Hello,
This is William Cooper.
Welcome to Awakening Together,
Relaxing into Happiness.
Today let's look at clutter,
Mental and emotional clutter.
The stuff that weighs us down,
That distracts us.
The stuff that depression and anxiety and hurt and abandonment is made out of.
First let's do a simple exercise.
Take your right arm and tighten your fist,
Tighten your forearm,
Very tight,
Tighten your fist and forearm,
Tight tight tight tight tight tight and let them go.
Feel what that feels like.
Do you feel a mixture of relaxation,
Calm,
Peace,
Well-being,
As well as tension that's starting perhaps to fall apart and to relax?
I do.
Let's try the left hand.
Tighten your left fist tight tight tight tight and forearm and relax.
Hey we could do this with our entire body.
Let's tighten every muscle in our body tight tight tight tight and let go.
Notice what you experience.
Notice how you feel.
It's that mixture of tension and calmness.
You know if we let all of our tension go,
All that would be left would be calmness and peace and well-being.
What would your life be if all of your problems disappeared?
All of your tension disappeared?
You'd feel good.
You'd feel more like yourself.
Isn't that why people go to therapy and sometimes even take drugs or drink alcohol?
It's a way to let their problems go so that they can feel more wholly themselves,
More fully themselves.
We understand that we are not our problems.
That's why we look for ways to let them go.
Funny but in India they have a method to look at all the things that were not so that we can more clearly see what to let go of.
That method is called neti neti.
Not this,
Not that.
The idea is if you can let something go then it must not be you and if you can let enough things go what's left is you.
Anything that you can let go of can't be you by process of elimination because you're still here and it's gone.
So tension isn't you because you could let it go and you'll still be here.
In fact you'll feel better than ever because you're not covered up and engulfed in that tension.
What are some other things that we can let go of that aren't us?
Some of them are obvious,
Like an obvious tension.
We relax,
We let it go.
That was never us.
It was something we were carrying.
We're not physical things because if we were unfortunate enough to lose a finger we would still be here but our finger would be gone.
There are some subtle things that we often don't think about.
For instance if you had a moment without a thought would you still be here?
Yes.
It's called looking at a sunset or looking at the Grand Canyon,
Being at awe,
Seeing a beautiful painting or just being engulfed in beauty.
Often our thoughts disappear for a moment or two.
We're just in awe and we're still here.
We're not our thoughts.
We create our thoughts as tools but often we get lost in them and they weigh us down.
What else aren't we?
Well we're not our emotions either.
We could let our emotions go for a moment and we would still be here.
Process of elimination.
They're gone.
We're here so we can't be our emotions.
Emotions also capture information and viewpoints just like our thoughts do.
Our emotions give them 3D weight and make them seem very real so that we can sometimes get lost in our thoughts and in our emotions in our dramas.
And we think they're real but they're not.
We could let them go and we would still be here.
You know our personality is made of thoughts and emotions.
That's all it is,
Right?
Thoughts and emotions.
So we're not our personality but we kind of already know that because we see people who are multiple personalities glide from one different personality to another and they're still here even though their personality is quite different.
They are seeing the world through the lens of their personality but they're not the personality itself.
Same with amnesia.
Lots can disappear but they're still here.
Or if you have a drug experience things can change but you're still here.
We're not our thoughts and we're not our emotions but we sure can get lost in them,
Can't we?
For instance,
Imagine I'm at the beach and I'm in the back room of my beach cottage watching TV.
I can get lost in the TV show.
I can be so involved in a series of TV shows that maybe I binge on them all weekend and I never go to the beach.
I'm lost in the TV show experience and I miss the beach experience altogether.
I miss out on reality,
On a real swim in the water and a walk on the beach.
Funny but my thoughts and emotions are not real either.
They're just labels,
Right?
The word tree isn't really a tree.
It's a sound that is designed to label a tree.
Thoughts are just a string of words or images,
None of them being the real thing.
The same with emotions and yet I can get lost in my thoughts and my emotions and my viewpoints of the world and my interactions with others as I play them through in my head.
But I'm really none of those things.
Just like I'm not the TV show and they sure do eat up a lot of time and effort and energy.
Just like watching TV too much does or drinking too much does or taking too many drugs does.
They're all distractions and what do they distract me from?
They distract me from what I really am.
Let's go back to that simple exercise.
Tighten your right arm for a moment.
Tighten your fist really tight tight tight tight and your forearm tight tight tight tight tight tight and let it go.
Notice the blend tension and calmness.
All the tension could leave and you would still be here.
Notice how shiny and beautiful your experience would be once all the tension leaves.
That's the real you.
We experience life as a mixture of all the things we've created or absorbed that are not us,
That's clutter,
And who we truly are.
The calmness,
The peace,
The happiness,
The love,
The well-being.
We know if we let all the clutter go it won't be blocking us so much and we'll fully experience love,
Peace,
Wellness,
Calmness.
We know that to be true.
We have to be able to see something very clearly before we can truly let it go.
So let's see the clutter in our life.
Neti neti.
Not this,
Not that.
What are all the things that were not?
Don't feel that you have to change them yet.
Just become very aware.
To see is to be free.
Right now we're seeing very clearly and feeling who we truly are and who we aren't.
And we're noticing our experience of life is a blend of these two experiences at the same time.
The experience of who we are mixed with the experience of who we aren't.
We'll look at all this and how to hold it in a future podcast very soon.
I look forward to seeing you then.
