So,
Last night I had quite a terrible night of dreams.
I was waking up time and time again feeling terribly constricted,
Terribly angry,
Just frustrated and projecting that frustration and anger onto other people.
It was my partner's fault,
My kid's fault,
My life's fault,
The job's fault,
Everything else's fault.
That was the feeling that I awoke to.
That was how I woke up.
Then I felt a moment of clarity in the haze of the dream state.
I remembered mindfulness meditation,
And I remembered a couple of things,
The idea that if you were to observe your thoughts,
If you were to observe your mind,
If you were to observe the moment,
You notice that it passes.
Thoughts come and they go,
And no matter what you've been feeling in the past,
It comes and it goes.
That's a reality,
That's a fact.
I know that the more you practice meditation,
The more that eventuates.
So I held that truth in my mind,
This idea that it comes and it will go.
Then I started to look at my thought,
And very quickly this feeling of anger,
This overwhelm,
Very quickly I realized all of this pain,
This anger,
This frustration,
This tension,
All of that is inside me.
I'm laying here,
And nothing is happening to me,
My physical body.
All of this pain is internal to my brain,
Therefore I can let it go,
Or it can pass,
Because nothing is being imposed upon me in this moment.
All of the pain that I'm feeling right now is inside me,
Is in effect,
Or in a way caused by me.
Not that I'm making a choice,
But it's coming from me.
So I woke up,
And this frustration,
This anger came,
And I decided to look at it,
And to feel it,
And just to observe the totality of it.
How big is this anger?
How wide is it?
Where is it?
What's happening to it?
I started to see that it had a shape,
And I just looked at it,
Gently felt it,
And just acknowledged it.
I'm like,
Huh,
This is my anger,
It's okay,
Anger is arising,
I'm noticing that anger is arising.
In the back of my mind,
I just held to this idea,
This faith in the practice,
That if I'll just sit with this,
And just observe it,
And just let it feel it,
It will pass.
And then the weight lifting off my shoulders,
My belly unclenched,
My jaw unclenched,
My shoulders relaxed,
I took a breath,
And it was gone.
And it felt like a spiritual event,
Nothing major,
Not like a big revelation,
But it taught me something,
A direct experience of a deeply grabbing,
Constricting thought,
Emotion,
Mental state,
Mental phenomena arising.
And then,
Just with some applied mindfulness,
And a little bit of faith in the practice,
That yes,
I'm sitting in this pain,
It's hurting,
But it will pass,
That yeah,
It did pass.
And how grateful am I for that fact?
So I just wanted to share this with you,
This little approach to you.
I've got courses and content out there,
Heaps of them,
On how to practice mindfulness meditation,
And how to apply this,
And how to do all of this work,
And how to build up the habits,
And all of that stuff.
That's not what this little talk is about.
This little talk is to remind you that if you have faith in the practice,
If you believe that it works,
Then that will give you the ability to sit with the pain of those thoughts for a little bit longer,
And just to observe them.
If you don't have faith,
If you don't believe that the practice will work,
Then you're not going to try it.
So have faith,
Believe that the practice will work,
And when something troubling arises,
Like anger in this case,
Like frustration,
Jealousy,
Rage,
Anything,
Just know that if you sit with it,
Observe it,
Detach from it,
Practice that mindfulness meditation,
See it in its totality,
And just welcome it,
And just not judge it,
Just sit with it.
And yeah,
You'll discover,
You'll discover that truth,
And you'll feel it just leave and depart,
And you'll be gifted the ability to just let go of challenging mind states,
Which is something I think is absolutely desirable.
So I encourage you,
Sit,
Practice,
And when something arises,
Practice some more.
Have a great day.
