By Ox Drover
Someone sent me a forwarded e mail the other day that I had seen before, but this time, as I read the sweet story about how to tell the differences between heaven and hell, I started to think about my own life in relationship to this story. You may have heard it before, but here is the story.
A man was walking along with his dog one day down a pleasant road and he realized that both he and the dog were dead. The road was nice but he began to be tired, hot and thirsty. He came around a bend and saw the most beautiful golden gates, with a kindly looking person standing there. The gate was surrounded by flowers and he thought how beautiful it looked. He approached the kindly looking man and asked where he was. The man softly touched his arm, reassuring him, and then said, “Step into Heaven my friend, you are safely here.” The man started toward this wonderful golden gate, but just before he stepped through., the kindly stranger at the gate said, “Oh, your dog can’t go with you, he has no soul.”
The man looked at his dog, standing faithfully beside him in death as he had in life, and sadly turned away from the entrance to Heaven and started walking down the road again. Soon he came to a very plain looking, rustic gate with a rustic man sitting by the gate.
He approached the man by the gate and said “My dog and I are very thirsty and we would love a drink of water if you could provide us with some.” Of course the rustic man invited the man into his lane, gave him and the dog both a bowl of water and said, “welcome.”
When the man asked “Where am I?” The rustic old man said “Well, son you’re in Heaven” The man was confused and asked about the glittering golden gates he had passed because they wouldn’t let his dog in with him, and the rustic old saint said, “Oh, yea, that’s Hell, we use him to screen out the riff raff. We don’t want anyone here who would desert his dog or a friend for what appears to be the golden gates.”
I got to thinking of that man as an analogy of my life, and I realized that so many times I have deserted my best friend (myself) for what appeared a “golden gate” of the easy path. I have gotten off the Road to Healing long before I even approached taking care of myself. I have entered into the false Heaven because it looked so easy, so wonderful, and I have left my best friend — myself–standing alone out side while I entered into this wonderland of deceit and self deception—again and again.
This time, I am determined to bypass the “quick and easy” solutions and to stay on the road to Healing and to take my best friend with me, to care for her ”¦ she deserves my love and nurturing. No one who will not recognize that my best friend is valuable, that I cannot do less than respect her, deserves a place in my life. No one else can take responsibility and make me happy without her. She is ME.
peaceatlast
Thank you for this reflection! This reminds me that I would not tolerate anyone who would harm my child or sweet dog. Why then tolerate anyone who would seek to harm me? The great Commandment: Love thy neighbor as thyself. You can do nothing for your neighbor if you don’t love yourself!
eyeswideshut
Oxy, a wise and gentle post. Yes I walked through those gates, and there was quite a show going on in there. Flashy cars, expensive wine and very nicely tailored suits.
After more than a year on NC – I have come to realize what an emotional wasteland I tolerated and twisted myself into a pretzel trying to accept as “love”. Finally have realized that no one – ever – has given me the emotional support I need or want. But the false idea that I had it – “love” from my ex – made the need and confusion all the greater. Made the “what is wrong with me” thing become and endless loop.
Caring for myself now has truly become a pleasure. Trying to nurtue the “image” of a happy marriage, cost me the ability to nurture myself for many many years. No more.
TOWANDA Oxy.
blindsided31
Very sweet story- it brought tears to my eyes. Yes, I thought the SP in my life was my best friend. I never would have abandoned him but he dropped me in an instant for the “golden gate”- his new “love”( but as some of you have pointed out, really his new victim). Sometimes I try to think that he really isn’t a sociopath, that he just made a mistake and will eventually come back to me. But when I read the posts and review Ms. Stout’s book, he so exactly matches so many of the characteristics of a socioath. Maybe the “hell” in the story is what awaits him. I am trying very hard to focus on ME.
Ox Drover
Dear Blindsided,
He will never be “true” to anyone. You allowed him to lead you into the “golden gates” of his deception, but that is what they DO. Oh, by the way, leave your morals and your conscience outside the gate, standing on the road.
All that glitters is not gold, and the fool’s gold of their “love” that they show is is just that, FOOL’s gold. They fool us, they are FAKE. You are better off without him. You deserve the REAL THING, not some fantasy.
Dear Eyes, yep it takes a LOT of energy to maintain that illusion. Energy better spent on taking care of ourselves.
Dear Peace,
Yes, we cannot love our neighbor if we don’t love ourselves first. I think we forget that sometimes and give MORE TO THE NEIGHBOR than we do ourselves. I don’t recall anything in the Bible that says we should love the neighbor MORE than we care for ourselves.
Leah
Wow, apt metaphore. I can relate.
shabbychic2
Yes, I always deserted my best friend, I never thought of myself that way, I was too busy taking care of everyone elses feelings because I didn’t want to feel my own. Thank you for the analogy, you are so creative and insightful, it gives me another way to think about myself.
alohatraveler
Good one Oxy! Good one!
Thanks for sharing this story.
alohatraveler
Oxy,
I was going to contact Donna to see if I could send you a private note but since you have a new article… here is your note.
I wanted to share with you that I just wrote a check yesterday that represents the END OF MY BAD MAN debt!
I AM BAD MAN DEBT FREE! (I think I got off really easy compared to so many… but it was still a mountain to climb)
Lately, people what have met in the last few years (post BM) have started to say that I seem changed. Two days ago, someone told me, “You look like you don’t have a care in the world!”
I still have plenty of worries but it is true. I can close that chapter.. my tropical debacle as I call it, at least financially!
And I have been accepted to Graduate School for a Masters of Social Work in the Fall. My career has been restarted in a new field and I am using my pain to work with others in pain… and I don’t mind. I really don’t.. because it makes use of what I went through.
I guess I wanted to share with you because you have been such an amazing, truthful, uplifting, skillet waving, encouraging presense at LF and I feel like you are Aunt Oxy! Funny isn’t it?
So thank you for all your wisdom and wise cracking! I just love imagining you on the farm… I just love it!
All the best! Elise
Stargazer
OxD, what a wonderful story. The only thing that would have made it better is a skillet. I’m sure there must be skillets in heaven. 🙂
Yes, how many times have I done what was not in my best interest because I was dazzled by promises of greed, false hope, and dazzling images of the future? I still don’t always know how to take care of myself. Sometimes I only figure it out by accident when I have been neglecting myself too long. I’ve got the physical part down–eating well, sleeping, and exercising. But getting emotional needs met is still a challenge for me. While so many people regard themselves as too needy, I am hopelessly self-sufficient and private–to an extreme.
alohatraveler
Stargazer,
You have let us into your life. That’s progress, isn’t it?
:o)