Forgiveness 101: Other people are shits

This was going to be some fancy summary, but I haven't eaten all day, trying out Ramadan, which in Austin, in July means not eating from 6:36 in the morning until 8:36 at night.
A tidy 14 hours.
Blah.

And a good time to remember how annoying others are:

They don't appreciate us.
They don't consider us in their decisions, or there use of word.
They don't give us enough time, or attention.
They don't return our calls.
They aren't present when we are with them.
They say rough and tough and even mean stuff.
They yell at us.
Or leave us.
Or leave us and come back and leave us and come back.
And leave us.

They are annoying.

And, of course, we are perfect.

So the forgiveness thing is just a glorified case of :
do you want to be right,
or do you want to be happy

First you start with realizing that you are a person,
and these annoying people are people.

And we're all selfish, forgetful, not appreciative enough, or considerate enough, or whatever whatever sometimes.

So, when other people pull this on us,
we can make a request: next time could you do this
a wee bit
( or a lot) different.

But for now:
it's done, and we can resent and be tweeked by them by the kind of human
being we are sometimes,
or we can try out the last two questions of the Byron Katie work:

who are we, when we plug the "they should have been different" thought into are head

and who are we when we don't have that thought in our head.

Just try to two out.

See where we want to live.

Go back and forth.

No "letting go" required.

Just try out the attached and believing our story version,
and the not believing our story,
or not having a thought in our mind version.

Then chose.

So, it's not condoning, nor letting the others off the hook since we are so kind and wise and forgiving.

It's just enjoying life more without the story/ thought/ belief self injected into our brain, and from there, usually, our heart.

It feels beter to "let it go," and it's not even "letting it go," it's just living without the story, thought, belief in our mind.

What's left?

It's a big world out there, once we are free.

Maybe we'll find something great to do.

Day 25: Asking the story: are you absolutely true?

the story---- the story----the story
ah
watch, watch,
learn once
learn twice
learn forever and ever...
ah
this happens to us in our ruining our birthright of
happiness....
ah
all unhappiness has a
"story"
a game plan of mental
"reasons"
why you have a "right"
to feel bad

watch
live in the moment

and when unhappiness steals
you away
from the easy always just now NOW
ask,
ask two questions of the story:

#1: Is it true?
#2: Can I absolutely know that it's true?

Do that all day,
on and off, off and on,
and
only when you are unhappy

Good

What are feelings? What is thinking? The prison of conditioning.

I'm in the midst of a, to me, amazing, project
and have not much time to devote to this
and
this is so huge
that I wanted to get some
starting ideas/ understandings out
there
and see what they might stimulate.

What are feelings? What is thinking?
The prison of our conditioning.

1. Very few pure E-motions out there.

a.The mother bear, dog, person, skunk
perceives a threat to her young,
inner mobilization flashes up,
something like anger,
she goes into action to repel the threat

b. We are the one she is chasing.
Fear could be the name
for our inner mobilization
and getting the hell out of there.

2. Most, so called "feelings"
are far, far more murky,
often no action, just some tendency
to action,
a combination of inner sensations
and a bunch of words in our heads.
(the first two, "pure" emotions,
where pretty word free).

That our feelings combine sensations,
often unpleasant in ways we don't directly
pay attention to
and a "story" which we often obsess
over offers many
ways out of feeling traps,
and I won't go into these now.

3. THE FROWN EXAMPLE

SOMEONE, OUR LOVER, MATE, FRIEND
WALKS INTO THE ROOM
WITH A FROWN ON THEIR FACE

We have some internal reaction,
or not,
but the story possibilities are huge.

a. We tell ourselves the "they are angry" story.

From here, we can go off with the "they are always
getting angry" story, go into a being angry at them
story.

We can go into the "they are angry and I'd better watch
out" fear kind of story.

We can go into a "they are angry and I'd better attack
before attacked" story.

We can go into a "this is so hard always putting up
with this story."

And more.

b. We can tell ourselves a "they are sad" story.

And "feel sorry" for them, wonder what we can do.

A "feel burdened" story, as we "always have to take
care of them.

An "angry" story: "Why don't they get it together
and stop bring that sadness around."

A sad story, "they are right, I forgot, but now
I remember how hard life is."

Another sad story: "they are thinking about our troubles,
and now I feel bad, too."

A weary story: Oh dear, prop up time.

And so on.

Cheerful even: "Oh, goody, fixing them time."

c. We could have more neutral responses:

Curious: what's up.

Concerned without baggage: is something bothering you, can I help.

Amused: you are so cute when you frown.

Loving: I love all your shades and colors. This frown thing
is just one more wonderful aspect.


d. Feelings and reality:

the frown might have been, from their point
of view: anger or sadness

then again in might have been a stomach ache,
or worry about their work,
or an experiment in facial muscles

4. Thinking is what?

Are any collection of words in our head
"thinking"

Moshe has some interesting things to say about thinking:

As in, most people never have real thinking.

Most thinking is just mental masturbation.

Looking at the reactions to the frown,
and say it was just stomach gas,
we can see that the mental abilities
weren't put to very good use.

What would real thinking be?

5. So:
What is feeling?
What is thinking?

A lot of unclarity,
and oh yeah,
this bit to add to the stew

to place "feelings" as nouns:

I am angry
I have sadness

rather than verbs:

I am angry-ing
I am sad-ing

turns them into something therapists can
live off of for years,
but cut us off from the sort of
dynamic change and experimentation
that this work opens up for us.

6. Back to:
What are feelings?
What is thinking?

The lack of clarity,
shows for me, how well Moshe was
"thinking" in his beginning chapters in
Awareness Through Movement
about the stuckness of humanity,
and improving moving being the quickest
and most clear way
to get people out of being the same,
the same as everyone else
and the same
as they always have been.

A longish start,
but it's been mulling since I
had the "not enough time to write"
story..


Ciao
Chris