"People think it would be nice to have peace of mind, to be serene, to be calm, to be undisturbed by this, that, and the other. But as long as you make all those things objects of desire, you have defined yourself as lacking them, and a person who is looking for peace is obviously in turmoil." – Alan Watts
This issue we will delve deeper into coping strategies, particularly into the delusion that creates most of our suffering.
Most of our stress is self-induced. We chose activities, thoughts, emotions that cause us to experience stress. Cause – effect. We say we wish to be calm, focused, and happy, and yet we do things that we know will lead to the opposite! How confusing!
A couple of things to try this week:
- Monitor your self-talk.
Pay attention to out of control or weak language (“I can’t”, “I have to”, or “I should”). Replace with more powerful language such as “I am”, “I can”, and “I chose to”. As Norman Vincent Peale often wrote, “Change your thoughts and you change your world.”
- Take time to be silent. Listen.
The first thing you will notice when you do this is that you will be attacked by creativity! All the great ideas, dreams, future ambitions that you used to identify with will come back at full speed. The trick will be to honor them. Silence allows your mind openness to new thought, new feelings of stillness and peace.
The Sufi poet, Rumi, "There is a way between voice and presence, where information flows. In disciplined silence it opens. With wandering talk it closes."
Eckhart Tolle adds, "To meet everything and everyone through stillness instead of mental noise is the greatest gift you can offer to the universe. I call it stillness, but it is a jewel with many facets: that stillness is also joy, and it is love."
- Begin to let go with identifying with what is false. This can includes blaming others or external events for your internal condition, feelings and thoughts. This can also include internal shame – identifying internally with a false sense of self. We are not our thoughts, our feelings, or even our actions! Can you imagine if you were your thoughts! Take one minute and pay attention to how many thoughts you have in that minute. Pay attention to how many are quite contradictory. From Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj's I AM THAT , “Transient things only appear and have no substance. As I can't be what I perceive, I am not this body-mind or any thing that I am conscious of …. As there must be something unchanging to register discontinuity, I am not this body-mind, which is neither continuous nor permanent.”
- Stop trying to define yourself, especially through the judgment of your actions. Alan Watts said it quite succinctly, "Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth."
- Be present. Make this your only resolve. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, “What changes has no reality. Time and space are imagined, ways of thinking, modes of perception. Only timeless reality is, and it is here and now.”
- Make acceptance an intention. This means offering no resistance to what is. Eckhart Tolle reminds us: "See if you can catch yourself complaining in either speech or thought, about a situation you find yourself in, what other people do or say, your surroundings, your life situation, even the weather. To complain is always nonacceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself a victim. Leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness.”
- Be kind to yourself. “Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.” - Ghandi
"A [person] with outward courage dares to die, a [person] with inward courage dares to live." – Lao Tzu
|
