Let me correct a mistaken impression. Posted by John on June 11, 1999 at 19:43:24:
In Reply to: Re: Great strides penetrate the veil. posted by hoodoosuz on June 11, 1999 at 08:00:51:
Hold your horses, Suz! I've sent you down a wrong trail, and I
apologize. That was a poor piece of coaching I did in that last
posting to you, and I see the mistake I made now.
First of all, I wish you could accept the fact that you are a normal
person. The things that you experience could be and sometimes are being
experienced by others around you in the same ways. And the state of
your consciousness is normal, just like everybody else in your county up
there. You do have a "sensitivity" about you—I seem to see it as a
nervous skittishness like a racehorse, but I may be wrong about that.
You are not crazy, but as you try things out you may "bolt with
nervousness" about them at first, before settling into a run.
And I have gotten you thinking about mindfulness in my last posting in a
way that is really counter-productive. I hope we can remedy this.
When you have learned what mindfulness is, you will have just popped
into it, and you will be able to see clearly, "Ah, yes, this is
mindfulness." It won't be vague, or something you have to sift for in
your thinking or guess about to try to figure out if you've got it.
Once you catch on, mindfulness is obvious. That is, it's obvious when
you remember it, and when you're forgetting about it you don't even
remember mindfulness exists at all.
I didn't mean to imply that I thought you had caught on to the
experience of mindfulness yet, Suz. I aplogize if I made it seem that
way and "got you started." I don't think you have quite caught it yet.
And when a person does catch on, it isn't from trying to figure it out
from the things we're saying about it here in class, but rather from
doing the awareness exercises in the Kindergarten, or in other systems
that teach such exercises.
What I did mean was that you were apparently having glimpses of "sleep,"
or the ordinary human condition, in those experiences you described.
That is, you were noticing periods of time when your alertness had not
been on full power--and, for instance, you were driving without paying
full attention to it, and you later realized it.
I understand that it might seem scary to you at first to begin realizing
that you and the other people around you are going around with "lowered
powers of attention" zooming around among each other. But after all,
you and all the other people have been going around being "asleep" in
this way—that is "not being in focused attention" this way—for years and
years. And still, everything gets done, in this realm of sleeping
humans. People graduate from school, get jobs, marry, raise families,
have careers, fly airplanes, play the stock market, and all that good
stuff. You're no less a driver, or a Mom, than you've ever been.
And yet it is true that you can be "more of a driver," "more of a Mom,"
than you have ever been, by learning to turn on the increased alertness
of mindfulness on purpose. The world gets along without mindfulness,
with the vague ordinary consciousness that is the common ordinary human
condition. Learning to be mindful is only learning to "turn up the
rheostat," and really see clearly, really hear clearly, really smell,
and really taste, and really feel sensitively. Although it is a bit
unusual when one is first getting used to it, this is not an unpleasant
experience.
In my last posting to you, I got you to trying to think about what
mindfulness would be like and whether what you were experiencing might
be mindfulness or not. That could only confuse you. The exercises are
the way to find this out. Thinking about it and having fantasies about
it won't help at all. My mistake in putting you up to that.
Another large portion of the territory of your last posting was devoted
to:
>i don't understand the feeling i've always had when this happens;
This is one of the eight basic feelings that we all have, called "fear."
There is a class devoted to this in the Kindergarten. Notice how all
the elements that are pointed out in that class (and in the wheelbook)
about the relationship between control and fear are here in the words
that you say about it:
>when it gets scary to me the thought of being out of mind or asleep as we call it here is horrifying to me.I get a cold rush all over and feel out of control upon REALIZING I've been ASLEEP at all!!!
Possibly your neck gets tight, when you think this, and your shoulders
get pulled up around your neck with tensions. That's the physical
manifestation of fear in the human body.
Well, I understand this thinking is scary, and yet you're just dealing
with what you are thinking about it here, which is not it, so far. And
you don't yet know what it is. It's not my experience that people find
mindfulness "scary." It may be a surprise. It may be an "Oh, I see."
It may be a "Yippee! I get it now!"
This thing you describe so eloquently about needing to feel in control,
is another insight you have. You even guess it:
>So just another hoodoosuz weirdness I attribute to ME but we all have these type of things or do we???????????????
Yes, we do! It's not a "weirdness." This is just a personality
characteristic of the Can Do Person/Dictator. If this is one of your
primary types it wouldn't be too surprising because you are obviously so
endowed as a Can-Do Woman, chopping stumps. calling to the lions, and
all. If this is so for you, then when you are into your Can Do Woman,
you are being tough, brave, competent, and handy with your hands. When
you would be into being your Dictator would be when you were being
afraid and needing to be in control of whatever seemed to be out of
control to you.
Well, you tell me how a person can proceed along in a "learning process"
without being out of control of the fact that every new thing that they
learn is new? Learning itself is "out of control," so to speak. To a
certain extent, learning to let go of having to be in control can be a
definite aide in learning new things.
In order to get the most out of this class, different ones of you will
have to learn to lighten up on having to be in control, having to look
good, having to always be right, having always to be different, having
to not get to it and do the hard work, having to have instant security,
always having to be loved in return. and having to be too busy helping
others to have the time to learn something for you. These are the
challenges that go with the eight personality types.
>Maybe I am learning about myself?
Yes, and about others at the same time. About every third person we
meet has the Can Do Person/Dictator as one of their primary types.
Suz, I notice that as you go along this learning process, when you
notice certain things about your own self you seem to have a tendancy to
think and expect that what you are seeing is unique and different about
you than others, and therefor, as you seem to see it, a flaw of some
kind in you. That's just not so. If you go on studying what you and
your self are like, you will also be studying what the human self is
like in all of us.
>You mean I'm not crazy after all!!HAHAHA! This is good.
Yeah, HAHAHA! {wide grin} You got it!
Coach
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