Thinking Way Too Much

From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

No amount of thinking can stop thinking.

Overthinking is an annoying reflex of being human. Often in overanalyzing a problem or replaying what to say or what to do…

I do this all the time and I know I do. Thinking things to death is one of my biggest problems that leads to my biggest insecurities, because I over think things, then end up managing to pick the wrong thing to say or do and then before you know it, the whole of whatever it is has blown up out of all proportion, or I've made something far worse than it really is, by adding to someone's frustrations or doing exactly what someone expected I would.

The times that I have the least problems, are when I just stop myself from thinking about something altogether and just do, or be – but I find that hard. I find it hard because a lot of the time it makes me feel like I'm not giving the proper reactions and all.

I know where it all comes from – bad advice that I can't seem to shake, where I was told that before I reacted to something I should stop, take a breath and think things through for a little while, before giving any kind of reaction, verbal or otherwise. Problem is, with me, that's led to this 'disappearing down the rabbit-hole of thought' or second guessing myself all the time; ending up believing things that aren't true.

Maybe today's exercise might help to break the habit – stop tempering my reactions by what is expected or acceptable, and just be… whoosh – honest, up front, open about them. That's not to say that my reactions are not honest or true or real… just that they're over thought to the point where what might have been a brief 'ouch' to begin with, if someone said or did something that hurt or upset me, has suddenly snowballed into something where I end up feeling completely pushed aside, or unvalued, or criticised, or blamed, or whatever the trouble happens to be, and I've really and truly gone and made whatever the problem is all about me, when it never was to begin with. Little things become big things, when they really don't need to be, and I'm suddenly carrying round this big, growling monster. This is just another one of those pieces of baggage that I'm carrying that I need to get rid of… but this one seems to be attached like a bungee cord. No matter how often I let go of the handle, it comes back to bite me in the ankle.

I'm trying to think of any kind of concrete example of what I mean, especially one from Friday – the day of this awakening entry – but since I spent most of Friday worrying in a different way … about Sha're, our little rattie that we don't know what on earth to do with, because she's not eating, and it seems to be some kind of rattie psychological problem rather than something physical, (at least as far as we can tell), that thoughts of myself were actually the furthest from my mind.

Being Consciously Present and Aware

From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

For the raindrop,
joy is entering the river.
--The Sufi Prophet Ghalib

…so, it is the risk to be fully present that opens us to the Oneness that flows through all things, the way a spring brook flows from your acre through my fence, through my land, and on through my neighbour's fence and land. Just as that rush of water ignores all we have built in between, so the wholeness of life moves through us all, undermining all the walls we maintain.

A few days ago, I wrote about a walk between two schools in a lunch time that opened me to the world around me, to what was going on and to the things I could see and feel and hear in nature around me. This awakening entry brings me back to that moment… to those thoughts and to the observation I made that I need to take more walks in nature. I need to be actively noticing those things, not just passively so, as has been the case where I will occasionally walk past something and notice a leaf or a flower or something similar and having taken only a little notice, go on with whatever I was doing and sadly, sooner or later, I have forgotten about the observation, or the moment. It has passed, and is going into the back of my mind. I say sadly because it shouldn't be this way.

So you can't or perhaps you can imagine how much I smiled when, along with the email in which I got this awakening exercise, Mir had included the first of my assignments. I should probably explain that. Mir and I are going to be sharing some teaching and learning and inspirational exercises together. She has asked me to give her some English teaching/tutoring, and in return she will be giving me writing prompts and assignments to help give my reluctant muse a much needed kick in the posterior. I'm very excited by all of this, and raring to go, so it's been hard to wait until today – the day when we agreed that we would start, to give us both time to prepare.

Anyway, I got my first assignment today, and it's all about observation and noticing and describing and it is just the kind of thing that's perfect for the kind of 'being present in the moment' kind of thinking that this entry is all about. So that's why I'm smiling, because I have a picture to describe, and a series of observations to make and that's just so perfect, (and can I just say that the picture is one of Mir's most excellent photographs – she's such a brilliant photographer – even if that is a biased statement, I don't care, it's what I truly believe).

There is such thought and love and everything that has quite obviously gone into all these things that she's going to be telling me to do, I can hardly express how much I'm moved by all of this. This is a wonderful and an exciting thing to be doing, an exciting time, and in a way something that transcends and cancels out, or reaches across the distance – physical distance – that is between us, to bring us closer together. I don't know how much sense that makes, but I know what I mean. It gives us both the chance to be more fully 'present' in each others lives, without overwhelming each other, without suffocating each other, just being; being a part of what is in each others lives. It's going to be great, and no amount of thank yous is enough. Can you tell I'm excited about this?

Eating the Outer

From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

Burning your way to center
is the loneliest fire of all.
You'll know you have arrived
when nothing else will burn.

It is the same in the human journey as in the natural world. As the center grows stronger, what once was protective turns into a covering, like tree bark or snake skin, that is now in the way, and, sooner or later, we as spirits growing in bodies are faced with burning old skins, like rags on sticks, to light our way as we move deeper and deeper into the inner world, where the forces of God make us one.

This reminds me of a show we were watching yesterday about butterflies… about how the caterpillar sheds its skin to grow, and how the butterfly emerges from its chrysalis ready to move on to the next stage in its journey.

When I got home on Friday I spend a bunch of time clearing up in my room. I was looking for something, and couldn't find it, so decided to have a clear out – eventually found a bunch of other stuff that I wasn't looking for as is usually the case – and managed to find what I was looking for, as is not often the case. I got rid of a whole bunch of junk, things that I didn't need any longer, and have ended up in an environment that feels less cluttered, even though there were a lot of things that I didn't get rid of.

One of the things I didn't get rid of was an old OLD, manuscript that I found, of a 100,000 word novel I wrote pre 2003. I know that it's from before that time because of the address on the cover. I started trying to read a bit of it today, just to see what – if anything – could be salvaged from it. I can't help but cringe. I've obviously grown since then. It would make good a good fire.

I don't mean that in the negative way that it sounds; I'm not meaning to rubbish it all, rather I mean it in a positive way. It has helped me to see that I have moved on, as a person as well as a writer, and as such it has helped me to move inward, to see my inner self; to see what needs to be burned away or consumed, as a caterpillar consumes its old skin in order to provide sustenance for its continued growth, and for me to step into just letting go and throwing myself with even more excited abandon (if that were possible), into the exercises that Mir started sending me today.

As a random thought – I need a butterfly icon.