"When you are faced with an important decision and you are unsure of which course of action to take, one thing that can help you is to focus on how you feel about the options presented instead of being consumed with the stories your narrators are spouting. This is called 'listening with your heart instead of your head.' "
Yeah, I've never heard this before. I can't always trust my head because my head is trying to play defense, to drive me to get more! more! more! but my heart is a gentle and kind soul. It does not lead me astray very often.
"Anytime you feel a burst of anger, frustration, guilt, shame, or any number of other negative emotions, that's your cue to look within and see what is happening. Whether your tendency is to be consumed with anger and rage or to sulk silently in the corner, the underlying cause of all of these emotional reactions is always fear . . . "
Isn't this right out of the Big Book? It's fear. It's always fear. I can turn my fear outward in anger or I can turn my fear inward in depression but it still always comes back to fear.
"You are stuck, unable to move forward, until you look more deeply at whatever the emotion is trying to tell you."
I see in new people - and remember, after the fact, regrettably - how difficult it can be to dislodge the thought patterns that are lodged so deeply in our subconscious. I spent years and years feeding and nuturing these thought patterns that, even when I began to see they were injurious, it was hard to rid myself of them. Even though I was becoming aware that my reactions were not helpful, I still would respond in anger or depression anytime something set off one of these hidden and deeply entrenched characteristics.
"But there will always be those moments when you can't walk away, when you just have to deal with the person or situation at hand right then. You can stay balanced much more easily if you find out why this person has the ability to provoke a reaction in you. This is a very special gift they are offering you, and freedom awaits as soon as you can find out why that is. The reason this person bothers you is based on a past experience rather than the current situation."
Balance: Mental and emotional steadiness; habit of calm behavior, judgement, etc.; composure.
I've looked up the definition of balance so many times and I still can't always get my mind around the concept. To be in the middle of. To stay away from the ends of things where I so often tend to go. Not too hot. Not too cold. Just right. Not too hard. Not too soft. Just right. I've pondered deeply the lesson that a great lesson is to ponder deeply why things that upset me upset me. I find much of the time that I am not reacting to the person or the situation but to some facet of my personality that was installed in me long ago and which I have nurtured and fertilized for so long that it just doesn't want to come out. I know that when SuperK is mad at me it's often because I'm exhibiting a behavior from someone vexatious in her past - often from the family relationships - that devalued and humiliated her. If I can keep my fucking mouth shut and say to myself: "Aha! That was exactly something her alcoholic father said to her when she was a young girl." And isn't the reminder that when I find a person vexatious I need to remember that I'm being given the opportunity to grow, to learn a lesson? So annoying these opportunities to grow. AFGO - Another Fucking Growth Opportunity.
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