Encouraging Bliss ~ Protecting My Bliss from Erosion

This week Blisschick asked her readers to reflect upon those times in the recent past when " ... [you found] yourself not respecting your boundaries, not living from your integrity, not following your bliss."

I took a walk to reflect on what I wanted for this post. I found myself thinking about My 21 Commandments, and how they strengthen my resolve during those times when I feel particularly weak. I realized that the times when I strayed beyond my boundaries, and away from integrity and bliss really constitute a violation of one of my own personal commandments. In retrospect it's sort of like I mortgaged the process of true bliss for a taste of self-gratification. As though I could borrow from my integrity and bliss for an escape to the numbing realm of self-gratification.

I've failed to realize, of course, that each time I substitute self-gratification for true bliss, I send myself further off course ~ further into the abyss of the dark, sunless wood. Why does self-gratification masquerade itself as true bliss? Or, more realistically, what, about my vision lends me to see, in a fleeting impulsive moment, self-gratification as true bliss? And what's hidden beneath that fear I feel, when I contemplate choosing against some destructive forms of self-gratification?

When I have strength to resist completely, I find that if I can keep the endurance to deny my ego for the first day or two, if I press through that feeling of unease, the feeling of hunger and fear leaves my spirit. But, during this time I find myself tenderly vulnerable to temptation. To the point where I lie to my Self, saying, Just this once. I won't get carried away.

"Ahhhhh, Roxanne. You don't believe that. do you? Take courage to Be."

About two years ago, I reflected up the struggle to battle my ego's avarice for extreme, destructive gratification. I wrote a piece about a doe,* and her experiences with a coyote predator, as the hunted, and sometimes the hunter. At the end of the piece a wise, unseen voice tells the doe that the chase will stop when she stops running. I suppose that's a lesson for me. Let go ... surrender to acceptance ... empty myself in the gift of clarity, offered to all who open themselves to receive and feel absorbed into it.

* As I wrote this post 2 years ago, it does need some refinement. I plan to edit this post and repost it in the near future.