Note: Please join us for our next Coming Home Together online gathering, Awakening in Our Relationships. All are welcome on Wednesday, February 14 from 9-10:30am Pacific. Please click here for details and registration.
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As you probably know in your own experience, we humans are highly conditioned to believe what our minds tell us about ourselves—and everything else.
Without even being aware of it, we accept how our thoughts describe us as our unquestioned
reality.
If your thoughts tell you about all the things that could go wrong, you say, “I’m anxious.”
If they repeat stories from your past telling you you’re
not good enough, you say, “I’m worthless.”
If your thoughts judge, compare, and criticize, you live in that negativity as if it were true. You believe your thoughts are facts.
When you say, “I am…(fill in whatever the thought is saying),” you’re at risk for identifying with the content of those thoughts, taking what they’re saying to be accurate and real.
Here’s a noteworthy fact: identifying with your thoughts will always bring suffering to your life. Would you like to
suffer? Then believe what your thoughts tell you.
For most of us, it takes time to untangle ourselves from the content of our thinking—and one way to support that untangling is to be accurate in the language we use.
It’s common to say something like, “I’m worried.” But a more accurate way to describe what’s actually happening is to say, “Worrying thoughts are arising in me.”
When you say, “I’m worried,” you’re identifying as the limited and separate person who is worried.
But, “Worrying thoughts are arising in me” changes everything. You’re no longer believing the thoughts define you. There is You, the being aware space that the thoughts arise in…and the thoughts themselves floating through this space.
It’s like you are the sky, and thoughts are the clouds passing by.
Can you feel the freedom in this approach?
The same holds true for feelings. Instead of saying, I’m feeling anxious,” you can say, “The feeling of anxiety is arising in me.” Or, “There are sensations of anxiety present in the body.”
I know this might sound like an awkward way to describe what you’re experiencing, but why not try it? It’s much
closer to the truth than believing what your thoughts are telling you.
Here are some benefits to this practice.
It helps you break the identification with your
thoughts so you’re not taking them personally. It’s a quick and obvious reminder that You are here, fully alive and aware—and the conditioned stream of thoughts and feelings appears in you.
Once you begin to question the contents of your mind (which are mostly negative), you don’t take them so seriously, and you have space to
actually experience the fullness of the present moment.
It invites you into the deeper question of who you are and who you’re not. For example, if shame and unworthiness arise in you, then who is the you that they arise in? Take away the content of your thoughts…and what remains?
The aliveness of your true nature…
I invite you to try out this practice—maybe right now? Notice the thoughts or feelings that are present, and say, “These thoughts and feelings are arising in me…they’re
not who I am.”
Every time they appear, seriously consider that they’re not giving you accurate information about who you are.
Let them be, and expand into pure
boundless openness undefined by thinking…
Sending much love...🧡
Gail
Note: You are welcome to join our next Coming Home Together online gathering on Wednesday, February 14 from 9-10:30am Pacific. Come and immerse yourself in loving community as we open to: Awakening in Our Relationships. Please click
here for details and registration.
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