Hello thinker who is reading this post.
Have we met before?
I know something about you.
Right now there is something that is bothering you.
In fact, I can pretty much guarantee it.
There's not a breathing, thinking person who isn't thinking up some botherings.
Maybe you're afraid or sad or hurt.
I can also say with near certainty that what's bothering you even has wings -
A thought so buzzing it's flying you blind.
You're afraid.
Because you don't even know who you'd be without this thought,
yet you're consumed by it and identify with it.
It even has roots.
Wings and roots?
That's insane!
Precisely.
You're stuck.
We're all stuck.
Here's why.
We're not stuck by what happens to us,
but rather by our thoughts about what happens.
Who would you be without your story?
Author Byron Katie, my new favorite human,
says suffering is optional.
Her "Work" is a way of identifying and questioning the thoughts
that cause anger, fear, depression, addiction and violence.
Here's a series of excerpts from the book she wrote, "Loving What Is:"
"All the stress that we feel is caused by arguing with what is....
You can spend the rest of your life trying to teach a cat to bark...
The reason I made friends with the wind - with reality -
is that I discovered I didn't have a choice.
I realized that it's insane to oppose it.
When I argue with reality, I lose, but only 100% of the time.
How do I know that the wind should blow?
It's blowing!
I'm a lover of what is, not because I'm a spiritual person,
but because it hurts when I argue with reality....
Make friends with the worst that can happen....
Nothing terrible has ever happened except in our thinking...
Reality is always good, even in situations that seem like nightmares.
The story we tell is the only nightmare we have lived.
When I say that the worst that can happen is a belief - I am being literal.
The worst that can happen to you is your uninvestigated belief system."
So that's what has hurt all this time?
Arguing with reality in my own mind?
I never should have second-guessed the wind.
~ L ~
