This happens fairly regularly these days as I go deeper into trust. And it seems to be cyclic following a breakthrough in understanding or when I’ve exposed the ego, which I’ve just done in a post the other day about how I try to impress people.
I call it a kickback. Now I know we don’t actually literally have separate characters existing inside us but it can seem to be so. The ego character, the fearful self that feels all alone and separate and scared much of the time, really doesn’t like it when I infringe on its territory. I call her Anxious Annie.
She puts a stop to any prolonged feeling of relaxed well-being if she can find an ‘in’. And it’s my job as ‘manager’ to have the discipline to observe these attempts and let go and notice and let go and notice and let go over and over till she loses interest and I bore her away.
If the thought has found an in, and is felt in the body I first toward her anxiety with compassion and give it a little space to be there, though without any thought elaboration on it. Just cradling it where it is felt in the body, normally for me in a tightened chest or throat. And I breath low down in the body as I am giving the feeling some space.
That is actually happening – the boring of my mind with my disinterest in its alarmist thoughts, the attempts are fewer and I’m rarely wracked with anxiety thoughts these days. They don’t get to proliferate into entire catastrophic stories at least now. Not very often anyway.
This takes quite a lot of applied and purposeful self care, compassion and soothing during this process, although it really doesn’t take long for the rewards to be experienced.
Thing is you get to fall in love with inner peace after a while. It’s so relaxing. And the lack of self referencing, which was scary at first, becomes the new normal. This blog is nearly all self referencing of course as it’s about the journey. And that’s okay.
What’s important minute to minute during a day is that I am being in this space that is life appearing and enjoying just travelling along and being carried by it all.
No need for constant self referential thoughts. I don’t need to think about me, woohoo! I can be in each moment as it arrives and then the next and next and next. Constant flow and change carrying like a gentle stream and we can trust ourselves to respond as we need to. What a revelation. I used to think I had to control everything.
Learning to Rest with it All 