That isn't such a big deal. I took a walk the day before too. With a friend. At about 2:30 in the afternoon. The big deal is that I took one of those things I've been meaning to do and did it. I don't know about you and your life, but in my life, I seem to see significant changes every half year or so. One of my more recent changes is in my sleep patterns. I fall asleep pretty early most nights, sometimes waking up in the insomniac time zones of the night only to realize the reason I'm awake is because I've already gotten enough sleep. Seven hours is seven hours whether you wake at 7:00am or 4:00am. For a week or two now I have felt twitchy. It's as if my body is trying to tell me I have been neglecting it. I keep hearing friends who talk about morning walks. They sound really good, but the time always seems to slip away leaving me once again ready for bed without having ever taken that walk.
Not only did I take a walk, by myself, but I took it at 6:30am.
For the first three blocks I was still on the fence as to whether I wanted to walk or not. The air was cold enough I was still a bit chilly even in my sweat clothes. I had only walked by my neighbor's house before my left foot felt like I had extended it too far and I had a sharp pain in the arch. I usually wear Chuck's. If I'm not in my slip on Converse shoes, I'm probably barefoot. I've never understood how shoes I essentially "live in" can suddenly become uncomfortable just because I do something a little out of the normal like take a walk or go to a convention or a theme park. I kept walking.
Three more blocks and I'm off my street. I told myself two blocks ago the only reason my left foot hurt is because I'm focusing my attention on it. Think of something else. Listen to the birds. I can feel the cool air in my throat and bronchial passage. I'm unsettled by my breathing becoming a bit more labored and I struggle with my inner critical voice who decides now would be a good time to tell me I'm a loser who never works out and who looks like a potato. My right foot starts to hurt. I keep walking.
Three more blocks. Whether they are now successfully "warmed up" or "stretched out," neither foot hurts anymore. I'm far enough now that going back home and "forgetting this ever happened" is no longer an option. If I cave in and quit early, I will remember. If I succeed and finish my planned route, I will remember. I keep walking.
I walk through the exhaust stream of a car warming up just before I pass my friend's house. My route is roughly based on our walks together. Just past her house is the half way mark. Neither foot hurts and I have warmed up enough that my sweatshirt seems almost unnecessary. I've been walking a slightly wider, more busy street on the border of my neighborhood, now I turn and head into the interior streets. Immediately I notice it is even quieter. It is almost as if I am the only person awake. I feel almost like an intruder. Except for another empty car left running to warm it up, the only other life present is a cat trying to keep warm at the end of a driveway and a crow who seems to want to chase me off his street with his persistent cawing. I pull out my phone, take a picture of the cat and a tree I admire in one of the front yards, and continue walking.
Three more blocks. I'm closer to home than not, but on a different street than I usually use when in my car. Nothing hurts. I'm feeling good and I'm taking in the scenery as I pass it. My inner voice, no longer trying to abuse me, is full of "that house is a pretty color" or "I wonder when they added the extended porch to that house." After another three blocks, my confidence is high, I feel almost like a veteran walker and I can see my house in the distance.
Walking up the steps to my house, I picture myself flopping into a chair and relaxing. As I open the front door, my cat, an even greater creature of habit than myself, is startled by the unusual activity and puffs twice his size. (The front door at my house doesn't usually open before 8am and that is usually after he has requested it verbally in a variety of meows.) Honestly, I don't remember what I did next. I know it wasn't flop in a chair. I kept active. I kept moving. A certain momentum had begun and I seemed reluctant to let it end. What I do remember was how my legs felt the rest of the day. Relaxed, moving smoothly, gracefully. They felt happy about the morning's events.
I think that's how change works. You have to fight past your natural resistances. Your ego/mind wants to protect you and will sling a bunch of abuse at you to discourage you. It can't see any dangers in your comfort zone. It doesn't know that living your life with box-like limitations is very ..... well ..... limiting. If you can distract yourself long enough to get past the initial discomfort and internal naysaying, you surprise yourself by doing things you've never done before. Frequently with ease. You might even actually enjoy yourself. Still, for awhile, the next time will require the same effort. It will require remembering how good my legs felt rather than thinking how cold the air feels or that my left foot has started the journey unhappy again. I know too that, if I can keep this up for four weeks, at the end of that time I will be a walker. It will become a habit. At this point, it is mine to decide whether I want it or not. I'm a big believer in occasionally assessing "what do I want out of life?" and then going out and getting it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'd like to take a walk.
Showing posts with label ego. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ego. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Tuesday, December 9, 2014
Change is a Dance with Two Left Feet
I was talking with a friend the other day and mid sharing my thoughts about what she was saying, I had an aha! moment that maybe I was completely screwed up in what I was saying. Have you ever had that moment? A sudden understanding, mid-sentence, that what you are saying might be codswallop? I had been looking at what she was talking about from a Law of Attraction point of view. She had some unpleasant things recently visit her life and I was questioning whether she had learned the lessons they brought and thereby put that particular brand of unpleasant thing to bed. (The lessons you don't learn will return until you do learn them.) The conversation brought to mind three important things:
1. The only thing that matters is this moment now. We were talking about things she had done and I was speculating, using the Law of Attraction, about them. In the moment we were talking, she had already done those things. My speculation, just ego or "data." Unimportant mind chatter that keeps we humans "busy." Besides, speculation about something that has already happened and whether or not it was the "right thing" as Eckhart Tolle would point out, is insanity. You can't rewrite moments that have already happened and the practice of obsessively revisiting them falls under doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, which Albert Einstein would point out is insanity. (In case you don't follow that one. You may be doing different things throughout time, but if you are constantly rethinking them and speculating about their accuracy, the thinking and speculating fall under "always doing the same thing.") Life is essentially one big tennis game with the ball perpetually and constantly landing in your court.
2. No matter how much I change or try to change, I end up with that moment, egg on my face, realizing I have merged the old way of being Angela into the new way of being Angela. After a lifetime of using criteria to control my own behavior so I would be a "good" or "valuable" person, I realized the other day that I come to the point where I was doing it again. This time with the Law of Attraction. I had shifted to a place where I judged actions by whether or not they would attract good things or bad things into your life. Or, in this case, my friend's life. There is no right or wrong action. I know you're going to fight me and disagree on this point, but I really think there is no right or wrong action. There is only whatever action you take. See, life may be a tennis game where the service is always coming towards you, but it is YOUR life. Those choices are YOUR choices and create your path. You know what they say about that. "No one else can walk your path. Only you." It doesn't mean I was bad or wrong to share those opinions with my friend, she is someone I care about and I was trying to be helpful.
3. My own path is the complicated dance of someone with two left feet who is always moving one step backward for every two or three forward. I think humans are always drawn to that which is familiar. No matter how much meditation or clearing on limiting beliefs, eventually my guard comes down and my subconscious drifts back to old habits. It's like setting yourself up in a new apartment in a new town and the first time you let your mind drift during your commute, you find yourself getting off the bus at your old place. The trick is, when you find yourself doing it on that larger scale, blow it off in a sheepish, "silly me" sort of way. Just like you would the bus mishap. Call it a silly freak occurrence, not something that labels you a "failure."
As my mind swum in all of this "data," I realized something else. A lot of the platitudes we use in personal growth communities, are just that, because they aren't really very useful. For instance, the one about not caring what other's opinions of you are. When you read it or somebody tells it to you, it is all about being true to yourself and not caving in to peer pressure. Many times I have told people who accused me of it, that I do not care what other people think of me. Which on the one hand is true, but on the other hand is a complete fantasy. OF COURSE, I care what people think of me. I have people I care about. People I love. For those people I sometimes edit myself or behave in ways I know will bring a smile to their face. I care that the people in my life experience me in a positive way. I enjoy people being happy to see me. I don't think that's a bad thing, but of course, it is subject to the same "nobody's home" subconscious habitual behavior. It's one thing to turn your car radio station to jazz because your friend who loves jazz is riding with you; it's entirely another to never switch the radio back to your own preferred station because no one but you likes it. In the former, you are being a gracious and thoughtful host. In the latter, you are erasing your own existence.
Still, all of it, the thoughts and labels, are all just data. Just ego "busy work" to keep you entertained while you're alive. Just like you, your ego thinks all of it is important. It thinks it has to "sort all of this out and make sense of it." We gather our data and cling to it as if it will allow us to hold onto our past or somehow predict our future. None of it matters.
What does matter is what you do right now.
1. The only thing that matters is this moment now. We were talking about things she had done and I was speculating, using the Law of Attraction, about them. In the moment we were talking, she had already done those things. My speculation, just ego or "data." Unimportant mind chatter that keeps we humans "busy." Besides, speculation about something that has already happened and whether or not it was the "right thing" as Eckhart Tolle would point out, is insanity. You can't rewrite moments that have already happened and the practice of obsessively revisiting them falls under doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, which Albert Einstein would point out is insanity. (In case you don't follow that one. You may be doing different things throughout time, but if you are constantly rethinking them and speculating about their accuracy, the thinking and speculating fall under "always doing the same thing.") Life is essentially one big tennis game with the ball perpetually and constantly landing in your court.
2. No matter how much I change or try to change, I end up with that moment, egg on my face, realizing I have merged the old way of being Angela into the new way of being Angela. After a lifetime of using criteria to control my own behavior so I would be a "good" or "valuable" person, I realized the other day that I come to the point where I was doing it again. This time with the Law of Attraction. I had shifted to a place where I judged actions by whether or not they would attract good things or bad things into your life. Or, in this case, my friend's life. There is no right or wrong action. I know you're going to fight me and disagree on this point, but I really think there is no right or wrong action. There is only whatever action you take. See, life may be a tennis game where the service is always coming towards you, but it is YOUR life. Those choices are YOUR choices and create your path. You know what they say about that. "No one else can walk your path. Only you." It doesn't mean I was bad or wrong to share those opinions with my friend, she is someone I care about and I was trying to be helpful.
3. My own path is the complicated dance of someone with two left feet who is always moving one step backward for every two or three forward. I think humans are always drawn to that which is familiar. No matter how much meditation or clearing on limiting beliefs, eventually my guard comes down and my subconscious drifts back to old habits. It's like setting yourself up in a new apartment in a new town and the first time you let your mind drift during your commute, you find yourself getting off the bus at your old place. The trick is, when you find yourself doing it on that larger scale, blow it off in a sheepish, "silly me" sort of way. Just like you would the bus mishap. Call it a silly freak occurrence, not something that labels you a "failure."
As my mind swum in all of this "data," I realized something else. A lot of the platitudes we use in personal growth communities, are just that, because they aren't really very useful. For instance, the one about not caring what other's opinions of you are. When you read it or somebody tells it to you, it is all about being true to yourself and not caving in to peer pressure. Many times I have told people who accused me of it, that I do not care what other people think of me. Which on the one hand is true, but on the other hand is a complete fantasy. OF COURSE, I care what people think of me. I have people I care about. People I love. For those people I sometimes edit myself or behave in ways I know will bring a smile to their face. I care that the people in my life experience me in a positive way. I enjoy people being happy to see me. I don't think that's a bad thing, but of course, it is subject to the same "nobody's home" subconscious habitual behavior. It's one thing to turn your car radio station to jazz because your friend who loves jazz is riding with you; it's entirely another to never switch the radio back to your own preferred station because no one but you likes it. In the former, you are being a gracious and thoughtful host. In the latter, you are erasing your own existence.
Still, all of it, the thoughts and labels, are all just data. Just ego "busy work" to keep you entertained while you're alive. Just like you, your ego thinks all of it is important. It thinks it has to "sort all of this out and make sense of it." We gather our data and cling to it as if it will allow us to hold onto our past or somehow predict our future. None of it matters.
What does matter is what you do right now.
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