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John.
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October 17, 2016 at 11:09 am #118358
AnonymousGuestDear John:
What an interesting and unique share. It makes me think, that indeed, you have an opportunity every day to do something you never did before; make something happen that did not happen before.
You can be a faithful husband. And you can proceed to be the good father you want to be.
Those neuropathways I mentioned, and you mentioned as well, those pathways recorded experiences of the past and those experiences, those pathways get triggered in the present, keeping the past alive that way. We have the very strong tendency to do the things we did before simply because those things are built into our brains.
What you did with the moisture droplets that got caught in the spider web, was something new, something not previously done and recorded in a neuropathway.
Our abilities to do something new is our hope when the same-old-same-old keeps us in dysfunction and distress.
For new things, new pathways!
anita
October 17, 2016 at 12:25 pm #118363
JohnParticipantDear Anita,
Yes it was a unique experience and I felt I wanted to share it, because after that I felt a very deep inner joy, which from a cognitive perspective, like you say, created a totally unique and unprecedented experience or pathway, different to the same perceived repetitious daily routine, which is actually a constant stream of unique events, we just can’t see it properly. I have recently been reading ‘The Stillness Speaks’ which is part of the Power of Now Series by Ekhart Tolle. It’s really helping me to realise the chatter of the egoic mind is not really ‘me’, it’s just a stream of words and my mind has spent 40 years constructing what it thinks it is, identifying itself with what has happened, ‘my story’, but this is not me. I had read ‘the power of now’ years ago and it really had a revolutionary effect on me, but its effects wore off, which I can only put down to the world re-dominating my mind with its
‘shoulds / shouldn’ts’
‘likes/dislikes’
‘I don’t want to be here/I want to be there’
‘I need this or that to be happy’
‘I will be happy when….’
‘what can I do next to bring me closer to that goal’
‘I’m labelling that person with that label, and that other person with another label, they are now in a box’
‘this bad thing is happening or happened to me, it’s unfair, I want fairness and justice for this, the universe owes me’ (which leads to a underlying resentment to nothing in particular which bubbles under the surface).It’s so easy to get caught back in that invisible prison of the mind, it takes a book like this to awaken you again, if awaken is the appropriate word.
October 18, 2016 at 1:14 pm #118445AnonymousGuestDear John:
It is my experience that most of what we are is automatic, a quick and automatic reaction to existing pathways that are triggered, again and again, by people we interact with and life situations. to be authentic is to get a sense of distance from existing pathways, being able to notice them, identify them and instead of being identified with them, being able to CHOOSE from a distance. To choose before drowning in those pathways.
My healing started when I started to develop the ability, the skill to put a distance of time and emotion between the thinking-me, the choosing-me and the automatic-me.
anita
October 19, 2016 at 2:02 am #118475
ShippParticipantDear John,
I’ve been following your thread. Thank you for sharing your experience with the water droplets in the Web! It’s moments like those that we forget too quickly after they happen so it was nice to share in your moment.
Ironically, you and I are currently reading the same book and Anita is also helping me with some of the same questions that you have posed in your posts. I’m learning right along with you as others respond to your comments.
Anyway, I just wanted you to know that someone else is benefiting from you sharing your experiences and insights. Thanks!
~Shipp
October 23, 2016 at 4:00 am #118736JohnParticipantDear Shipp, I’m glad you liked my web story and yes The Stillness Speaks is a powerful little book, I’m glad you are heading towards the light and that Anita is helping you, she seems to have a lot of wisdom to share, which helps others towards the light. Good luck.
November 2, 2016 at 11:39 am #119447JohnParticipantI had to mental shifts of perception today which I would like to share. I was ironing new badges onto my uniform, which took a long time, then I ironed my daughter’s 4 cotton white shirts. An automatic thought popped into my head “damn, I’m sick of ironing now!”, (with the associated tension in the face), then pretty much a few seconds later another automatic thought came into my mind “I’m thankful that I have a uniform to put badges on, because it means I have a job” and “I’m thankful that I have my precious little girls shirts to iron, and I can put sharp creases in them to make them look smart”. This total shift totally changed my mood; it was free, easy and effortless, with massive benefits. I was also getting a drink in the canteen, when I noticed all 3 flavoured drinks dispensers were not working, the only one left was plain water. Again, the auto-thought was, “damn, why aren’t these working properly”, then a few seconds later “I’m thankful that I have clean water to drink”. I’m enjoying these auto-thoughts!!! The interesting thing is that external reality did not change, it was exactly the same, neutral, it was just my perception that changed, the cognitive lens through which I see the world.
November 2, 2016 at 12:34 pm #119448AnonymousGuestDear John:
I appreciate the comment about me in your post before last.
Regarding your last post: (good to read again from you!) -The thoughts we have are most often associated with emotions. These are the neuropathways in our brains, connecting Thoughts and Emotions. You shifted a thought and voila, a different emotion was connected to the new thought.
Excellent work for NOTICING what you were thinking. Without that noticing, that attention (aka Mindfulness), you wouldn’t have been able to experiment with new thinking. This is what Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is based on: change the thought and you change the emotion.
But there is a catch to it: the substitute thought has to be true to reality. And in the example above, your substitute thoughts were true to reality.
Keep paying attention, being mindful. Impressive work there!
anita
November 2, 2016 at 12:35 pm #119449AnonymousGuest* Post didn’t record on main page, trying again..
November 2, 2016 at 12:48 pm #119450JohnParticipantHi Anita,
Thanks for the encouragement. I was actually in a good mood at the time, so not sure if this augmented my auto-thoughts, I’m interested to see if I notice the same things when I’m in a not-so-good mood!!! I had some very good news yesterday so I think that has lifted me. Hopefully I will. God Bless.
November 2, 2016 at 2:17 pm #119452AnonymousGuestDear John:
You are welcome. When you were ironing, you did experience distress (you noticed the tension in your face). So there was distress. Only not as much distress as there will be later.
Sticking to your example: you are ironing, but you are also distressed about a problem X at work, some significant conflict. As you iron you play the conflict in your mind again and again, preparing for a confrontation the next day. You also think: “And I hate ironing…” In this circumstance, substituting with: ““I’m thankful that I have a uniform to put badges on, because it means I have a job” may not work and: ““I’m thankful that…” may not work this time because you really are not in a thankful mood.
So you will need another substitute thought (got to be flexible and creative). Maybe you will choose to stop ironing for the moment, and write on a paper what you are planning to do the next day at work, how to confront. You figure it out, on paper, and once satisfied, and you resume ironing, substitute the replaying of the future confrontation with: “I prepared myself very well. It is on paper. I will next look at the paper tomorrow morning with a fresh brain (my term) for possible editing”
And as your mind goes back to the future confrontation, you substitute again, with same and take deep breaths.
anita
November 9, 2016 at 10:02 pm #120028
eightParticipant☆totally unique and unprecedented experience or pathway, different to the same perceived repetitious daily routine, which is actually a constant stream of unique events, we just can’t see it properly☆
YOU’RE SO right about it as I was amazed by floating tiny little ash in the pray room .. like zero gravity time line. MagicalSpiders, I am not a big fan of them crawling next to me. but their strength and adaptation is intriguingly fascinating.
They’re poisonous, tricky, vicious(females) hideous – and btw that is perfect description of something hideous but I love morning dew drops on spider silk.November 10, 2016 at 11:38 am #120071
MikeParticipantIt seems to me that you are on the edge… The edge of what exactly? Some may call it enlightenment, some may call it realization, finding the Truth, or coming to union with God. In some ways I had found my life in a mess of sorts. I too began to think of the fabric of this world, and it had lead me to the realization not to realization, but just to realize just how special all things good and virtuous is. There is definitely the higher and lower just as there is good and evil, destruction and death and birth and repair. We see in life a lot duality and many of the lower things we do, can serve two functions, but we lose sight of this, that we can chase the fulfillment of our bodily pleasures and never be satisfied, and sometimes when used correctly these drives can lead to good things, but also to our demise because if one always obeys their lower drives they become slaves to the lower drives and true reality can never be discovered. Although it takes great discipline when a person realizes just how damaging these lower natures are and how they are played with by others to control us. If we, however, serve our higher natures of mind and spirit we can begin to see the Truth as to be beyond the flesh and how become free from those drives that move us to fulfill their every desire. As is mentioned in the thread about how there is more beyond what a human being can see and detect, there is more to life and the body than serving the senses.
November 11, 2016 at 6:46 am #120113JohnParticipanth8ful8, glad you liked my words, my wife and daughter are also scared of spiders, my daughter is only 6 so I don’t know if it’s social conditioning / learned behaviour or if deep down on some primal level she really does fear them. I catch spiders and throw them outside, I don’t kill them, so I thought my daughter would be less fearful seeing this, but she is still scared!!
Mike, you’ve written some very deep and profound stuff there, I think I like your interpretation of ‘on the edge’, an awakening/realisation/growth is about to happen.
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