Holding Presence

Recently I am coming more and more into the realization that when we hold presence for what is happening in our inner world or for someone else, something beautiful comes out of it.

I used to think that being silent and just listening is holding presence but that is not entirely it because  many a times, there are still a lot of chattering in the mind and I was thinking of how to respond, what can I say next etc.

I was away in a workshop and in it I was paired up with another person and all I had to do was allow the person to speak and I just listen...... In the first practice, all I notice was I was so self conscious and I hardly could be present to what the person was expressing and at the same time wanting to give an empathic answer.... And hoping it will be right....it was very stressful and I did not feel connected to the other person at all.

In another practice, I set the intention of just being present and let nature takes its course, this time the experience was very different. I could just sit silently and pay attention. There was no discomfort or urgency to respond. And when I made a response, there were not many words needed. The feeling of being connected did not require much words to express. I noticed the person who I was holding presence for looked relaxed and I am guessing she felt safe emotionally too. I just felt gratified when she mentioned that she felt empathized.

When Everything Is Enough

Everyone of us have experiences in every moment of our lives and how conscious we are will determines whether we react or respond to an experience. Recently, I had the pleasure of hosting a few loved ones in my home and I find myself spending a lot of time preparing meals and ensuring that they are comfortable. Though I was enjoying it, I did not realized that at a certain point I was overextending myself and not taking care of myself. Of course not far behind was feeling of tiredness and anger . The interesting thing is, emotions are our warning light so to speak but it is so easily forgotten and instead we wallow in it and start to make others wrong for whatever reason. The more unconscious, the more drama and thoughts will snowball to labeling self as inadequate, not enough, unworthy etc.

As I was sharing this with a friend, it dawned upon me that even when in such throngs of wallowing, if there is a just a spark of wisdom, a person can actually just realize that what is happening in their life at the moment, is just as it is. In other words, everything is just enough. If I can only be this able to handle myself..... It's enough. If  I need to cry a bit, it's also enough. If I need to take a break, it is also enough. Recognizing this will bring peace back because constantly, when we are feeling lousy/uncaring/unpleasant, we do not allow ourselves to feel that and we try to fix it because it is deemed that all these emotions are indication we are not enough. In actual case, it does not. The awareness of the emotions is actually telling us we are enough. This is for me a paradoxical learning journey that needs constant reminder.

Insanity of Wrong Ideas

In a recent retreat that I was helping out with, the theme was "Ideas Attract Situations" and it was interesting to just see how each idea propel us in a certain direction hence attracting the situation. Just today when I had the idea that I am not loved, immediately feelings of sadness and thoughts that gather evidence that "i am not loved" started to sprout.  Hence started the insanity or the drama of wanting to be loved. While being aware of what is happening in the mind, there was awareness that the conditioning is such that, this was the experience that is being experienced.

I notice and also reflected that this drama can be played out in many ways in our lives like :-
a. I could go all out and do pleasing things to others so that they will appreciate and love me
b. I could ask another person to validate that they love me.... which is a strategy that is used very often in movies. But if the person do not validate and invalidate instead .... the drama will get bigger and worse
c. I could do weird actions like scolding the other person and nit pick in the hope that the other person will see the follies of their way and love me for being so wise ..... but this is definitely a strategy that brings about more negative response and the chances of getting what I want will be lower :D
d. I could give the person the silent treatment until the person acknowledges me or concede defeat.... again this is the cold war strategies which most women are familiar with....and result is also not good

So, I decided to take a different route of just being with the drama in the mind and watching the mental states when it believes the story. The question that popped up was that, what is the deeper underlying idea that is not being known so far to have caused this situation. Is there an idea of wanting to be special ? worthy or unworthy ? to be important ? wanting to win ? righteous ? dissatisfaction ?

From a discussion with B, I realise that aversion of something or greed of something is like the glue that is feeding the feelings. But what I was not recognising is that an idea has taken root so it must run its course as in its just nature... But the fact that I wish to fix the situation to my advantage, the ability to just be awake to the situation was not there.... hence drama continues. But once awaken, drama stops as mind recognises that its just nature.

In Love with What ?

I read some time ago of how support groups are formed so that people who suffered similar diseases could get together and support each other but there were cases where the support group itself became a means for a person to perpetuate their condition.

There was a woman who was in a support group for an illness and as she got better, the leader of the support group told her that she is now cured and need no longer be in the support group. She got very upset and accused them of being unsupportive and mean. However, what has actually happened is that she was going around wearing a sort of invisible badge telling everyone that she is suffering from a disease and hence deserved to be given attention and preference. So if she was cured, she would no longer enjoy the attention and preference. So, in this case, it was clearly that she was in love with the illness that she could not live without it though her initial plan was to be cured of it.

Now, how often do we hold on to certain beliefs or ideas for dear life and defend it to death ? I have been doing that many a times unconsciously where I defend some ideas or belief and later realising that it was unnecessary as it create additional stress in my life. I felt rather foolish later. Like the movie title "Rebel without a cause". Come to think of it, it was rather funny, when I realised that I defended a belief because I did not know what else to believe. So its also a case of familiarity breeds ignorance.

So, I have been observing what triggers me and observe what is the belief that is underlining it. Its interesting for me to observe that when I believe something, all actions are to support it.

Grey Area

Recently, I have been noticing how I have been viewing life in clear distinction of Black and White. What I mean by this is that when an experience happens, there is only 2 ways to see it, its good or bad. There cannot be a maybe .

Because of such a mindset, I will not be able to see a wider scope of a situation or experience because i have capped the experience. If I view an experience as "Bad", unpleasant feelings would be felt and mind would go into a spiral down thinking pattern fraught with worry and apprehension.Because of such exclusivity in the view, there is no way that I could see that MAYBE.... what is happening.... is for me to learn something from the reflections

I noticed because of "maybe", I get to see beyond the experience. For example, I have been chatting with a friend lately and he was sharing about his experiences with his bosses that were not pleasant. I notice, during the sharing, there was an immersion into the experience and perspective that they are "bad", "unkind" etc, there was no way that he could see beyond that. And even if he could see that there were some "good" , it was very quickly flooded over by the "bad" stuff. It was easy for him to see that his misery is all due to them.

It dawned to we that, if he went down this path, the logical thing to do was to leave the job. But after talking awhile, I slowly prompted him to see a little beyond the experience and look for the pattern in his experiences. He could see that it was repeated in almost all his employment where the bosses were perceived as prosecutors and him as victim. As we dive in deeper, it did seem that there was some other issue that were causing all his unpleasant experiences which was a view he had of himself.

So from this experience, I could see that if we learn to see something in the Grey Area or what I call the "Maybe" space, we could look deeper, inquire more and be curious as oppose to just seeing situation as BLACK and just react to it negatively.

Merry Christmas

Its been a while since I blogged. Just spent 4 weeks in a retreat out of Malaysia. I wondered this time would I miss home. Strangely the moment the next experience happen, I hardly think of home. I noticed that I think of home when conditions are less favorable that what I experience at home. Looks like the mind is constantly making comparison and judgement.

As I see more n more of daily scenes in the place that I went, I notice an acceptance or a settling in to see what the world I view then is the norm. I came to accept walking bare footed , people spitting betel nut juice in the road, walking around wt sarong and is norm.

When I touch down in LCCT n saw rain, the mind was so happy as it had not seen rain for 1 month.

What I know for this moment on Christmas Day is that I choose to give myself a present of being in the present moment. Merry Christmas !!!

When The Conditions Are Right

"Everything fell into place" so to speak when I was out with H. We were at an exhibition and made a pact to leave in an hrs time to go for another appointment. As we went round we found something that we were looking for and started to inquire more. After a while when I saw that time has run out and we are late for the next appointment, the thought started the ball rolling and mind started to get agitated as it really wish to move on. With this, the condition is now right for anger to arise and for accusations to fly if there was unconsciousness.

Because of the awareness that the conditions are already set so to speak, I walked ahead as i know it was just conditions working its and attacking H abt being tardy with time would not help matter. Because anger is running its show then, all I could do is to be aware of the show. Because of this lack of interference, the mind state could change to a calmer side quite fast with just residue of anger left.

Because there is residue and less vigilance, a new condition arised when another incident happen. In this incident, the disappointment with myself for making a decision earlier from fear of not getting something, from greed of wanting something and from not trusting myself but trusted others opinion, all this accummulated with me feeling unhappy and upset because I thought I mad a bad decision.

But when the mind saw again that a condition has arised and is doing its work, very quickly peace returned. I had to laugh because there was no wrong decision or mistake. The action taken fr the space of fear, greed and not trusting was exactly the perfect decision and no other decision could have happened. So what is left is not about correcting the situation for what's done is finished. All there is to do is to make a choice for the next moment.
With that freedom is again experienced.