I was on the radio!
Donna Markusson, educator, coach and radio personality, interviewed me and she did The Work with me–she was fabulous. (Her personal website iswww.yourinspiredtruth.com)
Her identified stressful thought? Those teenager boys should clean up their messy rooms!
Thinking about other people and how they ought to be cleaner, not make the mess, have the same artistic sensibility, or like things the same way we do is so common.
And very frustrating if you really believe it should change.
How often have I looked at my environment and then thought about how if something were adjusted or presented differently, it would be more pleasing.
It’s the way that critical mind seems to work.
I see this room, and while I love the paint color, it would be BETTER if the carpet was vacuumed, and if the little nail holes in the walls were filled and made invisible, and it would be nice if there were nothing on the table whatsoever, no papers or torn envelopes from yesterday’s mail.
And the cream-colored sofa looks a little tiny bit dirty on the middle cushion. And the heating grate is quite dusty, plus the blinds don’t turn open all the way because of a jam in the cord, and there’s a spider web above the lamp, and the lamp isn’t very exciting artistically.
Gosh, this whole place is completely imperfect, really.
The thing is, this way of thinking used to be so frustrating. Now, it does seem to fade out quickly, or it appears quite hilarious.
The feeling you have when thinking these kinds of thoughts is the key to understanding.
“Stress is an alarm clock that let’s you know that you’ve attached to something NOT true for you.” ~ Byron Katie
If I can notice and grip against reality, and feel stress, with one room, guess what I could do with the whole world?
Well, I did do that with the whole world.
That was pretty much my life in the past, the way I saw things, every moment. Needing improvement. Not quite right. Needing a major overhaul.
I saw myself that way most of all.
Disappointment at this dusty, stained, boring, frightening, caustic or unenlightened world and unenlightened person that lived here (me).
The way I reacted when I believed the thought that things would really be better if….and things are really not that good because….
….I was depressed. Sad, very angry, and shaking my fist at the Universe.
I loved when I first started imagining who I would be if I didn’t have the thought that something needed to change.
It’s an incredible and enormous question.
It’s like pulling the plug out of the socket. Suddenly, very empty space. Who would I be without my story, in that situation, in this room with the spider web?
I realize that I began to feel who I would be as a feeling of expansion, like flying through the sky, so free. Very mysterious, unknown, unimaginable.
I didn’t even know WHAT I would be without the thought….I started forgetting what I had been thinking that was so true.
I began to realize that all the thoughts come and go like fine sand falling through a sieve.
I hadn’t seen that before, ever. I would leave that imperfect room and basically forget all about it, until I returned to it again, and sometimes even THEN I would forget all about it.
I realized that my mind would change. The torn envelopes would still be on the table, but they would look sort of beautiful, or magical. I might toss them in the recycle bin.
Who would you be without your story, your beliefs, your resistance, your demands, your judgments, your criticisms?
I used to think I would be nothing….and that was terrible.
It’s terrible not to have stories…is that true?
Hee hee.
“In the unconditioned consciousness there’s no commentator, there’s no interpreter of the moment….The “me” does not like that state. There’s nothing in it for the “me”. What am I going to believe in? What about my point of view? What happened to all the people I blame, or my miserable existence?…..The idea is not to get RID of the me, the idea is not to be suckered in by it. There’s a big difference. The only thing that tries to get rid of a me, is a “me”. ~ Adyashanti
The way you know you are believing something, that you got suckered in, is you feel unhappiness…fury, dischord, hate, sadness, terror, irritation.
The solution isn’t to fix yourself, get rid of your thoughts (it doesn’t work) or force yourself to like messy rooms, when you don’t.
It’s slowing way down to see what’s going on with your viewpoint, if you might be off, and how.
The best way I know how to do this is with The Work, with self-inquiry, looking, looking, stopping, waiting for your answers to the questions.
It’s “work” but it’s so worth it.
Love, Grace