Oh snap! I forgot to mention another fun fact in the course of reframing... my Dell laptop. You know, the one whose battery gets so hot that sometimes I think it's going to burst in to a fiery ball of computer magma? Well, with it being so cold in here, now it's the perfect temperature to keep me warm.
Along the lines of reframing....I had an amazing insight this morning, and it involves beliefs versus thoughts. There are many good things that come from having positive thoughts, obviously, but if our underlying beliefs about something run counter to those thoughts, then the "power" that we normally associate with "thinking positive" is largely neutralized. Because at a deeper level, if we are really carrying around a message that is negative, or is driven by fear or anxiety or whatever, then that is the message that is going to be broadcast, both out loud and to our subconscious. Beliefs trump thoughts every time.
That part, in and of itself, wasn't terribly new to me. What was new to me was how it applied to my life. With my super long work days and the house remodel and having little personal/private time it was easy to start feeling worn down and burnt out. Recognizing the mental space that I was in, I decided to keep thinking positive about everything. But this morning I realized that while I was doing my best to think and be positive, underneath it all there was still a feeling, or a belief, that was based on negativity.
This isn't my journal. I don't need to air all of my dirty laundry to the world...so I won't go in to all of the details. But I will say that once I recognized what had been happening, and I started thinking about the base belief system and how it could be changed to be positive, within about 10 minutes I noticed a difference in how I felt. And I mean how I REALLY felt.
In lots of ways it's about "tension", right? Those negative belief systems that stick deep in to our subconscious create psychic tension...in both our bodies and our minds. What happens when we view the world framed through these tensions? What happens to our vision and outlook? How do we see our lives, and our purpose? How do we see others?
How do we purge ourselves of the tension that we have? Is it enough to learn to be totally present in the moment (because afterall, this inner tension is for the most part based on the past or the future)? Or do we need to be more cognitive about it? Find the larger context in which to intepret what we've found?
Another day, when I have more time, perhaps I can develop these thoughts more fully. I guess I already have ideas on it (of course) but haven't totally worked through to the final answers (if they are there to begin with).
I can't help but think about the Buddhist idea of suffering coming from wanting things to be other than they are. It seems so applicable here.
Another, unrelated, thing...you know when people say "I am up to my ass in (blank)"? And the "blank" can be anything that they are overwhelmed by? Well, it occured to me that people also say "I am up to my eyeballs in (blank)". Now, you would THINK that the "ass" version would mean that someone is in a worse off space than the "eyeball" version because profanity is usually used to express more extreme situations. But the offending thing in question here is "up to"...implying a rising level...implying from the ground up. And since your eyeballs are clearly much higher than your ass, technically being "up to your eyeballs" is a much worse off place to be!
I know, weird, right?
I don't even want to think about the phrase "ass over teacup/teakettle"....
Sleepy...sleepy... it's beginning to seriously settle in, and I need to catch the yin train because the yang train is coming by at 11p....which is only 20min away...
Before ski conditioning class started tonight I was in the gym shooting around. There was a time when basketball was my life, but frankly, in the last 15 years I have barely played at all. I can still shoot well. My accuracy from the NBA 3-point line is just as keen...I'm just not quite as consistent, as I haven't been shooting on a regular basis. Anyway, I decided that I was going to shoot free throws until I missed. Eighteen makes later I finally had one rim out. And I had to laugh, because it's been 20 years or more since I've stood at the free throw line and practiced knocking down free throws.
I am just amazed that having something like a free throw shot drilled in to your muscle memory so much when you are in high school...over and over and over...can be called up like an internal program and be replicated more than 20 years later. Thank you, Mr McGill, for all of that practice!
I'd like to write more...or go back and edit and re-write what I've written here...but I just don't have time. Oh well, it's just a function of where things are right now. In the meantime, Happy Halloween!
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