What's Before Thought?
As the creators of our experience using the principle or energy of Thought in each moment, human beings exist before our thoughts. Many people identify with their thoughts and thinking. They think they are their thoughts. 'I think therefore I am', as Rene Descartes expressed. Actually, the opposite is true. I am therefore, I think. I am therefore, I have the capacity to think.
There is a space of ourselves before any thinking or before we create thoughts. It's a space of possibility, of rest, of being settled into ourselves. We are content and at peace.
We are literally the space in which thoughts and thinking arise. It comes from us. We cook it up like a recipe.
I like this quote from Vernon Howard. "Learn to see things as they really are, not as we imagine they are."
It points to the difference between what just is - seeing things as they really are and what just is created - things as we imagine they are.
We develop different habits of thought (recipes) in the moment and then carry them forward with us in each present moment. We feel our thinking in our bodies. You can look at this in a very binary or black and white way. If your body feels tense or sometimes in pain, then you're overthinking or creating unnecessary thinking. My head will often feel too tight. If we feel at peace and relaxed, then we know that we are more settled down with less thinking. We are letting more of ourselves shine through. Our natural contentment and peace.
Many approaches these days look at analyzing one's thought content or getting better thinking. This type of approach often seems to bring benefits but it's a lot of work constantly monitoring or being aware of the content of one's thinking. It also operates counter to how we are designed and made to work.
We are designed to notice how we feel. It's a feeling in your body but can also be felt more generally. When we are operating as designed it feels good. When we are overthinking, it feels bad. That's it.
The tense overthinking feeling is a warning light or gentle alarm indicating that it's time to settle. We are designed to settle naturally if we stop shaking ourselves up. We stop shaking ourselves up by knowing that there's nothing to do or fix in the negative thinking or negative feeling. We stop shaking ourselves up by shifting back to the feeling of spaciousness that is you. The space before thought. Put more simply, ignore the negative feelings and shift to something that feels good.
I often notice that I'm shaking myself up and realize "Oh, I don't need this thought."
Another way to access feeling good is to ask yourself "When is the last time you felt like you'd like to feel all the time?"
It's ok if it was a long time ago. You still remember. This is the space before thought or the space of you. By remembering, we are bringing that past experience into the present using our ability to create with Thought. We are re-membering the good feeling experience. Re-constructing it anew in each moment.
You are living it now. We operate so much better from this space of peace and calm. This is available in any moment because it's you and it's always there. Never diminished.
Who you are is before Thought.
With Love,
Sara Joy
Actually
Actually
Sages, over the centuries, have all pointed to very similar truths to make their point. In order to help those around them who didn't see what they saw. For many who see a deeper reality, who listen to the deeper mind, who see that life is easy and full of joy there is often a strong pull to convey those truths to others or to help others see for themselves.
A colleague of mine in Italy works with professional soccer players and corporate executives in the realm of performance coaching. Nico calls it The Easier Project. Because life gets so much easier. Unbelievably so.
I had a coaching client tell me last week that he didn't think he'd be able to get through his challenges without the understanding of life that our work together brought. It makes things easier.
I'm often asked what sorts of things I help people with.
It comes down to working with people who want more in their lives. More ease, more energy, more productivity, more ability to be present with those they love, more ability to get things done, experiencing less pain so they can do more. People want to have a nicer life and they want to get better at the things they are engaged in.
Some people want relief from pain or anxiety. Some people want to resolve panic attacks. I've worked with people with various physical and mental diagnoses who want to lessen their symptoms, resolve their symptoms or be able to live their lives more fully with symptoms.
Some people want increased performance. Perhaps become better at public speaking or sports performance. Competition performance. Training performance.
Some people want better relationships with their spouse and/or their kids. More of a felt experience of love.
Some people want better sleep, more energy, more happiness and joy every day.
People just want a nicer experience of life and to get better at doing the things they want to do.
Traditional coaching looks at the specific life areas one by one. For example, you might work with a relationship coach to get a better relationship or to be a better partner yourself. This approach is helpful in the area in which you are engaging. I have a weightlifting coach and through working with him my weightlifting technique has improved.
Transformative coaching looks at the upstream principles behind life. How are humans designed? How do we use the creative potential of life to create? What is just true for all humans? What are humans made of?
Hint: It's not puppy dog tails and snails or sugar and spice.
When we see clearly the physics behind our life experience, the engineering gets ridiculously obvious. People's lives take off. Joy is a predominant feeling. Life becomes fun again or fun for the first time. We are the creative potential of the whole Universe. Actually.
What would life be like living from that understanding of yourself?
One of my favourite quotes from someone who saw a great deal about the nature of life is:
"You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.” Franz Kafka
Actually.
With Love,
Sara Joy
What's The Difference?
What's The Difference?
I am often asked what is the difference between the chiropractic bodywork and the transformative coaching work that I do. They are both on the same spectrum or in the same direction of looking at the foundation of what is true in life. If you think of a river flowing along, spinal entrainments are more downstream of understanding how we are creating our life experience to start with. Which is what we look at with transformative coaching.
Let me tell you a story:
A man was travelling by foot from village to village seeing the land as he went. He would stop at each village he came to for a while and help out where he could in exchange for supplies and room and board. When his supplies were replenished, he would move on leaving behind new friends and beautiful experiences.
One day he came to a village by a fast-flowing river. As he arrived, there was a great outcry and many of the villagers ran to the river in distress. The man rushed over to see what was happening. To his surprise, there were a number of people flailing about half drowning in the current. They looked as if they were going down for the last time. The man jumped into action with the villagers and began rescuing as many people from the river as he could. There were too many. The man worked alongside the villagers all day rescuing drowning people. As the sun set the drowning victims diminished and then stopped coming altogether.
The village headman turned to the stranger, who was now a new friend, thanked him, and showed him to a cabin where he could eat and sleep.
Every day in this village there would be drowning people to rescue from the river in addition to the usual work of repairing equipment, tending to crops, and maintaining the cabins people lived in. The man stayed and worked in the village for months.
"How long have the drowning people been coming down the river?" he asked the headman one day. "For as long as our elders can remember we have been rescuing folks. These people often stay in their turn to help rescue people as well. We can't thank you enough for your contribution." replied the villager leader. "Where do all the people come from?" "Why are they drowning?" Nobody knows, was the reply.
An idea grew and grew in the mind of the traveller. "Let's go upstream to see where the drowning people are coming from.", he exhorted the villagers. "No." they all said. "We are too busy here. We can't let anyone drown."
So, one day the man left the village to go upstream to see if he could discover the source of the problem. As he set out on the river trail, his new friends and dear ones became very angry with him. "You are abandoning us!" "We never thought you would leave our cause!".
As the man walked along the river, drowning people swept past in the current calling out for help. He kept on, farther and farther up the trail. Through hilly terrain and high mountain valleys. Past stands of birch trees and wildflower meadows, the river continued to claim people in distress.
Finally, the traveller came upon another village far, far upstream of the first village high in the mountains. Here the river was fast and narrow and the riverbanks were steep and slippery. It was very easy to slip and slide into the river. The people of this village kept doing just that.
"Why don't you swim and save yourselves?" asked the traveller of the village elderwoman about her people. "Swim?" she bemusedly replied.
And so, the traveller made the upstream village his home. He married one of their beautiful women and raised children with her. And taught the people to swim. And in doing so, to save themselves.
Chiropractic entrainments bring vitality and life energy to one's nervous system allowing your body to heal. Our bodies become more alive and more fluid. However, in the same way as our story, going upstream to understand how we work as human beings permanently increases our capacity in all areas of life, including our body's capacity for innate healing.
It's just how it works.
With Love,
Sara Joy
The Myth of Unhappiness
The Myth of Unhappiness
This excerpt from "The Myth of Unhappiness" by Bruce DiMarsico is quite philosophical or maybe esoteric. I find it's a beautiful and simple description of trusting in one's own inner wisdom. None of us were created by mistake. Feel free to substitute the words "thought" or "thinking" for when he uses "belief" or "believing". Enjoy!
The only truth regarding happiness- true, real, felt happiness--is this: you are the best for you. Your decisions are the best. Your desires are the best. What you think is the best way of thinking for you. You, as you are, are the best you for others. There is nothing about you that is not the best for you getting what you want. You are the best you for having what you want. What you forget is best forgotten.
When you remember, it is the best time for you to remember. What you like to eat, when you want to sleep, what you love to have, who you want to have love you, etc., is the best thing for you. When or if you change your mind, then that will be the best time to change your mind and that is the best change for you.
You know what is best for you. You absolutely know it. You cannot be wrong. It is impossible that you can be mistaken.
If another suggests something to you about what to think or what to want or how to do, because you know what is best for you, you will know, absolutely know, whether they are right or not. You know when you recognize what you want in their suggestion.
If they are right about what you want, if you now realize something you hadn't realized, it is not because you do not know what is best for you, it is precisely because you do know that what you want is best for you.
If you didn't become aware until another made you aware it is because you know it was the best time to be aware. If another tells you a truth that you recognize and you realize that you have not been aware before, that is because you know what is best for you. If it were better for you to have known sooner you would have made yourself aware sooner.
You are the best way of being yourself and being happy.
It only seems like we weren't because we believed otherwise.
Isn't it perfect that if we believe that we are bad for ourselves, we should feel bad, unsure, untrusting, crazy?
We believed that if we were good for ourselves we would always be happy and sure and confident and doing what pleased us.
No. That is wrong. Impossible. If that were true we would be lost. We would be truly hopeless, not only feeling hopeless. It is enough that that attitude makes us feel hopeless. If it were true we would also know we were hopeless and instantly die.
Because we begin with "if" we are still indicating our belief that we may not be best for ourselves. Change "if" to "since": Since I am best for me and you are best for you ... If I believe you are also best for me that is because since I am best for me I can decide that you are too. I cannot be wrong. It cannot be that I believe you are best for me because I believe I am not best for me, but only because I am. If I were to believe that you are best because I am not, then I will doubt even that decision and not really believe you are best for me. You are not best for me because only you believe you are best for me or because you are best for me by some outside magic, but because, since I am best for me, I can think or know that you are also all I want for me.
It is not because I lack anything for my fullness that I love you, but simply because I am sure of my desires and decisions as best for me.
When you are sure of you, your decisions for me are as good as mine.
When I am sure of me, my decisions are as good for you as yours.
I cannot be bad for you any more than I can be bad for myself.
What I think about me makes all the difference. Shouldn't it?
Should I feel honest when I think I may not be?
Should I feel happy when I think I may not be?
Should I feel happy when I think that I ought to be happy before I deserve to enjoy myself?
If I believe that doing or thinking what I would most love to think or do must wait until I'm happy, how will I become happy?
Happiness does not come from that kind of thinking or from doing that kind of thinking.
Happiness comes from thinking and acting, happily. Not acting like a happy person or trying to think like a happy person, but from being happy and believing and behaving happily.
It means be happy about how you think and what you want. Be happy to do what you want and do it the way you would most love to.
Let yourself happen. You're best. The way you'll happen is happy and beautiful and true.
Happiness is! Happiness lives in you. It directs every beat of your heart, every thought, every desire, every movement in your body.
Everything, Absolutely everything.
Perfection is moving you. You are now perfect.
With Love,
Sara Joy
When The Sun Shines Through
When The Sun Shines Through
"When you find that place in you that is already thriving... what kind of a life will get created?" - Michael Neill
I often feel like there are two versions of myself. The loving, compassionate, inspired, and at peace me who is connected to and is, in fact, the energy of all things in human form navigating around this world having adventures. Then there is a duller, more tense, slightly or a lot anxious, perhaps snippy version of myself that I become when I'm preoccupied with thoughts and thinking.
As Michael says in the above quote, there is a place in each of us that is already and actually always is thriving. And happy, content, and peaceful. It's there in the midst of anxious thinking, preoccupation, fear or pain. It's there alongside all of that, all the time. It never goes anywhere.
We go somewhere though. We go to the pain (understandable – it hurts!) and we go to the tension-filled thinking. We go to the past or the future to justify why we are fearful or why we are convinced something is a problem and won't work.
This version of myself, while so familiar and practiced, can feel like a zombie wandering around without any actual animating force.
I came across this quote from Mavis Karn in her book "It's That Simple: A User's Manual for Human Beings":
"In order to return to the truth of us, we need only sense the clenched feeling of having left our true self and wandered back into a habit of thought. It's that simple.
Be still. Let all the mental noise recede, settle down, and dissipate. That's the door back home. That's when you remember who you are and where you can experience the oneness with all things that people who have reclaimed their wisdom have been pointing to forever."
Many people, I was one of them, think that in order to relax and be at peace they need to resolve the tension, anxiety, or pain first. They need to solve all the problems. There is an urgency in anxiety. There is an immediacy in pain. Anxiety and fear are so urgent seeming that we don't look at anything else while constantly trying to tamp it down or make it stop. When the not fear or not anxiety becomes more interesting to us than the stranglehold of the negative emotion, it starts to break apart and loosen. It dissipates, given enough time.
One way of leaving it alone long enough to dissipate is to not make it a problem. If having a negative experience like pain or anxiety was entirely ok and neutral then it gets a little boring and our attention actually wanders from the pain, looking elsewhere for entertainment. It's very much ok to not be ok. However, the more ok you are with your experience, no matter what it happens to be in the moment, the more you default into your own peace and relaxed state.
The real key is to find that space within yourself where you are already thriving. It's the you that is still and calm while walking in nature or walking your dog. It's the you that is suddenly quiet swimming in the lake. It's the you that is stunned by the beauty of your newborn grandchild. It’s the you that kicks out of your busy mind in a moment of surprise or emergency.
Yesterday, I pulled or overstretched or ‘somethinged’ my left lower back and side. I realized it at lunch at a restaurant where I just couldn't sit without considerable pain. It was very much in my face front and centre. I started getting worried. "I won't be able to stay here. I need a different chair. I won't be able to eat. What will others think?". And on and on and on. This wasn't helping. The pain was ratcheting up from all my busy thinking. There was no "solving" this pain in that moment. It would take some time.
As soon as I noticed all this, I was back to myself. It occurred to me to change seats with my husband. It occurred to me to shift how I was sitting. It occurred to me to tell him how much pain I was in. And then it occurred to me to put my attention on the thriving or on the peace or on the energy in my body, my aliveness.
I still had pain but it went down considerably and was sort of just there in the background. By shifting your focus to yourself, your thriving self, ideas and wisdom begin to come in. You can just follow step by step.
Sometimes, I ask myself "What if this wasn't a problem?" and see what comes from there. It feels like letting your thriving-self emerge through the zombie-self. Like the sun shining out through the clouds. Look at the sun and not the clouds. The sun is always shining.
We ended up having a relaxed and most delicious lunch. I highly recommend Trejo’s Tacos in Santa Monica.
With Love,
Sara Joy
Who Am I?
It's Not Me, It's Them!
It’s Not Me, It’s Them!
This week’s blog comes from A Daily Dose of Caffeine For The Soul - It’s Not Me, It’s Them! by Michael Neill.
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During a presentation on the impact of state of mind in education as a part of a weekend’s 3 Principles Global Community annual conference, one of the presenters said:
“The most important state of mind in the classroom is yours.”
What I love about that statement is that it points to a truth that is as relevant in a business as in the classroom and as meaningful in a conversation with your spouse as with your children. When we are in a relatively clear state of mind, open to our in the moment wisdom and inspiration, we tend to do really well regardless of what’s going on around us; when we are caught up in the spin of our moment by moment thinking, temporarily blind to the thought-created nature of our personal experience, we tend to struggle – again, regardless of what’s going on around us.
Now, if you happen to be reading this in a relatively clear state of mind, chances are you can see this for yourself – after all, it would never occur to us that we were going to do as well in a game of “Pin the Tail on the Donkey” after we’ve been blindfolded and spun around three times as we would if we were allowed to play with open eyes and a “no spinning” rule in effect.
But if you happen to be reading this while caught up, you might be inclined to take it personally, thinking that in some way it suggests that you’re to blame for whatever circumstances you’re facing in your life.
In fact, one of the things I hear most often when I suggest to people that their state of mind might be a more significant factor than they think in both their perception of a particular situation and their resourcefulness in handling it is “It’s not me – it’s them.”
So if you ever find yourself thinking that other people need to change before you can be OK, here are a few things to consider that you might find useful…
1. Our state of mind exists independent of circumstances, including the state of mind of the people around us.
I remember being puzzled growing up at how out of sync my moods and circumstances seemed to be. At times I would be surrounded by people who loved and cared for me and feel absolutely miserable; at other times, I would be around people who were shouting at me and feel absolutely at peace.
It was only when I began to see that there is no mechanism in the outside world that can “make” us feel anything in our inner world that this disconnect began to make sense. After all, if I’m living in the feeling of my thinking, then when my thinking changes, my feeling state will change. And since I don’t know what I’m going to be thinking five minutes from now, let alone what someone else is going to be thinking and feeling, the idea that my reactions are dependent on what’s going on around me makes no more sense than the idea that if I put on a music video on my computer with the sound turned down and put on a song on my phone with the sound turned up, the music and images should somehow sync up. (The fact that occasionally they do seem to sync up is one of those perceptual illusions of the mind that make exploring this stuff so much fun!)
2. The world we see with a quiet, clear mind is not the same world we see through a distorted lens.
3. We are only ever one thought away from a complete change of heart about anyone and anything in our life.
A friend was telling me about how she went from being a complete “football-phobe” to a rabid fan of her hometown team. Her husband’s love of the game used to be a source of great upset for her, a hangover from a childhood spent being ignored by the men in her household once the weekend games would start.
Then one day, in the midst of protesting against his going to yet another game on yet another Sunday, she had a change of heart. It occurred to her that her dislike of football had to be as much of a thought-created illusion as his passion for it, so she decided to put it to the test and go along with him to the stadium. As she described it to me, “The first time I went I was pretty neutral about it. The next time I actually enjoyed it a bit. And by the third time, I was shouting for the team as loudly as my husband.”
When I asked her how she made the shift, she couldn’t really answer. She just said “I love my husband, and he loves football, so I decided I might as well see if I could learn to love it too.”
While this is a somewhat innocuous example, imagine if you could feel this change of heart for your spouse, your family, or your work.
What if you didn’t have to be stuck with the way things look to you in your relationships as they are? What if a simple shift in your own state of mind and level of understanding of where experience comes from was enough?
You probably can’t will yourself to do it “on demand” – no one I know can – but wouldn’t it be wonderful if the simple desire for a better, more loving relationship was enough to begin bringing it into being?
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With love,
Sara Joy
Costco Tuesdays
Costco Tuesdays
I wanted to write about Costco Tuesdays because it seems just fun. Also, there seem to be a number of inspiring ideas in this. I'm not going to tell you what those are or what they are for me. See what you hear in this. If you feel inspired, send us an email and tell us what you heard in this story.
Last fall, my son who is 16 started talking about "Costco Tuesdays" at home. I didn't pay any attention. He kept on every Tuesday saying something along the lines of "It's Costco Tuesday!". Hooray! He was wearing a Costco-branded hoodie. And then off to school.
Then next time I heard about it he was wearing the same hoodie and talking about all the kids who were participating in Costco Tuesday. I clued in.
"Is that a thing?" "Is everyone supposed to wear Costco clothes today?"
"On Tuesdays," he says.
Ok. Sounds interesting.
After school, I asked him if it was a thing his school was doing, like Crazy Hair Day or Pajama Day, back when I was in high school. He said it was a thing he started.
Cause he felt like it.
Interesting.
My daughter asked him if anyone else was doing it. Apparently yes.
"Everyone who is anyone is doing it, Mum. Don't you know?"
I started to feel left out. I needed to get with it.
A couple more weeks go by. Another Tuesday morning comes. He's all excited at breakfast because there are so many other kids doing Costco Tuesday. He's naming them all off. Both the junior and senior football teams and their friends are all doing it and how it's spreading and it's just fun.
At the height of the Costco Tuesday craze, 50 kids were participating, wearing Costco wear, every Tuesday. Just because my son thought it would be fun one day.
I noticed that once the idea came to him, I think he happened to be wearing his Costco hoodie on a Tuesday and he thought it would be fun to see how many other kids would do the same thing, he fully committed to it. Even before he told anyone else about it.
It WAS Costco Tuesday.
Then he told everyone about it. Except when he told them, he was telling them about something that was a done deal. It's already a thing.
"It's Costco Tuesday. Where is your Costco hoodie?"
He didn't present it as something that might happen or could happen if there was enough interest. It was happening!
With Love,
Sara Joy
The Get Over Yourself Model
The Get Over Yourself Model
This excerpt from chapter three of The Relationship Handbook, by George S. Pransky, PhD hits the nail on the head with a lot of relationship problems people ask me about in my coaching work. I will let it speak for itself.
Getting Over Yourself
Why You Need To Do It
“I don’t understand why it’s my responsibility to get over things rather than my partner’s job not to upset me.”
GEORGE’S TAKE
Early on in our relationship, Linda and I were both involved in the so-called “growth movement”. We were deep into the “How Does That Make You Feel” approach and the “Working Things Out” approach. As a strategy, both of us tried to avoid doing the things that caused unpleasant reactions in the other person.
We became experts in what upset each other and used this knowledge to alter every aspect of our behavior. Believe me, it was a lot of effort to maintain, and it ultimately made things worse rather than better. Why? Because as we paid more attention to each other’s emotional reactions, these emotional reactions became more visible, plentiful and important. We became more sensitive to each other, finding nonexistent distress in each other’s tones and behaviors. We were like emotional hypochondriacs.
We couldn’t connect the dots at the time. The strategy we were using was popular in our social circle. Everyone agreed that it was the best way to make a relationship work. Making matters worse, we were judgmental of the couples who were not sensitive to each other’s feelings. To us they seemed like unenlightened brutes!
So what changed? We saw the possibility that we could get over our emotional reactions regardless of what it was our partners did to “trigger” them. We decided to stop worrying if one of us got upset, and we decided to stop trying to “fix it” when the other person had an emotional reaction.
The result was amazing! We realized that it was a lot less effort for us to get over our reactions than it was walking on eggshells around the person that we loved. It was a breath of fresh air that I could just be myself and not worry about what was upsetting Linda all the time. This doesn’t mean I would intentionally do things to upset her, but when she did get upset it was not my responsibility to fix it.
The Get Over Yourself Model
By requiring your partner to be in charge of your emotional state, you are not only giving them an immense, impossible job, but also disregarding your own power over your thoughts, feelings and emotional reactions. The ‘Get Over Yourself Model’ makes life easier for your relationship. You don’t have to spend time looking for your own sensitivities and avoiding your partner’s sensitivities. You can accept that getting upset, or moody, or resentful is a part of the natural ups and downs of life and doesn’t necessarily mean that something is wrong. Rather than holding on to upsetting feelings, you can spend your time enjoying your partner’s company and relaxing into the relationship.
When you do get into an emotional reaction, it helps to notice that you have lost your bearings and that any unwanted feelings you are having are temporary. You can remind yourself that it is realistic and beneficial for you to get over your unwanted thoughts and feelings. Nothing wrong or bad is happening; it’s just a natural part of being human.
You’ll find that the ‘Get Over Yourself Model’ has a learning curve. You will get better and better at getting over your emotional reactions and returning to the well-being you had before the reactions occurred. You will also find that your emotional reactions will happen less frequently, for a shorter period of time, and, most importantly, that they will take less of a toll on you when they do happen. In short, you will become more resilient.
I see getting over myself as not only beneficial to me, but in the service of the relationship. It isn’t so much giving in, as it is not letting your mind get bogged down with negativity and emotional reactions.
LINDA’S TAKE
I used to believe that a person was committed to their state of mind and that it took time to change one’s mind. This meant that when I got upset about something, I would either need the help of someone else to get over my emotional reaction or I would have to wait a long time to feel better.
Because of this, I often called on George’s compassion to get me over my emotional reactions. When he wasn’t compassionate, I felt stuck in my negative feeling. I realized this wasn’t working for our relationship. I had to start looking at things in a different way. So I looked at the negative thoughts that were causing my emotional reactions, and I asked myself what could be done about it. Could I possibly just get over my reactions by myself without the compassion that I’d always depended on? Could it be possible that I didn’t need George to be a part of my recovery?
A Different Way
I was with my seven-year-old granddaughter one day, and we were in the middle of a huge disagreement. She was upset with me because I wouldn’t buy her ice cream, and I was upset with her because she wouldn’t stop whining about it. In the middle of this heated argument, she said to me, “Grandma, let’s forget about it.” In the blink of an eye she completely changed. She went from feeling angry to feeling completely neutral, and I was affected by it. I also went from feeling very upset to feeling neutral. With a big smile on my face, I said, “Sure.” In that split second we were friends again, having a really nice time and enjoying being together.
A Better State Of Mind
I didn’t used to believe that a person could change their thinking mid-argument. I learned that when I am able to do this my entire relationship benefits, but, more importantly, it benefits me.
People are better at working things out through a better state of mind. Thus, George and I are always looking to get to a better feeling, not only because it feels better, but because we think better. When you feel better, you will have better ideas, better solutions and better answers. It’s just righteousness, bullheadedness and attachment to a certain position that makes getting over yourself a struggle.
People often defend holding on to their anger because they think that if they are feeling really strongly about something, then they must be right. In reality, strong feelings just mean a person is having a strong thought, nothing more. No matter the severity, any state of mind or feeling can, and will, naturally change. I have to say that there is no perfection here, but there is learning and hope.
George and I are consistently looking for a better feeling in the middle of chaos. It doesn’t always happen, but it happens enough. For example, sometimes in the middle of an argument with George, I will switch from defending myself or trying to prove my point of view, to suddenly not caring about being right. I love it when this happens because George stops being upset, and we both enter into a nice feeling. And when this happens, it is much easier for us to talk through feelings.
If you get nothing else from this section, I would love for you to see the possibility that you can get over your emotional reactions, even mid-argument. Before understanding how the mind works, I never thought it was possible to have something change so dramatically between two people. All I needed was to see the possibility of change within my own mind, instead of looking to external circumstances and waiting for other people to change. It’s not that circumstances and other people don’t change; it’s just that I found greater happiness when I stopped looking to the outside for direction and began getting over my emotional reactions on my own.
With Love,
Sara Joy
Undoing Triggers Part 2
Undoing Triggers Part 2
Now came the big test!
Many of you know that I had two bad concussions close together in 2016/2017 and had a lot of symptoms from that injury. What I haven't talked about much is that I still get a very strong fear reaction to sound. It comes and goes. It only seems to be in certain environments.
Unfortunately, one of those environments is my kitchen. It's very difficult for me to be in my house when someone else is making sound in the kitchen. I've been told it's because I lost certain cells in my inner ear that modulate hearing and that the functions those cells perform won't come back and also can't be compensated for. It's a permanent brain injury.
It was compared to an amputated limb. I wouldn’t have an arm some of the time and not at other times. If it was gone, it was gone. Didn't seem to be any reason to talk about this if it wasn't going to change.
Except, I am sensitive to sound some of the time and don't even notice it at other times. Same family, same sounds, same kitchen. Huh. Sometimes the amputated arm works and sometimes not. Curious.
What I noticed with the car accident brake lights experience was that the "brain alerting me" feeling was the exact same as when I started reacting to sounds in my kitchen. Curiouser.
What if I am "only" reacting to an instruction my brain set up because I asked it to? Like a reminder on my cell phone. What if I could undo this one too? And I say "only" in quotes because there's no only about the experience of this reaction to sound. At times it's absolute hell and terrifying.
I also became aware of a book by Sarah Polley "Run Towards the Danger". She also had a bad concussion and her specialist told her that the way to heal after any traumatic experience or injury was to charge headlong into the very things that seemed to create her symptoms. Now this approach does work and involves a period of "white knuckling" it until you prove to yourself that the danger isn't actually dangerous.
I realized that we aren't actually afraid of what we think we are afraid of. We are afraid of what we think. This, it turns out, is the secret to effortless change. No "white knuckling" required.
In thinking we are afraid of a particular experience or aspects of it, we become afraid of ever experiencing anything that feels like it. We start to feel afraid of the idea of something. In reality, there is nothing there and never was. It's all Thought and it can change in an instant.
On top of that, if we were not afraid or angry about our life experiences then our whole experience of life would change.
When we don't recognize something as Thought, we react as if it was a real danger. What was new for me is that there are two parts to recognize in a "trigger". The Thought that sets it up and then in the moment the Thought that creates the fear. We don't need to know what those specific thoughts are, as that can be maddening and without end. Just the awareness that the whole response is being generated internally. We are not the thoughts or thinking, we are the space within which they arise.
This was enough for me to start experimenting.
Have you ever started noticing something you do that you had been unaware of previously? Maybe a habit you wanted to change and in the becoming aware of it, it seemed to grow. That's exactly what happened to me. All of a sudden, I was aware of reacting with fear to so much! I had no idea! It felt constant and exhausting.
However! Don't give up just yet. My perceptions of sound started changing in the moment. The same sound would get really loud and then less loud. Very noticeably. The more I told my brain that something wasn't dangerous and that I didn't need to pay attention to it, the more variable everything became.
And then up and down. For a week or so, my perception of sound was wonky and unreliable. This was fantastic! It could change. It wasn't supposed to.
Then I had a whole day where there was lots of sound happening in the kitchen and it sounded normal and not scary at all to me! This was the first time in 8 years!
I had a few days of up and down fear reactions and sensitivity feelings and then it all vanished. Completely. Holy Crap!
The bigger picture of this experience is that once I saw what was going on as Thought, it began to shift. More and more insights followed. I realized it could all just disappear. There was nothing tangible there.
There's a poem I've always loved by French poet, Guillaume Apollinaire. It speaks of possibility and promise. It speaks of wonder. It also speaks to facing your fears.
Come To the Edge
“Come to the edge," he said.
"We can't, we're afraid!" they responded.
"Come to the edge," he said.
"We can't, we will fall!" they responded.
"Come to the edge," he said.
And so they came.
And he pushed them.
And they flew.
And so, in running to the danger as it were, we find ourselves instead.
With Love,
Sara Joy