So,...who is Eric Bouwman??
|
A man's man, amateur photographer, adventurer, avid outdoorsman, journeyman, brother, father, fiance, woodworker, and pacifist who absolutely adores 4 wheeling and off-roading with a real thirst for love, life and hidden secrets and knowledge, known in esoteric circles as Gnosis. A modern day Renaissance man. I have a incurable case of love and lust for the world and the life we live. I see this world as ALMOST the most incredible thing on this earth, coming in a very close second to the wonder and awe inspiring creature that I am and that we call "Human Beings". I am literally shocked daily by the beauty in this world and the spark of creative ability, joy, bliss and well being of my soul. I can't express adequately in mere words how great and wonderful I feel on a daily basis, and that said, PLEASE UNDERSTAND, just a few years ago, I was quite possibly the most sinister, raw, incredulous and innately bitter person that I knew or had ever heard of in my life. I was also unemployed, divorced, broke, depressed, addicted to drugs and lost. What initially started as a quiet fascination with the mysterious and dark became an out right obsession in all things dark and forboding. I spent so much effort, energy and time in the dark corridors and black recesses of my mind and the mind in general. I became consumed with everything that looked or felt even remotely depressing, sad or uncomfortable in an effort to try to understand it, thinking that this knowledge could eventually teach me what i needed to know about myself and who i truly was and why i was how i was. It's incredibly ironic that I thought this would help me to better understand myself, when in fact the exact opposite is true. We are all born pure, natural, happy, joyous and kind. It is our influences and our environment that teach us about our world and how best to survive. Unfortunately for me, I was raised by a mother who thought it would be better to tell me my Stepfather was my real dad than to be honest and tell me the truth, that my real father was never around and didn't want to be. The problem with that wasn't that I didn't know my stepdad wasn't my father, it was that my stepdad was a very anal alcoholic who made it his mission in life to be disgusted by me and my presence and make sure that i understood that in every single interaction that we ever had. He was an extremely angry drunk, and my mother never stayed up long enough at night to see the monster he became later. So, I never went more than a few days without being slapped, punched in the back or stomach, emotionally tortured by way of his comments, nicknames, slurs or other terrible ridicules. You can probably imagine then just how confused, angry and confounded i was when at 15 years old my 11 year old sister found my adoption papers and presented them to me for inspection. The revolting feeling i felt that day i don't believe i could ever forget if i wanted to. And at this point the only person I believed at that time that i could talk to or trust was my mother up And what replaced that fear and respect was a seething hate that I had no idea what to do about or who to talk to in order to address it and it instantly became entirely too easy for me to think to myself or say as often as I could find that "I didn't give a FUCK" you can probably imagine just how terrible that was on me, my family and my mindset for 2 decades after that. I had no desire to be around either of them for years to come, and if and when I had to be for some reason, all it would take was a drink and all of that writhing and seething hate would bubble up to the surface and begin to spill out of me. I went from all A's and the dean's list to barely if at all passing any of my classes, or doing the absolute minimum to get by. For me the worst part of all this for years was that even though i would beg her to do so, my mother could NEVER admit that what she did was wrong and there would have been a much better and far more honest way to let go of or have dealt with all of it. This created the type of victim mindset I carried around everywhere i went and never could see past. In addition, I allowed it to effect everything in my life, until I began to stop blaming any of my problems on all of the enviromental things around me and start looking inside of myself and my mind to see that I was in control of my behavior and not the people or things around me. Once you find out that no matter how much a situation hurts or how badly people treat you, it is you and only you who decides how you then respond. A concept that while initially quite intimidating ultimately was my salvation. Once I wrapped my head around this, it didn't take long to begin to see drastic improvements, not only in how I chose to see things, but when and if I chose to feel them or let them in at all. As long as we continue to perpetuate all of the things and behaviors and feelings we can't stand about ourselves, the longer our struggle will continue and our happiness will be unattainable. The moment you put on these glasses is the beginning of getting our lives in control and creating well being, peace, love and happiness within, instead of depending on any number of material things , people or situations to create them or give them to us externally. We are the creators of our realities. Every thought that goes across our mind and every word that crosses our lips is the material our subconscious mind uses to create it. The filters that we all see through will shape the percievable world we all interact with on a daily basis. Without this knowledge people are absolutely blind as to what truly creates the unique world that we all experience. Whether your days are excellent or abysmal it's all quite literally in our minds.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
