The tighter you squeeze, the less you have.
-Zen saying
-Zen saying
If you were to tell me your age, I have a mental spot for you on a number line that moves in different levels from left to right. All the other people of the same age that I know, are standing there together like a line up. It has more to do with a point of reference for me than the labels young or old. Days of the week are of a particular color and placement too.
Only within the last few years have I learned that this lifelong mental ordering of mine is known as synest hesia. It's a neurological condition that's quite harmless unless someone makes me queen of the universe and I try to make everyone see things as I do, altering calendars and even history.
Other "truths" or long held beliefs that I have may not be as harmless. As Ezra Bayda offers in At Home In The Muddy Water,
The most troublesome beliefs are related to our attachments, which are often hard to identify. Attachments are simple beliefs-fantasies, in fact - that have become solidified as "truth" in our mind. They also partake of the energy of desire, which is based on the underlying belief that without some particular person or thing, we can never be free from suffering. Attachment also takes the form of avoidance, we believe we can't be happy as long as a particular person, condition, or object is in our lives. To experience negative attachment, just think of your least favorite food or person.
Well I guess I asked for it. Months ago when I read this, I was of the opinion that I had everything I needed to be happy. It felt so good to be happy and I wrote in my journal, "Show me what beliefs I hold, not conscious to me now, that don't serve me. Let's clean house!"
Shortly after that, I began experiencing pain in my arms and hands. Throbbing pain woke me at night, there were days when it was painful to drive and finding the cause of the symptoms consumed me. Then about a month ago I captured the flu bug that was making its rounds and ended up in bed for several days. When I got back on my feet, a hacking cough moved into my chest and I'm just getting over it . The hand and arm pain comes and goes, often with pain in my feet when I get out of bed in the morning. Bleck!
When I decided to write this newsletter, I couldn't come up with a positive thought so I pulled Bayda's book from the shelf and re-read the above paragraph as I had many months ago. Bang! went the gong in my neurologically conditioned head. That's it! It's been my belief that I can't be happy when I'm in pain or when I am sick. The desire to feel good and to be healthy isn't the problem, it's the string of terms and conditions that I have tied to it that has me resisting the natural flow.
Ultimately, what we all want is to be happy. What we need in order to be happy is governed by our individual belief systems. But, says Bayda, holding these beliefs guarantees that we cannot be deeply satisfied, because we will always be anxious at the thought of losing what we believe makes us happy. If we wish to be really happy, we have to give up our attachments.
It does not mean that I have to give up a pain free and healthy body, just my attachment to it as a condition of my happiness. It has worked in many other parts of my life so I know it is a truth I can accept. But separating myself from my physical form, that's pretty tricky and requires more focus.
Bayda continues, as I intend to,
When we fully see through and experience our attachments, the result is freedom. When we see through our fears, the result is love. When we see without our filters, judgments, and desires, the result is appreciation and the quiet joy of being.
Life is up for grabs. We reach in for a handful but then the only way we can enjoy and share it is by releasing our hold. It's also the only way we can reach back in and grab more.
Photo:yospyn