Category: Day-to-day
Where does my attention go?
I am at work and cleaning the cup that held my morning “green juice.” I splashed it on me at the sink.
Now most of my attention is on how messy I look and when can I leave and go buy another shirt and what will others think of the stain. Pirates obviously leave green slime behind. Tasty and nutritious, but messy.
The practice now comes from working to shift my point-of-view. How would I feel if I saw this on another person? Would I care? Absolutely not. Who said, “You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.”???
Body Archeology
My highest recommendation for body work in the Madison area goes to Gregory at Body Archeology. This past week I had an amazing session with him. He spent the time discussing my body history (my words, not his) and needs. We decided it would be best if he work intuitively during our session, with whichever modality he felt would be right. Most importantly, I was willing.
He included massage, trigger points, reiki, reflexology, and other techniques I can barely remember. I surrendered to the experience and opened the door to whatever beliefs would arise. My most profound ah-ha was that I sometimes used my body to protect others and my self (two words intentional). I don’t have to do that anymore. I am safe. I am tearing up as I remember the experience.
Gregory creates a hugely generous and accepting space from the time you walk in the door until long after you get home. After leaving the building I wandered about the Capitol Square for a while in the drizzle feeling a rare combination of expansion and wooziness.
He’s very busy, but is definitely worth the wait.
And I was doing so well!
Over a week of calm, awareness gone in blink. I want to understand this.
Days Without Pirate Attack:
Again, the pirate attack came while driving. I was trying to pass a dump truck (that’s reasonable, right?) but couldn’t because the explative** driving the vehicle in front of me (in the left/passing lane) rode alongside the dump truck (la dee dah dee dah). When I flashed my lights she flipped me off. Could have been a man, but the license plate was “IDONAILS” so I probably guessed correctly.
She hit the brakes, though, and her spite gave me enough room to zip around and in front of her and the truck. (Wow. As I read that I see the competitiveness underlying the interaction.) I zoomed off and only then did I catch myself and acknowledge my own behavior. At the same time, though, I was justifying my triumph over someone with obvious neurological damage from all the methyl methacrylate she inhales daily.
Why does this get me so often? I need a way to catch myself before the pirates overrun the ship.
“I’m just trying to show up and be a good worker”
I DVR Charlie Sheen’s new show, Anger Management. I like it. (I keep hoping for hints for my own anger issues.) Watching a show last week, I was pleased to see Brett Butler in a small, supporting role. She discusses her hiatus articulately in a NY Times article. Many parts resonated with me, but especially her self-awareness!
“And now, 15 years later, Ms. Butler is slowly making her return to television. “She’s awesome,” said Mr. Sheen, who shares a manager, Mark Burg, with Ms. Butler. “Seriously, I think she’s forgotten what a comedic genius she is.” Sobriety, finally achieved after some attempts at rehab and what Ms. Butler regards as divine intervention, wasn’t the hardest part, she says now. It was coming to terms with the damage she’d caused, to others certainly, but mostly to herself.
“I don’t recommend journeys of forced enlightenment,” she said. “I spent a long time trying to dig my way out of being unforgiven for how bad I’d been in Hollywood. I would meet people I’d never met before, and they’d say, ‘I hear you’re a monster.’ ”
She spent the first few years after “Grace Under Fire” in what she calls a self-imposed exile, rarely leaving her house, rejecting the few offers of work that came her way.
“I thought maybe by taking myself away from everything I was good at, or punishing myself, it would correct something in the universe,” she said. “But that didn’t help anybody.” ”
It’s enlightening; read the entire article here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/arts/television/brett-butler-on-charlie-sheens-anger-management.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Sunshine, daffodils, and awareness
Days Without Pirate Attack:
“Resistance is the force maintaining the personality you’ve been duped into believing is who you are.” – Cheri Huber
This recent email from Cheri was just too good and too deep to pass up the chance to keep it moving in the universe! She goes on to say, “The danger is that we see the whole process, but we continue to stay in the system. In other words, we fail to recognize that not only have we been wearing lenses, but the process by which we “see” is also part of the system. When we think we see clearly, it is still the ego-identity that is seeing “clearly.” So, yes, the lenses are off, but we have not yet dropped the process that creates and maintains the illusion that we are a “someone” seeing.
We’re meant to believe that “sometimes I’m identified, but most of the time I know what’s going on” That’s the lens—and that’s the process that keeps the lens in place! “You” don’t resist; the ego-identity illusion resists.
Removing that lens positions us to see the immensity of the fiction we’ve been living in. Waking up and ending suffering is the realization that there is no “someone” “doing” any of it, there’s only the process of the illusion of a separate self resisting Life.
This realization dissolves the Great Human Conundrum, the moral, spiritual, ethical puzzle confronting human beings for as long as there have been human beings asking that most profound of all questions: What??? What the heck is going on? How is this happening? How is it that I so consistently do not choose what I value and instead choose what I do not value? I want this and yet consistently do that. How are these decisions made? How is this possible?
You get the picture.
The simple, nearly incomprehensible, deeply unbelievable to conditioned mind answer to all those questions: What you think of as you, what you’re told is you, what you believe is you, what you refer to as you, is not “you.””
For more information, books, and links to Cheri’s work go to http://sanghamarket.org/keepitsimple/
What’s Driving this Attack?
Days Without Pirate Attack:
I know that no one else controls my response, but I have a deeply ingrained habit to blame the “didn’t signal – won’t move over – changed lanes onto me – talking on the phone” men and women who impact my drives.
I’ve learned about myself that driving is an activity where I can blame others (shout and cuss angrily) and still feel safe, as I have my car and movement to protect me (belief!). Would I behave the same way in the Qwik-Trip if someone deep in thought walked right up to a clerk when I’d been waiting with my eggs and tortilla chips? No, I wouldn’t. We are more polite to each other with physical presence (belief!). It’s like the space and vehicle take away the human connection (belief!).
I feel like I am a better driver than most others (belief!). Shifting point-of-view, I realize it is possible that others see me the same way as I do them, since I tend to be a very aggressive driver (belief!). As I write this, all I can think of is, “and why does this matter so much to me?”
Probably a result of helping
Days Without Pirate Attack:
Maybe because it’s Friday. Maybe because it’s snowing, raining, sunny, and windy all in the same day (it’s a Midwest thing). More likely it’s fr om helping two separate people yesterday. With both, I was able to stay present and caring. I went to bed feeling very good and this morning was able to start practice right up. I even stayed present while driving.
On to the weekend!
Practice Appreciation and Gratitude
Still at zero.
I didn’t have as difficult a day as Boston did, but I believe we are one consciousness. I believe that how I feel and what I think and what I do affects all others, as they affect all others, too. My goal today is appreciation and gratitude, starting with myself.
Full disclosure: I lost it this morning behind a driver who doesn’t understand the “right turn on red when no opposing traffic is coming” concept. I don’t understand why poor drivers bother me so much and, obviously, I’m still back there at the intersection!
The universe encourages do-overs. Return to gratitude and being here, now.
Must have been a ghost ship. . .
Days Without Pirate Attack
Friday afternoon – wham-o! An attack of self-judgment and loathing that took me through Saturday – seemed to come out of nowhere. Now that I have been diligently practicing, I was a little bit surprised that it seemed to come without a trigger or any specific interaction. Most people would name what happened as an “anxiety attack.” I took a walk and tried to mentally re-trace my steps to see if I could spot the point when the brigands where on the horizon, but I couldn’t.
I did pretty well giving myself some kindness and comfort over the weekend, so back to practice this morning and a new day.
3 days
It’s been a tilt-a-whirl last few days deciding to start this blog. More to come very soon.
Days Without Pirate Attack: 