Functional Tools

Are the tools you have in place truly functional to allow you to love yourself unconditionally and thus love all beings? The key word here is all, not just the ones you pick and choose…

For many years I did things that were considered functional, but after forty nine years I found myself at such a low point that I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to rise up. There was no I think I can chants, no positive thinking, no meditation, no loving myself. There was much confusion and despair, and the insanity of this is my own mind developed these tools as functional. Now I know not many get to this place of total despair so it’s difficult to understand how low I was, but I will say this, I’m fortunate beyond words and I will tell you why. When I was twenty eight years old there were ten of us still hanging out in a bar in Newark NJ, all of us were using alcohol and drugs as functional tools. Out of those ten individuals eight are dead. What’s tragic about this is the tools that each of them accepted as functional were what caused their death. Think about how insane this is and how often this is repeated today. Insanity to say the least.

When I look back at what I thought were functional tools, I see nothing but this insanity. I alone although not intentional, caused all my own suffering. Now you may not think this applies to you, but every negative thought one ever has comes from within. It may have been put there by some outer influence, but it was attached to by you and seen as functional. I’m not a big negative/positive person, my experience has been more in line with quietness as the most functional tool to use, but it wasn’t always this way. To me the question to ask yourself if you can muster the courage to do so is, are you willing to truly face yourself to see if the tools you have in place are truly functional to allow you to love yourself unconditionally and thus love all beings…