When darkness descends
One of the most beneficial things i have learnt on my journey of mindfulness is the unbelievable power we have to shift the consuming feeling of things being wrong or feelings of unhappiness that can consumer our mood.
The power of being able to create a distance between the feelings of sadness or fear and this other part of me, brings me back to myself. My self is balanced and objective, but my ‘self’ can easily drown in dislike of self, questioning my ok-ness, feelings of isolation and aloneness. I mean these are heavy feelings they dont feel good at all. So from being consumed by this too shifting into a calm, appreciative and happy space is worth gold.
I began shifting gear after practising mindfulness for a year or so. I began to realise that i actually had control over how i felt by seeing more clearly the transience of my thoughts. I could see that the thoughts were loaded with criticism and disappointment. When asking myself what is actually wrong, as i walk to work in the sun, or wake up in the morning safe and well, i realised in that moment there wasnt actually anything wrong. So it was not a truth that these thoughts reflected what was happening in the moment so i questioned whether it was doing me any favours to dwell within them. They werent actually reflecting on my situation but were some kind of echo of the past or perhaps a result of our old brains wired for threat, or maybe just a symptom of being human. Either way they did felt a little incongruent with my moment ot moment experience.
So if they were not actually serving me and they did not actually represent an accurate portrayl of the moment i needed to find a way to reduce their power. I started a simple mantra to myself of this is it, right now amy this moment is the most important moment there is. What is happening right now. I needed to bring myself into presence and out of the mire of the thoughts swirling around.
I started to notice i would be telling people how i was doing and would hear myself regailing a relatively negative view of my life and what was happening. I would often reflect afterwards and think that is so strange i think i have been having quite a nice time but for some reason my repetition was clothed in a dark cloak!
One day when listening to a favourite podcast of mine ‘Audio Dharma’ I tuned into a talk which referenced the work of Daniel Kahneman spoke of two aspects of self the ‘experiencing self who lives in the present’ the experiencing self is aware of the present moment, their senses, this self lives in the here now aware of what is happening, sounds sights, smells, feeling, listening, The other aspect is the ‘remembering self’ this is the part of self reflects back, analyses, creates synposis of our days, weeks, months, lives. It creates the story we tell ourselves and others of our lives. He shares that there can be a huge discrepancy between how we feel in our moment to moment lives and our memory of it. He said there can be a huge difference between us being happy in our lives and being happy about our lives. This was huge for me when i heard this. I resonated so much with feeling pretty good a lot of the time but my evaluations of how i was doing in life often fell short, leaving me feeling like i was dissatisfied, failing and lacking.
A story Kahneman shares is of a man who is in awe and rapture of a classical concert he attends and in the last few minutes there is a horrible screeching sound that from his perspective ruins the concert. However it does not actually ruin the concert and he still has the first 25 minutes which he enjoyed hugely but what has been impacted is the memoty of the concert.
Bring compassion - i am hurting - my story changes
Be clear, be confident and don’t ov
Serthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.