Please pray for Christmas safety

[Questioner]

I am in the midst of a move, from sharing one house to sharing a different house across town.

Our landlord went crazy in several ways, including frequent screaming rants and also reusing the same frying grease every night. This makes grease get into the heating ducts and over everything on the kitchen. Yet another clue about why my health was so bad there. Fortunately we found a new place and have some items moved. We have mattress pads on the floor in the new place, as we haven't been able to move the beds yet.

We do like the nice people and cleanliness of our new location. And one of the new roommates is a professional musician. He and I both put our musical instruments into a spare room and are having a lot of fun playing some tunes together. This is very, very good for lifting my spirits, after not being able to enjoy making music at the old place.

Unfortunately we had to call the police on the abusive landlord who threatened to break into our rented rooms while we're not there, as well as on the other roommate who is a violent alcoholic. (Both of these were at the old place; the new place has the blessing of exceptionally nice, friendly, kind, helpful landlord and roommates.)

We don't have the funds to simply get a truck and helpers to move out everything at once. We also haven't had opportunity to appropriately pack up everything. So I have to take a carload of boxes, then come back for more. We have some people willing to help in a few days to move the furniture, but we don't yet have the use of a truck.

I will spend Christmas moving boxes in a car with no heat, with my voice recorder at the ready in case further outbursts have to be reported to the police, and also dealing with some major medical issues for both myself and my partner.

This is rather discouraging.

Once we complete the move we will be very, very relieved. Until then, there is an excessive amount of stress and uncertainty about the situation.

I'd appreciate your prayers, sending of good vibes and so on.

P.S. If you think you might recognize me from another online forum, please send me a private message rather than making that connection publicly. I want to maintain my anonymity at this time. After I do my series of posts about how I intepret experiences, I'll then post some more about my own personal experiences. Thank you.

[ayadew]

I will send some good vibes, to your crazy landlord and the people you leave included

[Aaron]

Good work. Good luck.

You are loved...

[Monica]

Sending lots of prayers your way! And to all the people involved in this situation.

[Questioner]

Thank you! We decided to enjoy Christmas and email the old landlord a "back off" letter. We're hopeful that this will result in him not interfering with the rest of the move. We feel a sense of clarity and peace about the situation now. Thank heaven for the wonderful voice recorder! It was in my jeans pocket but picked up the screaming very clearly.

What we sent:

subject: LEGAL NOTICE
Christmas Day, 2009
To: (old landlord)
(name):
We are responding to your behavior yesterday, on Christmas Eve. The police told us they will come to the house if needed to resolve this matter. The police made clear to us that recordings that expose illegal behavior are appropriate to make. Our recording of you yesterday proves that you screamed "f* the law!," indicated your intention to violate our rights as tenants by breaking and entering our rental, and you claimed that your outrageous behavior was required by mature sophistication, reason, and common sense. These claims and activities on your part were in the wrong. Here is what is accurate:

You are not going to interfere with our move.
You are going to provide a clear path for our move, from the front door or garage to our space, whenever we need it.
You are not going to have any more verbally abusive outbursts, no matter what the excuse, while we are at the house.
Our legal rights will be respected, including our peaceful and quiet use of our rental unit until the 31st, with no property damage or unlawful entry by you.

Our recording of your "f* the law" outburst yesterday, in which you stated your intention to violate our legal rights, is already damning evidence against you. Blustering yelling and intimidation only makes your situation worse. We will respond to respectful, peaceful behavior on your part in kind.

We will provide the keys back, our forwarding address, and your move-out inspection, all by the end of this month. Common sense dictates that we will better be able to clean the room after we move out all our belongings, and while free of any hostile, abusive threats or aggressively threatening and pushy behavior. Inspection of the room while we are in the process of gathering and sorting our belongings, including some clutter, does not make any common sense.

All further communication with us will be calm and nonthreatening. You need to reasonably wait for us to put down boxes and catch our breath or rest if needed before trying to converse. (name) is a (diagnosis) patient with damaged knees, and I do not have enough energy to deal with screamed arguments while moving boxes. Wait for a good time and then talk with us calmly, or leave a note for us on the stairs if you prefer.

Are you clear on what the law requires of you; what the police, attorneys, and courts are willing to enforce for us? If you are unable to be this reasonable, the police are ready to help you become calm. It is simpler and easier for everyone, including not bothering the authorities during the holidays, if you just do what's required in the first place by the law, and reason, and humane caring for a (diagnosis) patient. This is the most appropriate application of common sense.

The best response is your courteous non-interference with our peaceful move out during the coming week. We will be in and out at a variety of times to complete the move in installments.

(signed)

[ayadew]

Hello Questioner. Be careful with feelings of judgement, self-rightenousness and general uh.. smugness, unless of course you like these feelings. I've found them to be very easy to feel in a situation such as yours. I encourage you to find compassion for this lost person, if you feel you have a lack of this, when things have calmed down.

[Questioner]

Thank you for the words of balance, Ayadew.

I very much appreciate how you drew my attention to the spiritual aspects of this catalyst. Thank you.

I do not enjoy the feelings you described. Awareness of their trap will help us avoid that temptation into negative states ourselves.

Actually my feelings are more of frustration and anger at the unfairness. This is combined with relief that we will soon not have to deal with him any more. Those of us moving out at this time were subject to this kind of destructive behavior throughout our childhoods. So it is a step of growth for us to have anger towards injustice, recognizing it accurately. This is far better than the self-condemnation and confusion we used to have.

We are finally leaving behind the child's view of somehow having brought abuse upon ourselves. The new challenge for us is to appropriate resolve the anger with the actions we can take. We then must let those emotions leave when they no longer empower positive actions. This is indeed a challenge. Last night we got our "emotional reset" so by joining Christmas crowds enjoying the sights. This helped us reconnect with the beauty of the new present moments.

I believe the landlord is lost in unhappiness and addiction. I think he turns to abusive passive-aggression as an attempt to destroy some of his feelings, or to justify his addictions, which in turn also are attempts to destroy emotions he can't welcome. I think he doesn't know how to treat his own emotions and experiences with compassionate, wise balance. I haven't been an addict in the ways he has, but I have struggled with difficult emotions and I can have compassion for his apparent struggle. That is truly a sad existence.

The remaining roommate, who's an abusive alcoholic, shares those struggles with handling his emotions wisely. He and the landlord unfortunately bring out the worst in each other, including raging denial of any problems. I do wish them both well. I sincerely hope they will find the light of love and truth shining in their hearts and minds some day. The sooner the better. And with me as far away as possible until then!

At the same time, I believe the landlord has already destroyed most of his opportunities to have had positive interactions with us. And we do need to not have our physical safety injured for no reason. Unfortunately, we came to conclude that he was so unreasonable that only the threat of official repercussions could get through to him.

By the way, he sent back a one-line email. It simply said, "Have a nice day." We were baffled and asked the Tarot to explain our situation. We got the Victory and Abundance cards. I think the one-line email may have been an attempt to apologize and smooth over the situation. But it was sent by a person who's totally clueless about how to make things right.

We'll be over there in about an hour. The neighbor across the street is letting us park our belongings in her garage until we can get a moving truck. This means only a couple pieces of furniture will remain, along with small odds and ends we need to toss into boxes.

I will seek the light and love present within each moment. It might be that the only light and love the landlord will accept will be to stay out of our way. Or perhaps Heaven can do more than that within his heart. My mission is to focus on the positive outcome: we're out and safe, our belongings are out and safe, and he can choose whatever response to catalyst he wishes without our involvement.

[ayadew]

Communication is a difficult thing, especially with the silly, normalized words we use. But we have nothing else for direct communication! Your abusive landlord has nothing else too, yet we all talk on many levels. Through vibration/feelings/intention. It is a pity we rely so much on these words, so that we become blind to the small subtle other parts communication. "Don't shoot the messenger." and in every case words themselves are the messenger. Don't depend too much on them.

If you feel better away from that person, then so it is. And perhaps the less one relies on face to face distance and direct words to mend yourself the easier you can forgive this person, when words fail...

[Brittany]

Glad you're seeing a positive change, anyway. Sending love and light your way!