Tripping over my stories

Lately I have been noticing how I keep tripping over my stories. Sometimes I have checked in with a friend, to say, "Am I reading too much into this?" I am truly thrilled that I am noticing this.  Otherwise I would just be reacting, believing my stories to be true.  That I am suspecting that my own, essentially fabricated, story is involved is a step in the right direction. 

Let me explain what I mean. I will then examine the implications and the alternative, and give you a five step path to freedom from your stories.

The mind is hard-wired to make up stories

The shocking thing to our sense of self is that the mind is hard-wired to make up stories. It has been known by the yogis for centuries, they called these stories vikalpa but it  also has been shown scientifically. Experiments with folk who have had the left and right brain hemisphere's disconnected to treat severe epilepsy have shown that one side is constantly making up stories that may have no connection to reality in order to rationalise perceptions. We are literally hard-wired to lie to ourselves! I know, it is shattering. (Could this be true? Want to know more?) Believing those stories can be a source of great suffering.

Shocking ... and liberating

This can be a shocking thing to realise; but when we do it is so liberating. No longer do we need to believe those stories ... like the one that is saying "I am just not good enough",  which can take a few different guises, like these:

• I am not good-looking enough, my body is imperfect.
• I am not intelligent enough.
• I am not sophisticated enough (for this job, this event, these people)
• I am a failure at everything
• I am out of my league.

Sometimes the stories come in the guise of blaming. Someone else is to blame for all my suffering.

Then there are the stories about obligations - you should or should not behave in a certain way, like you should (or should not) wear brand name yoga clothes in your yoga class, or you should (or should not) wear your hair in a certain way, get tattoos, body piercings or have cosmetic surgery.

Let me be clear, I am not saying here that we should or shouldn't do any of these things, but what I am saying is that we should be sorting out whether we are behaving in a certain way because of the stories that are not true, or not. After all, a story my brain has made up could well be saying to me not to do something and a story your brain has made up might be telling you to do exactly the same thing.

When my stories intersect with yours

Now we really are in a tricky pickle! When any of us meet from the point of view of believing our own stories, we can either reinforce our delusion, or come into conflict over our delusions. We are all doing the best we can, but when that best is blindfolded by myth, the outcome may appear less than skillful.

Even our love for each other is not enough to lift the veil. How often do we interpret the actions of  a loved one as a slight on ourselves, when in reality they are acting on the basis of their story, and we are reacting on the basis of our own?

The true course is felt not thought

None of us are immune. Only if we can recognise when our view, our course of action, is being guided by story, will we be free.

The only true course is one that is free from story, and that course is felt, not thought. To tune into that we need to become still, to listen beyond the stories.

The inner quiet place of Truth

The good news is that we do not need to relegate ourselves to suffering by forever believing our stories. The meditative paths of yoga offer us techniques for accessing the inner quiet place of Truth. It is simple, however simple does not mean instant nor easy, but if you think it is worth being free of your stories, the path is there to follow.

The alternative to action based on stories is not anarchy

What is the alternative to thinking through a course of action, to basing decision making or action upon anything other than the stories the mind presents us with?

Naturally, if you see through the stories, you will no longer be compelled to act upon them.  They may still arise but will have no power.  So how on earth do we find the right course of action. This is a radical shift.

When we let go of, or see right through the story-telling of the mind, and are free of them at last, does this mean that we are governed by nothing, that all is anarchic?  Not at all. Being free of the stories is a stilling of the mind, and this is the object of meditation. When the mind becomes quiet we can "hear" a different voice. I place that in quotes because you don't really hear it, you feel it. Free of the compulsion of stories, we come into an intuitive power that shows us the way through feeling, and the feeling is one of harmony.

Choose the path that feels most harmonious. Which path feels most right?

The five step path to freeing yourself of the tyranny of your stories

1. Intellectual knowing that your mind is always creating stories is a start. Having read this blog, you have taken this step.
2. Practice meditations daily that encourage a connection to the deep Inner presence that you are. This is beyond thoughts and stories. (iRest® meditation does this.)
3. Watch how your stories arise, unfold and dissolve within this Awaring Presence.
4. Keep practising until you can bring this into daily life, find yourself as Awaring Presence, and see the stories arising.
5. Keep coming back to Awaring Presence and feel into the action that will feel harmonious. Follow that.

This path works

I am recommending this path from personal experience. It works.  That is why lately I have noticed myself noticing my stories. I am looking forward to continuing to refine the process until I can feel truly free of the stories and be guided solely by that inner quiet voice of harmony.

There is nothing new about this path though. If you care to look you will find exactly this path set out in the writings of the ancient sages.

It's a bit scary ... but then that fear is just another story I am telling myself. It feels harmonious, so I am going there.

There is no such thing as a negative thought or emotion

Does your mind rebel at this statement?

There is no such thing as a negative thought or emotion.

I will stand by it.

It is not to say that I find every thought or emotion comfortable. Far from it. I just think that we should not regard them as "negative".

Every teaching you receive should be put through the filter of your own experience. Thus far I have found that the teachings that stand up in my experience are simple, which is not necessarily the same as easy. So it is with this statement. There is no such thing as a negative thought or emotion.

Reinforcing the belief that they are negative makes things worse

When I see the self help writings offering ways to "rid yourself of negative thoughts and emotions" I experience sadness. The expectation that you can rid yourself of uncomfortable emotions is so unrealistic. The teachers of these ideas are sincere enough, and they seek to help.  Their methods might work for awhile, but in the end those uncomfortable sensations will return.

In fact the perpetration of the idea that they are something you want to be rid of, the idea that they are negative and therefore undesirable, can actually create conditions for them to increase. Any strategy to push them away is bound to be unproductive and even increase the experience of those same emotions and thoughts over time. If they are undesirable, it is logical to push them away.

A radical shift in perspective is called for

As I said before, every teaching you receive should be put through the filter of your experience. To do that you must, of course, first give the teaching a preliminary assessment. If it asks you to do harm, to yourself or others, it is as well to reject it as being false. True teachings are benevolent, not malevolent. Beyond that you can only assess the effectiveness of a teaching by trying it out. I am sharing this teaching with you because I tried it out and found it to be effective, and so I take it to be true.

The radical shift in perspective is to regard everything that arises, including uncomfortable thoughts and emotions, as messengers whose message is a pointer to our essential wholeness. As messengers with such important and useful messages, the only thing to do is to welcome them and to enquire of them what it is they have to reveal.

The moment you turn towards, instead of away, from whatever is here, it ceases to have so much power over you. All the while you are turning away, pushing it away, you are in fact becoming more fused with it.  It may seem counter-intuitive, but in the act of turning towards it you are in fact de-fusing with it. You are immediately allowing it to be a movement in awareness, along with all other movements in awareness. Doing so frees up its passage to move on through, and its movement through opens the space for something else to move through and that something else might just be a more comfortable emotion or thought.

Of course, if a comfortable thought or emotion is present, it must be greeted in exactly the same way. It is pointless to try to fuse with it and hang onto it. It has come, as a messenger, allow it to deliver its message and move on through.

The dance of manifestation

This shift of perspective brings us into the position of witnessing what is going on instead of being caught up in it. From this perspective we witness the dance of manifestation. That part of manifestation that is this body is full of sensation, energy, emotion, and thought. These movements are coming and going  as a microcosm of the larger manifestation which is the entire universe.

Everything that manifests arises (is born), grows, stabilises and abides awhile, declines, erodes and decays and is reabsorbed. Everything. Can you think of anything that doesn't? Even a mountain. Even a planet. Even a star. Even the whole universe itself. Some things have a short period for this cycle, and some longer. Time itself is a part of the dance.

Compared to the cycle of manifestation of this body, the cycle of manifestation of any emotion or thought is short, sometimes fleeting, sometimes a little lingering, but short nevertheless, especially when it is being welcomed with curiosity.

And this is the message, or at least part of it.  It is simple. Everything comes and goes and nothing is permanent. This too shall pass! And in its time bound manifestation there is beauty. There is beauty in the grief, in the shame, in the sadness, in the nervousness, as much as there is in the joy, the friendliness, the compassion, the delight.

Who is doing the witnessing?

The rest of the message is in the answer to this question. Who is doing the witnessing? The emotion or thought, comfortable or uncomfortable, is a messenger. When we welcome it we open to the shift of perspective that reveals that witnessing aspect. This points us back to that which is witnessing.

Different sages, different traditions, have different words for this, but we might call it capital C Consciousness or capital A Awareness. Notice that this is not the thinking mind because it can be aware of thoughts. This is that part of us, the Consciousness in which those thoughts, or emotions, or sensations arise, grow, abide awhile, decay and are reabsorbed.

I encourage you to read some previous posts which may help your explorations.

Dealing with negative thoughts and emotions

Reset your defaults

Follow the senses

Carl Sagan