- their dysfunction came directly from their family and personal experiences. Throughout this piece, I am going to refer to these beliefs and how they positively and adversely affected me. My father was 22, my mother was 20 when I was born.

As a young child, I had very high energy. Most members of my family have told me this. I remember some of it- but generally not prior to the age of 4. Had I been born years later, they might very well have diagnosed me with ADHD or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. In the early 60's, nobody had heard of such a thing. Thankfully. I often wonder about the effects of prescription drugs on brains that are still forming. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_deficit_hyperactivity_disorder

So I was a handful. At the age of 3 in Minneapolis, I ran away and was picked up blocks away- by the police. I have often wondered what my mother thought after losing a child like that. Incidentally, she has never me what she was doing that required so much attention that I could effect an escape. People make innocent mistakes- sometimes I think our culture goes completely overboard criticizing honest mistakes.

My father and my mother were unprepared for parenthood. They were kids raising kids. I am comfortable saying this because as I grew older, I began to witness the levels of dysfunction that they exhibited. I could see they had problems. Even as a child, I think I lost credibility in their decisions.

My parents fought like cats and dogs. They were constantly yelling at each other and sometimes this erupted into physical violence. One of my earliest memories was watching my father drag my mother out of the house and then rough her up in the dirt driveway of the house we were living in. Of course, that behavior sounds insane today. But in those days, domestic violence was tolerated, if not expected. The arguments were frequent enough that I began to form my earliest bad beliefs. Two of those beliefs I carried for the rest of my life.

That yelling and violence were acceptable ways of dealing with people. Most importantly, I began to believe that I was responsible for my parents' anger with each other. Often they would direct their angry emotions at me- often enough- that I began to believe that I was somehow the cause of their problems. I developed that belief early enough that I never felt comfortable in my own skin. I felt tension anytime my father, mother, and I were together. Relief came when my folks would spend time with their families, or my grandparents. With witnesses around, my parents were far too prideful to disclose the truth- that they really just didn't like each other too much. They were always on their best behavior because part of our family dysfunction was to never tell anyone that you were having problems.

There's a huge problem with people who don't fully disclose the truth. They are never able to obtain useful, intervening, or helpful advice when you pretend everything is fine. This level of personal dishonesty or non disclosure poses problems that lead to even more dysfunction. Interestingly enough, hitting one another seems to have been pretty common in both of my parents families. Remember what I said about all behavior having been learned?

So my folks put their best face on and pretended that everything was ok. They could lie to their families, and maybe even themselves, but they couldn't lie to me. I knew what was happening even at age 5 or 6.

So those are the two most significant bad beliefs I acquired. I believed confrontations including anger were acceptable. I also believed that I was responsible for my parents' unhappy marriage- that maybe I was a reckless, hard to discipline ADHD type kid that adversely impacted their marriage. That it was my fault. Because of that, I felt my first twinges of guilt and shame. I never felt fully comfortable with myself after that.

My parents were actually pretty good people that simply had no skills for solving their problems or avoiding new ones.  I know that now. They got a lot of things right and they tried very hard to be a family- I knew they were trying. They didn't give up even when they failed repeatedly as a couple. I am very grateful for that lesson, I learned resolve and truthful intent because of them.

For the most part, my childhood was a happy one. Our family moved to Butte, Mt. and I began to participate in sports and trying new things. Skiing, golfing, piano lessons, braces. That sort of thing. My parents were always trying to be good parents and even as a kid, I recognized that. In the end, there was always more fighting. Fighting about money, fighting about houses, fighting about families. My father began to drink a lot and I remember him coming home drunk often. One Christmas Eve, he got drunk and very sick, he was ushered into the bathroom by my mother. Ultimately, he would break a huge mirror that night in the bathroom and another fight broke out that continued thru Christmas Day.

My father had two emotions. Laughing and angry. Oddly, that is what I remember the most about him. As time went on I would see a lot more angry and a lot less laughing. He never talked about his feelings- ever. Nor did my mother. That was a huge part of my family dysfunction- my parents had no idea how to handle their emotions so they just bottled them up. Or drank them away.

In fact, the idea that people self medicate with alcohol, pot, and legal medications is an absolutely insane idea that has reached epidemic proportions. Do we engage in all of that self abuse because we have no other effective means of dealing with our emotions?  You know what I think.

If there ever was a town that encouraged dysfunction it was Butte. As my parents' fighting grew worse and worse, all I wanted to do was get away from them and our house. I spent every waking moment away from home. I was playing pool in bars regularly, golfing, bowling, and gambling, (I had a job picking up range balls) being a funny guy in class and getting in trouble with the nuns at my Catholic school. I engaged in a lot of attention seeking behaviors now that I see all of that clearly. I started chewing tobacco and stealing regularly from grocery stores. I had my first drink at age 11 and I loved it. I drank at our Italian neighbor's house every chance I could. I learned how to play poker. I started stealing tobacco when I had spent all of my summer funds. I got caught stealing when I was 12 or 13.

Strangely after my run in with the Butte cops and subsequently, my angry father, instead of stopping my career of shoplifting- I vowed instead that I would never get caught shoplifting again. I never did.

One other thing happened that would have a huge impact on me later in life. I witnessed a stabbing, a murder in a Butte bar. When they brought the drunken suspect out and put him in the squad car, I can honestly say that at that very moment- was the very first moment that I ever felt hate. I don't know why exactly. I do know that my career choices later in life, would bring me back to that moment.

I loved living in Butte. The Butte of my childhood was a busy, wide open town that all but ignored most laws. Butte certainly shaped me. I never wanted to leave. I have to be honest and say that I was a fully engorged- childhood delinquent. I hid most of that delinquency from my folks. But the copper mine was shutting down and everyone was leaving Butte. So were we. My parents were fighting constantly over a house they were building in Missoula. We were moving soon. It was the summer of 1975.