September 2019 - Compassion Group Notes

What does it mean to “Stay in the Present Moment?”

“All moments are in this moment.” ~Charisse Lyons

What does it mean to live in the Now? Unfortunately this common spiritual teaching is so often misunderstood from an external frame of reference and as mindfulness practice to be present to the external world of current events. In other words, it is heard as “pull your thoughts away from memories of the past and fantasies about the future and just live in the present moment in the external world where nothing too dramatic is actually happening.

This constitutes massive spiritual by-pass, denial and misunderstanding. If a memory state of emotion, feelings, needs, physical sensations and thoughts arise in the present moment – then this is what is demanding your immediate presence, because it is Now.  It is not the past, but the present. All moments exist simultaneously, both past and future. Therefore, to live in the present is to live, present to whatever arises in awareness at the present moment. Attention or awareness is the capacity to OBSERVE what is arising in awareness, in the present moment, with complete acceptance and equanimity.

Your consciousness is the fullness of all knowledge and truth that has ever existed and ever will exist. However, the human body is limited and selective in terms of attention to what is capable of being aware in any given moment. Without practice, more information would create an electrical shortage in the system!

The practice, then,  is to be the eternal, non judgmental witness of infinite knowing and consciousness,  and be present to whatever arises in awareness. The more you are capable of observing whatever arises in the NOW of your attention and awareness, the greater the expansion and capacity to hold experience of whatever kind, in your loving heart, for yourself and for others. If you do not notice what is arising NOW –  if you protect yourself from the knowledge of whatever is arising in the moment, then you are re-enacting the past, instead of reconciling past experience into the heart of Love.

So instead of practicing “smelling the roses,” in the external NOW, practice experiencing the suffering you have spent your life denying, resisting, escaping from, being angry about, that is arising within you RIGHT NOW and be present to it without defense, only reverence.

Feelings - Self indulgence and self pity?

Consider how having authentic feelings as a child was named self-indulgence, or self pity, as in “Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” or “If you want something to cry about, I will give you something to cry about,” or “You have nothing to cry about, you should be so grateful,” or “You know nothing, when I was a child.”  As obedient children we immediately, “pulled ourselves together,” denied our feelings, and repressed and denied our reality and experience. Now these repressed feelings and needs exhibit themselves in whining, complaining, self pity, maudlin wallowing in misery, collapsing into the feelings when triggered and we have become what we were accused of being. Consider this inner dynamic, of having feelings arise, and then immediately putting on a cheerful face that fools no-one. Consider what you get from others as a result of this inner dynamic? In other words, what is the secondary gain inherent in the defense of self pity, denial and repression of feelings. Very often it is rewarded with endless attention and sympathy (i.e.not love, but pity – because that gives the giver of such pity a feeling of superiority and power).

Alternatively, people will ignore and try to stay away from you as your depressive and needy, dependent state evokes anxiety in them too.

Ironically, the way out of this karmic cycle, is to be immediately present to your feelings, with genuine interest, wonderment and curiosity, and kindness, instead of repression and eliciting attention and pity from others, through blaming and complaining.

Can you be the parent you never had to your own feelings and needs, and work yourself out of this karmic cycle of using others for something you are not accepting in yourself? In other words, can you learn to live in the present moment of whatever feeling and need arises, instead of enacting the past.

Resistance creates Pain

When we resist pain, we create more pain. Think of getting a medical procedure – if you tense up around the pain, then the tension itself creates more pain. Fear of fear results in more fear, fear of shame results in more shame. When we avoid our suffering it waits for another day.  Paradoxically, to sink into or allow the suffering, means to process it through the nervous system and resolve it. Mind/body skills that teach deep relaxation into suffering and pain – not to avoid and bypass pain, but to actually process pain, can be very helpful. 

Advise Giving

I was raised with the adage, “Advise not asked for, is advise not taken.” Although it was taught with an acerbic and shaming tone, I got the point! At the very least it is low class and bad manners. More seriously, to offer advise is the ultimate insult to someone being vulnerable and authentic enough to share their pain and difficulty, and needing empathy. Most adults have a vast repertoire of skills and defenses to cope with the difficult situations and inner struggles – they do not need answers, they need love, a listening ear, a supportive presence. 

Advise giving comes from the needs of the advise giver and so the focus of someone’s pain shifts immediately to the anxiety the advise giver is feeling – the very opposite of love and presence. Consider your motives very carefully when you put yourself in a one up position of giving advise and offering solutions. Why do you need to be in a one up position? This is a defensive posture to avoid something – feeling helpless, inferior, anxiety, shame that it is your fault that the other person has pain…..?  Or is advise giving a tactic to try to get a need met to have power, feel in control, have value, be seen and admired…..? Mostly advise giving is an attempt to teach someone else the defenses that you yourself use to repress and deny suffering.

Advise giving fosters dependency in those that accept the advise, or annoys people that do not want your advise. It teaches defenses that are counterproductive to attaining real awareness, and destroys mutuality in a relationship. Have you noticed that people will often say, “Yes, but….. when you offer advise?” This is an indirect way of saying, “You are not listening and you do not understand.”

Consider the ways in which you stop listening to others, and move into finding solutions – notice the shift from love to fear within yourself. Notice the shift from soul connection to ego domination. Notice how you have abandoned your own feelings and needs with advise giving. Notice how advise giving is actually a defense. Bite your tongue and do your inner work.

When do you offer advise? When someone asks you because they recognize you as an expert in the area of their problem. We go to attorneys for legal issues, doctors for medical issues, psychologists for soul problems, nutritionists for nutrition problems, – and we agree to the contract with recognition and payment. It is a contract made in choice and awareness and asked for. It is a mutually agreed upon contract for someone to be one up in a certain area of expertise within a mutually respectful relationship. It is not hi-jacking someone with your smarts. Remember that whenever we go superior, we are missing something big about ourselves.

Instead of giving advise, ask the person what they have thought to do – you will be surprised that they actually do have answers.

Level of Resource

When we are caught in the memory state of emotion, we are also caught in the memory state of what resources we had at the age that the emotions relate back to. This means that we apply the solutions we had, for instance, at 5, to the situation at hand that is evoking the feeling memory.  And so we see adults throwing temper tantrums, sulking, collapsing, obeying, fighting and behaving like five year olds. 

To escape the karmic cycle of collapse into young emotion, need and defense, it is imperative to not lose your Observer Self who has infinite resources in the present and can offer the alternatives and teachings to the younger memory state.

Emotion, thoughts and defenses are all regressed states of memory that need the mature love and wisdom of the adult SELF.

Confusion

Confusion represents being in “double mind,” and double mind is the result of being “double bound,” as children in dilemmas of “damned if you do and damned if you don’t. To deal with confusion, find the two minds in which you find yourself, and relate them back to the memory of feeling helpless in making a choice, because either one would result in something negative.

Overwhelmed

Whenever you notice yourself using the word, “overwhelmed,” consider how you have slipped into a memory state of being emotionally flooded. Very young children cannot process emotions and stress very well in their young and underdeveloped state and they are easily flooded with emotion. They rely on their parents to learn emotional regulation (ability to be present to, and process through feelings (energy). If you did not have parents that taught you and modeled for you emotional regulation, then, in your current life, external stressors result in internal stress and overwhelm and an inability to cope with life stressors. Again what is needed is the Observer Self, to recognize the memory state and become the mature parent you did not have – which resulted in a developmental fixation (stuckness). If you collapse to the age and level of the resources you had as a small child, you will not cope with adult life very well.

Anger

Consider for yourself how very dangerous it is to express anger, or even know that you are angry. Depending on the degree of perpetration in your childhood that has not been processed through, you will either feel a great deal of anger, or will feel a great deal of anger of which you are not even aware. Perpetrators demand that their abuse is not recognized – and so you are taught to not trust your own inner barometer of feelings. Anger must be repressed because it will not be tolerated. Examine this dynamic carefully by asking yourself, what happened if you were angry as a child in relationship to “discipline,” from Mom or Dad, or teacher or authority figure.  How did your feelings make the perpetrator feel? “Discipline” often held the hidden message of, “You should feel bad, and not be angry.”

As an adult this anger leaks out in passive aggressive ways, in complaining and judgmentalism, in collapse into fear and shame, in acting out in seemingly unrelated situations like driving,  and is felt by everyone else even though they cannot actually “see” they anger. They do feel it, though. Very often when someone with repressed anger is asked if they are angry, they will retort angrily, “Of course, I am not angry.” Being asked if they are angry is a threat – because to be angry meant punishment.

Ask yourself this month repeatedly whether you are actually feeling angry. Start allowing yourself to directly feel your well earned anger and see how you yourself judge it and repress it again.  As long as we do not feel our anger we will act it out. Once you claim your anger, judgmentalism, passive aggressive sulking and self pity, boredom and lack of motivation, bad driving….. – all slips away!

Recommended Readings

Evans, Patricia.  The Verbally Abusive Relationship.