Wasting Time

“Your anger and your inspiration are all inside you. They are just being who they are. Your reaction is your reaction. It is showing you your attachments and aversions." ~ Ram Dass

Namaste,

The greatest commodity we have as human beings is time. We cannot escape the conditions of this body, the function of this brain in its survival, and the anxious ego that would rather banish these thoughts than be confronted with the absolute truth - that life hurts. Whenever we avoid the pain of the past - when we ignore our shortcomings, mistakes, or oversights - something inside reasons away our ability to atone from the wisdom of our survivorship — keeps us from the intuition of feeling the ground under our feet that confides security no matter what’s up ahead.

This is the frustration that most of us feel - the tension or friction that awakens anxiety and doubt. To be clear, ordinary life is full of tension - that’s how things happen. Because life is always happening, changing, and in motion.

However, anxiety and doubt are attached to being certain about the change, and, in doing so, avoid the present by living in the past. This creates tension - as if we are revving an engine with the emergency brake on …  we get stuck proving or protecting or promoting “who” we think we are, the subject to which everything happens.

We then tend to the beliefs and behaviors of others to prove something about ourselves: “I am ______,” and the expectation that it is our responsibility to learn about who I am. Or, we tend to the reasons why we are not who we should or are meant to be because “They are ______” .

We form and are shaped by how we respond to these inter-dimensional relationships.

Anxiety has its place - lets us know to pay attention like a little tight squeeze, “Criss-cross applesauce” style. But without presence, we are trapped in a state of fight or flight - the parasympathetic nervous system shuts down communication with our gut (instinct), shifts attention away from the task at hand (that fills us with confidence and a sense of completion) and, instead floods us with criticism, shame, and despair — micromanages the shit out of everyone and everything!

Time and time again, we are pinged and pushed and throttled between the glimpses of “what” we are and “what” is important, and the doubt of what we might be and how it might have been. Each time we make space for more doubt, anxiety rises and steals away time.

These expectations are a trap, divide us with judgment and keep us stuck in the illusion that we had any power at all.

For example, there’s great polarity between “coward” as a judgment of behavior, and “courage” as a pathway of freedom. Coward shames us into submission, “I’m a loser,” while courage motivates us to take heart, “I am not these harmful thoughts. When I deny them or try to contain them, they spill into my world.”

Doubt, without the gut, is the greatest waste of time.

It causes us to wait around for some sign, to follow others blindly, to measure ourselves and our relationships by what we see and believe about others, and, it keeps us from remembering that “what” we are is greater than this suffering - this not knowing what will happen when life is happening.

Doubt isolates us from hope and keeps us from this observation:

If thoughts invite emotions and the words we choose to describe them shape how and what we are feeling, then responding from the space of our greatest capacity (Self/Heart/Soul mixed with sensation and consciousness) is our greatest power.

This “feeling” is based on “who” we think we are when we’re responding.

And, so, we must be principled in every interaction (personal and impersonal), and respond from Presence and ask,

• “Am I responding from my deepest place, from openness, or triggered space?

• Do I want to be right or to share and listen deeply?

• Are these words loving or fearful?”

When we do this enough, gratitude and grace conspire, and this new way of being becomes a habit, a belief and a shared way of being that becomes a way of life. And, that is when we can be with whatever comes our way because we will have accepted the inevitable pain of being interdependent - of knowing love and of transcending the suffering that veils this impersonal but eternal truth …

I Am Love.

Practice: Personal Consciousness Seeking Itself.

I’m such a Trekkie fan … loved how everyone could beam on and off the ship, and how flip phones and Amazon were a prophesy of this instant demand. Mostly, I’m interested in the lightness of not believing so deeply in this body - I haven’t made it a secret that this eating disorder only made life feel heavier.

What I’m coming to understand through my responses in life is that there is a Personal Consciousness of sorts (ego/monkey mind thinking all the time), and task mind (doing as life is moving) that seeks this me through the vibrational patterns of the people around me — it’s very clear that I call near what I believe and what I fear.

It takes a fierce love to release us from the grip of fear that makes life feel hard when it is simple, or simple when it is hard. Here is an exercise that can help flex those muscles and stretch out those tendons.

What needs to be Reset?

Expect: To see out. What do you see in the immediate future for yourself and the world?

What needs to be Revealed?

Accept: To take towards. What do you need to bring close to your heart to reveal what “is”?

What needs to be Restored?

Deception: Taken from. What truth has been taken from you and needs to be restored?