Awakening Lessons
It's been a year and a half since my spiritual awakening. I am constantly learning new lessons with this growing clarity. Since my session with Jim on Sunday, I have been in a deeper space within myself where I'm feeling the peace that exists in presence. I'm also seeing my ego stories as they continue to babble on and on inside and as they continue to generate emotions and feelings.
The person I actually am is very different from the person created by these ego stories and beliefs. Just earlier today I was driving from getting a root canal, and I was pretty upset because I was having buyers remorse: I had thought I needed it, but once I got it and paid for it and continued feeling pain, I was doubting that maybe my pain wasn't the tooth at all. The ego swooped in and started terrorizing me. I was driving in quite a bad mood. And then I remembered about awareness, and once I did, everything changed. My mood lifted, I became happy and peaceful, and my thoughts completely changed. I had been planning on coming home and sitting with the negative feelings and thoughts to let them burn up, but once they didn't have control over me anymore I decided to stop by the grocery store and pick up groceries for dinner. So my energy got freed up for living.
Even if the root canal was not necessary, it's done now. The victim ego would see this and judge it as bad for different reasons. Consciousness embraces it as perfect. It is done. It's what is. And so it's perfect.
I've been struggling with food. A lot of things that I try to eat go through undigested. I've lost some weight because of this. And I've been trying many different things to fix it, some of which worked for a time. Somehow nothing has worked consistently enough where I can say - this is my safe food, I can definitely eat this. And I have started stressing about the process of food shopping, cooking, and eating. Often when I eat something and I feel cramping or I feel that I'm still hungry even though my stomach is full, the ego comes in and starts complaining and generating stress, upset, frustration, anger, etc. But in the last few days, since Jim and I sat in presence, I have been practicing being in that space in the moments when the ego is most loud. And I see that it's just a story made up by my mind, and when I see that, I am again happy, content, and feeling the expansiveness of life. I realize that I don't know what's around the corner, what this struggle means in the bigger context of my life, or how something can open up doorways that I never knew existed without me trying it or planning it. I am at peace with the struggle and so it stops being a struggle and becomes an exploration.
Earlier I was walking on the beach and I was thinking about a person I see every once in a while who's on a mission. He's very active in the world, he knows what he believes, and he's speaking about it and educating others about important issues. I thought about him, about seeing him, and about not having a similar mission to share about. The ego mind swooped in again and I was figuratively wringing my hands trying to come up with a mission. I was walking on the beach, but I was not actually seeing the beach or the ocean. And when I remembered that I only have the half an hour to look at the beautiful scene in front of me before going back to my apartment, I ripped myself away from those thoughts and focused on the footsteps in the sand in front of me. The mind was still busy complaining so it wasn't the most pleasant walk still, but I just kept my focus on the ocean and the sand, trying to enjoy it at least a little bit. When I sat on the rocks for a bit, the mind quieted down, and when it did, I experienced a profound peace with not having meaning to my life and not having a purpose. I saw how the need to have those things was still just another mental idea, and that I was perfectly happy without it.
I used to think that I need to sit with every negative emotion and feeling, and that's how you get rid of them. So now my understanding is expanded and I see how there is a lot of surface-level stuff that is probably blocking the way to deeper issues. I don't have to sit with the ego complaints. That's what it actually wants: attention. I can live my life and enjoy it. Jim said it's letting the lake settle. I know the deeper stuff is there and I will be sitting with it plenty, but the route to it may be different than I thought.
PS. By the way, Jim is my spiritual teacher. He's over at www.spiritualawakeningprocess.com!
The person I actually am is very different from the person created by these ego stories and beliefs. Just earlier today I was driving from getting a root canal, and I was pretty upset because I was having buyers remorse: I had thought I needed it, but once I got it and paid for it and continued feeling pain, I was doubting that maybe my pain wasn't the tooth at all. The ego swooped in and started terrorizing me. I was driving in quite a bad mood. And then I remembered about awareness, and once I did, everything changed. My mood lifted, I became happy and peaceful, and my thoughts completely changed. I had been planning on coming home and sitting with the negative feelings and thoughts to let them burn up, but once they didn't have control over me anymore I decided to stop by the grocery store and pick up groceries for dinner. So my energy got freed up for living.
Even if the root canal was not necessary, it's done now. The victim ego would see this and judge it as bad for different reasons. Consciousness embraces it as perfect. It is done. It's what is. And so it's perfect.
I've been struggling with food. A lot of things that I try to eat go through undigested. I've lost some weight because of this. And I've been trying many different things to fix it, some of which worked for a time. Somehow nothing has worked consistently enough where I can say - this is my safe food, I can definitely eat this. And I have started stressing about the process of food shopping, cooking, and eating. Often when I eat something and I feel cramping or I feel that I'm still hungry even though my stomach is full, the ego comes in and starts complaining and generating stress, upset, frustration, anger, etc. But in the last few days, since Jim and I sat in presence, I have been practicing being in that space in the moments when the ego is most loud. And I see that it's just a story made up by my mind, and when I see that, I am again happy, content, and feeling the expansiveness of life. I realize that I don't know what's around the corner, what this struggle means in the bigger context of my life, or how something can open up doorways that I never knew existed without me trying it or planning it. I am at peace with the struggle and so it stops being a struggle and becomes an exploration.
Earlier I was walking on the beach and I was thinking about a person I see every once in a while who's on a mission. He's very active in the world, he knows what he believes, and he's speaking about it and educating others about important issues. I thought about him, about seeing him, and about not having a similar mission to share about. The ego mind swooped in again and I was figuratively wringing my hands trying to come up with a mission. I was walking on the beach, but I was not actually seeing the beach or the ocean. And when I remembered that I only have the half an hour to look at the beautiful scene in front of me before going back to my apartment, I ripped myself away from those thoughts and focused on the footsteps in the sand in front of me. The mind was still busy complaining so it wasn't the most pleasant walk still, but I just kept my focus on the ocean and the sand, trying to enjoy it at least a little bit. When I sat on the rocks for a bit, the mind quieted down, and when it did, I experienced a profound peace with not having meaning to my life and not having a purpose. I saw how the need to have those things was still just another mental idea, and that I was perfectly happy without it.
I used to think that I need to sit with every negative emotion and feeling, and that's how you get rid of them. So now my understanding is expanded and I see how there is a lot of surface-level stuff that is probably blocking the way to deeper issues. I don't have to sit with the ego complaints. That's what it actually wants: attention. I can live my life and enjoy it. Jim said it's letting the lake settle. I know the deeper stuff is there and I will be sitting with it plenty, but the route to it may be different than I thought.
PS. By the way, Jim is my spiritual teacher. He's over at www.spiritualawakeningprocess.com!
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