The Meanings We Give & The Stories We Tell
Okay, so it's great that I want to help people remember to meditate, remember the truth of them, remember to do good practices, and remember what they already know. But I honestly do not have those sorts of elevated thoughts and practices all the time. I get bogged down by my triggers and ego and self-pity and egoic reactions too. So now it's time to tell on myself. (I have a feeling I'm going to be doing from time to time. I've got lots of opportunities for that.)
All my life, it has been my goal to be "perfect." And even now - even while knowing to my core that perfect isn't a real thing, that having a standard of what I do or who I am in order to accept myself isn't realistic - I don't want to be "not perfect." Really, I don't want to make any mistakes whatsoever or ever let anyone else down. Deep down, that's rooted in the desire for acceptance. If I don't do everything right all the time, will they still accept me? Will they slap a label on me and write me off?
Telling on myself is scary, but also, it is part of the truth of me. (And the truth sets us free!) It is part of healing to face, acknowledge, accept and integrate my own shadows. Doing the little ones first helps me practice accepting that the shadows are there, a part of me, without spiraling into depression and despair over the woeful imperfection of me. Accepting uglier, less attractive parts of myself - the parts that I want to push away and say, "oh no, that's not me. I don't do or think or say those things. I don't sound or look like that," is sometimes a pretty uncomfortable practice.
Here's what happened - I'll try to make it clear without revealing anyone's names. Riding in the car together, I listened as my two friends talked about the friend who had just left to go to another event that evening, and what it was like to spend time with her. I had been debating if I wanted to talk about what had happened earlier, when that friend had picked up a boot off the floor to get it away from the dog and put it on top of my laptop and journal. In my friend's house, my stuff was in a small corner, all stacked together (so I wouldn't forget any of it) and out of all the available surfaces or choices she could have made about where to put a boot, she put it right on top of my stuff.
The friend who was driving asked me something about taking it personally. "Oh no," I told both of them, "I wrote a whole page in my journal about how I am not taking it personally." Then they laughed, and then I laughed. I realized then that I had taken it personally. By even mentioning it, I had shown that it had affected me. I was working on processing another meaning other than the one I had given her actions in order to make peace with it.
Each action is isolated, separate and apart from any choice a person has made before - we're all capable of sudden change, of making different choices from ones we've ever made before. Taking all the context around her action of putting a boot on my things - how much importance I place on those things, whether or not she feels a certain way, my own interpretation and perception of her intentions - I had written a story where she might have chosen to do it deliberately, as an action against me.
It probably didn't have that meaning at all for her, and really, even if it did, it's not a big deal. Nothing was broken, nothing was sullied, and she's a lovely person I would enjoy spending time with again. It was only my own egoic reaction that caused any kind of ripple in my own peace of mind and serenity. The choice I made to "write a story" about that isolated event directly affected my equanimity to the point of processing it not only in my journal, but with my two other friends.
Luckily for me, my friend calls me on my stuff, with regularity. I encourage that from all my friendships because there are truly things that I am just blind to about myself. Willingly or ignorantly, there are always things we don't see that others do see. It is even more lovely when those friends encourage me to point out those things for them as well. (I pretty much have to have brave friends, brave like me, brave to be willing to see the garbage in our ditches.)
The point of this post, I guess, is to talk about what we feed ourselves through our own thoughts and the stories we tell ourselves. What stories do we tell ourselves about the events that occur around us? How many ways can we choose not to take any of it personally, and focus instead on maintaining equanimity, peace of mind, and serenity with the realization that "there are no problems"?
The car that didn't stop or even slow down when we were trying to cross the street, the person that didn't smile back at us on the street, a snarl of traffic, someone who doesn't text back for a few days - or even weeks ... there could be so many different meanings for all of those things. I have taken to breathing and being present in my body to try to determine which thoughts to hold. If a thought is making me feel tight in my body, makes the corners of my mouth turn downward, brings me emotions that feel heavy and sad, maybe I'm telling myself a story that isn't in alignment with the higher truth of things - or at very least, a story that isn't helping me.
My friend and I talked yesterday about how, as the center of our own worlds, when we take a breath, everything takes a breath with us. Everything stops and waits for us to breathe again. Taking a mindful breath slows the present moment to a speed where we are more capable of taking notice of what's around and inside of us. It is worth it to remind ourselves to breathe more, to check in with ourselves, to observe our thoughts, and for Peter, Paul and Mary's sakes, to try to avoid judging ourselves when we notice we got off course! The truth of it is, none of us are perfect, and we all deserve acceptance.
So, let's start with accepting ourselves. Let's start by feeding ourselves stories and thoughts that feel good, stories that accept us and others just as we are, and ones that give us all the benefit of the doubt.
All my life, it has been my goal to be "perfect." And even now - even while knowing to my core that perfect isn't a real thing, that having a standard of what I do or who I am in order to accept myself isn't realistic - I don't want to be "not perfect." Really, I don't want to make any mistakes whatsoever or ever let anyone else down. Deep down, that's rooted in the desire for acceptance. If I don't do everything right all the time, will they still accept me? Will they slap a label on me and write me off?
Telling on myself is scary, but also, it is part of the truth of me. (And the truth sets us free!) It is part of healing to face, acknowledge, accept and integrate my own shadows. Doing the little ones first helps me practice accepting that the shadows are there, a part of me, without spiraling into depression and despair over the woeful imperfection of me. Accepting uglier, less attractive parts of myself - the parts that I want to push away and say, "oh no, that's not me. I don't do or think or say those things. I don't sound or look like that," is sometimes a pretty uncomfortable practice.
Here's what happened - I'll try to make it clear without revealing anyone's names. Riding in the car together, I listened as my two friends talked about the friend who had just left to go to another event that evening, and what it was like to spend time with her. I had been debating if I wanted to talk about what had happened earlier, when that friend had picked up a boot off the floor to get it away from the dog and put it on top of my laptop and journal. In my friend's house, my stuff was in a small corner, all stacked together (so I wouldn't forget any of it) and out of all the available surfaces or choices she could have made about where to put a boot, she put it right on top of my stuff.
The friend who was driving asked me something about taking it personally. "Oh no," I told both of them, "I wrote a whole page in my journal about how I am not taking it personally." Then they laughed, and then I laughed. I realized then that I had taken it personally. By even mentioning it, I had shown that it had affected me. I was working on processing another meaning other than the one I had given her actions in order to make peace with it.
Each action is isolated, separate and apart from any choice a person has made before - we're all capable of sudden change, of making different choices from ones we've ever made before. Taking all the context around her action of putting a boot on my things - how much importance I place on those things, whether or not she feels a certain way, my own interpretation and perception of her intentions - I had written a story where she might have chosen to do it deliberately, as an action against me.
It probably didn't have that meaning at all for her, and really, even if it did, it's not a big deal. Nothing was broken, nothing was sullied, and she's a lovely person I would enjoy spending time with again. It was only my own egoic reaction that caused any kind of ripple in my own peace of mind and serenity. The choice I made to "write a story" about that isolated event directly affected my equanimity to the point of processing it not only in my journal, but with my two other friends.
Luckily for me, my friend calls me on my stuff, with regularity. I encourage that from all my friendships because there are truly things that I am just blind to about myself. Willingly or ignorantly, there are always things we don't see that others do see. It is even more lovely when those friends encourage me to point out those things for them as well. (I pretty much have to have brave friends, brave like me, brave to be willing to see the garbage in our ditches.)
The point of this post, I guess, is to talk about what we feed ourselves through our own thoughts and the stories we tell ourselves. What stories do we tell ourselves about the events that occur around us? How many ways can we choose not to take any of it personally, and focus instead on maintaining equanimity, peace of mind, and serenity with the realization that "there are no problems"?
“You are the sky. Everything else is just the weather.” - Pema Chodren
The car that didn't stop or even slow down when we were trying to cross the street, the person that didn't smile back at us on the street, a snarl of traffic, someone who doesn't text back for a few days - or even weeks ... there could be so many different meanings for all of those things. I have taken to breathing and being present in my body to try to determine which thoughts to hold. If a thought is making me feel tight in my body, makes the corners of my mouth turn downward, brings me emotions that feel heavy and sad, maybe I'm telling myself a story that isn't in alignment with the higher truth of things - or at very least, a story that isn't helping me.
My friend and I talked yesterday about how, as the center of our own worlds, when we take a breath, everything takes a breath with us. Everything stops and waits for us to breathe again. Taking a mindful breath slows the present moment to a speed where we are more capable of taking notice of what's around and inside of us. It is worth it to remind ourselves to breathe more, to check in with ourselves, to observe our thoughts, and for Peter, Paul and Mary's sakes, to try to avoid judging ourselves when we notice we got off course! The truth of it is, none of us are perfect, and we all deserve acceptance.
So, let's start with accepting ourselves. Let's start by feeding ourselves stories and thoughts that feel good, stories that accept us and others just as we are, and ones that give us all the benefit of the doubt.
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