Noticing the Wave

What I noticed this week is that I have entered a VOID similar to what our hospitalized friend Vicki wrote about recently: After a good week or so of learning to pay attention to the "roommate-in-my-head" I found I was back into my old habits again. Thus proving the principle of the wave, or polar changes, or like a swinging pendulum. I went from a time of focused attention to lacking attention again. I didn't beat myself up, I just started to pay attention to my thoughts again and practice some more. "It's not about becoming perfect at it, it's okay to relapse and start learning again." The point is to be mindfulness that the negative voice in my head is NEVER going to stop, it does what it does because that is what it does. The sun comes up in the East, that's all; and the voice will try to offer some negative fear constantly and forever, that's all it does. And like we're learning as CO's, it's not my job to change "it", it's my job to learn how to live with its behaviors, i.e., if it is impossible to stop it from doing what it does, it does not make sense to try to do the impossible over and over again when change is not an option. My job is to learn how to live with it and change how "I" relate and respond to "it". To acknowledge "it" and accept it for what "it" is, and change who I am and MY behaviors in relationship to it. It's actually easier for me to change than to do the impossible. My job is to learn to stop blaming IT for my reactions, and instead take responsibility for changing MY responses to it. I can do that, I can. And it will take practice and I will fail a lot, or not, until I learn to stop failing. There is no "deadline to accomplish this; there is no "final outcome" for it to be "complete". My job now is to pay attention to what "the voice" is saying or not, to choose how I control my attention, especially when "the voice" is trying to predict future events or imaginary emotional pains to avoid. I can't predict the future and neither can the "voice-in-my-head", because I am actually creating THAT voice too.
Anyway, I finished the new book this afternoon while buying new tires. I recommend it to my friends who like to read: "The Confidence Gap" by Russ Harris, "A Guide to Overcoming Fear and Self-Doubt."  It's more Mindfulness training, like "the untethered soul" by Michael Singer I mentioned before.
Until tomorrow,
My prayers for Vicki healing quickly and participating again soon.
Rich