This month my world is full of inquiry about body, diseases, conditions, ailments.
Year of Inquiry is looking at body, Eating Peace Process is looking at body.
And yesterday morning, a powerful stressful worksheet appeared. On the mind itself.
We’ve all probably had those kinds of thoughts about the mind itself. It’s not to be trusted, it’s over-thinking, it’s freaking out, it should stop believing.
The thought brought forward for inquiry?
“My mind is sabotaging what I want.”
Suddenly I remembered working with someone a long time ago who made an appointment to do The Work because she wasn’t doing the law of attraction right. She thoughts was supposed to be thinking positively at all times, apparently, and feeling peaceful or excited despite not having such peaceful thoughts. She felt she was failing at getting what she wanted, because of her own brain.
This is a truly amazing story to question. I’ve been there myself.
If I just question my thinking enough….I’ll get somewhere different.
Now, it’s weird, because you WILL probably get somewhere different, at least I’ve found this to be deeply true, and yet “trying” to get somewhere different can be exceptionally stressful–and it means, inherently, that here, now, is NOT the place to be.
So let’s question this powerful and subtle little idea that this mind is screwing things up, and making it so you aren’t happy, you aren’t getting what you want, and your life isn’t as good as it could be.
Is it true?
Well….yeah! Right? I’ve heard Katie and other thought leaders say that all problems are in the mind. So this brain is a problem! It should be different!!
Are you sure? Can you absolutely know this to be true?
Wow. No.
Apparently thinking happens, and it’s sometimes stressful, and sometimes exciting. It doesn’t appear to go away just because we tell it to.
Thinking happens, I notice. Stressful thinking.
I really can’t know it’s true it should be otherwise.
How do you react when you believe your mind isn’t working well enough, or you can’t achieve what you want because of YOUR thinking, or abilities to work with thought?
Frustrated! Depressed!
The woman who did The Work with me on everything that was wrong with her mind and her thoughts was disappointed when she believed her mind should be different. She felt hopeless, unhappy, not as happy as those other people with better minds
This thought, about thought, is a tricky little thought, isn’t it?
But who would you be without this belief, or this assessment, that the mind is screwing things up, sabotaging what you want, making it so you’re unsuccessful?
LOL!
I’d look around this present moment, little twinkling lantern lights out through the window, and experience the flash of no mind for a second. Not Knowing. Not necessary to know.
I’d watch those wild thoughts careening around, swinging in the wind, giving orders and suggestions and having images and ideas….
….and not take the whole condition seriously.
Or, there goes the mind again, taking another lap.
Woman on couch with a thinking brain with activity happening in it, not being against “thought”.
What if All This is not up to me?
What if fixing, contorting, changing, updating, improving the mind is not possible as a project? What if this mind is somehow the way it is, and there’s nothing I can actually do about it?
(And, I notice I can question the thoughts it produces).
Kind of amazing, right?
Turning the thought around: my mind is NOT sabotaging what I want. What I want is what’s happening. What I want is here, now….not in the future, later (which I’m aware does not yet exist).
Could this be just as true, or truer?
So exciting to think there’s nothing missing, and no enemy sabotaging me, and nothing dangerous about my mind.
How is this true?
Why, I’m alive now at this perfect moment able to look around, breathe, see, take in this environment. What if nothing was wrong?
What if this mind was just right, doing a brilliant job at inventing, imagining, believing, questioning….and it’s not ultimately up to “me” (whatever “me” is)?
“Mediocrity, that’s the place to be. Balance. There’s something wrong? There’s something right! But the ego is in opposition to that everything-is-right nature. It gets very invested.” ~ Byron Katie in Being With Byron Katie Ojai Feb 2017
It’s perfect to be this way, brain that gets set off. And who knows if the mind has anything to do with getting what’s wanted, or not.
But I do know, when I question my thinking, right now is pretty dang good. Nice that I get to notice that reality, including my “mind”, is doing a fabulous job being itself.
Much love,
Grace