this world of ours.. modern industrial society, the euro-western protestant ethic, the culture of merit, hard work, goal setting, progress, even the philosophy called law of attraction — whatever name you want to give it, has many underlying assumptions, but the one i want to concern myself with here is the following notion:
the way things are is NOT the way things should be. change through hard work, shifting the attitude toward positive thinking and scientific progress will help individuals, organizations, societies move forward, become better, and ultimately find mastery over the world, more adept at controlling its resources, purer, more ‘civilized’, and smarter.
the central focus is a judgment. negativity is unacceptable. forward thinking is the only way to move forward. moving forward is the prime directive.
the idea of manifestation is problematic when it comes from an outlook that repeats, however quietly, that right now isn’t okay. i need to manifest something different. i have a destiny or a dream or a need but i’m not *there* yet.
before you crap all over my concept of the law of attraction, i admit that i have not studied it in depth. however i approach that *theory* (not law, though some would assert it is like gravity - a reality absolute) from the perspective that it is a decontextualized borrowing from deep, rich tradition(s) that is made palatable to western audiences. it short circuits a whole host of concepts and practices into a self-help quick-fix and simplistic set of rules. so i’m less attracted to it than the centuries old texts that modern day ‘guru’ types have borrowed from to attract followers.
a story
my kripalu days brought me face-to-face with the internal talk that placed me in opposition to whatever i was at the moment. i wanted to have less tight hamstrings. i wanted to eat differently (which i got to do with ease at kripalu because i didn’t have to cook for my lazy self). i wanted to be less neurotic, have more toned abs, be less attention-seeking, be more at ease with people, make eye contact, be more brave, be more independent.. the list is a mile long.
this thing they were telling us about — non-judgmental awareness — was something i had met when i had surgery last may. laproscopic abdominal surgery left me very sore and weaker in my core. after a few days on narcotics and almost bed-ridden, i was missing yoga and bored and restless. so, the YMCA near my house had “Soft Yoga” on Wednesday mornings. I’d been before. It was mostly older folks, and the Donna taught us with many modifications for those less mobile. I usually took my practice where I felt like in that class, enjoying the community, the doting grandma types and the humour and levity Donna brought to teaching. Enter me in May, painfully easing myself into yoga, barely able to lay out my mat…
thank goodness for chair yoga!
i observed the very important safety tip that some folks don’t know (or can’t realistically heed): do NOT do yoga on pain killers, muscle relaxants and the like. Seriously, you cannot feel your body well enough to practice staying in sensation, not over stretching or torquing joints if your nerves are being subdued by medications.
taking no pain killers by the time i hit yoga 10 days post-surgery, i set about doing only what i could in that class, using pain signals as a guide to where i could go and where i could not. i had stitches, compromised abs, residual chest pain from my gall bladder attack and the air they pumped into my body during surgery.
all of this had a huge impact on me - as someone practicing yoga for almost a decade i was used to a much larger range of movement, an ease within poses, not needing props and the resilience to bounce back when i overstretched due to striving. not then.
i remember wanting to cry. i remember feeling .. not frustrated, but just deflated. then i realized what a gift i had been given in this challenge.
encountering sudden physical limitations disrupted how i took my body for granted. it confronted me with how much pride i took in where i could go with yoga. practicing during my healing process humbled me, too, as i experienced the amazing effects yoga had on my healing. just breathing, just sitting there, bringing awareness to where i was at and accepting it was transformative.
okay - witness consciousness.
many people think that meditation and yoga and enlightenment involve letting go of (read: getting rid of) negative emotions and thoughts. it means having an empty mind. many if not most people cannot get there. they haven’t arrived, and are thus dissatisfied. their ego defenses may belittle the practice because it’s too hard. they may say it’s not possible, or that the goal isn’t worthwhile, or just that it doesn’t make sense because no one has explained it to them properly (rather than, perhaps, they haven’t been open — or simply haven’t been ready — to receiving what the real message is. they’re stuck in thinking they have to be someplace else, they have to ‘get’ something else in order to arrive at that place of peaceful emptiness with no thoughts and no negative emotions.
witness consciousness means being aware. awareness of what is allows acknowledgement of what is, it allows the opportunity to understand and process your own beingness. step 1? no, not really.
awareness, practiced with non-judgment. what is, is. it just is. it may not be what it seems at first glance. it has many layers. what is cannot be fully seen.
You are right where you need to be.read the previous sentence again. you are right where you need to be. what does this mean? absolutely not! you might think this since you have many habits and faults and thoughts that you want to get rid of, that aren’t helping you be happy. you need to be more happy. your anguish, your suffering, your dis-ease is not serving you.
really? are you sure?
self-reflection
what would happen if i let go of judgment? of striving? of avoiding what is? what if i accepted suffering? what if i accepted ignorance and not knowing? what if i remained open to the things that i don’t like, noticing that i don’t like them but remaining loving to my dislike without judging myself further about that? what if i stopped scolding myself?
an emotion lasts 90 seconds. it’s a wave. it lasts longer for one of two reasons: 1-one actually *wants* to keep feeling angry. it is worn like a badge, or an identity, it is a way to feel powerful, perhaps a way to have control. 2-to me just as insidious and the one i struggle with: the more one tries to push *away* the feeling, “i’m NOT SUPPOSED TO BE ANGRY” the longer it lasts. perhaps i can bury it and dissapate it, but it will only surface again, or reside under the surface as passive aggression.
what if i ride the wave? the emotion will become intense. i will have many thoughts but if i can witness all that and let it rise, without attaching to it then it WILL ebb again. it just will. it’s like the place in between radio stations, there are noises, thoughts, music all intertwined, and it’s a question of tuning in. where am i residing? what can i find in the places in between? there is value to where i’ve been. whether i’m glad to not be where i was or regretful about where i was, or glad about where i was because it has made me stronger — all of these are judgments and i can focus on one of these only, or all of them, or none of them. any of these stances is OKAY. seriously. what if it’s all ok? what if it’s all good, even? what if it all just IS? i am right where i need to be.
there’s a hint of paradox in it, but i think that the more i become consciously aware of my mind and emotions, and witness it without judging it, my feelings become finely tuned instruments. they point merely to something i could pay attention to. more could and less should.
if i wrestle with everything going on inside my own head, and strive for something else, dissatisfied, harboring discontent, then i am not witnessing, and thus cannot see, or hear, or do as someone fully in the world - connected, and possibly in peace. for the moment.
