The Stories we Tell

I hope you all had a nice weekend. Last week I talked about delusion; how we can create our own realities based on the stories we tell ourselves that are not true. We see this process work in different ways. Some folks use the strategy of delusion as a way to hurt their own self confidence and belief in themselves. Some people use it as an unhealthy escape from a reality that they created and others cause themselves physical pain and suffering through these stories. Feel free to read my Substack article (link at the bottom)  from last week that talks more about the process.  

It is powerful to realize that often our suffering is self inflicted. When we create stories in the mind we know exactly how to convince ourselves the stories are true. Sometimes they are. Often they are not. I encountered a neighbor last weekend suffering with an extreme example of this. She is causing herself an incredible amount of physical pain due to the stories she has created in her mind about what is wrong with her. It is heartbreaking to see.

We all do this at times to some extent; tell ourselves untrue stories, and the first step is noticing with non judgmental awareness. Then comes the inquiry… Is what I am telling myself true? Can I meet these difficult stories with compassion and soften them?

The body is a great place to practice this idea. Can we meet whatever the discomfort is with non- judgmental awareness and then compassion? That is what I tasked students with last week on the mat and I shared this quote as a reminder. 

“The antidote to suffering is not in the avoidance of pain, but in our ability to meet it with compassion.”

When we practice being present with WHAT IS in the body we then can begin to find it easier to do the same with the stories in the mind. The pain in the body often comes along with a story of frustration, judgment or fear. When we meet the story of those emotions with compassion, the actual pain often lessens. That is the suffering we can control. The pain we often can’t but the suffering we can. We can notice this same system off the mat. When painful experiences happen do we cause ourselves more suffering with the story in the mind? Again, we have different techniques; for some of us our go-to is to be self deprecating and for others it is putting blinders on to not see the lesson. The temptation to use these strategies is completely normal, the power to see them and shift them is mindfulness.     

It is difficult to witness such self imposed suffering in others but I find myself with practice being able to offer compassion without judgement. That has been my practice lately. Thank you for allowing me to share it with you. Happy Practicing!at truly is the practice.