I'm about halfway though the book The Untethered Soul, and I am realizing just how difficult this journey to true happiness really is. This book is a hard truth about who you really are, and makes you aware of every thought, emotion, and movement you experience throughout your entire day. To be honest, it's making me feel a little crazy. But I'm dedicated to the life I am living and also the life I wish to live, and so I take on this challenge.
To give you an idea of the craziness, one of the first exercises the book suggests is to imagine that the voice inside your head is an actual person in the room with you. This visual, along with the constant chatter of your mind, quickly makes you realize that this is not someone you would be friends with. Or even want to spend 5 minutes with. "I should do the dishes. I really don't want to. Maybe my husband will do them - HA - yeah right. Did I lock the door when I came inside? Shit, don't think I did. Did I? Great, now a burglar is going to come in and murder me. I'll go lock the door. Then I'll do the damn dishes" - it never shuts up. It goes from one thought to the next, chatting along without a single pause. If this was a real life person, I would punch them.
Scary thing is, this "friend" is the one who controls my every move throughout the day.
The idea of this exercise is not to attempt to stop the thoughts, but to simply be aware of them. Be conscious of all the things going on in your mind. Notice how many thoughts come and go in a few seconds time. The choice you have is to go with those thoughts, or to let them pass through.
Example: One night after watching a gushy romantic movie, I thought to myself "hmm, Eric never brings me flowers". I could have left it at that, because quite frankly I don't give a shit whether or not he brings me flowers. But instead, because the over-the-top husband in the movie surprised his wife with flowers, I was mad. I hitched a ride on this one little thought and let it spiral out of control. "I work so hard as a mom all day and he can't, not even once, bring me some damn flowers!? Does he even think of me!? What a selfish man." What adds fuel to the fire is expectation. "He's late from the gym, again. OH! Maybe he's late because he's surprising me with flowers! Yay!" Only for my husband to walk in the door from a long day at work and hefty gym session, empty handed. I had no right to be, but I was pissed. All because I let that one little blip about flowers that came to mind consume my every thought, causing my emotions to get involved.
Ever heard that the mind is a dangerous place? Abso-fucking-lutely.
And not "hitching a ride" with these thoughts takes extreme willpower. You have to acknowledge that they are there, and let them pass through. Sounds simple, but when that heart rate creeps up and the thought can't seem to find it's way out, you've got a problem. It's something, according to this book, that will take years of centering and awareness to become natural to the mind. I've got all the time in the world to create this inner peace, so bring it on, willpower.
The latest exercise noted is to open your heart. Not only to love, but to the bad stuff too; vulnerability, hurt, disappointment. We all tend to guard our hearts to prevent us from getting hurt, but it really doesn't do us any good. It creates walls, and a dark place to store painful memories. To truly open your heart is to let all the bad shit come bubbling up - and deal with it. Let it be painful, let it come out, because this is the only true way to release your body of it. You have to really (and I mean really) deal with every single deep dark thought, emotion or memory that you have buried. Stop justifying them - admit to them. Be brutally honest with yourself. Do what you need to so that these thoughts can stop creeping into your mind. Bring them up, deal with them, and release them. And once you do - don't re-close your heart. Don't let anything else get stuck inside, let everything move like the breath: in and out.
Another example used in the book has to do with the way you might feel about a person when things are going your way, and then how those feelings change when arguments or disagreements come into play. An open heart allows you to truly love a person at their best AND at their worst. When these conflicts come up, it is suggested to release your shoulders and soften the area around your heart. Tell yourself that you will not close, that you will remain open and that this one moment does not defy the depths of your feelings. To stay open is to truly conquer the problem at hand, instead of causing one more wall in your heart and even more buried feelings.
I've been doing this a lot. If I feel that overwhelming feeling creeping into my spine, I physically lower my shoulders, and imagine the area around my heart softening. I tell myself that no matter how loud my children scream, I don't love them any less. I choose to keep my heart open, and refuse frustration. I know that no matter what is going on around me, it is only me who can control what is going on inside. I feel my best when I am at peace, when I am calm, and when I don't let the things on the outside affect what I'm feeling on the inside. It doesn't always come this easy, but I've learned that in the few moments it has, it is worth working on endlessly until I reach that desired point of it being a natural state for my mind. It feels simply amazing.
Showing myself the control I can have inside is empowering. It makes me strive to continue to work a it as I grow into deeper self love. I cannot wait to meet the person I ultimately become after these practices, but for now I am enjoying the journey, loving the learning, and most importantly, loving how I feel.
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