Resistance is very often the first step for me. Honestly, sometimes I sound just like a modern republican, "NO!" (republican's haven't always been this way, remember - they used to be sometimes worthy opponents.)
But luckily I have this inner guide. As I wrestle with this new level of awareness that I really do create my physical reality, I wake up with some great words of encouragement and reminders. Today's topic was loneliness;
"Fill the desire to not be lonely with inner-conversation with us, your guides and angels - you innate connectedness. Feed that today. Nurture that today. Act as if that is true and real today, since you know it is."
And
"Give today what you most need to experience - such as faith and mirth. Make a game of seeing the good in others, in the situation, in the stack of back-logged problems. See how these are gifts, not menaces! Go for that old attitude of gratitude thing today. A p p r e c i a t e EVERYTHING all. day. long. I dare ya."
Here we go.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Sunday, February 7, 2010
"It doesn't matter what we do until we accept ourselves. Once we accept ourselves, it doesn't matter what we do"
pg. 223 - Dan Millman's The Life You Were Born to Live
Amen. THAT's where I'm going.
You know that saying that when the student is ready the teacher will appear? What I've noticed in life is when the student is ready, they see the Answer wherever they look - on the back of a cereal box, a randomly opened book, the next conversation they have with it doesn't matter who, because really and truly all our answers are within ourselves and when we are ready to see them, we do.
Thank goodness the game is rigged that way!
Amen. THAT's where I'm going.
You know that saying that when the student is ready the teacher will appear? What I've noticed in life is when the student is ready, they see the Answer wherever they look - on the back of a cereal box, a randomly opened book, the next conversation they have with it doesn't matter who, because really and truly all our answers are within ourselves and when we are ready to see them, we do.
Thank goodness the game is rigged that way!
Quick Notes
Short version:
It is cheaper – financially, emotionally and self-credibility – to buy/get what you actually want, because there is no Enough of what you don’t want.
For years I've bought the cheaper versions of things, then another cheap version, until eventually I either had a lot of what I didn't want and/or finally got the version I actually wanted in the first place at which point I'd spent a lot more then the simple cost of the thing I really wanted. This goes for food and all the other appetites as well.
Second chances are 100,000 choices in what you tell yourself and what you do taken every day.
If you don’t have it in you to believe in yourself and can’t seem to stop the avalanche of all your failings, suggest to yourself simply, “Maybe not. I could be wrong.” Repetition helps break the wall of the lies we tell ourselves about ourselves, the world, what things meant, and what’s possible. The cheery people already know this. That’s why they are always telling themselves and everyone else how lucky they are – and mean it, without sarcasm!
Repetition helps make things real for the body/personality, so pick a sentence of something you really want, like, “Quitting smoking is the easiest thing I’ve ever done.” and write it down over and over again. Fill a notebook page with it. The physical experience of hand writing is more potent than the mechanical activity of typing. I did this in a careless, non methodical way for about 6 months off and on before I quit smoking. Think of it as counter-programming.
Sure, everyone in our world has been and is programming us all the time, but the most important and powerful programmer is ourselves - own thoughts. I’d heard this for years and talked about it often. I had techniques for releasing old programming and practiced them a lot and they helped. I know that it was true that I was mean and hard on myself and I’d had a lot of glimmers and improvement over the years. But finally I saw how I had been adding new toxic programming reinforcement faster than I was cleaning out the old stuff by how crummy I kept feeling if I didn’t stay really, really vigilant. I realized that I had so desperately not wanted to be “one of those people” who I believed thought too highly of themselves I had gone in the exact opposite direction. I’d become one of those people who lied to myself fall the time – in the negative because I didn’t want to lie to myself like those other people.
Naturally when I meditated on this and asked spirit about this I was shown how there was one specific person from early childhood who modeled the things I didn’t want to be like – the one who wasn’t good at receiving but a “taker”. I didn’t want to be a “taker” so I was lousy at receiving because I didn’t know the difference. And this was the same person who always professed such a high opinion about themselves, acting like Royalty while everyone else was supposed to be Subjects, so I didn’t want anything to do with arrogance (to claim for ones’ own). I was so far repelled by and in resistance to these kinds of things that I became their antitheses, which really is just the same in reverse. The gargantuan arrogance of the inferiority complex is just as damaging and unpleasant to be around as the famous opposite. Competition (from either direction) does not contribute any healing or benefit at all, just more derision, distrust and meanness.
I didn’t want to lie to myself by saying positive or supportive things to myself. Then I realized that at least half of the things I said to myself in the “constructive criticism” category were in fact lies. They were the most hateful versions and interpretations of things I had done and said. Kind of like Fox news talking about democrats. Once I realized that it was in fact a lot easier to see the truth in the bumper sticker, “Don’t believe everything you think.” Finally I could see the viciousness people had been telling me about of so long.
It is cheaper – financially, emotionally and self-credibility – to buy/get what you actually want, because there is no Enough of what you don’t want.
For years I've bought the cheaper versions of things, then another cheap version, until eventually I either had a lot of what I didn't want and/or finally got the version I actually wanted in the first place at which point I'd spent a lot more then the simple cost of the thing I really wanted. This goes for food and all the other appetites as well.
Second chances are 100,000 choices in what you tell yourself and what you do taken every day.
If you don’t have it in you to believe in yourself and can’t seem to stop the avalanche of all your failings, suggest to yourself simply, “Maybe not. I could be wrong.” Repetition helps break the wall of the lies we tell ourselves about ourselves, the world, what things meant, and what’s possible. The cheery people already know this. That’s why they are always telling themselves and everyone else how lucky they are – and mean it, without sarcasm!
Repetition helps make things real for the body/personality, so pick a sentence of something you really want, like, “Quitting smoking is the easiest thing I’ve ever done.” and write it down over and over again. Fill a notebook page with it. The physical experience of hand writing is more potent than the mechanical activity of typing. I did this in a careless, non methodical way for about 6 months off and on before I quit smoking. Think of it as counter-programming.
Sure, everyone in our world has been and is programming us all the time, but the most important and powerful programmer is ourselves - own thoughts. I’d heard this for years and talked about it often. I had techniques for releasing old programming and practiced them a lot and they helped. I know that it was true that I was mean and hard on myself and I’d had a lot of glimmers and improvement over the years. But finally I saw how I had been adding new toxic programming reinforcement faster than I was cleaning out the old stuff by how crummy I kept feeling if I didn’t stay really, really vigilant. I realized that I had so desperately not wanted to be “one of those people” who I believed thought too highly of themselves I had gone in the exact opposite direction. I’d become one of those people who lied to myself fall the time – in the negative because I didn’t want to lie to myself like those other people.
Naturally when I meditated on this and asked spirit about this I was shown how there was one specific person from early childhood who modeled the things I didn’t want to be like – the one who wasn’t good at receiving but a “taker”. I didn’t want to be a “taker” so I was lousy at receiving because I didn’t know the difference. And this was the same person who always professed such a high opinion about themselves, acting like Royalty while everyone else was supposed to be Subjects, so I didn’t want anything to do with arrogance (to claim for ones’ own). I was so far repelled by and in resistance to these kinds of things that I became their antitheses, which really is just the same in reverse. The gargantuan arrogance of the inferiority complex is just as damaging and unpleasant to be around as the famous opposite. Competition (from either direction) does not contribute any healing or benefit at all, just more derision, distrust and meanness.
I didn’t want to lie to myself by saying positive or supportive things to myself. Then I realized that at least half of the things I said to myself in the “constructive criticism” category were in fact lies. They were the most hateful versions and interpretations of things I had done and said. Kind of like Fox news talking about democrats. Once I realized that it was in fact a lot easier to see the truth in the bumper sticker, “Don’t believe everything you think.” Finally I could see the viciousness people had been telling me about of so long.
Second Chances
Satiate; fullness; satisfy; completeness; gratify; slake – slake is such a great word. It is so suggestive, like it should have a lascivious meaning. There was a M*A*S*H* episode in which Radar was wanting to woo a girl (played by Mary Kay Place) who was bookish so he wanted to present as bookish and debonair – okay, maybe it wasn’t that episode but I’m sure I remember Radar getting all hot and bothered over the word slake and asking Hawkeye what it meant. Pretty sure anyway.
Satiate; fullness; satisfied; complete. All these words that describe the sensation that signals it’s time to stop eating. It occurs to me that a lot of us these days do not know this feeling, this sensation. We have, for various reasons, lost touch with the sensation of fullness, completeness. The lack of feeling full – not recognizing that sensation, has become very common in our modern, fast lives.
I’ve been noticing things since I first heard this notion. Around the time I first heard about feeling full, feeling satiated, I quit smoking after 39 years. Quitting smoking made starting a blog make sense, though I honestly couldn’t explain the logic to you. I’ve not smoked in over a hundred days – and I’ve gained some 10 – 15 lbs. To someone else I would say, “Oh, that’s temporary and a small price to pay for quitting a habit that has been simultaneously your best friend and poisoning you since you were 14.” Yea, to you I’d have some nice, support things to say. To me, on the other hand, it’s more dire and threatening than that.
In August I had my gall bladder taken out after 8 months of severe pain. I had thought I could manage things with diet, etc. and resisted the surgery from the first attack in December to the surgery in August. By then I was having “attacks” nearly every other night. One of the last times was so severe I had to go back to the ER for pain and also fear it might have been my heart. They did an ultrasound that time. A week later the surgeon told me the stone was about 1.5 inches in diameter. 1.5 inches! If I’d know that all those months ago when all the pain began I would have had the surgery sooner. One thing this experience made very clear to me is how having a high pain tolerance is not really such a good thing. In fact when you have a really high pain tolerance you subject yourself and your body to a whole lot of unnecessary stress and, well, pain.
I did apologize to my body for all I had put it through, and admitted that obviously I wasn’t great at knowing how to take care of myself, but that I wanted to do learn to do better. I promised my body I would listen to it more. My body had heard this many times before, so there’s been some righteous friction for a really long time. But this I really got it that I didn’t listen to my body at all. So I tried different things to help me stay out of autopilot and paying attention more. Know what I discovered? Modern man doesn’t much like being conscious, hence all the forms of constant stimuli. So all the tv watching and internet surfing and grocery shopping and my main event being cooking and eating – all these little distractions are alternatives to being present and aware. “Duh,” I know, huh? But that is part of this deal – this doing it different and changing normal.
After the gall bladder in August and not feeling as better as I would have hoped I would I got the Swine Flu and my throat and lungs were on fire so I would take 3 puffs of a cig and had the most brilliant idea to not inhale. Simple, simple stuff. Stuff I’d known all along but hadn’t put together in quite that way until just then. To this day when I think about smoking or having a puff, I get the sensation of my throat and lungs being on fire and it is dead easy to move on to distract myself. See, this is an example of distraction being a good and useful thing. Anyway, as one of my brothers says, “The only way I could quit smoking was if it was easy. If it had been at all difficult I never would have been able to do it.” It was the same for me. I’d been thinking and taking about thinking about quitting for about a decade and with all the stuff in the airwaves about how hard it is, etc., I just know I couldn’t quit. I know it would take a miracle. Funny, when I quit drinking in 1991 I would go to meetings and hear people say how they didn’t want to drink. I would wish that I felt that way too, but instead I’d go home and drink again. But eventually I had enough and sure enough, I didn’t want to drink any more.
I have been so grateful to my then-self for having gone through all that then because I know how that felt (hopeless) and scary and this has too. It was such a relief to know that I had gone through this before and it had turned out to be a really great thing, so my body had some sense that this would work out, too.
So I quit smoking in late October and a few weeks later I had to call the 800-nurse on my insurance card. The pains were horribly similar to the pains I had had with the gall stones. This freaked me out since that had been removed. Oh crap – maybe my heart is involved in all this illness after all. The nurse wanted me to go to the ER of course. It was about 2:AM and I didn’t know if they’d dope me up while I was there and then not be able to drive myself home, so I called a cab. I love where I live and the fact that the cab ride to the hospital is less than $10 with the tip included just makes it better. Funny, since before the last 10 months I’d never needed surgery and the ER so much in my life.
This time they didn’t send me home as they had so many times before with the gall stone. This time it was an emergency and it was lucky I’d gone when I did because I was suffering acute appendicitis and I’d be going into surgery in the next few hours, as soon as the surgeon got there. Luckily it was the same one that had done my gall bladder operation and that was recent enough that he could remember me – what a treat! I was just so relieved there was a solution in my very near future.
I know that compared to a lot of things a lot of people have to deal with every day this little 6 month period isn’t much, but since none of these kinds of things have ever happened to me before it all had me pretty freaked. Body certainly was demanding my attention and that I wake up like never before, that’s for sure. Not having much of an attention span hasn’t helped anything either. It has really messed with my ability to sit down and meditate and that’s never a good thing. That’s like greasy wax build-up on your perspective and with all the old stuff that’s coming up to be healed and released - that everyone is being asked to heal and release, it’s been a very intense time.
One minute I truly see and feel how everything that ever was is perfect and everything as it is now is perfect too. And in a heartbeat I’m filled with fear and uncertainty and paranoia. And in each phase, it feels 100% true and accurate and real and like the other perspective is a long way away and won’t be coming back. In early sobriety I called it the, “Always, never and forever,” syndrome and recognized it as a warning signal – “danger, danger, Will Robinson. Don’t believe any of what you’re about to hear/feel/think!” So true. Like a caffeine overload, you just have to sweat it out and not act on any of it. Like being on acid and hallucinating. The trick is to remember that none of it is really real. It’s the worst-case-scenario, distorted version of things, not to be believed. Hence the bumper sticker that says, “Don’t believe everything you think.” I also want one that says, “Don’t believe everything you feel.”
One of the big things that came to me out of all this is that I can’t live like I used to anymore. It really is killing me. Normal is changing anyway, and I’m much better off when I don’t resist and in fact find ways to participate and initiate positive change for my life. I can either be a victim to the changes or I can try to get ahead of them and initiate a few changes of my own.
You know the most important, primary relationship we humans have isn’t with another – it is with ourselves. Body and spirit chose each other specifically, actively. There is a powerful bond there and without the commitment required in any marriage or partnership, we really are screwed. I chose to use my powers for good, not ill. First do no harm. Peace begins at home. Home is where the (physical) heart is. Honey, I’m home! I mean to be here. I mean to be here now, fully, 100%. I came here for a reason, with a purpose in mind. I may have forgotten it for a while, but it’s never too late to begin again.
Second chances are a switch to be flipped. It’s an attitude, an ability. Like serendipity is an aptitude for making desirable discoveries. Second changes aren’t a single event, but a hundred thousand choices in thought and action every. single. day. Here’s to the good ones.
Satiate; fullness; satisfied; complete. All these words that describe the sensation that signals it’s time to stop eating. It occurs to me that a lot of us these days do not know this feeling, this sensation. We have, for various reasons, lost touch with the sensation of fullness, completeness. The lack of feeling full – not recognizing that sensation, has become very common in our modern, fast lives.
I’ve been noticing things since I first heard this notion. Around the time I first heard about feeling full, feeling satiated, I quit smoking after 39 years. Quitting smoking made starting a blog make sense, though I honestly couldn’t explain the logic to you. I’ve not smoked in over a hundred days – and I’ve gained some 10 – 15 lbs. To someone else I would say, “Oh, that’s temporary and a small price to pay for quitting a habit that has been simultaneously your best friend and poisoning you since you were 14.” Yea, to you I’d have some nice, support things to say. To me, on the other hand, it’s more dire and threatening than that.
In August I had my gall bladder taken out after 8 months of severe pain. I had thought I could manage things with diet, etc. and resisted the surgery from the first attack in December to the surgery in August. By then I was having “attacks” nearly every other night. One of the last times was so severe I had to go back to the ER for pain and also fear it might have been my heart. They did an ultrasound that time. A week later the surgeon told me the stone was about 1.5 inches in diameter. 1.5 inches! If I’d know that all those months ago when all the pain began I would have had the surgery sooner. One thing this experience made very clear to me is how having a high pain tolerance is not really such a good thing. In fact when you have a really high pain tolerance you subject yourself and your body to a whole lot of unnecessary stress and, well, pain.
I did apologize to my body for all I had put it through, and admitted that obviously I wasn’t great at knowing how to take care of myself, but that I wanted to do learn to do better. I promised my body I would listen to it more. My body had heard this many times before, so there’s been some righteous friction for a really long time. But this I really got it that I didn’t listen to my body at all. So I tried different things to help me stay out of autopilot and paying attention more. Know what I discovered? Modern man doesn’t much like being conscious, hence all the forms of constant stimuli. So all the tv watching and internet surfing and grocery shopping and my main event being cooking and eating – all these little distractions are alternatives to being present and aware. “Duh,” I know, huh? But that is part of this deal – this doing it different and changing normal.
After the gall bladder in August and not feeling as better as I would have hoped I would I got the Swine Flu and my throat and lungs were on fire so I would take 3 puffs of a cig and had the most brilliant idea to not inhale. Simple, simple stuff. Stuff I’d known all along but hadn’t put together in quite that way until just then. To this day when I think about smoking or having a puff, I get the sensation of my throat and lungs being on fire and it is dead easy to move on to distract myself. See, this is an example of distraction being a good and useful thing. Anyway, as one of my brothers says, “The only way I could quit smoking was if it was easy. If it had been at all difficult I never would have been able to do it.” It was the same for me. I’d been thinking and taking about thinking about quitting for about a decade and with all the stuff in the airwaves about how hard it is, etc., I just know I couldn’t quit. I know it would take a miracle. Funny, when I quit drinking in 1991 I would go to meetings and hear people say how they didn’t want to drink. I would wish that I felt that way too, but instead I’d go home and drink again. But eventually I had enough and sure enough, I didn’t want to drink any more.
I have been so grateful to my then-self for having gone through all that then because I know how that felt (hopeless) and scary and this has too. It was such a relief to know that I had gone through this before and it had turned out to be a really great thing, so my body had some sense that this would work out, too.
So I quit smoking in late October and a few weeks later I had to call the 800-nurse on my insurance card. The pains were horribly similar to the pains I had had with the gall stones. This freaked me out since that had been removed. Oh crap – maybe my heart is involved in all this illness after all. The nurse wanted me to go to the ER of course. It was about 2:AM and I didn’t know if they’d dope me up while I was there and then not be able to drive myself home, so I called a cab. I love where I live and the fact that the cab ride to the hospital is less than $10 with the tip included just makes it better. Funny, since before the last 10 months I’d never needed surgery and the ER so much in my life.
This time they didn’t send me home as they had so many times before with the gall stone. This time it was an emergency and it was lucky I’d gone when I did because I was suffering acute appendicitis and I’d be going into surgery in the next few hours, as soon as the surgeon got there. Luckily it was the same one that had done my gall bladder operation and that was recent enough that he could remember me – what a treat! I was just so relieved there was a solution in my very near future.
I know that compared to a lot of things a lot of people have to deal with every day this little 6 month period isn’t much, but since none of these kinds of things have ever happened to me before it all had me pretty freaked. Body certainly was demanding my attention and that I wake up like never before, that’s for sure. Not having much of an attention span hasn’t helped anything either. It has really messed with my ability to sit down and meditate and that’s never a good thing. That’s like greasy wax build-up on your perspective and with all the old stuff that’s coming up to be healed and released - that everyone is being asked to heal and release, it’s been a very intense time.
One minute I truly see and feel how everything that ever was is perfect and everything as it is now is perfect too. And in a heartbeat I’m filled with fear and uncertainty and paranoia. And in each phase, it feels 100% true and accurate and real and like the other perspective is a long way away and won’t be coming back. In early sobriety I called it the, “Always, never and forever,” syndrome and recognized it as a warning signal – “danger, danger, Will Robinson. Don’t believe any of what you’re about to hear/feel/think!” So true. Like a caffeine overload, you just have to sweat it out and not act on any of it. Like being on acid and hallucinating. The trick is to remember that none of it is really real. It’s the worst-case-scenario, distorted version of things, not to be believed. Hence the bumper sticker that says, “Don’t believe everything you think.” I also want one that says, “Don’t believe everything you feel.”
One of the big things that came to me out of all this is that I can’t live like I used to anymore. It really is killing me. Normal is changing anyway, and I’m much better off when I don’t resist and in fact find ways to participate and initiate positive change for my life. I can either be a victim to the changes or I can try to get ahead of them and initiate a few changes of my own.
You know the most important, primary relationship we humans have isn’t with another – it is with ourselves. Body and spirit chose each other specifically, actively. There is a powerful bond there and without the commitment required in any marriage or partnership, we really are screwed. I chose to use my powers for good, not ill. First do no harm. Peace begins at home. Home is where the (physical) heart is. Honey, I’m home! I mean to be here. I mean to be here now, fully, 100%. I came here for a reason, with a purpose in mind. I may have forgotten it for a while, but it’s never too late to begin again.
Second chances are a switch to be flipped. It’s an attitude, an ability. Like serendipity is an aptitude for making desirable discoveries. Second changes aren’t a single event, but a hundred thousand choices in thought and action every. single. day. Here’s to the good ones.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)