DAY 1 - SOUL WRITING

20131119

Early this morning, on KFI, I heard a woman talking about "soul writing."  She said it was NOT "automatic writing" and differientiated the two by saying "soul writing" comes after meditation, and from within the soul, while "automatic writing" comes from an outside source, and is generally not beneficial to the person writing (I'm not totally sure she said that last thing - I was half asleep at the time).

Anyway, today I'm going to NOT follow any one person's website about it.  I'm going to go with what I feel might be an avenue out of my current dilemma (depression & anxiety about life in general).  I'm going to just plow forward with whatever might become today's experience in my life.

Plan:

1.  Meditate for 30 minutes, even if I fall asleep
2.  Begin writing, and hopefully observing that it's from my SOUL, and not from some outside source.

Thought:

This could very well be a better solution than any I've tried before.  We shall see.  I will break from this note about my plan, and title the section "SOUL WRITING" below.

*******
Soul Writing (7:15am)

Amazingly, the meditation went very well.  I was able to recall (after NOT being able to recall for a while) the name of the "app" that David Timpson had recommended for playing music - SPOTIFY - and I recalled it by sort of forcing my brain to remember.  I knew it began with an "s" and then I went through the possible letters that could be 2nd letters, and I settled on "p" as the most likely.  Then I went to vowels, and when I got to "o" the name came to me.  I was quite pleased with myself for "forcing" my brain to recall "SPOTIFY" and it was a great result, since I then used SPOTIFY to provide the music for my meditation.

I meditated for about an hour, but kept reminding myself that the exact time did not matter.  I only wanted to experience a fairly substantial "chunk" of meditation time.  I prepared my room by closing the window & blinds, and lighting two white candles above my head.  I positioned my ear buds & connected them to my iPhone, and started "Meditation" - and it was perfect.

My thoughts turned to childhood, to my negative experience with Guide Technologies, and then to the deep-seated propensity (or is it a need) to deceive myself and others.  Whether that is useful or not, I don't know.  But I do know that it seems to me to be the sort of "root cause" of all the negative living I've experienced over my life.  In other words, had I NOT been inclined to lie, I might have been a very different - and better - person.  But now, at least, I can admit the truth about my lying, and I'm not afraid of the consequences.  I could - right now, anyway - tell my own two children that I have always been a liar on some level.

To remember how pervasive this is, I will record here the conversation I had yesterday with Anthony Guthmiller on the phone.  I called him regarding my upcoming meeting at Wells Fargo Bank with Jonathan Weedman, a VP of Corporate Donations at the bank, and a gay man.  We (Andy Sacher and I) were going to meet him today to discuss their possible donations to The Lavender Effect.  So, I had called Anthony to get a few last minute pieces of advice on how we should handle our meeting with Jonathan.  He was not in, so I left a voice mail message.  A little later in the morning, I received a call from Jonathan, saying he had to cancel our meeting due to his illness.  I was SO disappointed.  We'd been planning this meeting and looking forward to it for several months, and now I was fairly sure we wouldn't be able to reschedule anything anytime soon with Jonathan, given how busy he is and how he now would be "behind" due to his illness.  (BIG *SIGH*)  So, around noon, I received a call back from Anthony.  I told him that we were going to meet with Jonathan "tomorrow" (it's now "today"), and I wondered if he could give us any advice on our meeting.

LIE:  I did not tell Anthony that our meeting had already been cancelled.  I let him believe it was still going to happen, even though I knew it would not.
LIE:  I told Anthony that the meeting MIGHT be cancelled since Jonathan had called and was sick, but that it was possible it could still take place.

WHY did I do that?  I don't know, unless it's because I somehow "have to" deceive.  It makes very little sense to me now, to have done that.  But I did.

So, my conversation with Anthony continued, and he advised me to show up for the appointment, even if Jonathan did not.  This would show how dedicated & serious we are to work with Jonathan.  Of course, I knew as he and I spoke that we would not be going to the appointment at all.  But I let him think that we would possibly still go & impress Jonathan..... all the while knowing that we were not going to go at all.

So, the consequence of my lying like this to Anthony is that he and Jonathan (being friends) might talk about my conversations with each of them, and they might realize that I had lied to Anthony.

I have NO REASON to lie about this.  But I did.  And now I MIGHT have an awkward consequence as a result.  I.e., Jonathan could possibly confront me later, and ask, "Why did you tell Anthony that we might still meet at the original time, when I told you that we could not?"

The answer to that question is complex.  It might be because I have a deep-seated need/propensity to lie.  But there is also a practical reason.  I wanted Anthony to give me as much information as possible during the conversation.  I wasn't sure how available Anthony is, and I had him on the phone.  So..... I sort of "pumped" him for information, and manipulated (i.e. lied) the conversation so that I could get as much info as possible.

It is HIGHLY likely that I will not have to answer for my lying in this case.  It's a milky, merky, gray area that is probably not significant enough to dwell on for too long.

But I still lied.  And I still HATE that I'm a liar.

So, (hopefully) putting this awkward situation to rest, I will simply know, having analyzed it "to death," that I have that tendency (to lie), and that I don't like it, and that I hope I'll avoid doing it (i.e. NOT DO IT) the next time the "opportunity" to do so arises.

*sigh*

I do hope that writing it all down, and relentlessly adhering to the truth, will serve some purpose for me.

So, my "SOUL WRITING" led me to address my deepest (as far as I know, it's the deepest) character flaw of my life:  The tendency to lie.

It's ironic that this should be the case.  I've been told by several somewhat close friends that I'm an honest person - more so than others in their lives.

And yet, I've lied about my very being - to myself and others - to the point of distorting my true self.  E.g., I've pretended to be a straight male since my earliest memory.  I've pretended to be an honest person.  Now on some levels, I HAVE BEEN an honest person.  Others might say that yes, I AM, and I believe they'd say that, at least in part, because I've made a generally conscious and concerted effort to be honest.  I no longer pretend - to ANYone - that I'm a straight male.  And along with that, I've learned over several years how to tell the truth.  I do it on the website exmormon.org.  And I'm doing it here.

I'm no longer afraid of who might read this, and of what they might think.

In the past, I would not have been so frank since I would think, "What if my son or granddaughter ever reads this?"  And I would think, "I can remember who I and and what I've done to a sufficient degree, that I don't have to write everything down."

The GAs of the LD$ church advise the membership to keep journals.  But now I find out that many of them don't keep journals.  I'm wondering why, but I speculate that it's because if they they did record their activities and thoughts, they'd be forced to put into writing the lies that they are living.

My experience with the LD$ church is enigmatic.  It seems to be false on almost every level.  And yet it also seems to be a valid way of life.  At this point in MY life, however, it is no longer a "valid way of life."  It's a fraud.  I can't go back to it, knowing what I know.

***

I wish I could have written more that is definitively "SOUL WRITING."  Doing the meditation before was a positive experience.  Perhaps it led me to write what I've written.  Perhaps not.  Either way, I feel a little better now, than I did during the night as I lapsed in and out of sleep.

I don't know if I'll try this again, but I'd like to.  I'd like to really move from the space I'm in, to a better one.  I hope I'll do it, because I sense that there is a whole lot more for me to SOUL WRITE about.  And it would be a shame to not pursue it at least for one more "session" or one more day.