I set out to actively lead a life that truly feels good in the Spring of 2008 after a series of setbacks in my personal life. My aim is to spread whatever I learn about feeling good to others through this blog.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Byron Katie as part of Jenny Mannion’s Heroes of Healing group writing project. In the last couple of weeks the project has really taken on a life of its own and has grown tremendously. The project has a new URL, a whole new layout and a load more heroes! Here are some excerpts of some of my favourite ones:
Eckhart Tolle
I discovered Eckhart Tolle from his webcast series with Oprah about his book A New Earth. This was unlike anything I had ever read before and it really changed me profoundly in many ways and allowed me to learn to accept life with a sense of inner peace. Excerpt:
Eckhart’s essence is one of peace as he explains consciousness in accessible terms so everyone can understand. He has caused many people to “awaken” and to think about their life totally differently. His work and talks on the pain body and the roles we play in the relationships in our lives is something I feel most of us can greatly relate to and learn from.
Esther & Jerry Hicks
Esther Hicks is somebody who channels an entity of non-physical beings known only as ‘Abraham’. I don’t know much about channelling but the message that they give has affected me greatly over the last year. Their teachings are based on the Law of Attraction and they have been teaching this stuff for over 20 years, long before the movie The Secret came along. Excerpt:
Abraham teaches that ‘life is supposed to be fun!’ and that we can create our lives however we wish with effortless ease. They impart their wisdom, straight from Source Energy, in a way that is easy to understand and funny all at once. It is this sense of humor that seems to help people digest their teachings without the heaviness of the more ‘serious’ religious tenets.
Louise Hay
Louise Hay wrote a book You Can Heal Your Life many years ago and it has been a best seller ever since. I actually watched the movie before reading the book and I was instantly captivated by Louise’s charm. In her 80’s she is full of life, has an obvious love of life and just exudes confidence. Her teaching are also based around the Law of Attraction but the emphasis is on the mind-body connection. Louise healed herself on cancer in a very short time using her own teachings and many others have gone on to do the same. Excerpt:
As soon as I read Louise ’s story, it was like the sun came out and all of a sudden I could see that every day didn’t have to be cloudy. There was blue sky out there. I realized I had to change myself before I could ever hope to have the life I dreamed of. I desperately wanted to be happy, but the world I lived in was full of pain, criticism and trying to be perfect, and hating myself because I was not.
Wayne Dyer
I have been listening to Wayne Dyer CD’s for quite a few years but it was only in this past year after learning about the Law of Attraction that I really understood his teachings. Nowadays he is one of my favourite people to listen to. I listen to archives of his radio show, The Power of Intention (free from Hay House Radio) almost daily. I can’t get enough of him - he speaks with such simplicity in a very down to earth way that is easy to understand. I prefer his approach to the more metaphysical teachers out there. Excerpt:
With many books, audios and televised events as well as speaking internationally — he has encouraged and helped millions of people find their inner strengths. Dr. Dyer’s books range from his powerful talks on “Intention” to one of his most recent where he gave up most of his belongings for a year and LIVED the Tao Te Ching. He has 7 children and STILL maintains a constant sense of presence and calmness.
2 CommentsOctober 3, 2008 Posted under: My Story by Caroline Middlebrook
At last I come to the final part of my story. At the end of part 11 which was just a few months ago, I was hurting once again from the breakdown of a relationship just six months after being devasted by the same thing.
Going through this twice in six months was harsh but I knew I had to learn and grow as a result of the experience. At first I decided that I wanted to try to protect myself from going through that kind of pain again. I had thoughts such as “I must get better at this LoA stuff so I only attract good things into my life”, and I figured I’d need to attract a relationship that would last my whole life time.
It didn’t take me long to figure out how absurd this idea was. What if I found the perfect person and then she got run over by a bus? It was at this point that I realised that LoA is just one law in this Universe of many and it exists within other laws and most importantly, it only creates our own experience and it doesn’t allow us to control other people. This pain I was going through was due to a relationship with another person and whenever you are involved with somebody whether that’s romantically, professionally, a family member or whatever, you can’t control them and you can’t create their reality for them so if you drift out of alignment then that relationship will suffer or breakdown and that is just life.
It was at this point when I realised that the most valuable thing I could do from this point on is to learn how to deal with the challenges that life throws at us. I had been holding LoA as some kind of saviour but it doesn’t work that way. You can attract great things into your life (and I still haven’t mastered that) but unless you cover every detail of life you will also attract by default on many subjects and that means that everynow and then the Universe will just clobber you around the head! I felt like I hadn’t learned my lessons the first time around so the Universe clobbered me again a second time and said “hey wake up! we’ve something to teach you here!”
Also, life is temporary, people die, companies shut down, friends move away - things change all the time and even if you manage to attract the perfect vision of life into your reality the chances are that it won’t stay that way for long. Therefore I decided that it was far better to learn how to be flexible, how to adapt to changed circumstances, how to deal with pain, how to move on from past hurt and so on.
The last 5 months have been a time of tremendous learning and growth. I read books, I read blogs, I listened to audios, I watched DVD’s and online videos - for several weeks I did virtually nothing but absorb good feeling material into my life. I have now put my life back together and I’m working again, socialising again, and so on but I have chosen to make learning, personal growth and spirituality a permanent part of my life and not a day goes by that I don’t read, watch or listen to something inspiring - usually for at least an hour a day.
I soaked up so much stuff in such a short space of time that I began to feel overwhelmed and felt as though I needed to talk about it. I had questions, I had aha moments and insights. I kept feeling a burning urge to write but I didn’t have a place to write so at first I just journalled but I had a feeling in the back of my mind that I didn’t just want to write for me I wanted to write publically, to invite others to comment, in other words - to blog!
I already had my Internet Marketing blog but that simply is not the place to discuss these kinds of topics so I knew I needed to start a new one but there was something that didn’t feel right, I couldn’t think of a name for a start. I decided to let the Universe guide me and I figured that when the time was right I would know it and I would also know the name.
So I stopped thinking about it for a while. Another thing I did during this time was go for lots of walks - it was summer time and in Essex in the UK where I live there are lots of country parks and coastal areas to explore. All the photos I use on this website are photos I have taken on my walks. I tend to choose remote locations where I can be alone with my thoughts and I would go over in my mind the stuff I had been reading about, listening to and so on.
One day I was in a country park mulling over life, the Universe and everything and feeling somewhat frustrated. Why was life always so hard, why was it always a struggle? I mean, surely life is supposed to FEEL GOOD isn’t it? I stopped dead in my tracks - the name of my blog hit me like a brick and it felt right.
This blog is born…
So that is the end of my story and the start of a new phase of life. I’ve got a lot to do, there are many things I want to change but I am now committed to changing inside as much as the outside. I will never again take things for granted, I will always be grateful for what I have. I will never stop learning and evolving and I will never again be so naieve as to think that ‘happiness’ lies anywhere but inside of me.
I’m not exactly sure where life wil take me but as I learn and grow I’ll be sure to share the journey here
Much of the discussion of the Law of Attraction discusses the first part - how to keep our focus on what we want and not on what we don’t want, but I don’t hear as much about the second part, which is the Law of Allowing. This law states that we need to allow ourselves to be what we are and also allow others to be what they are. This includes allowing others to attract pain and suffering into their lives.
I only recently understood what the Law of Allowing meant - I got it whilst listening to an old Abraham Hicks recording, their Special Subjects series that was recorded 20 years ago! Previously I thought it was just about allowing us to attract what we want into our experience, but I hadn’t realised the significance of how it applies to our allowing of others to be what they are and attract what they will.
I have a chance to put this into practice today as a close friend of mine is currently undergoing surgery to have her gall bladder removed. This particular problem is just one of many physical ailments and injuries that she is wrestling with and when I see the kind of job she does (she is a police officer), the kind of negativity she is surrounded by every day, the amount of anger and frustration she feels at what I would feel are unimportant things, I am not at all surprised she’s under the knife right now but of course it would be natural for me to worry anyway.
However, I didn’t worry and felt calm about it and she’s come out of the surgery just fine so all is well.
When I first started learning of the Law of Attraction I thought of this friend of mine because she’s one of the most stressed people I know and seems to attract a never ending stream of crap into her life. She would seem to be a good example of somebody who negatively attracts. At first I wanted to try and help her but she’s also extremely down to earth and would dismiss any discussion along these lines as pure drivel. It would be a lost cause.
I have another friend who is having a really hard time financially and with both of these friends I kept asking myself what I could do about it to try and help them but eventually I gave up and when I listened to that recording I realised that I hadn’t been much of an allower. On the surface it sounds like being an allower means to simply not care what happens to other people but that’s not the case.
It’s quite subtle really - you can see something negative happening to somebody and care about them and even try to help them in some way if you are able but the key is the emotion you are feeling. If you are feeling their pain then you are not allowing. If you can care without feeling negative emotion and without letting their pain into your experience then you are being an allower.
I remember when I first watched The Secret I saw the sections about world events and it seemed to make sense that having a war against everything would just add more power to the things we were pushing against but it left me with the question, how do we alleviate those situations without just making them worse? Surely the moment we try to do something we are just pushing against the problem?
Not necessarily. First of all its always useful to look at a problem in terms of the desired solution rather than the problem itself. So for example, if you wanted to do something about world hunger you’d be better off joining an organisation that promoted “food for all” rather than one that promoted “end world hunger”. But aside from that, I think the real difference is again in our emotions. If it is possible to observe the problem and work towards a solution without feeling badly about what you are observing then you are making a change whilst still allowing the current situation to be what it is.
I’m not looking to solve the problems of world hunger but at least now I can be there for my friends without allowing their pain to add to my own.
Have you ever noticed how many times you get told that you should be doing or thinking something or other? Oh you should do this, or you should have done it that way instead. That’s not right, this is what you should believe and so on.
We Are Not All The Same
Trying to fit your life around all of these shoulds is very difficult and yet it is what most people do all the time. They seem to come from everywhere - our parents, other family members, friends, co-workers, even the modern media such as the TV and magazines try and tell you what you should be thinking, or wearing, or doing etc.
There is a fundamental flaw with this whole should-mentality: we are all unique and so what is right for one person is not necessarily right for another. Yet in modern society we try to classify ourselves, to conform to some idea of normality, we obey rules which have been set out by authorities and we try to get along with people by agreeing with them when they tell us what we should be doing or thinking or wearing or … the list goes on.
For many people on many subjects there may well be similarities. For example, for many people, getting a ‘good job’ is an acceptable way to earn a living but not for everybody. Some people (like me) prefer to work for themselves, others don’t need to work at all so they don’t, a few people have special lives afforded by their status such as royalty, some might devote their life to religious calling, others might spend their life in pursuit of some kind of goal. I’m sure as you read this list you’ll resonate with one or two of them and you might even have felt a little bit of negative resistance to some of them and all of those emotions are perfectly normal.
There is no right way to live your life, no job that is right for everybody, no set of rules by which everybody should adhere. Life is a choice and it is different for everybody.
How Do You Know What’s Right?
You might be feeling a little overwhelmed at the idea of so much choice. If that is the case then how do we decide how to live? Quite simple - our gut instincts tell us. To me, the idea of going out and getting a job is torture. So is the idea of living in a third world culture. How do I know this? Because when I think about those things they feel bad but when I think about being an entrepreneur and carving out a life of luxury I feel good and remember that life is meant to feel good!
Other people try to impose their shoulds on us and when they do that, we get an emotional reaction. If that emotion feels good then the chances are that their should is probably a worthy should for you too but if it feels bad then it is most certainly not.
The Curse of the People Pleaser
One of the shoulds that many of us hold for ourselves is that we should try to get along with other people - to get along with our families, friends, co-workers, blog readers and anybody else that we come into contact with. The trouble with that is that in our attempts to get along with others we often feel as though we should agree with them, which means adopting their shoulds as our own and as we are all different this is bound to cause conflict somewhere.
What the people pleaser often does is to ignore his own emotional reactions and simply try to go along with other people and their shoulds. This may seem beneficial in the short term because it allows you to agree with those around you but one day you wake up and realise that you are not living a life that really makes you happy and you start to resent those people that told you that you should have done it their way.
How do you please both yourself and other people? You can’t! This is the unfortunate truth. If you look at any situation, any opinion, any belief you will see that it is actually impossible to please all of the people all of the time. Let’s take a really simple example. I once ran a poll on my other blog asking if I should have guest posters or not. Half of the people who voted said yes and the other half said no. How could I please them all? I couldn’t.
Listen To Your Inner Guidance
If you cannot please all of the other people then what can you do? You can decide to listen to your own guidance instead. If everybody in the world attended to their own feelings, stayed in their own business instead of everybody else’s, and looked after their own needs then the world would be a better place!
That is not to say that we should just ignore everybody else. It may well be that other people have much valuable advice to give us but the decision as to whether or not to follow that advice should come from within - by listening to your emotions. Noticed that I just imposed two of my own shoulds on your in that paragraph! You can decide whether or not this post makes sense to you!
Don’t be afraid to change your mind. There have been many times when I have held an opinion on something and after learning new information I changed my mind. Those opinions felt right at the time and such is the way of life - the world is ever-changing and so are we.
In a recent post about goal setting I expressed how I used to get frustrated when my goals always seemed to change and evolve and this is why. Similarly, something what you feel you should do or think or believe right now may not be something that is a should for you in six months time. But as long as you always listen to your inner guidance you should be okay.
Be Careful Of Your Own Shoulds!
Another person who can impose shoulds on you is you! Do you find yourself doing something because you just feel that you should even though you don’t really want to? A great example of this is new year’s resolutions. There are various statistics around but in general a very large percentage of new year’s resolutions are broken within mere day’s of setting them.
Why is this? One possible reason is that many people set their resolutions because they feel they should. I really should stop smoking this year, I should join a gym, I should donate some money to charity and so on. If these things do not feel right to you then you won’t have the motivation to see them through.
Always, ALWAYS listen to that inner guidance - your emotions, and check them regularly!
6 CommentsSeptember 26, 2008 Posted under: My Story by Caroline Middlebrook
The bliss that I found with my new partner was very temporary. Only four months later she decided that she no longer wanted to be with me. She gave me some story about her ex but I didn’t really take any notice of that. All I could think about was pondering the question, how did I attract this?
Unlike six months earlier when the breakdown of my relationship came as a complete shock, this time I felt very differently. I didn’t want us to split up but I didn’t fight it at all. I trusted that it was happening for a reason but I was still very confused. I could understand why my previous partner and I had split up because over the course of 10 years we had become very different people but of course that was not the case with this new relationship - nothing would have had a chance to change in just 4 months.
So did that mean that I had attracted the split or did I attract the wrong person in the first place? It slowly became apparent that I had done both. The Law of Attraction can be very complicated at times and when you get it wrong it can hurt! Through a lot of deep reflection I learned many things both about myself and about LoA in general.
Make Sure You Know What You Want
There is no doubt that I got exactly what I wanted. This new partner was everything I imagined beforehand. Also, there were some similarities with my previous partner in that she had a child so all the family stuff that I had been attracting before also manifested. The trouble is, I am not a natural with children. I am not maternal and that was a big problem in my previous relationship.
But here is the major mistake that I made that I didn’t understand for quite some time. When in my previous relationship, in my efforts to ressurrect it I wanted to do more as a family because I knew that was what she wanted. That was my life at the time - we had a child and I had a committment to them. I would never have walked out on them no matter how bad it got. But that was a mistake because I was not happy and I never would have been. Not everybody wants kids, and it turns out that I’m one of the people who doesn’t.
However, I had been attracting a family life and I got it again. My new partner had a child and at first I thought it was exactly what I wanted but I started to notice many problems. I ignored them though as I was so happy with the relationship itself. But a relationship is not just with one person, especially when children are involved. They come as a package, you can’t have the parent without the child.
I had attracted exactly what I asked for, but it turns out that I didn’t really and truly want what I asked for - only bits of it. As I started to look again towards the future I had difficulty fitting in my new partner and her child. We were so very different and at first our differences were fun but after a little while I began to see things differently but of course, I tried very hard to ignore them.
I remember having conversations with friends saying that all that matters is that we love each other and that nothing else matters. I was kidding myself - that’s not all that matters at all!
Be Specific In Your Asking
Many of the differences between us were things that I just hadn’t thought of. My previous partner and I were very similar in lots of ways and that’s probably why we stayed together for so long - we just kind of thought the same way, liked the same things and so on. But I took all this for granted, and when I was busy doing my LoA workshops trying to attract a new partner I never even considered many of these things.
The universe responds to your vibration but if you are not putting out a specific vibration then you are attracting by default. This is why bad stuff happens to good people - they didn’t necessarily attract something bad because they were being negative, they were just plodding along, minding their own business and letting life happen to them.
Everything that I specifically imagined manifested itself in the relationship. It was quite spooky in a way. Even certain decor in her house! But there was so much else that I had given no consideration too. For example, she was messy and I was tidy. I had never even considered this as my ex had always whined at me for being messy! So I got what I asked for, but there was so much I missed out.
This time around I spend time thinking about every little detail. Some things are more important than others of course - being messy isn’t really a big deal but when you have a whole bunch of little things like that they all add up.
The Universe Wants To Teach You
If I hadn’t had that second relationship, I wouldn’t have finally figured out that kids are just not for me. I had had a really good time for 4 months and then I had some pain which was excruciating for a while but it didn’t last. I learnt so much and in my final post in the series next week I’ll talk some more about that but what is clear to me is that this experience, even though it hurt like hell for a while, has put me in a better place now.
I have now got very clear about what I really want from a relationship and when I reflected I noticed that in the 17 years in which I have been in long term relationships, I was only truly happy for 2 of those years. For the other 15 I was settling. That’s just crazy. Why would I do that to myself? Again, the reason was very clear - I have always been quite weak in this area, scared to be alone. I have always stayed in a bad relationship because it seemed easier than being alone. The trouble is that life is too short to do that and I have now promised myself that I won’t do it again.
I very much want a relationship but only with the right person - somebody who really does tick all the boxes. If I hadn’t had this second breakup wake me up I wouldn’t have made that decision and I might have found myself wasting another 10 years with the wrong person.
I am almost at the end of my story. We split up in May and I started this blog a short while later. Join me next week for the last installment!
In the last post I talked about resistance and discussed some ideas for how to release it. Generally speaking resistance is a bad thing - it puts you in a negative mindset and blocks you from getting what you want but are there circumstances in which it can be of value?
The Role of Resistance in the Law of Attraction
I’ve been listening to a lot of Law of Attraction material lately - CDs from Abraham Hicks and archives of Wayne Dyer’s radio show on Hay House Radio. The basic premise seems to be that the only factors that affect the speed of manifestation of what you want are the strength of your desire for it and the amount of resistance around it. Most of us don’t have a problem with the desire part; it’s the resistance that trips us up. We roll around negative thoughts in our heads, we don’t believe we can have whatever it is that we want, we get frustrated with our current circumstances and so on.
So that is why its a good thing to work on releasing resistance and even if you’re not really a believer of Law of Attraction principles, resistance does not feel good so its a good thing to release it because it helps us feel better.
Where’s My Stuff?
There have been many times when I have not had what I wanted but I could see clearly why - because I just couldn’t get that negativity out of my head. I just couldn’t seem to stop focusing on the bad stuff, going over the past, beating up on myself and so on and this also added further resistance into the equation because I knew that all these negative thoughts were just pushing away the things that I wanted.
But over the last few months in particular, the resistance has slowly but surely lessened and my general state of being now compared to how it was just 5 months ago is radically different. But here’s the kicker - just as I start to feel better about everything and focus purely on what I want to manifest for my future and feel good about that, I start to get this nagging voice in my head that’s asking the question, “so where’s my stuff?”
You see, if my desire is strong (it’s red hot!) and I’m feeling good about it and I have let go of all those negative thoughts then surely I should be steaming towards what I want at a very fast pace. And if it has been this way for a while now then why isn’t it here yet? WHERE’S MY STUFF?!?!
Of course, as I’m sure you can see, getting impatient and frustrated is just another form of resistance. Sometimes I feel like I can’t win. On the one hand I know that the better I feel and the less resistance I have the more likely I am to be able to manifest what I want but on the other hand if I feel great all the time then I get frustrated if my desires don’t show up as quickly as I think they should.
Where Resistance Can Be Helpful
I’m living with family at the moment and probably will be for quite a few months. It’s ok but sometimes it can be annoying. My mother is very set in her ways and we see things very differently on many subjects so sometimes we clash and annoy each other a bit. Most of the time it doesn’t bother me and I’m just grateful to have somewhere to live but sometimes I can feel the frustration rising. I’m getting impatient, wanting to have my own place more quickly, or wishing my mother would just see things my way more often :-)
However this frustration is mild, it doesn’t cause me any major negative emotions and is more of a gentle nagging feeling. A walk in the fresh air or a few minutes with a good book usually gets rid of it. So I don’t stress over it too much. I doubt that having a little mild frustration is going to manifest anything disastrous in my life - but it could slow down my manifestations a bit.
This last point made me think that perhaps a little bit of resistance can be helpful. I think there are probably very few people who are absolutely positive 100% of the time and never have any negative emotion whatsoever. I’m sure even the most ‘enlightened’ of beings have some form of resistance now and then. So when I start thinking that I have it all sorted, that I’m totally positive and therefore should be manifesting my stuff at any moment, it’s probably a bit of an illusion.
The problem is that we are often blind to our own faults. So when I feel a little bit of resistance, or more importantly, I notice it, it lets me know that I’m human, that I don’t have it all sorted and this allows me to chill out a little bit and not expect everything to just fall into place overnight. In this way I find it easier to focus on the things that are going well, to notice the little improvements here and there which in turn does make me more positive overall.
Because I am no longer assuming that my vibration is 100% positive I am not expecting everything to manifest itself instantly so it allows me to relax and just let things come in their own time scale. Basically, it allows me to stop getting impatient and yelling, WHERE’S MY STUFF?
One of the things I have been trying to do on an emotional level lately is to release resistance so I’m not always “fighting against” something. They said that what you resist persists and I have certainly found that to be true in my own life.
What is Resistance?
Emotionally speaking, resistance is not wanting something and more importantly, not accepting that it is there. We tend to resist against current circumstances, perhaps an illness that we are suffering, or somebody close to us is suffering. It might be not wanting to be in a particular job, not wanting to be in debt and so on. When we feel resistance it feels bad. The more I fight against something the worse I feel.
Acceptance and Change
The opposite is resistance is acceptance. Now there is a very subtle difference between acceptance and tolerance. Let’s say you are in an abusive relationship. The reality of the situation cannot be argued with so you resist it and you feel bad. However accepting the situation for what it is does not mean that you condone the behaviour of your partner or that you should tolerate it.
To tolerate something is to put up with it despite the negative emotion that lies underneath it. This does not feel good. There are many situations that we resist against that we have some power to change, though often this change would take time. If you are in an abusive relationship, in a career you hate, are recovering from some injury or surgery, there is some action that you can take to make a change to ease the situation for the future but that change will not happen overnight. What happens in the meantime?
That is where you can make the choice between resistance and acceptance. I’ve mentioned before that fighting against the current situation is futile because right now in this moment, what is, simply is and so to fight against it is pointless. The key to inner peace is to accept the current situation whilst doing whatever is within your power to make a change.
How to Release Resistance
I have certainly found myself increasingly able to release resistance and accept what is, but I’m not sure I can explain in words exactly how do to it but I’ll try :-) First of all, I would look at the situation and see what, if anything, could be done about it. I always like to start from a practical level. I would look at what I could do about a situation, plan out how I was going to do it and that in itself would make me feel better because at least I knew that I was doing whatever I could.
At that point, the rest was out of my hands. I’ve had many situations where I had very little control over the thing that was given me the resistance. For example, when I went through a relationship breakup, I had no control over what my partner did, or felt, or thought. There was nothing I could do about that. I could change my own behaviour but that is only one half of the equation in a relationship.
Once you get to the point where you have identified what you can do, if anything and figured out how and when you’re going to do that, there is nothing left but to accept the situation.
I found that the resistance usually manifested itself in one of two ways. It was either as that little ‘voice in the head’ that Eckhart Tolle talks about or it was simply a feeling - an emotion that would feel bad. The voice in the head used to be a big problem for me but I actually find this easier to deal with than just raw emotion because I can reason with it and if that fails I can quieten it.
Quietening The Voice in the Head
If you have a chatterbox in your head who drives you nuts going over and over the same stuff in your head then see if you can learn to quieten it down. I do this simply by concentrating on something else. You can concentrating on your breathing, or a background noise such as the traffic, a ticking clock, the hum of an electrical appliance and so on. If you practice this you’ll notice that the voice was quiet for a moment. It might just be a few seconds at first but its a start. I have been practicing this for several months and I have found that not only am I able to shut that voice up almost the instant it arises, but it simply doesn’t arise anywhere near as much any more.
Dealing With a Bad Feeling
Other times I don’t get the voice but just that feeling. This can feel like all sorts of different things - an eerie nagging feeling that something is not right, restlessness, frustration, or sometimes something much darker like a feeling of dread, fear or intense loneliness.
I used to just use distraction to try to get rid of the feeling - watching TV for example but I always found that to be short lived. It would temporarily cover up the emotion but it was still there waiting for me. My new approach is to try to look at the feeling. This is hard to describe. When I notice something I try to sense if I can feel it physically and usually I can. For example I have found that I feel loneliness in my chest, sadness in my throat, guilt in my stomach and stress tends to sit in my shoulders.
Once I can feel where in my body the feeling is, I just try to watch it and let it be. This is something else that is difficult to describe but I guess it is simply doing nothing - not trying to distract yourself, not trying to feel better by directing your thoughts, but simply sitting (or lying) quietly and watching the emotion for a while it can lessen a little. Over time, I have found that the feelings have lessened more and more.
5 CommentsSeptember 19, 2008 Posted under: My Story by Caroline Middlebrook
The breakup of my relationship that I described in part 9 hit me very hard. It was more than just the loss of a relationship – it was almost everything I had known for 10 years and that included my home, my cats (I have them back with me now), social clubs in the area and so on. Thankfully the one thing I had that remained constant was my business. If I had had to face quitting my job as well it would have been too much to take.
I was caught up in extreme anger for quite a while. I felt as though my partner should have given us more of a chance. At the time I didn’t see that we’d already had 10 years so a few more months wasn’t going to make any difference. I refused to see any alternative to a future with her, I refused to accept that maybe we had been making each other miserable for far too long and splitting up was the best thing for both of us.
I did not behave very well in this time. I constantly phoned her up, begging her to take me back, then I’d go into rages and say terrible things, I would cry and beg and I just became a pathetic wreck.
One day about 5 weeks after the split I hit a particularly low point and that evening I decided to make one last ditch attempt to get my partner back. I phoned her up and used absolutely everything I could think of to get her to change her mind. Then something strange happened, rather than just saying no she hesitated and said it was too much to think about and that she needed some time and would have to call me back.
As soon as I put the phone down I knew I was making a mistake. Suddenly I was faced with the actual possibility of a reconciliation and I saw it in a very different light. Too much damage had been done, I was very hurt and she was in love with somebody else. There was absolutely no way we could go back and I knew it. I felt sick for about an hour and then phoned her back, apologised and said that was the end of it – no more, it was over.
Finally I felt some relief, I was able to accept that it was over and had to figure out how to move on with my life. I figured that much of what I wanted out of life could be had with friends and that a relationship was not all that important – especially when it was in the state that ours had been in.
The next morning for the first time since the split I knew that I was going to be ok. Then something very, very strange happened – I met the person who I was going to fall in love with and have a wonderful new relationship with!
Within 24 hours of releasing all that negative emotion and just letting go, my new partner came into my life. That moment really cemented within me the idea that the Law of Attraction is real. 24 hours!!
My new partner, I’ll call her ‘A’ was wonderful and I felt things that I had not felt in many years. Before my previous partner, (I’ll call her ‘E’) and I had split up I had been visualising a future that involved my partner and our child and how I wanted life to be. I felt the emotions I wanted to feel and I saw us doing things and going places and having fun as a family.
At the time I had wanted to experience that lifestyle with E but it could not happen because we were not in alignment with each other but Law of Attraction brings you experiences that match what you are thinking and feeling about. I couldn’t get that with E but that is exactly what I attracted with A. She had a child too and it was almost as if I had replaced one family with a new one.
Unfortunately, my new-found bliss was to be very short lived, only 4 months in fact. Tune in next week (oh gosh I sound like a radio show!) to find out how it all went horribly wrong and why I think that is! I’m close to the end of my story now… :-)
Have you ever had a situation where something is about to happen, and it might turn out well or not so good but in the meantime you just want to know? It feels like you just can’t take the suspense? You just need to know one way or the other? What IS that?
When I was a child my 4-month old kitten went missing and I was incredibly distraught. Obviously I wanted the best outcome, I wanted to find her and bring her home but it was the not knowing that was really eating me alive. As the days drew on I just wanted to know one way or the other what had happened to her. If she had been run over then I just wanted to know. I remember on the first day she went missing I told my mother that I wasn’t going to bed until she was home! I would be damn tired now if I had stuck to that one! It was over 25 years ago and I never knew what happened to her.
This morning I’ve just got into one of those situations where something is happening, and it might go either way - good outcome or not so good. I’m actually fine with it going either way but i feel like I just really want to know! I don’t know when I’m going to find out what the outcome is. Hopefully it shouldn’t be more than a couple of weeks but it might be several months! What is this need to know?
I decided to do a little bit of inward questioning to see if I could figure out what was going on and to see if I could give myself a bit of peace. I asked myself, if I knew today that it was a positive outcome, would I do anything differently today? No I wouldn’t, nothing would change today. Similarly, if I knew today that it would be a negative outcome, would I do anything differently today? Nope! And would I do anything differently if I went the rest of the day not knowing? Well no! So if it makes no difference what the outcome is and makes no difference whether or not I find out today, then what on earth am I getting in a tizzy over?
I don’t know!
There’s a kind of excitement at the possibility of getting a good outcome but there’s also a kind of excitement right now, just playng with the possibilities in my mind. I decided that all I could really do was simply notice what I was feeling and become okay with it. So I sat for a while, took some deep breaths, and just noticed that uneasy feeling, that wanting to know, and decided to just let the emotion be. After a few minutes it began to pass but it keeps popping back in again!
It’s just like that feeling when you’ve been on a job interview and you’re waiting to find out if you’ve got the job or not. You’ve already prepared yourself either way but t’s just that not knowing that gets to you. You feel like you’re in limbo until you know what the outcome is.
I’m sure other people get this. I’d love to hear about your experiences with it! Do you experence this feeling? Have you found a way to get comfortable with it?
My friend Jenny Mannion who writes the wonderful blog, Heal Pain Naturally wrote to me to ask if I would participate in her group writing project, Heroes of Healing. The idea is simple - a group of bloggers writing about people who have been heroes (or heroines in my case) of a healing process, be it emotionally of physically. I have several of these heroes and have already mentioned them but I chose to write about Byron Katie for my contribution.
My Healing Journey
Since starting this blog I have been posting weekly chunks of my story that has lead me to the point of going through two major crises within six months and starting this blog. I reached such a low point that I knew that the most important thing I could do for myself would be to learn how to cope with the pain that life throws at you. Often we try to escape our pain, or arrange our lives so that we don’t suffer from any more pain but that kind of thinking tends to cause us to live our lives in fear. Instead I felt it better to accept that sometimes life sucks and find a way of learning how to surrender to life and how to cope on an emotional level.
I had several ‘heroes’ during this time and one of them was Byron Katie. Her book, I Need Your Love, Is That True? was one of the most transformational books that I read in that time and it was also the most relevant to the situation I was going through.
Byron Katie & The Work
Katie (as she prefers to be called) has created a process called The Work which is a process of inquiry where we question our thoughts to determine whether or not they are true. Katie believes that our emotional pain is caused by believing our thoughts, many of which simply aren’t true. The process is very simple and yet, so very powerful.
The questions are:
1) Is it true?
2) Can you absolutely know that it’s true?
3) How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?
4) Who would you be without the thought
She then invites you to turn the thought around. These questions seem simple but when asked against the right thoughts they are capable of creating an ‘aha’ moment that releases you from the prison of your own thinking.
Katie was recently interviewed by Oprah Winfrey and she did The Work with Oprah. Oprah chose to use her weight as the issue. The first step is too find the thought that causes the pain and Oprah decided that it was “my body is too big” which I’m sure is a thought that many of us can relate to. So Katie asked if it was true and Oprah blurted out “Yes it’s true!” but to the second question she hesitated a little bit. Could she absolutely know that it was true that her body was too big? Of course the answer was no.
Slight digression here but this concept has also been touched on by Eckhart Tolle who says that everything is just as it should be and how do we know that? Because that’s what it is. We say things like, my body is too big but what does that mean? Too big to survive in? Obviously not or we’d be dead. Back to Byron Katie & Oprah…
Eventually Oprah had to admit that she couldn’t absolutely know that her body was too big and was able to move onto the next question. When she believed that thought it created a lot of stress and worry, particularly over food. If she didn’t have the thought she concluded that she would feel peace instead of stress.
Why Is The Work Effective?
If you have a look at your own thoughts that are causing you pain you will find that many of them are arguing with “what is”. My partner should not have left me, I should not have cancer, I’m poor, my sister should not be in prison, I hate my job, my mother should love me etc etc. All of these are caused by somehow fighting with current reality and that is always madness. We cannot fight with what is, because what is, just is!
There are many spiritual teachers who teach this message that you cannot argue with reality but the trouble is that many of us do it anyway - it’s human nature! Although I had read this many times before and I understood it on an intellectual level that did not help me stop doing it. I still kicked and screamed in frustration about my current circumstances.
Byron Katie was the first person I encountered who actually provided a practical, workable process that showed me exactly HOW to stop arguing with reality. When we realise that many of our thoughts just aren’t true and that believing them just turns us into stress-monsters, it becomes easier to slowly let those thoughts go. Even if it doesn’t happen overnight it opens a door because every time that thought pops into your head again it doesn’t have as much power as before because inside you know it isn’t true.
Byron Katie’s Story
As with many of our great teachers of today, there is a story behind the person that is there today. In the 80’s Katie suffered from severe depression and self loathing. She hated herself so much that she slept on the floor because she didn’t feel worthy enough to sleep in a bed. She didn’t leave the bedroom except to use the bathroom, her life was a mess. Then in 1986 one morning she got her wake up call. In her words:
I discovered that when I believed my thoughts, I suffered, but that when I didn’t believe them, I didn’t suffer, and that this is true for every human being. Freedom is as simple as that. I found that suffering is optional. I found a joy within me that has never disappeared, not for a single moment. That joy is in everyone, always.
The transformation that followed was dramatic and swift and those around her could not fail to notice. People began asking her what her secret was and she began to help others question their thoughts in the way she had questioned hers. Over time this process of inquiry became known as “The Work” and is what she teaches today.
What I Learned From Byron Katie
The most profound thing that I learned from Byron Katie is that there is some entity inside of me (I call him my little demon!) that LIES to me. He puts thoughts in my head which are designed to hurt me and these thoughts simply are not true. I also learned that I didn’t need to believe these thoughts - just because they were in my head didn’t mean that I had to own them and make them mine.
Many thanks to Jenny for running this Heroes of Healing project - do be sure to check it out as there are a great many other heroes that are being covered including many of my other favourites such as Eckhart Tolle, Wayne Dyer & Esther Hicks.
I set out to actively lead a life that truly feels good in the Spring of 2008 after a series of setbacks in my personal life. My aim is to spread whatever I learn about feeling good to others through this blog.
