A quiet nightshift is a good time to contemplate things, or just get going in the Now and NOT think... I find I usually do a long winded email that is definitely a contemplation thing so thought I'd actually jot down some thoughts as just that this time, rather than directing them at a particular person for a particular reason. Problem is what to muse over! So many topics, so few hours and still work to be done, so lets pick a relatively simple one... Acceptance...
I guess to me acceptance is just letting something "be" and to be honest it is a pretty new lesson learnt or being learnt for me. Funny though, I can't actually pinpoint what if anything stirred up that learning! However I do know I've gone from impatient, fighting what is happening, worrying, living in fear of an unknown future, made even more precarious because someone else is involved and we all know you can't control someone else, feeling like I was going mad, in the grips of ego, pain body and god knows what else, to like having a switch flicked, and simply flipping over to accepting what will be will be, accepting that I can't control time, others, and to a huge extent what happens around me, the only given is I can control what happens within me. I can control MY attitudes, I can control my reactions, my actions, my thoughts and my feelings. And although I use the word "control" here, I haven't had to 'control' anything, that acceptance has come so peacefully, there is nothing left to control. Things may still be uncertain, but it no longer matters. In fact I feel rather neutral about everything, there are no highs or lows, no real good or bad, everything just 'is'. To be honest it feels so neutral I get the feeling I'm either missing something or not doing it right! LOL. Having said that it is a lot nicer to live daily here than with the pain body and ego that was in control only a matter of a couple of weeks ago!
I'm not sure if internally I could describe it as being at "peace", there is still enough uncertainty around things that although it doesn't really bring me disquiet, it lurks. At times I feel like I am about to get nervous butterflies, I realise that and realise it's the uncertainty factor, so ego and a fear of the future. As I realise this it dissolves away again to this very neutral state of acceptance again, which although lovely feels like there is something missing. I'm expecting acceptance to come with a positive 'emotion' rather than a lack of any emotion I suppose, but hey! Early days and I'm sure if I stop and examine what is going on inside the Peace and Joy are still there, like the sun behind the clouds, it's just that I'm not recognising them at the moment.
So the lack of 'positives' aside, this feeling has given me a lot of freedom! Every moment is participated in. I may prefer to be in bed and sound asleep, but I'm not and that NOT being where I'd prefer doesn't bring me any negative feelings or thoughts at all. I'm here, I'll make the most of it. I'll enjoy the music playing in the restaurant, enjoy some time to contemplate, I'll get my work done and be ready to greet the new morning with a tired smile.
Funny thing is I keep expecting this feeling to fade, to disappear, that the impatience, and negatives will make there way back in, so far so good, they haven't! I guess being aware of what I've found serves very simply to keep it in place. If I hadn't recognised what it was perhaps the ego and pain body would have had an easier time sliding back in past it, but that awareness, that recognition of it serves to keep my attention on it and it holds in place that much stronger.
It's funny how others perceive things though. I had a comment made to me today (after no sleep last night) that I will think my judgments are OK when they're not due to the lack of sleep. I had to stop and examine what I thought of that for a second, and realised very calmly that no, I'm quite aware that I'm sleep deprived, quite aware of what that means in terms of driving, working, functioning, but that there is nothing I can do about it and I will continue to function until it can be rectified. It did make me aware that the acceptance I have found is far reaching. I took nothing personal from the implication that my ego would convince me I was 10 foot tall and bullet proof. I took no offence at an imagined slight (which, heck a month ago, if I was sleep deprived I sure would have!) I was simply aware that others perceived me differently to how things actually were. Judgments... I guess that's it isn't it... with acceptance there are no judgments, not for anyone else and not for yourself. Oh sure, I catch myself thinking a half formed thought that is ego laiden, but I am tending to catch them before they are completely formed, or thought about, or spoken out loud, or acted on, and hey presto, just like that as soon as they are observed for what they are (ego!) they just dissolve away again!
Amazing how simply it works, but what triggered it?! I do pride myself on "learning" but this almost feels like someone helped me cheat and get the answer without figuring out how to get there! Not that I'm complaining, just somehow feels like I've taken a short cut! I guess in reality there is no reason why I can't work backwards, from this state of being and do my learning that way, besides I still need to dig into it and find the positives rather than abide in this neutrality, which is sure helping and serving a purpose, but it does feel like something is missing.... or is that just a trick of ego too? "There must be something better than this!" ego, never satisfied LOL. Actually having reread this I can pinpoint when it happened, and it was actually a time when I described it as having "the rose coloured glasses taken off" in relation to how I perceived someone else. Oh, I know in truth what they are, they are God! I know in truth too, that although I can see that God Force in them so strongly that they are still human, still have ego involved, still learning their own lessons just as I am mine, but I really SAW it a couple of weeks ago, and at the time a couple of things said I allowed to hurt me, but when I sat down on a night shift and did my contemplation email and examined what had happened and how that made me feel etc, I realised then that everything had changed, like with a snap of the fingers, in the process of examining it within me and typing it out to share it, that switch was somehow flicked.
I guess I'm happy to report that there have been little tests for this acceptance too, just little day to day things, conversations, situations, sleep deprivation LOL. Nothing has been able to ruffle my feathers, nothing has caused me fear or anger, rather I can look at it all very impartially and realise what I can or want to contribute and then put it forward if it is warranted. I feel very zen like :o)
One thing it does make me very aware of is just how many judgments are made by others, nearly everything we say or do is some type of judgment, either that someone else is wrong, or if agreeing with us, then right, either way it is judgment which of course occurs because we see ourselves as separate from that which is around us. But that is a whole different topic perhaps for tomorrow night. Although I could quite happily disappear off onto tangent after tangent I have to abide by clock time and do some work too! Although it is exciting to just get out what is in my head, to examine it, to perhaps learn something more about it just by the act of observing it enough to describe it, I do run the risk of getting carried away by it and ignoring my other responsibilities.
So for now, I will accept I should save this and go and do some of my duties and if I have time later, perhaps a tangent can be entertained then.
Before I go though, I have just found a couple of quotes on Acceptance that ring true and one of them perhaps describes what I think I'm feeling! "Serenity comes when you trade expectations for acceptance" (Unknown author) and that I guess is it! Serenity, no desire to change anything, 'Unaffected by disturbance; calm and unruffled' that is a good adjective I think for how I feel :o) The other quote is "
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