Let Go

Let Go

letgo

Note to Self: Don’t be concerned about what you do.

This does not mean what you do does not matter. To say it doesn’t matter is to veil my concern with apathy. What I mean is, do not be attached to any particular thing or way. Let you be enough. Know you are enough.

Good and bad. Accept you as you are. There is no one better that you need to be.

photo credit: Syahmir

Telling Yourself The Story

Telling Yourself The Story

astory

It all depends on how long you keep telling yourself the story that is feeding your anger. Your emotional reaction, your anger, it is a result of your conditioning. By nature, it only lasts a few moments. But if you feed the reaction, through your thoughts, it keeps going. And growing.

What was once an momentary emotion grows into something bigger. A story begins to build. An emotion can become a mood. The mood becomes a temperament. The temperament transforms your personality. Your day/year/life is now “ruined” not because of X occurrence, but because of what you are still telling yourself about X.

It’s the story that’s hurting you.

Oh yes, the emotion may be painful, but if you can experience it fully, in the moment as children do allowing it to pass without a story and without attachment, you can have your experience and be over it in a matter of moments. You can be over it not because you got what you wanted and not because it wasn’t painful, but because you know how to experience your emotions and discipline your thoughts. You know their importance and their place in your life.

While not a simple thing, not needing to create a story to spur your emotions on leaves you free to fully feel them and to thoughtfully express them. Finding yourself unattached to your emotional reactions and the stories they may arise, you allow them to pass, rightfully returning to your default state: happiness. Authentic happiness, which likely isn’t the storybook kind.

photo credit: Robyn Budlender

Performing

Performing

Performing

So good at the act that you forget what’s true.

So good at pretending that the unreal becomes real.

What you feel is under your control.

You can simply act it away.

A mask of neutrality.

Leads you to believe you might actually feel it.

You can ignore your feelings.

You can act forever.

Yet at some point, the inevitable curtain comes down, and the performance ends.

You are left with you; and the feelings you’re pretending aren’t there.

If only for a moment.

The act is over.

What then?

Who are you when your truth has space to be?

The question, terrifying.

Its answer even more so.

It lies in love and the shape of it.

What does your love and care look like when there is no performance to mask it?

photo credit: Ania

Attached to Who We Are

Attached to Who We Are

Nobody

Have you noticed — when you are living for the moment — you’re not attached to some fixed idea of who you are? In those moments of presence, you are you — you are nobody. There is no attachment to any idea of who you are.

In those moments, you experience ultimate freedom.

Our ego holds a powerful hold over us — and it causes us a lot of trouble. Situated in our lower mind, our ego is the part of our mental construct that needs for us to be a fixed thing, and one which is desirable and knowledgeable. Whereas our higher mind understands the freedom of being nobody, of needing no sense of fixed self. It knows the value of letting go of the desire to be desirable, and it accepts that our ignorance is our path to freedom.

Despite what our ego tells us, what we need is to be open and learn. What we do not need is to give into our desire to be seen as special. Only when we’re not attached to who we are, can we allow ourselves to be — and be seen.

photo credit: Chris Brown

More Complex Than A Story Can Tell

More Complex Than A Story Can Tell

photo credit: duncan c

In whatever shape it may take, whenever I hear a story, I find myself wondering how it is serving the person who is telling it. I understand what’s being presented is not the whole story, and perhaps, it’s not even half. It’s the version of the story the storyteller wants to share with me and it’s the version of the story they want to see.

We can have a lot of unconscious motivations and intentions behind the stories we tell, and while it would be lovely to think they are all pure and love-filled, this may not be true. We share stories to share a story—to share a version of events that we feel will be emotionally impactful. It’s not the truth per say, otherwise we might call it that.

I suppose I don’t put a lot of value on my own stories and those of others. They are there to entertain and educate, but to hold them as “the truth” and/or to hold my own experiences up to them in comparison, feels like a fool’s game. A story might sound complete but the truth is, it only contains the parts wanted to be shared, the parts that keep it intact and “true.” The whole truth is far more nuanced and complex than any story can tell.

Stories by their definition and essence are leading. They are meant to take you on a journey where the course has already been planned. We need to see stories as such, for our own health and happiness. We need to know they are not “the truth,” and are not intended to be. They are simply creations of our experience and our imagination, and how we need to perceive things. There is no need to attach to them.

Write your stories. Love your stories. And acknowledge them for “the truth” they are not. See the stories you attract—and are attracted to—for what they are: expressions of you, and how you perceive your world.

photo credit: duncan c