CONTINUED FROM PART I: Wouldn’t you do all you could to prevent an accidental explosion if you had discovered the hidden location of a land mine?
If you had a sure-fire way to defuse it and you knew how–so that these hidden ‘death traps’ would no longer continue to adversely affect you and your loved ones in the future?
Here is the invitation I wrote to her, and that she accepted, and that I extend to you as well:
“If you get a chance to do Judge-Your-Neighbor worksheets on the various things you felt toward me or yourself or the situation or the fact that I asked, and send to me or post online, it could really be productive. I invite you to not move too quickly past the hurt, or steamroll over or shame that part of you that got so triggered. Think of her as really little, and she is just answering truthfully about what works and doesn’t work for her. Then a fear-driven or critical (of you or others) voice in your head sweeps in and attacks her (you) or whoever appears responsible for the reaction. We have witnessed so often that you tell her the wishes and needs were bad and wrong and that she needs to just suck it up (which leaves her resentful and fearful of the future). Support her just where she is at. Be curious what words are being used in your head to make her or me or someone else wrong.”
And here is what this brave open soul wrote back:
“Ok. I was going to let it be, but this is the best/safest place to air it out. I’ll work on it and have it to you before our call Monday. Thanks for the push. “
That is the personal paradigm shift talking: The growing commitment to ourselves and to freedom and to truth that starts to take root once we experience the safety in defusing the “loaded” underground charges–where there sometimes needs to be a nudge from a mentor, we start to develop a willingness to stop feeling like a victim of our situation or our own reaction and start to actively work on breaking the connection between the thoughts and our explosive reactions. It’s what we are talking about here in this community, and with each other’s mutual support, it becomes a fun and empowered way of life.
OUR SUBCONSCIOUS IS DRIVING THE BUS
It FEELS to us like someone is doing something to us–and that it is completely THEIR FAULT! But over a very short period of time, in this work, we come to see that it was our own thinking about the other person or our situation that sets off our big emotional charge (Don’t believe me; check this out and test if for yourself!)
We can’t prevent the thinking that makes us crazy or reactive–it is deep internal programming that gets triggered when it gets triggered, even after years of inner work, without our permission. So the best our minds can do is
- Care about the part of us that is hurting, and be willing to revisit the situation that appears to light the fuse of a live bomb, rather than leaving it lying in wait to go off again in the future,
- Become the observer of the thinking, mining down in to where the charge really comes from–that is, beyond the superficial to the hurtful place where we think what happened means something about usI or about life),
- Use our conscious mind to expose the errors in its own logic, and find that other interpretations are as true or truer–which completely neutralizes the emotional charge from believing the “loaded” one.
I believe this helping out the parts of us that are hurting enough to set off bombs is actually the most important spiritual responsibility we have to our children, to the littlest parts of ourselves, and to others who fall victim to our explosive internal and external reactions.
We now have a gentle, effective technology to follow the thread back to the underground belief, and disconnect the emotional charge by seeing that the archaic belief (not the other person or situation) is the real source of the damage.
When we know a simple way to gently but powerfully question the belief in a way that works with how our brains are wired, we can easily see that this deep-seated way of thinking no longer applies–or was never true to start with. It was created by the effort of a child’s survival-driven mind to make sense of the world.
LIVING IN SYMMETRY
The 6 Pivotal Shifts that bring you into Symmetry with yourself, others, and life are what let me finally see for myself that the hidden bomb in my most current situation does not serve to protect me or others, as my well-meaning “monkey mind” originally intended when it came up with the belief or interpretation.
Unless you actively go in and defuse your own charges—by finding the Symmetry (the polar opposite truths that neutralize them)— they are just waiting out there with the potential to be set off. That is what creates fear of situations or others’ actions, and keeps us from saying who we really are as we tiptoe around potential explosions.
IMPORTANT: We are not afraid of the action or situation itself, we are afraid we won’t know how to handle the emotional charge it sets off in us or that we might even bomb others back in ways we regret (pre-emptively or after the fact–ultimately building MORE emotional charge to fear from our own self-criticism).
Taking this pro-active approach that sweeps this pre-programed piece of stinking thinking from your “mind field” (Mahala Connally, personal communication, 2018) is what I call going “beyond mindfulness.” You can easily spot the charge you have buried underground because you feel it in your body when your fuse is triggered.
THE ONE THOUGHT UNDER IT ALL
And the ONE THOUGHT behind all emotional pain that I can discern…. the one that lights the fuse is when mind convinces you that you need a person or situation to be different than they are; to give you something you feel you need from them and can’t get anywhere else. If only things were different, you say to yourself, I would be saved the pain of the charge I am now feeling. Your surival-driven programming has you truly believing you are in the presence of the enemy. If that is your mindset, your only world view in that moment, then of course you will defend or attack back.
And when you do spot the feeling and the wishful thinking:
- You can “walk on by” or we can start to be mindful of that thoguht’s persistent presence.
- You can go beyond simple mindfulness to help out the buried beliefs at the root of the problem.
- OR You can actually eliminate the threat at its source–by using logic and staying present to spot the erroneous conclusions mind has drawn.
When we do this, we stop giving the mind power it never had to start with.
When we stop and do this, find out for ourselves that it was never the person or situation that caused the pain.
CEASE FIRE
The DE-fusing above is simple. The way we do it, it’s not painful. It’s not even risky. In fact, most of the time, it’s FUN. We actually look forward to sitting down and going through this simple process, because we KNOW it is like drafting the terms of a CEASE FIRE. A lasting, internal PEACE TREATY.
We can even feel grateful that the “something they said or did” was not a threat but a blessed pointer that revealed location of a bomb–of hurt, sadness, confusion, defensiveness, or anger–aimed at ourselves or our next victim.
Luckily, we now know how to minimize the casualties and wounding to the innocent parts of ourselves and the innocent bystanders who are standing too close when one of our underground mines is detonated. We begin to clearly see it was only the thinking–not the situation–that caused the pain.
A STROLL IN THE PARK, RATHER THAN TIP-TOEING THROUGH A WAR ZONE
I love watching life become a safer and safer place—a stroll in the park rather than tip-toeing through a war zone– as more and more of my own and my clients’ emotional land mines get defused. Imagine how much more relaxed and fun and connected life would feel when relationship issues–once an apparent source of upset–become welcome opportunities to defuse the charge left over from previous imagined warzones.
Again, I ask you the same question I started with: If you had intelligence about the location of a land mine, and had a perfectly safe, efficient new technology that would let you defuse it—and the others lying in wait where children are playing—wouldn’t you do whatever it takes to get hold of that technology to sweep that mine field clear of its explosives?
Now that you know it’s possible, I invite you go into your own “mind field” and help the child within you who is walking on eggshells through life and relationships. While I will show you how to safely do this on your own, it is powerful to let me accompany you at first, as I also teach, model, and mentor you in getting a firm hold on this sure-fire way to defuse your own hidden ‘death traps.’
THE RELIABLE SYMMETRY OF HAPPINESS: THE MISSING “PEACE” WE WERE NEVER TAUGHT.”
What would change in your life if you knew how to stop sabotaging your own peace and happiness, and also creating fallout for your loved ones?
I extend to you the same invitation I sent to her: USE whatever you know has the potential to trigger you—now or in the future—as a treasure map to all the freedom and fun hidden within the parts of you that you used to think were the problem. They aren’t a problem; they are just a simple cry for help.
Answer it by CLICKING HERE, to set up a time to meet with me, so I can support you and offer direction about this very cool inner technology that I call “THE RELIABLE SYMMETRY OF HAPPINESS: THE MISSING “PEACE” WE WERE NEVER TAUGHT.”
And also stay tuned for Part 3, where I talk about a CHEAT SHEET for defusing your own mines.