Sometimes, you can’t move your thinking forward on some topic, because you want it to move too much. You might be too thirsty; even desperate. It causes you to apply internal force, and that makes it worse, because force tightens knots.
There are many situations like this; calming a fussy baby, attracting a mate, going on vacation – where you fail from the beginning if you don’t have a certain ease about you; I have written before about Holding Sand problems. If no amount of trying hard gives results, try trying less, or trying in a way that’s very different. The harder working a person is, the harder it is to see this, because “try less” doesn’t compute, and equates with giving up. It isn’t.
Thirstiness invites trying harder. When it doesn’t work, you get thirstier, and more desperate, so you try harder. And so desire to be rid of a disease becomes part of the disease. If that sounds circular, and insidious, good. Because it is.
Where does this thirst/desperation come from? Maybe a deep-seated sense that this situation (and you) Are Not OK And Something Must Change. Sometimes the wrongness can be localized to a person or set of behaviors, and other times it’s diffuse, a general feeling of dis-ease, anxiety, unsettledness, but one thing you’re sure of is that It Must Change.
Dare I go right off the precipice
Delta Sleep – Sans Soleil
Following the footsteps of no one else
Found myself between routine and heartache
Knowing it was not a life to lead
Off the precipice. A person might be willing to run on foot around the world, but not be willing to accept, or even barely entertain the idea that they are ok right now. But suppose we entertained that crazy idea for just a moment.
Well it sure would take some pressure off. You’d still have challenges as everybody does, but it’d lower the temperature, give you some headspace apart from that thirst. But to get there, to really cultivate that ease, it could not be just a tactic. You can’t be fooling yourself with psychobabble as a way of working your way around to changing the world by force. Basically, you can’t force, for the same reason you can’t untangle a knot by pulling on the ends harder
Does the world really need to change, or is your reaction to it very painful? Which of those two things (the world, or your reaction) do you have more ability to impact?
Yes yes, all good, but how do you Be OK? Locally to this situation, or globally? If you ask the question inside your head, you might notice how the question balloons, and swells, and quickly gets so big you can’t get your arms around it maybe we start somewhere very small
Ram Dass basically recommended starting very small. Love something you already do, for just a few minutes, and work on expanding that outward
How do you quiet the mind? You meditate. How do you open the heart? You start to love that which you can love and just keep expanding it. You love a tree, you love a river, you love a leaf, you love a cat, you love a human.
Ram Dass, Sit Beside the Fire
Notice that this isn’t a solution to your mega problem; a seed isn’t an oak tree, and an idea isn’t a company. This is just a start. We are not in the mode of solving the world’s problems, simply trying to be OK.
If you did this thing, and simply spent 5-10 minutes loving something, that would be 5-10 fewer minutes of your day spent thirsty and desperate. And that’s a start! But next week it could be more.
What I’m saying has nothing to do with your problem. It isn’t a solution; it’s a re-framing: we need to locate the ember, whatever that means to you.
You might later feel a subtle shift. An indescribable mental motion. I’m ok. Seeing things as they are. Willing to engage and interact, but no longer creating internal chaos about the outside world. Ending my own private civil war.
Maybe this will cause you to better approach the situation, (by all means improve the world) and maybe the situation is unsolvable and will never change. Either way, there’s less chaos and something akin to equanimity can form. Maybe that’s worth spending 5 or 10 minutes with, and expanding outward.
