si dawson

experiments in self-improvement
September 22, 2009

Turn Every Down Into An Up

I had a realisation recently.

Fundamentally, the only person that has any control over how I feel is me.

I choose how I feel.

So, any time I feel bad due to someone else’s actions, I know that’s just a pain body reacting. That’s just my ego, getting in the way, hurting me, wanting me to feel pain.

Therefore, by releasing that pain when it comes up. Feeling the feeling & letting it go, I’m healing everything I experience, right there & then.

For more disturbing, larger or messier things, giving it a good old bash with EFT has also helped kick this stuff out.

Every time that I’ve felt less-than-blissful, it’s been an opportunity for me to heal – to heal whatever it is inside me that is reacting to external stimulus, & leaving me feeling bad.

Ha! And life being what it is, there’s been a lot of chances for that.

As a result? I know I’m in a much, much better place than I have been, simply as a result of doing this.

Now, this journey hasn’t always been pleasant at all. I wouldn’t wish some aspects of it in anyone. However, I have observed that things that have recurred have bothered me less & less till they haven’t bothered me at all.

Know what happens then? They seem to stop happening at all.

trampoline.jpg
pic by ceeceedotca

Why is that?

Well, some people would say that we draw things into our existence because we are a vibrational match for them. Like attracts like, you know, the law of attraction stuff.

Which means is (as unpleasant as it is to hear this) that every miserable thing I experience is there because some part of me wants it there.

Ok, now before we go getting all suicidal here (because that train of thought can get a bit damn depressing if you follow it too long through every bad thing that’s ever happened to you), realise this: These things appear so you can learn.

That’s why, when you learn the lesson (or heal), they simply stop happening to you.

In my case, I’ve had several occasions where I healed enough of that pain & the people responsible quite literally disappeared from my life. Moved away. Overnight.

So that’s the good news.

The point here is this: Every bad thing that occurs to you is an opportunity to instantly, easily & significantly improve your life.

Every upset is a chance for growth.

By immediately letting go of the negative emotion you’re feeling, as you’re feeling it, minute by minute your life is getting – even right through the middle of horrific pain & unpleasantness.

For a start, you’ll stop feeling bad even while things that used to upset you are still happening.

More interestingly, those (previously) negative external situations will, as if by magic, stop occurring.

Now, don’t take my word for it, check it out yourself, by all means.

However, let’s say I’m wrong – what does it matter? If you’ve let go, completely, of your internal reactions to these painful events, then you won’t care anyway. You’ll just sit there like a Hindu cow, cool as a cucumber while things spiral around you.

I know because this is exactly how I became. Their pain & suffering would be swirling around in a way that I know would previously have upset me enormously, & it didn’t bother me in the slightest. The pain body inside me that had been reacting to that particular stimulus had been completely neutralised.

Also, this comes back to our pain bodies discussion. If there’s no internal reaction at all from you, then there’s nothing for the other person’s pain body to push against – so it naturally dissipates – in the quickest, healthiest way possible.

The key things to remember are:

The sooner after the upset you can heal, the better. The fresher the emotion is inside you, the easier it is to get to & remove completely. Ideally, heal it immediately. This is where releasing is so helpful, coz you can do it while the person is still abusing/shouting at/crying on you. With EFT, you have to imagine tapping the points (or discreetly finger tap) – which works but is harder to do if you’re largely concentrating on someone else. Not impossible, but harder than just releasing anything you’re feeling inside yourself.

Be persistent. Don’t get discouraged if it seems like the same pain keeps coming up. Humans are very layered, & some times it takes a while to really get to the bottom of something. There may be many emotional reactions to a situation, or many subtle variations on a theme (eg, someone can insult, demean, disrespect, dismiss. ignore, put down, or disregard you – all basically the same, all subtly different). Just keep lettinig it all go, it all helps.

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    September 10, 2009

    The Pain Bodies Inside Us

    Ever catch yourself doing something really stupid? You watch it happening in slow motion, yet can’t seem to stop yourself going right ahead and doing it?

    Now, there’s a ton of things that fit under the heading of ‘stupid’, ahh, and by goodness, I’ve done a lot of them.

    What I’d like to talk about today is deliberately creating pain, in ourselves & in those around us. When we feel automatically compelled to do things that increase suffering in the world. Typically this is done verbally, but in more extreme cases it can escalate to physical violence.

    Eckhart Tolle has a description for this phenomenon, he calls these internal proclivities “Pain bodies.”

    It’s a useful approach. Metaphorically distancing ourselves, even slightly, can give us power over the behaviour. Seeing it as something separate from ourselves helps us gain control.

    Of course, this kind of things fits handily under the heading “Self-sabotage.” Whereas a lot of forms of self-sabotage can be happily done alone (eg, procrastination), our pain bodies generally require company.

    birds_fighting.jpg
    pic by catb

    So what to do about them? Well, Tolle’s suggestion is simply to be as present as possible, and this is pretty reasonable advice. If you’re in the moment, then these occurrences become quite jarring. The behaviour stands out so starkly You can’t help but think (whether it’s yourself or another) “Hey, where the hell did that come from?”

    To kick Tolle’s suggestion up a notch in terms of effectiveness, I’d also recommend releasing whatever feelings come up.

    Ever notice how hard it is to fight someone who’s not responding at all (except with love)? There’s a reason for that. Your pain body is trying to latch onto something, something to feed itself with.. and finding nothing. This is, of course, pure Aikido at work.

    The same thing works in reverse. When someone near you behaves in a way that is pretty obviously just spoiling for a fight, by releasing any internal reactions inside you, remaining calm, and adding nothing, the entire situation defuses in the fastest way possible.

    I’ve experimented with this extensively, & there really is nothing good or bad you can say that will calm things down quicker than releasing & saying as little as possible.

    birds_loving.jpg
    pic by ladyinpink_1

    Of course, in yourself, the same applies. I lose count of the number of times I’ve felt something ugly or nasty whelling up inside me. By releasing the thought, noticing it but not attaching it & simply letting it go, I’m weakening those pain bodies inside me. Not once have I looked back & thought “Gosh, I sure wish I’d said that nasty thing.” Nope, every single time it’s been a variant on “Oh man, that would have really hurt someone I care about.”

    The more you can release at the time, the weaker the pain body becomes.

    In yourself, it’s simply a case of letting go of the compulsion to hurt those around you. When someone near you is letting their pain body take control, there’s two things to release.

    First, your reaction to whatever they’re saying. Yes, it’s going to be hurtful, painful, ugly. That’s the nature of a pain body – to try and provoke as extreme a reaction from you as possible. Sure, that person is fully responsible for anything they say, & they shouldn’t say it. But that’s not the point. Blaming them, or having other negative feelings towards them is only going to make you feel bad, so let it go. Secondly, & once you’ve let go of any negative reactions to their behaviour, let go of any internal response you may be feeling. That’s only your pain bodies trying to get in on the fight.

    You could also use EFT or similar – if you’re able to identify a specific motivation or drive behind the pain body so you can tune into it & tap later. Starting tapping in the middle of dealing with someone angry or hurt is likely to just piss them off even further. Not recommended.

    Can you think of any people who just seem to bring out the worst in you? One minute things are fine, next there’s a flaming row & you really have no idea how it started? That’s what happens when two pain bodies get in sync and start feeding each other. If either party is able to take even the slightest amount of control, the whole thing defuses incredibly quickly.

    Of course, that doesn’t mean I’m suggesting for a second you should stay in a situation where someone is wilfully trying to harm you, whether verbally or otherwise.

    This isn’t about being a martyr, just a little better than yesterday.

    Even reducing your pain bodies by the tiniest amount results in exponentially more love in the world. Every interaction with every person for the rest of your life will be just that little bit better. Totally worth the effort.

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      August 25, 2009

      How To Be Confident

      Confidence is a funny thing. It comes in two flavours. How confident other people believe you are, & how confident you feel internally. The two are related, but not necessarily linked. E.g., it’s quite common that other people see us as more confident than we may actually feel.

      So how do you go about becoming more confident?

      Well, there’s a bunch of physical attributes: head up, shoulders back, firm eye contact, firm handshake, steady voice. None of this is new or complicated. You can read more about it here & here.

      Changing your posture does change your emotional state, so by all means do the physical stuff as well (it’ll help how you feel), but I’m going to talk about working directly on the non-physical stuff.

      Let’s start with the easy side of things – how we’re perceived externally. Other than posture, how do other people assess how confident we are?

      By our speech. What we say, how we say it, the words we use.

      I got to thinking about this when reading Jeannette Maw’s excellent Good Vibe Blog. She was talking about wiping out wimpy words. Words that disempower us, make us sound wishy washy, limit us.

      These are all words & phrases that will make us seems significantly less confident than we may actually be.

      lion.jpg
      pic by nnn27

      What are some examples?

      • Hopefully
      • Probably
      • Should
      • I suppose

      So, my hypothesis is, if we stop using these kinds of words, we’ll appear (externally) more confident.

      Well, that sounds worth doing, but wait up a second. Before we rush into this, let’s think a little.

      Who do we talk to the most, out of all of the people in our lives?

      Ourselves, of course.

      For every time we say something out loud that makes us sound insecure, we’re going to be saying the exact same thing to ourselves dozens if not hundreds of times.

      Removing these words from our vocab will not only make us more confident to others, but will also make us notably more confident internally, when talking to ourselves.

      As within, so without – maybe it’s not quite so much of a surprise after all.

      Of course, a healthy goal is to remove that nagging inner voice entirely (through meditation, releasing etc), but until we reach that noble pinnacle of enlightenment & inner peace, we still have to contend with our ego. Why not push things in our favour in the meantime?

      What’s a good way of removing (or at the very least drastically minimising) specific words & phrases from our vocabulary? Well, the tool I’ve found best for this task is EFT. It’s super simple to use and ridiculously quick.

      If you haven’t used EFT before, I’ve put a quick intro up here. The basic gist is to tap (just like tapping a keyboard, but with a coupla fingers at once) on various points around the body, while thinking or saying whatever-it-is you want to fix. The tapping loosens up energy blocks in the body, your energy starts flowing properly again and you automatically heal (since our natural state is to be 100% healthy).

      So how to remove a word from your vocab? Just tap the karate chop point (side of hand) while saying something like “Even though I say ‘hopefully’ I love & accept myself”, or “Even though I use the phrase ‘I guess’ I love & accept myself.” Really, the words don’t matter too much, just say whatever pops in your head & feels right for you. Once you’ve said that a few times while tapping your karate chop point, work your way around the points on the body (pic here), saying “I say ‘hopefully” or “I use the word ‘hopefully'” etc & tapping each point 5-10 times.

      Once you’ve done a couple of full rounds, & if you want to be really thorough, you can do a couple more rounds, saying something like “I still say ‘hopefully’.” This will clear out any remants that might be left over.

      It really is that simple. Total time? 2-3 minutes a word, if that.

      fire.jpg
      pic by pixietart

      Here’s the list I cleared out yesterday:

      • hopefully
      • probably
      • should
      • try
      • pretty sure
      • I’ll figure it out
      • doubt
      • can’t
      • want (since want is synonymous with ‘lack’, why not clear that too?)
      • I guess
      • I suppose
      • I need to
      • I’m not sure
      • I don’t think
      • kinda

      Of course, everyone uses different words & phrases, so your own list will likely be quite different, but these might help you get started. Just see what resonates for you.

      The funny thing is, as you start to clear them out, other commonly used limiting phrases will start to become more obvious & bubble to the surface. I also felt the way I was thinking changing. Sounds insane but it’s true. I could feel myself using different phrasing internally, & as I did, my body became more sure of itself. Not quite sure (ha! I’ll add that to my list) how that works, but a definite example of the mind/body connection at play.

      The net result of all this mucking about? More confident thought patterns, more confident speech & a significantly more confident persona. Total time taken? A little over half an hour.

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        August 23, 2009

        More On The Mirror Exercise

        I talked about the mirror exercise a while back. I’ve used this quite a lot, & discovered a few extra tricks to really amp it up, which I thought I’d share.

        I Love You
         Paying yourself compliments is a good way to start, particularly if you’re feeling down on yourself, but the single most powerful thing to say is simply “I love you.”

        This heals incredibly deeply. Even if you don’t believe it, say it anyway. Of course, the more feeling & energy you can put into it, the better. Shout it out loud if you like, it all helps.

        mirror_hair.jpg
         pic by prozac74

        Imagine It’s Someone Else
        So how do you say “I love you” if you’re struggling to actually love yourself (like so many of us do)? Well, everyone has someone they’re comfortable saying (& meaning) I love you to.

        So, look at yourself, but get yourself in a loving state by imagining (initially) that you’re saying it to that person. This’ll get you started with really feeling it. The more you say it to yourself, the easier it’ll get. The more strongly you can feel what you’re saying, the more powerful.

        Smile
        Remember how you act when you meet someone you really like. You smile, right? If you genuinely love them, you’ll smile even more. So definitely smile at yourself.

        It sounds ridiculous, but there’s a definite physiological feedback loop. If you genuinely smile, you will cheer yourself up emotionally too (ie, the energy you’re pouring into yourself will increase). Ie, physical state affects emotional state. As nutty as it sounds, this is well recognised. See? Here’s proof:
        charlie_brown_depressed

        One thing to note with smiles. Humans are very good at assessing the truthfulness of a smile. In other words, telling a fake smile from a real smile. What it comes down to is the very small muscles around the eyes (the orbicularis oculi). So, try to smile so it looks genuine to you. Even if you’re not feeling it internally to start with, do it anyway. Yes, you will feel like a crazy person, but it’s just you & the mirror, so who cares, right? If nothing else, laughing at how nutty you look trying to fake a real smile might set you off into genuine smiling. If so, great!

        Tap While You Do It
        Using EFT while you say “I love you” will do a hell of a lot of good. Don’t panic too much about the details, just tap on the various points around the body, saying “I love you” on each point. If you feel like something is shifting, feel free to stay on that one point, saying “I love you” over & over until it shifts. If not, no biggie.

        I guarantee you, a few loops around your body & you’ll start to feeling significantly better about yourself.

        Use Your Name
        This will help you connect with yourself.

        Even better than this, use a name or nickname you commonly used when you were younger. An awful lot of pain in our lives starts very young. Connecting with & loving our younger selves helps bring up, heal & remove this pain in the simplest, least painful way possible. You’ll feel it.

        All these things help amp up the basic exercise. Simply use any (or all!) of them that resonate with you. I’ve been doing this every morning recently (my shower has a mirror opposite, so I get to tap & wash at the same time), & it gets each day off to a brilliant start.

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          August 18, 2009

          How To Stop Feeling Bad

          Why do we feel bad?

          It’s a good question.

          An easy answer would be “because bad stuff happens to us”, but what for one person would be a disaster, someone else might barely notice.

          So what’s actually going on here?

          In a nutshell?

          We beat ourselves up.

          That little voice in our heads giving us shit. Yep, it’s our ego.

          No big surprise there then. So what can we do about it?

          Well, stop complaining is certainly a good start, but there’s more to it than just that.

          For example, how many different ways are there of beating ourselves up?

          Regrets, disappointments, undesirable events, worrying about the future, things we dislike about ourselves, or (even sillier) things we dislike about others (“Why oh why did I choose a husband like this?”) That’s the craziest of all. Resentment about someone else is like drinking poison & expecting the other person to get sick.

          Notice that all of these things are either in the past or in the future? Yep, that’s not a surprise. More on that later.

          A good rule of thumb though? Any time we say something to ourselves that makes us feel worse, that’s beating ourselves up, in one way or another.

          Ok, so we’ve mapped out the field, how to deal to this behaviour? How to stop it?

          The Reductionist Method
          Here’s one method that has worked wonders for me.

          Every morning I sat down & brainstormed a few lists “Things I disapprove about myself”, “Regrets”, “Disappointments”, “Worries” etc. (You can use any phrasing that resonates). Next, I just worked my way down each list I’d made, healing each item in turn. The whole thing would take, 10 maybe 15 minutes tops.

          writing_pen.jpg
          pic by gwilmore

          What I noticed was, each day the lists got shorter, & the items I’d healed didn’t come back (or they looked like they came back, but were actually subtly different – i.e. different sub-aspects of a larger issue).

          After a few days, I couldn’t think of anything for any of the lists. Oh, & I also wasn’t thinking any of those crappy thoughts about myself any more.

          The fewer negative thoughts you have, the better you’ll feel. It’s not rocket science.

          Of course, when you’re making these lists, the things that come up first will be the things you’re thinking most often. Those at the top of the list will be the loudest complaints. As you clear those out, you’ll naturally work deeper & quieter, till eventually you’re clearing out more & more subtle negativity. It’s a great, natural way to clear through internal noise in a way that gets you the greatest benefits immediately, but gets more deeply powerful the longer you continue.

          It’s also good just to do it a little bit each day. Often we need a good night’s sleep to fully process & clear things out of our systems.

          How to heal this negative self-talk? Well, you can use whatever tool appeals to you. Some of the things that came up I used EFT on, some I used the release technique (aka the Sedona Method), & some I used Reiki. I just trusted my intuition & used what felt right (mostly releasing).

          Our ego has a thousand ways of making us feel bad. Constantly nattering at us, trying to bring us down. This is just a good, time effective way I’ve found to proactively clear out a huge chunk of that crap. Each day getting clearer, lighter & happier.

          The Holistic Method
          Ok, so, remember how all this negative self talk was either in the future, or in the past? Well, that’s not an accident.

          Remember Eckhart Tolle? Well, he’s way ahead of me on this one. See, if you’re the kind of person for whom a methodical approach is just not for you, well, here’s what he recommends.

          Get yourself completely “in the present.” Just be here now.

          It’s that simple. Let go of all the noise in your head. Stop thinking your thoughts. If they come up, simply let them go.

          girl_peach.jpg
          pic by savannahgrandfather

          The important thing to remember is – you are not your thoughts. It’s your mind thinking them, not you. Which means you have a choice, seriously, whether you want to keep thinking them or not. As with all things, you always have a choice.

          Same thing with any feelings that come up. Just observe them, but let them go too.

          This way, you stay 100% in the present moment. You can still be going about your day, doing whatever, but any thoughts & feelings that come up from the past or about the future, just let them drift off.

          Now, there’s a couple of interesting things about this. Firstly, if you genuinely do welcome up (without attachment) any thoughts or feelings you have, & let go of them fully, they won’t come back. (Very loosely, this is how you release).

          Be gentle with yourself though, because one large issue can often have a ton of little sub-issues to it that may all need to be cleared. It may seem like you’re making no progress, but just keep letting go, keep letting go. Pretty soon you’ll start to see the difference.

          Secondly, the more you can hold yourself in that present moment, the more junk will naturally come up. Why? Because being in that state holds you in a very specific (very powerful) state of vibration. Much like shaking a dirty glass of water, anything counter to that vibration will float to the top. Of course, the important thing is just to keep letting go of everything that comes up. You feel bad? Great! Let it go. Nasty thoughts or memories? Wonderful! Let those go too. They’re only coming up because they’re not in accordance with the person you’re becoming, with that powerful “Now” vibration that you’re holding.

          It’s all good stuff.

          Plus, if you’re truly present? Well, it’s feels great. Best feeling in the world. So that’s a nice bonus too.

          Oh, & there’s nothing saying you can’t use both methods – making lists and being present. Every little bit helps. As Buddha said, “There are many fingers pointing at the moon, but only one moon.”

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