Living The Emerson Rule

“The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.” ― Thích Nhất Hạnh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

The Universe is knocking on my door with a message – MEDITATE.  Meditation appeals to me; has for a long time.  Back in my teens my mom and I took a meditation class at church.  Since then I tried on many variations; transcendental, new age, simple mindfulness.  The free 21 day meditation series offered by Deepak Chopra and Oprah Winfrey are wonderful.  I know the benefits.  So why does something so marvelous get thrown out the window when life gets busy?  That’s when it would benefit me the most.  OK!  Today I will listen to the Universe.

In his book Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, Dr. Joe Dispenza outlines why meditation is beneficial physiologically.  There are reams of evidence on how it helps the brain – takes the chaos out those brain waves.  Meditation gets me off the whack-a-doodle treadmill (aka manic beta waves) to a peaceful chill of acceptance (coherent alpha, theta energy).  It helps align thoughts and feelings – my husband said I seem to be much happier these days (woot-woot)!

One of Dispenza’s definitions of meditation is “Becoming Familiar with Self.” 

“…if you want to become happy, the first step is to stop being unhappy—that is, stop thinking the thoughts that make you unhappy; and stop feeling the emotions of pain, sorrow, and bitterness.” 

The same goes for the desire to be wealthy – “decide to stop doing the things that make you poor.”  Want to be healthy? “..stop living an unhealthy lifestyle.”  — You’d think it was a no brainer – the want to; not so much.  And the HOW?  Oh boy.  Step one:  “You have to make the decision to stop being the old you, to such a degree that you make room for a new personality—thinking, acting and doing.” 

I know this … I read Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now four times straight for 7 months (no obsessive compulsive here!); read Practicing the Power of Now “daily reader” and when A New Earth came out – read it too; yep twice.  “Watch the thinker.”  I know this – I know I’m not the crazy woman who can’t/ won’t let a thought go, that has the same imaginary conversation for three days!  No!  I’m the consciousness watching all that foolishness.  When I pull myself up to the consciousness level I find that my whirly-gig brain calms down, quiets – goes peaceful.  I must decide – and watch.

“To ‘know thyself’ is to meditate.”

Dispenza encourages us to take this idea a step further and “become familiar with a new self.”  We just need to ask: “What is a greater expression of myself that I would like to be?” 

“If you can maintain that modified state of mind and body, independent of the external environment and the body’s emotional needs and greater than time, something should show up differently in your world.  That’s quantum law.”

Maintaining a “modified state of mind and body” –- much easier to do when the mind is allowed to quiet even for 15 minutes a day.  Meditation takes practice – and I’m nowhere near ready to go whole hog.  Baby steps.  I can do 15 minutes, 20 minutes.  It’s a place to start.

Honestly, everything starts with a decision.  Gotta want to first – no change possible without it!

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Dr. Joe Dispenza (Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself) says our personalities are set by the time we hit our 30s and 40s.  We’ve adapted to our environment, honed our coping skills; know how to avoid our hot buttons, often without a conscious thought.  Welcome to your life – over and over and over again.  If I want a different reality, a different future – I must become a different person.  It’s hard to see this repetitive re-living.  It’s hard because it’s unconscious.  By midlife though, something doesn’t feel right – we’re uncomfortable, unsettled – no longer willing to keep up the pretense that we’re happy.

Who the hell wants to look at the why?  Looking hurts, it can be embarrassing, shameful, devastating.  Those coping mechanisms were erected for good reasons.  So we bury the pain, those feelings; find ways to distract ourselves with TV, technology, gossip; anything to “feel better or different” – and escape!

 “This is the midlife crisis that most people know about. Some try really hard to make buried feelings stay buried by diving further into their external world. They buy the new sports car (thing); others lease the boat (another thing). Some go on a long vacation (place). Yet others join the new social club to meet new contacts or make new friends (people). Some get plastic surgery (body). Many completely redecorate or remodel their homes (acquire things and experience a new environment).

If I want a life worth living – a life of purpose, of meaning; full of love, joy, peace – how the hell can I avoid looking at the why?  According to Dispenza the people who don’t bury their feelings:

 “..ask some big questions: Who am I?  What is my purpose in life?  Where am I going?  Who am I doing all of this for?  What is God?  Where do I go when I die?  Is there more to life than “success”?  What is happiness?  What does all this mean?  What is love?  Do I love myself?  Do I love anyone else?  And the soul begins to wake up . . . . “ 

“Instead of buying a bigger TV or the latest smart phone, these people stop running from the feelings that they’ve been trying to make go away for so long, face it head-on, and intently look at it.  When this happens, the individual begins to wake up.  After some self-reflection, she discovers who she really is, what she has been hiding, and what no longer is working for her.  So she lets go of the façade, the games, and the illusions.  She is honest about who she really is, at all costs, and she is not afraid to lose it all.  This person stops expending the energy she had been putting into keeping an illusory image intact. 

Sometimes honesty comes with a price.  Our people are invested in who we are – it feeds their own illusion of who they are.  The may say “I liked you better the other way.”  When they see us change we may make them uncomfortable.  The emotional bond that keep us tight will scream for us to STOP … don’t change; stay the same illusion we were; even if it kills us.

Can I really say: “You know what?  It doesn’t matter if I don’t make you happy any longer.  I’m through obsessing about how I look or what other people think about me.  I am finished living for everyone else.  I want to be free from these chains.” 

It’s a lot to ask.  A lot to ask of me – to let go of my old life, my work, my friends to be true to myself.  It is also a lot to ask of my tribe – to let go of the “me” that they know, but which I am not.  The alternative is to continue to sleep .. is that really an option?

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“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” ― Joseph Campbell

Could I get any more giggly with excitement!?  I’m telling better stories – waking up to my personal kevtcher; short circuiting her control.  I continue to poke around the intersection of philosophy and quantum theory – found a cool formula explaining why the prosperity gospel falls short.

In Breaking The Habit of Being Yourself; How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One, Dr. Joe Dispenza uses quantum science to explain how our habits, our routines, our thoughts and feelings keep us stuck.  “We communicate with the quantum field primarily through our thoughts and feelings.”  He cites experiments on a theory of coherence conducted at the HeartMath Lab in California that produced the intended effect “when subjects held both heightened emotions and clear objectives in alignment.”  If an experiment focused just on thoughts – no change was observed; on emotions alone – again, no observable change.

 “An intentional thought needs an energizer, a catalyst – and that energy is an elevated emotion.” 

“The quantum field doesn’t respond simply to our wishes – our emotional requests.  It doesn’t just respond to our aims – our thoughts.  It only responds when those two are aligned or coherent.”

When our thoughts and emotions are coherent we create a “state of being.”  “The quantum field responds not to what we want; it responds to who we are being.”  Our habits and routines, our thoughts and feelings perpetuate our state of being.  With the same behaviors, I create the same reality; over and over.  Without alignment with my feelings I can think all the happy thoughts I want; but if I walk around a bitchy, sad, annoyed mess – I won’t change anything.  I’ll get the same ‘ole, same ‘ole.

“If you could create a new electromagnetic field by changing your state of being, which matches that potential in the quantum field of information, is it possible that your body would be drawn to that event or that event would find you?”  – Oh Hell Yeah!

Time to ask “What am I broadcasting…?” -– Start matching the better stories with better feelings. As Dispenza says, I need to “think, feel, and act in new ways; we have to “be” different in terms of our responses to experiences.  We have to “become” someone else.” 

ALLOW THE SURPRISE!  “To change our reality, those outcomes that we attract to ourselves have to surprise, even astonish, us in the way in which they come about.” 

WHY?  “If you can predict an event, it is nothing new . . the same you produced the familiar outcome.”  According to Dispenza we’d just be going “Newtonian” – “all cause and effect” on the outcome.  That’s “when the external environment is controlling your internal environment.”  Instead, become a “quantum creator” – change the internal environment; “see how the external environment is altered by your efforts.”  To do this I must “surrender, trust, and let go of how a desired event will unfold.” 

Whoa!  Tall order; can this control freak do it?   Oh Yeah!  I’m totally jazzed and working the heck out of it.  I feel the good flying right at me!

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“As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.” – Henry David Thoreau

 

Last night I called one of my husband’s acquaintances a dickhead (not to his face).  Is he a dickhead?  Maybe – maybe not.  Do I think he’s a dickhead?  I did last night.  Does my husband?  He didn’t disagree.  As long as we continue to tell this story that’s what we’re going experience with this guy.

Squabbles happen; we have work disputes, friends disagree and bicker; day-to-day life brings a tiff or two with the family.  When a husband and wife spat goes down, do we start telling ourselves “bad husband” and “bad wife” stories?  The committee in our head can really dish it.  We must consciously choose to get off that treadmill!  These negative tales keep us stuck.  . . . bring us down.  Not only that,

Our people know it – without a word being said.

They feel it!

 Time to stop it!

Greg Kuhn (Why Quantum Physicists Do Not Fail) says: “the type of story you tell about any event is completely your choice.”  Reframing the story from last night, I could say “Dick wasn’t straight forward with you in that situation.  He’s been supportive in the past, maybe he’s got something going on that we don’t know about.”  That’s a better story.  Maybe my husband felt validated and supported by my comment last night – but I didn’t help him create a better future reality.

When I pay conscious attention – listen to my feelings; hear the “bad story” telling going on inside my head – or out of my mouth; I wake up.  This lets me get on with it to create a better reality – tell better stories.

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 ““Persons appear to us according to the light we throw upon them from our own minds.”  ― Laura Ingalls Wilder, author (1867-1957)