This month in Year of Inquiry, we’re looking at Hurt, Anger and Fear. One aspect of YOI this year that’s new, are some of the topics. Plus we always have a 90 minute Introduction ABOUT the topic, before we go into the topic, and best practices for The Work on it. With slides.
Someone said today as we’re in our second week….It’s big, this one.
She said she felt a lot of anxiety and like her nervous system is a little overstimulated.
Looking at the times we’ve been hurt in our lives seems overwhelming, sad, infuriating.
Well, it certainly produces anger, and fear. Feelings of Never Again.
Hurt brings out the urgency to relax and get away from the wild feelings of anxiety or tension.
It’s truly profound to take one situation, only one (not too many, not more than one, not EVERY situation we’ve ever known where we felt hurt)….
….and then sit comfortably and quietly and write down our thoughts that were born out of that situation, using the Judge Your Neighbor worksheet.
I notice, if I keep holding every situation in my mind producing “hurt” I’m going to feel pretty full of despair, sadness, hopelessness, fear, or overwhelm. I see flashing pictures of people I’ve felt hurt by, difficult situations.
But a very core, underlying belief appears for inquiry in all this. It’s so simple, I almost didn’t see it.
I was hurt.
Is that true?
Yes. It crushed me. It broke my heart. I was physically changed. My life was never the same again. It was terrible. So hurt.
Picture only ONE of those situations where you felt hurt.
Are you absolutely sure it’s true you were?
Are you positive, without any doubt whatsoever, you were hurt by this outside force–a person, incident, experience–and it was awful?
It’s OK to say “yes” if you think so.
But as I investigate this thought…..can I absolutely know I was hurt for all time, forever? Can I know I was damaged? Can I know whatever broke should NOT have broken? Can I really know absolutely that nothing important came from it?
No.
How do you react when you think “I was hurt”.
I avoid any situation that could appear to be like it again. I’m careful in relationships. I don’t share. I keep to myself. I give up. I remember the pain. I run away.
I feel like someone who was hurt.
So who would you be without this belief “I was hurt”?
My mind almost goes….Wha??
What do you mean? But I WAS! I was hurt! I can tell you the whole story of how hurt I was and the scenes and proof and incidents and terrible moments! You would agree! Other people DO agree, who have heard my stories. I won’t be silenced!
OK, this isn’t about saying you’re crazy, or being in denial, or pretending what happened didn’t actually happen when it’s vivid in your mind’s eye. It’s not about keeping quiet, either.
It’s simply noticing what it’s like in the spaces between the thought “I was hurt” and without the conclusions you make about being hurt that never end.
It’s being without the belief that “I was hurt and it for sure means (terrible, negative, awful, horrible, vile, horrifying).”
Huh.
Without the belief I was ever hurt….I’m at peace right now.
I feel completely content, relaxed and comfortable in this moment. All is extremely well, and I notice the only thing alarming–if they appear–are my negative thoughts about being hurt.
Turning the thought around: I was not hurt.
What are my examples?
Well, I’m sitting here writing about it.
You find examples you know are real for you, no matter how small. I’m physically intact. I grew up. I survived. That person never yelled at me (the situation I’m thinking of, she just disappeared).
Turning the thought around again, can you find any examples of how you hurt the other person, or you attacked…..either someone else, or yourself?
I hurt myself by repeatedly remembering it and speaking the story to lots of people and holding it as a story of endless pain and agony and fear. I hurt myself by believing it was not-get-over-able. I hurt the other person in my mind, wishing for her failure and suffering, believing she was incapable of love and honesty, thinking of her as so powerful as to ruin my life.
Long ago when I was doing The Work on this very thought, the person facilitating me said she saw another turnaround.
Oh? I thought I got all three, and found examples for them all.
Well, she said, you could turn it all the way around to the complete opposite “I was healed” in that situation. What do you think?
I was back to No Words. What?? Healed?
But.
That wasn’t a healing situation, it was a suffering, painful, difficult….
….Oh. Right.
(I was already back into proving my original thought, even though I just did The Work. Already back into bolstering up how awful and hurtful it had all been, how painful, how much I had suffered, how it was all that other person’s fault, or God’s fault).
HEALED?
Jeez.
You sure do ask a lot here. Isn’t it enough that I’m doing The Work at all?
And yet….I began to find it.
I was healed, in that situation with that person, because I lived my life onward with greater awareness. I began to stand up straighter, move forward despite my thinking. I felt the presence of life, of the earth, of this temporary organism called me and how difficult situations are temporary–they aren’t happening endlessly 24/7. I unhooked myself from depending on the physical body, or relationships, or the place I’m standing, or money, or anything in reality to be a certain way in order to feel peace.
I was offered the experience of accepting loss, and seeing beyond it.
“Don’t anticipate and don’t regret, and there will be no pain. It is memory and imagination that causes suffering….When the mind takes over, remembers and anticipates, it exaggerates, it distorts, it overlooks…..Question, observe, investigate, learn all you can about confusion, how it operates, what it does to you and others. By being clear about confusion you become clear of confusion.” ~ Nisargadatta
When you’re discouraged, or you think your situation is too big and too overwhelming to question….
….narrow it down. Inquire into only one difficult moment. Write the Judge Your Neighbor worksheet. Then start with one concept, only one.
Who would you be without that one thought, in that one situation?
Wait for the answers.
Having a time when you were hurt does not mean forever, does not mean revisiting, remembering, anticipating, distorting.
Could it be also true something here is OK now, that healing also happened?
Yes.
Much love,
Grace