Yesterday and today I had the amazing opportunity to do The Work on a very stressful situation storming inside myself.
Something troubling happened, I got some strange and unexpected news. The information hit my mind, and *KABOOM*! Emotions, stress, sadness, anxiety all resulted.
Its like the time I went into the doctor’s office to get four stitches out from a mole that was biopsied, and when the doctor came into the examining room….her face didn’t look so good. Adrenaline rush.
The thought and the feeling practically happen simultaneously.
Bad News. Uncomfortable Feeling. Mind Starts Thinking.
After I had this troubling news, in the middle of my day, going from here to there, I noticed my mind working VERY hard to know. It wanted an answer!
Why? Why is this happening? Something has gone wrong! Someone has misunderstood something, someone is hurting out there, someone is unnecessarily frightened.
I felt so excruciatingly anxious, then surprisingly peaceful, then mind would kick in again and go back to sad…then open and watching, then wondering.
The mind LOVES the two thoughts together: 1)”I wonder what’s going on!? 2) “Oh, I KNOW!”
The little mind hates when it doesn’t have the “I KNOW” part covered.
So, after doing many other activities and watching a roller coaster ride go pretty crazy on the inside of myself for awhile…I knew to do The Work.
Is it true? Can I absolutely know that this is true?
Can I be sure that the way I’m seeing it is accurate? Do I really know? Do I even need to know?
No.
I had a wonderful facilitator asked me the four questions. When I sit with another person, on the phone or skype or live, and they are there witnessing me and my frantic mind…it’s like the most beautiful gift I could receive.
No hiding. No sweeping this situation under the rug. No avoiding, or wishing it away.
Here it is. Reality.
Who would I be without the thought that something terrible is happening?
Like even in that moment in the doctor’s office when the doctor said, “you’ve got cancer”. Who was I without the belief that its terrible?
This is not trying to think positively, or trying to get rid of scary thoughts and delete them. This is noticing who I would be without the thought at that moment?
Empty, watching the air in the room feel richer, taking a deep breath. Seeing colors all around me. Body relaxing.
Lighter, lighter, lighter. Free.
Could it be possible that this is a wonderful thing that is happening? Could there be advantages?
What if I could say, when something difficult occurs in my world, “OH GOOD! This is going to be really interesting!”
What if I really didn’t need my life to go a certain way today in order for it to be a “good” life? What if I roll with however it goes…open, unlimited, exciting.
What if I can feel love, even here, right now, in this moment where I feel great fear or sadness. Is this terrible moment ALL stress? What else is here?
Peace is here. Remembering who I am without stressful thoughts. When I answer that question, who I WOULD BE without the idea that something terrible has occurred…then I see beyond the terrible. I enter the DON’T KNOW mind in a much more wonderful way.
I don’t know why this happened, I don’t know why I’m experiencing this, I don’t know why it hurts so much, I don’t know why I believe it loss, trauma, or pain so often.
I don’t know what any of it is really for….and that is absolutely OK. This situation apparently exists, without my opinion that it shouldn’t.
And when I turn it around, I discover that I’m not so sure this “bad” thing shouldn’t be happening.
Something good is happening.
Really? Exciting! Something is shifting, something is coming into form, something is helping things move in that direction, not in this one. There is no reasoning, there is no point that I need to know about.
I received this beautiful poem today from an author and teacher, Mary O’Malley, in her newsletter.
Aimless Love
This morning as I walked along the lakeshore,
I fell in love with a wren
and later in the day with a mouse
the cat had dropped under the dining room table.
In the shadows of an autumn evening,
I fell for a seamstress
still at her machine in the tailor’s window,
and later for a bowl of broth,
steam rising like smoke from a naval battle.
This is the best kind of love, I thought,
without recompense, without gifts,
or unkind words, without suspicion,
or silence on the telephone…
~ Billy Collins ~
This is the best kind of love….without the thought that there is anything dangerous or misunderstood going on. No suspicion, no lack of kindness.
Just silence and noticing.
You can do it, too.
Love, Grace