How would you ideally like to be?
I hope this is helpful. I find myself now trying to understand and think about this while I am alone. How would I ideally like to be? Since it always seems that something is pestering me inside to find answers while I feel the need to improve or change.
It's giving me some consciousness about my ruminations, brings me to the here and now, and so I am more able to choose what I am doing about, or with, my mental energy. Also it's giving me insight into how I am or have been dealing with 'my mental energies' so that now
I don't misinterpret the discomfort, or force within, and so just reflexively push myself to shut down my brain - but rather I am seeing the ideas as a way of giving outlet to my thoughts, feelings and actions.
Part of what got me starting me on this path of this kind of thinking today was the notion of constantly seeking out 'self betterment' or if you want to call it 'perfecting' and as I was driving and thinking about that
I thought of the generality that there will always 'be room for improvement' - relax and be flexible - there will always something new to learn. Always some kind of evolutionary process to deal with the times too.
An old workmate said to me once that she believed in reincarnation as you could never use one life time to learn all of the things you are supposed to learn in life. I was just reminded of that when thinking along the lines of this.
I also thought about today of that process of being bold, of stepping out on my own to independently do things
that I may find 'socially peculiar' or idiosyncratic but I push myself really to do it anyway and not freeze up
in discomfort or a sense of no options to but conform .... I ran an awkward errand today - and I was so nervous about what the dude behind that counter thought - but I knew and I realized that I was kind of choosing this emotional state of mind... fixating on it - and then as it doeas it that state of mind was coloring my behavior so that I made those feelings a kind of a self fulfilling prophesy.
It's just maybe another example of wrangling with a sense of choice or agency over the thoughts, feelings, and actions I take.
I'm just dealing with this question "How would I ideally like to be?"
and this is giving me a sense of freedom and awakeness to own my time while I have it.
Peace,
Mark
Replies
early into my own efforts to tame my compulsive comparison, several sibs in healing nagged me with their belief that the only fair comparison is me today vs me yesterday.
the question of how would i, ideally, like to be fits neatly into that philosophy. it really is liberating to cast off the yoke of comparing my insides to other people's outsides. it truly is not a fair comparison.
on the note of what other people are thinking, when someone interrupts my own ruminations with, "What are you thinking?" what i was thinking when they interrupted dissipates like spit on hot asphalt. fact is, we don't **get** to know what other people are thinking, not even if we ask. it is even harder to capture and describe emotions.
just let the mystery be.
thanks arfie!
I wrote another reply but I think it got deleted by a technical blip on my Iphone.
What I wanted to say was that I kind of wanted to add about worrying
about what the guy behind the counter was thinking...I thought if
I hadn't given so much emotional energy to my embarassment and worry, the guy probably wouldn't have half noticed. So I made it a self fulfilling prophecy in a way.
He could probably have given a rat's a$$ about it lol- he was just doing the job.
that waste of emotional energy is my big focus. the simple fact that my mind reading skills are far more delusion than actual skill is just a simple fact i use to help me utilize that emotional energy more efficiently. worse, relying on my mind reading skills to tell me about other people deprives me of the delightful stories i hear when i take the time to ask.
whether he was just doing his job or stewing identically to the way i obsess while i work, the worry remains a waste of emotional energy.
for what it's worth
my estranged son (42) started using the phrase, "i don't give a rat's ass" while he was still young and cute during the mid 90's. by the time he should have graduated high school, the cliche had evolved from "rat's ass" to "rat sass." he hasn't grown much since then and still routinely rat sasses. the phase has morphed into the family code for his psychotic episodes. "he's rat sassing again."