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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
 Posted - Nov 21 2005 : 10:21:24 PM
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I said in another thread:
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Well, I actually have been reaching some new things in meditation, but I have a loong way to go. There's lots of things I haven't gotten to yet. If I miss a single practice session, I revert fast to my old graspy/irritible/malcontent self (though it's not as deeply burned in, and I can catch myself fairly easily). And people are still people...I can feel their energy and I'm naturally/instinctively empathetic (emotionally), but I can't feel any deep affinity/unity. In place of jewels in my stomach, I have only Rolaids. And nectar shmectar. Oh, and I had a small bout of road rage yesterday. I could go on.
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it's all true. And worse! I have a phobia that's always incapacitated me in certain specific situations (luckily, they're predictable). This weekend, I was in a situation that exposed me to such a situation. I reacted in the usual way...panic, feeling of suffocation, overwhelming urge to flee.
A few years ago, I used to see everything pretty binary. Everything was good or bad. And the things I've described above would have indicated to me that I'm making NO PROGRESS AT ALL. Still stuck in the maya/samsara, still attached, still at the mercy of my emotions and passions. Argh. Harumph. Sigh.
But know what? I recovered from the road rage quickly; I didn't spend the subsequent two hours going over and over the incident in my mind, making myself angrier and angrier. And when I get grouchy, it's not an all-consuming grouchiness. It feels almost as if I"m PLAYING at grouchiness. And my phobic reaction definitely knocked me well off kilter...but it wasn't absolutely debilitating. I didn't get lost in it. All of this, I realize, sounds like mere shadings. But all the good things are in the shadings. Yoga is all about the shadings. I've learned the value of shadings.
We expect that as we make progress in yoga, that all our bad habits and anger and attachments will totally drop away, leaving us "perfected". We expect to turn into the smiling, being-here-now, more-godly-than-god figures so many "masters" pretend to be. Well, baloney. They all have anger, fear, and the whole mishmash of human issues. We're all human. You never ever stop being human. But your soul can wear its humanity lightly.
I'm posting this as a breadcrumb trail for people who think like I did ten years ago. Consider the subtleties of your behavior, rather than the big arc. Progress in yoga doesn't hinge on being a doe-eyed smiley-puss all the time. It hinges on grabbing on just a little less tightly to whoever you perceive yourself to be at any given moment. Every micro-notch less grabbing - i.e. more letting go - is a thousand tons of pure gold. It's not about becoming less screwed up, it's about loosening your identification with and attachment to the screwed up person you will always continue to be - who is just as much a phantom of the maya/samsara as anyone/anything else.
If you absolutely must judge your progress, keep your eye on the subtleties; monitor how tightly your bonds restrain and how tightly shut your doors are. That's all that matters on this path. The bigger picture stuff (e.g. becoming more spiritual-seeming) is just about stylishness. Nothing to do with yoga. |
Edited by - Jim and His Karma on Nov 21 2005 11:06:31 PM |
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Anthem
1608 Posts |
Posted - Nov 21 2005 : 10:48:10 PM
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Hey Jim,
quote:
And worse! I have a phobia that's always incapacitated me in certain specific situations (luckily, they're predictable). This weekend, I was in a situation that exposed me to such a situation. I reacted in the usual way...panic, feeling of suffocation, overwhelming urge to flee.
I know you didn't write your post to focus on this part of it but some thoughts on this topic came to mind that I wanted to share.
I have found with anything I fear, that my initial inclination is to flee or avoid it at all costs which ultimately only makes the fear "get louder" or do more to get my attention. Have you ever considered going the other way? Jump in, see what that phobia is really all about, why is it so big and threatening to you after all, what it is that you are really so afraid of? Can it come down to something that is behind the phobia to an underlying root cause? What is the absolute worst that can happen if what you are afraid of happens, is it really so awful? What does it mean if it occurs?
I have found that if I explore my fears, I am responding to the concern or situation I am so desperately trying to avoid. To me that is what fear is trying to do for me, letting me know exactly what I don't want. Fear to me is the best and truest friend any of us have. It is trying to paint a very clear picture for you of what you want to avoid at all costs, it also lets you know exactly what you want, most often the opposite. Acknowledge the service that fear provides, thank it for being so helpful and most importantly determine and focus on what you want to have happen instead.
Maybe this will help, it works for me.
A
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Nov 21 2005 : 10:57:40 PM
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Anthem, good news, I can point you to a wealth of info on exactly what you're talking about. Search on the term "counterphobic". To whet your appetite, a great number of mountain climbers are counterphobics (who started out with fear of heights).
I find that almost everything we deem negative about ourselves is vastly better fixed by "flipping" somehow to an inverse rather than trying to simply expunge the negative (they always tend to sneak back in, like vainly trying to remove a pleat from pants via vigorous ironing). It takes some serious mulling over to discover the flip. If the solution comes easily to you, it's probably not the optimal flip.
Note that fear and phobia are not the same thing. The things you fear are part of you. A phobia is like a visitor from another planet with no intrinsic "hooks" into your personality. It's out of nowhere. My phobia prevents me from doing something very much like things I'm particularly prone to enjoy doing. There is zero in the way of sane explanation. I can't be reasoned out of the phobia, because there's no reason involved. I watch myself dispassionately as I get completely blindsided. Phobia is wholly different from normal human fear. And it's rarer than people think. And I'm not sweating mine, because it's pretty specific and doesn't much impede my lifestyle. And I enjoy having it around to bounce off of, gauge my internal reactions, etc. |
Edited by - Jim and His Karma on Nov 21 2005 11:03:03 PM |
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Behavioral Improvement: All in the Shadings
