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The Mind Killer
Feb. 23rd, 2011 09:44 pmFrom The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.
More to the point, I have discovered, again and again, that I usually know what I need to do but just deny it, and it is the small hesitation, this small resistance to enter what is real, that makes life feel neutral or out of reach.
I suffer this hesitation a lot... for many reasons. Sometimes it's fear of what will happen if I do not hold back the impulse; do not allow myself to do what I know I need to, or should do. Sometimes it's a desire to give someone else the opportunity to voice their own need; instinctive or otherwise... but either way the moment passes and and a part of life disappears.
This small moment, this one breath, is both a learned and a natural response to the selflessness demanded of the empathic being. This probably sounds a little 'arse-backwards' as we say over in England. How can something be natural, and learned at the same time. Well, the desire to give others the chance to have their needs fulfilled before mine, that is the natural part. Holding back through fear, or other reasons - that's the learned response... being told that I should take a breath before reacting to a given situation; should consider whether the emotional response is an honest one and not one 'designed' to be 'emotional blackmail,' that is the learned response. Sadly it's one that has had the added effect of shutting me down in many respects, on an emotional level.
But what to do about it, to recapture the ability to give that first response, to not hold back? That is the question.
To hold nothing back
in every breath
is a spiritual practice.
More to the point, I have discovered, again and again, that I usually know what I need to do but just deny it, and it is the small hesitation, this small resistance to enter what is real, that makes life feel neutral or out of reach.
I suffer this hesitation a lot... for many reasons. Sometimes it's fear of what will happen if I do not hold back the impulse; do not allow myself to do what I know I need to, or should do. Sometimes it's a desire to give someone else the opportunity to voice their own need; instinctive or otherwise... but either way the moment passes and and a part of life disappears.
This small moment, this one breath, is both a learned and a natural response to the selflessness demanded of the empathic being. This probably sounds a little 'arse-backwards' as we say over in England. How can something be natural, and learned at the same time. Well, the desire to give others the chance to have their needs fulfilled before mine, that is the natural part. Holding back through fear, or other reasons - that's the learned response... being told that I should take a breath before reacting to a given situation; should consider whether the emotional response is an honest one and not one 'designed' to be 'emotional blackmail,' that is the learned response. Sadly it's one that has had the added effect of shutting me down in many respects, on an emotional level.
But what to do about it, to recapture the ability to give that first response, to not hold back? That is the question.
