Dear Friends,
The unfortunate consequence of the war against terror is that it is a war against ourselves. The anger, hatred and violence in the world is due to the anger, hatred and violence in our very life. On the path of love and healing means on the path of transforming unwholesome actions of body, speech and mind, into gardens of forgiveness, forbearance and listening deeply to help relieve suffering.
One thing my mentor, Sister Susan, had said to me long ago, "Brian, you've got to make yourself happy. You have all the tools that you have learned: walking meditation, stopping, looking deeply, cradling the little child within you, in order to not be overwhelmed by sorrow, despair, anger, you've got to put into practice everything you have learned."
It is a challenge with everything going on to not fall ill, to not fall into that place of shame and guilt and sorrows. Come back home to yourself, your true nature is love. Having compassion for others does not mean suffering with them. Having compassion means that you are taking good care of your own emotions, and that you send your energy, your transformation to those in need. When you have compassion, true compassion, your sending of energy is also receiving of energy. True compassion liberates us from suffering, from unwholesome states of mind and body.
The object of the practice is to be free where you are, to notice, and to cultivate the freedom that is in your heart. This freedom comes through taking responsibility for your actions, your thoughts, your words. This freedom comes from letting go of views that separate you, that isolate others and yourself, and prevent love and communication from growing.
My extended family was torn apart by sexual misconduct and abuse. For many years I have wanted my family to come back together. There are those who just want to forget about their siblings, who want nothing to do with their children. And I have struggled in the past with despair over these occurrences. Still today I find it challenging to discern what my role is. My duty is not to take sides, but to observe, and to practice wholeheartedly, to make sure that I am peaceful, calm and live with clarity of mind. I want to be firm and solid in myself, not easily overcome by despair and anger and anxiety. I want to be free where I am. That's why I am offering this blog, and am writing a book about my experiences.
This November I will be leading a retreat in Las Vegas for Survivors and Everyone who wishes to attend in order to look at the ways we have been victims of abuse, but also to see our connection to the violence, hatred and discrimination in the world. The nature of this retreat is very light, very welcoming, and very much at ease. We want to promote peace in one's daily life. We want to promote peaceful healing. This can only be done in an atmosphere of loving-kindness, through listening deeply and using loving speech.
For more information about the retreat held NOV 21-23, 2008 please e-mail me at brian@briankimmel.com or call (702) 461-8422. Thank you.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
THE CANDIDATE I SUPPORT AND WHY
Two things on my mind lately are...the health and well-being of our society especially future generations who are not yet able to vote, and my book (the message behind it) on a peaceful recovery from sexual child abuse.
Joe Biden's, “Violence Against Women Act,” signed into public law by President Bill Clinton in 1994 could have saved me if it had been enacted seven years prior, when my mother first started being beaten by my former stepfather. Had it been a crime, then, mom may have had more courage, and the support of lawmakers to bring her and her family into safety. Instead, the abuses continued, and it continued with me. For many years I was witness to my mother's beatings, and in private I was raped and emotionally tormented by my stepfather.
Barack Obama, my pick to be our next president voted for a bill, so I hear, to get age-appropriate sex-education for K-12 into public schools. I didn't receive the education about unsafe touch until I was in third grade, when I was eight years old. What my teacher taught us was unspecific, and had to do with strangers who might abduct us at school and in no way educated us on our feelings sexually, and I did have sexual feelings at the time. It was the age my stepfather started his assaults on me, even though his harassment had begun when we first moved in with him when I was five years old. The fear and violence of the household made it very challenging to determine that anything was wrong. You see, that's how violence happens, abuses happen, and keep happening. There is a sort of trickery, a sort of distortion of reality that goes on. The reality becomes the abuse, the abuse becomes the norm, and the violence is allowed to go on and on and on.
In my case it didn't end until sixth grade when I finally received sex-education and I told mom that I had been abused. None of my parents wanted to talk to me about sex. How could they? We have made sex and sexuality such a forbidden subject, yet big corporations use it in advertising in order to manipulate us into getting us to buy buy buy. And it's a sure win almost every time. We know the power of sex in our lives; it's how we all got here (unless you are a worm or a one-cell organism). My thought, just as it is Obama's is that the people of theU.S.A.
Shame, guilt and fear are exercised too much in our country, and it has been under the Bush Administration, and under the influence of extremists pushing their view of reality on the collective. We all have extreme views over things, and that's why we need leaders that will allow our free expressions, and will voice themselves with intelligence, insight and loving-kindness against acts that indiscriminately violate our constitutional rights under common law, and under the laws of our constitutional amendments.
Joe Biden's, “Violence Against Women Act,” signed into public law by President Bill Clinton in 1994 could have saved me if it had been enacted seven years prior, when my mother first started being beaten by my former stepfather. Had it been a crime, then, mom may have had more courage, and the support of lawmakers to bring her and her family into safety. Instead, the abuses continued, and it continued with me. For many years I was witness to my mother's beatings, and in private I was raped and emotionally tormented by my stepfather.
Barack Obama, my pick to be our next president voted for a bill, so I hear, to get age-appropriate sex-education for K-12 into public schools. I didn't receive the education about unsafe touch until I was in third grade, when I was eight years old. What my teacher taught us was unspecific, and had to do with strangers who might abduct us at school and in no way educated us on our feelings sexually, and I did have sexual feelings at the time. It was the age my stepfather started his assaults on me, even though his harassment had begun when we first moved in with him when I was five years old. The fear and violence of the household made it very challenging to determine that anything was wrong. You see, that's how violence happens, abuses happen, and keep happening. There is a sort of trickery, a sort of distortion of reality that goes on. The reality becomes the abuse, the abuse becomes the norm, and the violence is allowed to go on and on and on.
In my case it didn't end until sixth grade when I finally received sex-education and I told mom that I had been abused. None of my parents wanted to talk to me about sex. How could they? We have made sex and sexuality such a forbidden subject, yet big corporations use it in advertising in order to manipulate us into getting us to buy buy buy. And it's a sure win almost every time. We know the power of sex in our lives; it's how we all got here (unless you are a worm or a one-cell organism). My thought, just as it is Obama's is that the people of the
Shame, guilt and fear are exercised too much in our country, and it has been under the Bush Administration, and under the influence of extremists pushing their view of reality on the collective. We all have extreme views over things, and that's why we need leaders that will allow our free expressions, and will voice themselves with intelligence, insight and loving-kindness against acts that indiscriminately violate our constitutional rights under common law, and under the laws of our constitutional amendments.
We need leaders who will be able to share, to listen, and to work together with other countries in order to empower and motivate our own. The only way to end the wars in the world is to build bridges of solidarity, brotherly-sisterly love, compassion (listening to the suffering of others and ourselves) and letting go of the views that make us separate, make us fight, make us angry and hurt inside.
I want leaders in this country who will end war. Who will make peace and begin to reverse the destruction we have caused the planet. Prevent the drilling of the arctic, and other sacred, pristine places that define the integrity and preciousness of life, in which we claim to defend. Invest in innovative plans to make our country interdependent with other nations, not independent. Because independent is more of the same, is lies, is corruption of our very nature. We depend on all life-forms: Plant, mineral, animal and vegetal for our well-being, for our life.
Some may think, “I don’t even vote—it’s between the lesser of two evils.” Yes, indeed it is, but please, I beg of you, VOTE! People have suffered, and have died for the right to vote—women and men of all shapes, sizes, ages, ancestry and creeds throughout history. Your vote does count. The lesser of two evils is the path on the right direction. No one can rule our heart. But we can listen. And we can help those in leadership positions to listen too.
I want leaders in this country who will end war. Who will make peace and begin to reverse the destruction we have caused the planet. Prevent the drilling of the arctic, and other sacred, pristine places that define the integrity and preciousness of life, in which we claim to defend. Invest in innovative plans to make our country interdependent with other nations, not independent. Because independent is more of the same, is lies, is corruption of our very nature. We depend on all life-forms: Plant, mineral, animal and vegetal for our well-being, for our life.
Some may think, “I don’t even vote—it’s between the lesser of two evils.” Yes, indeed it is, but please, I beg of you, VOTE! People have suffered, and have died for the right to vote—women and men of all shapes, sizes, ages, ancestry and creeds throughout history. Your vote does count. The lesser of two evils is the path on the right direction. No one can rule our heart. But we can listen. And we can help those in leadership positions to listen too.
No candidate is going to be perfect, no country is going to be perfect, and none of us are going to be perfect either. It depends on what your “perfect” is. If your “perfect” is working toward freedom, responsibility and liberty for all, who is the candidate for you? If your “perfect” is working toward love, harmony and beauty who is the candidate for you? That is the question.
I’ve already told you my answer.Tuesday, September 2, 2008
A PEACEFUL RECOVERY
The one thing I have noticed being a survivor and hearing the stories of other survivors, is there is a link between us and many other people who live with the idea that they should be quiet, that they should shut up, that they should not share completely what is on their heart. Fear of not being liked, fear of saying too much, fear of not being heard, these are complications that exist in many people, and it is an ill of our society.
If we are truly to overcome the painful feelings and experiences that we have lived through, then we are to shatter the belief that we are not good enough, exactly as we are. Everything that has happened to you was meant to be. My mother believed that to be true of our situation with my ex-stepfather Greg. And I believe it to be somewhat true myself. No matter how many times we may bust through our limitations, no matter how many intentions we set, and no matter how much bad Karma we have burned, there seems to be the lingering way of the collective that sometimes dominates our reality.
But when you are a practitioner of the Way, and when you seek refuge in the heart of awakening within, life and its circumstances become less of an obstacle and more of a training ground. We meet our life’s journey with a sort of hesitance now. And we can learn to meet our life’s journey, instead, with faith, with gratitude, and with determination.
We can instill faith in the power of love to guide us. We can instill faith in our ability to come through hardship with more strength, more wisdom, and with the capacity to reveal ourselves with humility, severing our commitments to egoistic desires. As survivors we are to become authentic human beings who meet the challenges of our present day and age with the courage to look beyond our differences, and to shine in our diversity.
We are to become leaders who have fought through the darkness, who have surrendered, and who have given in to the light, the love, the good in everyone. To be awake and aware is truly the gift we have been given by our abusers, and by our society. Without the hardships we have faced, without the turmoil, the pains of being abused, we may not have known this treasure that lives within us, and in every living being.
We have the ability to transcend experiences of the past, present and future. We have the ability to co-create the world we live in. And we have the ability to re-shape our lives just by the way we think, by the way we relate to what we have experienced.
Our life is no longer a battlefield. We may be involved in the many wars in our lifetime, politically, socially and economically. But the greatest war we may have to fight is the war against our anger, our greed, our own divisiveness, our arrogance, and our need to be a victim and to name all the people and things that have perpetrated us.
To be a peacemaker, to have a peaceful recovery, we must face the war within. And we must end that war, and allow the kindness within our heart to dominate. We must allow ourselves to reconcile with the parts of us we have denied, and the parts of others we may refuse to see: Their love, their kindness, their gratitude, and even their despair.
Those we see as our enemies, they are just like us, fighting a war they may not win in this lifetime. They have anger. They have pride. They have greed. They have disappointments. And one time in their life, they may have loved someone with all their heart, and that person may have denied their love, and they may have suffered greatly because of it. They may not have been able to cope with that loss, that denial. And so they let their pain overcome them, their anger won. And they in turn sought revenge through victimizing others. And while victimizing others, their pain, their anger, their hurt and despair increased, and their compulsion became a habit, one which may be very challenging to break.
We all have the potential of abusing others. And we are, right now, a part of a web that co-creates violence, discrimination, and hatred in the world. If we cannot take hold of our emotions, of our bodies, of our minds, and make peace with the parts of ourselves that want to go to war with everything and everyone we have chosen to be an enemy of, we become a perpetrator too. That “evil” is inside of you. That “evil” is a little seed or a big seed in your consciousness, in everyone’s consciousness. It only takes a little watering for that seed to grow. And with more watering, that seed can sprout, and grow bigger and bigger within in us until we cannot hide from it, and we cannot hide it from others.
My wish is to be a peaceful healer, and to have a peaceful recovery with memories of sexual child abuse. My wish is for all those who are survivors, and all those out there who feel they cannot be heard, to be heard. First, listen to yourself. Listen deeply to the story your body, your mind, your heart is telling you. Listen deeply and ask of it to share everything it has to share. Become a friend, a best friend to yourself. That is the Way. That is the love I am talking about.
Survivors and all people can have this love. It is possible. Love is possible for everyone.
In Gratitude for You,
Brian
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