CoachBri’s Blog

It was a warm spring afternoon. The air held the chill of the dying winter. The sun’s warmth could be felt best in the places of seclusion from the cool air. He was a tall, handsome and dressed to perfection. He held eye contact as if not to miss a thing. He was clear about paying for his time and he hoped that we would not be interrupted. He didn’t want me to answer the phone if it rang.

Okay sir that would be fine. Now how can I help?

I’m not really here for help as in counseling. I just wanted to bounce something off you. My friend Larry told me that he often comes to see you and you seem to enable him to look at things differently.

Okay sir. Where do you want to begin?

Well first I have to check you out a little, before I decide to let you in on my ideas.

So what would you like to know?

Are you a religious person?

What do you mean by that?

I don’t want to have a debate and you pour out your religious beliefs on me. I am sick of that. My wife does it to me, my parents, even some of my friends.

Okay sir, so we are here again. What would like to bounce off me?

Why do I feel so shitty about my life? Life seems to be sad to me. Everyone gives me opinions and I don’t think they are really their opinions.

Yes sir they probably aren’t. Very few people think for themselves.

That is what I believe. My wife throws the bible at me and repeats some quote. I get the same thing from my parents. And people from my church. The other day I just couldn’t take it anymore and I walked out and walked home. When I got home my wife ask me where I went and I told her I had to get out of that place. I told her I thought the whole thing was basically lies. I don’t believe it and I can’t go anymore.

What did she say sir?

She cried and told me it was the devil. And I better be careful. She called the pastor. And he came over that afternoon. And it was horrible.

What was horrible?

I don’t know. He asked me questions and I answered and he kept holding up his bible as if it would deflect my responses.

Yes sir, the whole thing is so ugly.

Yes that is a good way to describe it. Ugly. Another thing I think is I am a realist. I can no longer tolerate all this meaningless discussion about God! I don’t even think there is one. I am sick of people saying stuff like if a good thing happens to them, well thank the lord looking after us. Or God blessing us. So god is punishing all those who have trouble or when things go wrong in their life? I don’t hear them say God is punishing me for something I did. Are the hungry in the world the wrath of God? It is all such bullshit. If I want to have sex with my wife and want to go down on her that can’t be a sin! So who do I believe, I am so tired of living by everyone else’s standards!

So what do you want?

I want to know why I feel so unhappy!

Feeling unhappy is a sign of something much deeper, is it not sir?

Like what? If people would just leave me alone and not try to run their belief system down my throat and if my wife would just accept me for the person I am and not what she wants me to be. And if my parents would just get over their son not being religious. Then my life would be great!

Can you control any of them?

No and I don’t want too. I wish I could just get them to leave me alone and not try to control me.

Sir when we are unhappy it is a feeling! Right sir?

Yes but so what? When I feel happy that is a feeling too.

Yes, so when you are thinking about how they are controlling you, how do you feel?

Okay, you and I both know that! I feel good and bad, so does everybody else. But knowing that doesn’t help me one bit getting them off my back.

Okay so what are you doing not to get them off your back?

Coming here to see you and walking out of church and when I feel sexual and want to screw my wife saying that!

And is that getting her in bed and having her?

No, it’s not! She tells me I’m too sexual and because I want it once a week. Her and the minister say that I shouldn’t want sex and that suffering is good for me will make me a better person.

Yes sir that is one of our favorite conditionings.

What is?

One way to control people’s minds religiously is to have them think that suffering brings them to a spiritual understanding or some reward for suffering.

I see that happening in my life, and my wife sure believes that.

I know sir. One way of keeping the world in poverty is to have them conform to the belief that their poverty is a path to God or is holy or something. They do the same in the Catholic church and many other churches to deny yourself sex or things, vows of this and that. It is all a bunch of garbage sir. Love doesn’t flower in conformity or denial or ritual. Love isn’t tied to anything. Love is love. It is relationship in freedom.

That is cool! Relationship in freedom. I have never heard that before!

No sir! That is why love has no chains or bounds.

I feel very chained.

Yes sir! You are!

Is it possible to cut those chains? I don’t know how!

Sir, if you see the importance you give to sex and how you are caught by it, how self-centered you are in it and the demand, the rejection and the withholding and the control of it, then it loses its hold!

But what do I do with all this pressure from my parents and family, even my friends?

Pressure for what sir?

To go to church, prayer groups and all that. It is bullshit.

Sir! If you are reacting to the control of it and people trying to control you then it will never fall away and only build your anger.

Well I sure am angry!

Is not the indication of anger your self-centered imposing on another and them not doing what or getting what you want from the other?

So you are saying I am angry and doing the same back to them the same way they are doing it to me.

Yes sir, that can be seen!

I think that is what’s happening!

All over the world it is happening and very few people are interested in all this. It is destroying human relationship and our relationship to the earth.

I feel so much better. I am sorry for giving you such a hard time.

You didn’t sir. You were hard on yourself!

So what do I do with my wife then?

Seek to understand her sir! Then demand nothing!

That’s how it used to be! Before we were married.

Yes sir marriage is about a union, not a disconnect!

I think you’re right!

No sir you see the truth of that!

Thank you

You’re welcome.

Coach bri