I exist
Things I Learned - Things I Love - Things I Lost - Things I've Lived - by Sean McGINNIS - Thoughts, lessons, musings
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
TIL 03 - beyond dychotomy
There is a certain amount of common wisdom that humans are either rational or they are emotional. Intellectual or feeling. And for a long time in our common history, intellect was considered the "better" of the two. (See : The Age of Reason - it's even written in capitals) (I don't recall their being an "Age of Feeling." Maybe there should be. - just thinking out loud :)
I propose that there is a third and more important element, that, when accessed, supersedes these two. Call it intuition or experience. I call it "body knowing," because I feel it in my stomach, in my bones.
The number of times I have gotten myself into all kinds of trouble because "I thought that..." (you can even get a lot of people to agree or disagree with you, when you come from this place). The intellect can be fooled and be off-base all the while looking completely like it is right - and can defend its position.
I am a very very emotional person, and my emotions have gotten me into more trouble than I can tell you. Knee-jerk reactions, hurt feelings, anger, even passion and happiness. And from there, my reactions to my intense emotions almost always made things worse for me. Not to mention that most emotional reactions come from my inner child of three years old or from family or from cultural patterns that don't really have anything to do with me. I just pass them on, because that is the way it has always been. (And there is a great deal of comfort in the familiar, even the painful familiar). These reactions certainly don't come from my adult being.
My gut feelings about situations or people are never wrong. When I hear the answer inside myself (apart from thoughts and feelings), it is always clear and sure. What is there is rarely easy to explain or justify (rationally) and it can make me feel uncomfortable, but there is a sureness in it. I "know."
The problem is that it's not always easy to hear it or to distinguish it from the "I know" of habit, thought or feeling, especially when I am "polluted" by emotion or am being positional.
The problem is that it's not always easy to hear it or to distinguish it from the "I know" of habit, thought or feeling, especially when I am "polluted" by emotion or am being positional.
When I have listened to that voice in me, then things have turned out well. When I haven't, then situations have always gotten more complicated or painful or simply gone less smoothly.
Note : Going to a calm/sure place inside myself, is the way I access this place in myself. Calming myself down, centering myself in my body, allows me to hear more clearly this truthful voice inside me. (See TIL 1 below for learning the method I use)
Left brain - right brain, right - wrong, feeling - reasoning, black - white, them - us, etc... they are all dychotomies and, for me, if it is an either/or siutation, then it all comes from the same place. It all is the same thing. Conflict, separation, suffering are all hallmark symptoms that one is coming from the world of dichotomy.
For all my life I have been trying to understand a conflict, or an emotion or a problem, and hope by understanding it better that I will better be able to have influence over it, or, if I am honest with myself, have control over it. My experience though is that one doesn't resolve conflict by following conflict, one resolves problems by accessing a place where this conflict doesn't exist, to a place "outside" it, where this conflict doesn't matter, where it doesn't touch me, where it has no relevance and from there find a solution and bring it back to the situation, or simply realizing that the conflict is an illusion, a false conflict.
From that place, I am free, truly free, even from my own opinions/feelings (see "right" above) which seem arbitrary and without meaning, once I am "centered." From there I can see the whole situation more clearly and without prejudice, therefore coming-up with solutions adapted to the problem and not just adapted to my neuroses.
I have never been able to resolve a problem from the viewpoint of the problem. Doing so has only made the problem worse and given more energy to it. Solutions that come from there seem to always end-up being part of the problem. They often make things worse.
Arriving in this place, "being" here is new to me, and feels odd, because it doesn't have all the familiarity of my emotional landscape of the past. Gone are the land-mines the gail winds. But being here, coming from here, making my decisions from here, looking at the world from here, I can't see conflict. I can't see disappointment. Well, not exactly true. I see them but from a (safe) distance.
It's like the happiness I felt before was a shadow or an impostor of what real happiness feels like, now that I have found it.
In realizing that I am alone here in myself, sounds like it would make me lonely, but loneliness disappears here. It doesn't have meaning. Time doesn't have meaning.
For the first time in my life, I am not antsy and wishing I were somewhere else, someone else. I am where I am.
I find myself laughing more. Listening more... Crying spontaneously more.
And from here, even the events that triggered me into emotive reactions and habitual obsessive patterns just don't seem to have any importance.
sometimes, I "rise" to the surface and start judging, wanting, feeling, (btw, all of these things don't go away, there are still there, I just am not locating myself in them. I am locating myself "beneath" them in a calmer surer place), and I can tell you, the suffering is right there as it always was. So now, I breath, bring myself back into my body, back into my core, and from that perspective, the suffering doesn't go away, but I'm simply not inside it, not using it as my place of reference.
Note : I am not "against" thinking and feeling. They are not things to be gotten rid of. They are integral necessary parts of our make-up and functioning. I am only against the idea that they are the only reality and that all experience should be derived from them. One main reason, apart from the fact that, for me, this system doesn't work, is that if you use either feeling or intellect as a reference, then you are automatically prone to favor one over the other. We are all hardwired with different degrees of each. And in favoring one over the other, one inevitably makes oneself right and the other wrong. More division, more conflict, more suffering.
Left brain - right brain, right - wrong, feeling - reasoning, black - white, them - us, etc... they are all dychotomies and, for me, if it is an either/or siutation, then it all comes from the same place. It all is the same thing. Conflict, separation, suffering are all hallmark symptoms that one is coming from the world of dichotomy.
For all my life I have been trying to understand a conflict, or an emotion or a problem, and hope by understanding it better that I will better be able to have influence over it, or, if I am honest with myself, have control over it. My experience though is that one doesn't resolve conflict by following conflict, one resolves problems by accessing a place where this conflict doesn't exist, to a place "outside" it, where this conflict doesn't matter, where it doesn't touch me, where it has no relevance and from there find a solution and bring it back to the situation, or simply realizing that the conflict is an illusion, a false conflict.
From that place, I am free, truly free, even from my own opinions/feelings (see "right" above) which seem arbitrary and without meaning, once I am "centered." From there I can see the whole situation more clearly and without prejudice, therefore coming-up with solutions adapted to the problem and not just adapted to my neuroses.
I have never been able to resolve a problem from the viewpoint of the problem. Doing so has only made the problem worse and given more energy to it. Solutions that come from there seem to always end-up being part of the problem. They often make things worse.
Arriving in this place, "being" here is new to me, and feels odd, because it doesn't have all the familiarity of my emotional landscape of the past. Gone are the land-mines the gail winds. But being here, coming from here, making my decisions from here, looking at the world from here, I can't see conflict. I can't see disappointment. Well, not exactly true. I see them but from a (safe) distance.
It's like the happiness I felt before was a shadow or an impostor of what real happiness feels like, now that I have found it.
In realizing that I am alone here in myself, sounds like it would make me lonely, but loneliness disappears here. It doesn't have meaning. Time doesn't have meaning.
For the first time in my life, I am not antsy and wishing I were somewhere else, someone else. I am where I am.
I find myself laughing more. Listening more... Crying spontaneously more.
And from here, even the events that triggered me into emotive reactions and habitual obsessive patterns just don't seem to have any importance.
sometimes, I "rise" to the surface and start judging, wanting, feeling, (btw, all of these things don't go away, there are still there, I just am not locating myself in them. I am locating myself "beneath" them in a calmer surer place), and I can tell you, the suffering is right there as it always was. So now, I breath, bring myself back into my body, back into my core, and from that perspective, the suffering doesn't go away, but I'm simply not inside it, not using it as my place of reference.
Note : I am not "against" thinking and feeling. They are not things to be gotten rid of. They are integral necessary parts of our make-up and functioning. I am only against the idea that they are the only reality and that all experience should be derived from them. One main reason, apart from the fact that, for me, this system doesn't work, is that if you use either feeling or intellect as a reference, then you are automatically prone to favor one over the other. We are all hardwired with different degrees of each. And in favoring one over the other, one inevitably makes oneself right and the other wrong. More division, more conflict, more suffering.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
TIL 02
Thought of the day :
I can't control my emotions, but I do have control over myself and how I react to my emotions.
I can't control my emotions, but I do have control over myself and how I react to my emotions.
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
a poem
inevitability
the inevitability of
sunlight fractured
a million shards
laying on the surface of
the sea
heated skin
softened by
eradic
breezes tossling
what remains of animal
on me
the ritual cigarette
seated facing the sound of
the waves
a long horizontal line
hunger
cool water in a plastic
bottle
evening
the inevitability of
wanting
the inevitability of
finding
of joining
in sacred primitive
perfect union
entering
being
entered
contaminated
I am
all that I have lost
©2012 Sean McGINNIS
20 04 12
TIL 01
Find a calm sure place inside yourself and go there often.
(at least once a day)
There are several ways to get there, but one of the easiest is to breath calmly and do a check of where you are physically. Start with your feet (for example) and feel them, then move up your body, checking your ankles, your calves, the muscles, the bones, if there is sensation in particular. The feel of your clothes, or the wind on your bare feet. Hot? Cold? Comfortable? Uncomfortable?
No judgement, just check in with yourself.
Work your way up going through each part of your body, until you have reached your head, the hair on your head.
Then feel how you feel totally, all over.
Note what changes happen between before and after your doing this exercise. Did anything change? Do you feel different afterwards? How? Describe it to yourself. Did your breathing change in anyway? How about the way you feel?
It's no more complicated than that.
Try it. Let me know what you experience and what comes from trying it.
For me, it is a great way to deal with stress, or stressful thoughts, or panic. Even if doing this doesn't remove the unpleasant feeling completely, it can diminish it greatly for me.
If I feel unclear or unsure about something, doing this usually helps me see more clearly.
There are several ways to get there, but one of the easiest is to breath calmly and do a check of where you are physically. Start with your feet (for example) and feel them, then move up your body, checking your ankles, your calves, the muscles, the bones, if there is sensation in particular. The feel of your clothes, or the wind on your bare feet. Hot? Cold? Comfortable? Uncomfortable?
No judgement, just check in with yourself.
Work your way up going through each part of your body, until you have reached your head, the hair on your head.
Then feel how you feel totally, all over.
Note what changes happen between before and after your doing this exercise. Did anything change? Do you feel different afterwards? How? Describe it to yourself. Did your breathing change in anyway? How about the way you feel?
It's no more complicated than that.
Try it. Let me know what you experience and what comes from trying it.
For me, it is a great way to deal with stress, or stressful thoughts, or panic. Even if doing this doesn't remove the unpleasant feeling completely, it can diminish it greatly for me.
If I feel unclear or unsure about something, doing this usually helps me see more clearly.
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