Asking questions has been one of humankinds great activities, since some time way back when cave men first went exploring.
What is over there (past the edge of the world)? How can I stay alive the longest?
Socrates had big discussions with Plato about virtue and truth. What can be taught to humans? What is naturally inside of us from the beginning?
The great spiritual teachers, and probably many that we don’t know about, were asking “What is all this? What is the meaning of life? How can I know God?”
Anthony de Mello, a wonderful Jesuit priest and psychotherapist (who died in 1987), asked burning questions about truth, love, faith and reality. He said “problems only exist in the human mind”.
Byron Katie’s questions are so simple….and the answers I have found require lots of contemplation sometimes. Especially question four “Who would you be without that stressful thought?”
Yesterday I thought about one of my most painful experiences: craving. I used to experience this with food, cigarettes, alcohol, caffeine, then money, excitement, energy, attraction.
I’m talking about craving, that battle that goes I MUST have something, get it ASAP, and I won’t rest til I have it. Feeling desperate, emotional, ready to do anything to find it.
In earlier years food was always by far the biggest, worst, most overwhelming craving. The most destructive, wild, horrible experiences of over-eating to the point of feeling painfully stuffed, learning to force myself to vomit at some point to relieve the pain, then collapsing exhausted into sleep. That was a nightmare!
So many strategies for how to stop, setting dates on when I would quit, reading books on nutrition, reading self-help books, going to therapy, and always wondering what was wrong with me?
I was reading The Guru Next Door today and found new questions from this book applying beautifully to looking at my inner world. Seeing who I am when I am feeling something very intense. These kinds of questions help get to the judgments so you can see them written down.
One wonderful question in the book is: What is bothering you when you are feeling bad? I mean, really, WHAT IS BOTHERING YOU? About life, death, your work, other people, the world?
With my craving what bothered me was:
- I have to consume something
- I am very anxious
- nothing will help me stop being anxious or upset except eating/drinking/smoking
- I am out of control
- my feelings are unbearable
- I am powerless
- this will never change
Today in the Horrible Food Wonderful Food teleclass we questioned the thought “Anxiety pushes me to eat (or abuse myself somehow)”.
I have anxiety, I have all these thoughts about how to manage it, how to get rid of it, what the problem must be, how to fix it, how to correct it. I am Against Anxiety for sure. No one out there with anxiety comes out OK, I have proof. The emotion of anxiety seems good for nothin’!
But who would I be without the thought that Anxiety is bad? What IS this thing that I’m calling Anxiety anyway?
What if Anxiety is good for something? Useful? Helpful in some way? Showing something of value? What if it’s a buzzing, quick, busy, nervous feeling as a response to stressful thoughts about the future, worries about the future? New thoughts that are untrue, that I could really question?
Turning my thoughts around that I used to have when I was craving something, it looks like this, much more peaceful:
- I don’t have to consume anything at all
- Some part of me has sensations (that I was calling anxiety)
- This feeling will stop without me doing anything to help it stop, it will change
- I am not out of control, I’m sitting here
- my feelings are bearable, they are only a part of me
- I am powerful (I can question anything that hurts)
- this will change, it will always change (it never sticks around without letting up)
Spending time with each sentence and finding examples of how they are true can be mind-altering.
You can do this for yourself. There is no actual true reason to feel terrible, to feel hopeless, full of stress, out of control. Just as you are, even with anxiety, you are OK.
No reason to suffer, there is nothing wrong with you.
What, you thought you should not ever feel one drop of anxiety? That’s your goal?
“You move totally away from reality when you believe that there is a legitimate reason to suffer.”~ Byron Katie
With love, Grace