The being that we are is inherently a free spirit, that’s one reason why we find that it can be quite challenging to live in a realm of limitations. However, the reality is that the physical realm is fraught with limitations and boundaries. A few limitations of the physical realm are as below
– It takes time for a thought to condense into physical reality, it’s not like a dream world where you can shift realities as you shift your thoughts
– We have a limited amount of energy to function in a day, it’s not possible for the mind to be at 100% activeness through out the waking hours. Moreover each human mind has its own limitations depending on its natural make-up – like its mechanical/quantitative/analytical intelligence, its memory, its focusing ability, its personality.
– We have limitation with respect to our physical body, based on its natural conditioning (genetics). Our body also goes through the cycle of highs and lows, with respect to its energy levels, it’s not possible for the body to be in a high state all the time.
– You live for a limited time and your physical apparatus (the body) is designed for degeneration with time.
These are just some basic examples of the limitation that we, as the being, are faced with in this physical realm of existence. Since our being, by its very nature, is “limitless”, one can feel cramped and suffocated by the limitations of the body, especially in an unconscious state when we are not aligned with physical reality. It’s very possible to be free within these limitations, to be whole in the midst of boundaries – that’s what awakening leads you to. Awakening to the truth of your true nature and understanding the reality of physical domain, allows you to adapt, accept and align with your physical body/mind and thus allows for a smoother and harmonious physical life.
Letting go of the leash on the mind
The mind is made of life energy and hence it imbibes the nature of this energy, which is to be a “free spirit”. All minds want to be free and there is an inherent hatred towards any form of bondage, imprisonment or control. Once you, as the being, understand this aspect about your mind, you stop trying to put a least on it. You understand your free nature, and you allow your mind to have its free nature. When you allow your mind to be free, you sense your own freedom. As long as you are trying to control the mind, you feel like a prisoner yourself – it’s not the mind that’s suffocating you, you are suffocating the mind and indirectly are suffocating yourself, all in a bid to control out of fear.
The mind will always have its dimensions (you can read post on the “6 dimensions of the mind”), its dark and light natures, and none of these dimensions are a “problem” unless one is unconsciously lost in them (which leads to imbalance) or when one is trying to control these mind dimensions out of fear – in fact, both these behaviors are indicative of a lack of understanding of the physical realm of the mind. Freedom arises when one is “conscious”, and allows the mind full freedom of movement, in this state of awareness. This awareness ensures the presence of wisdom, and the freedom of the mind ensures that it’s able to harmonize with its natural expression. Moreover, when you allow your mind its freedom, it automatically becomes connected to the intelligence of your life-stream, and hence becomes receptive to the solutions, ideas, inspirations and insights coming from this connection.
Why are you afraid of allowing your mind to be free?
In this physical realm your mind defines your uniqueness (along with your physical body). As long as you put a leash on your mind, and try to force it to be something it’s not, or try to force it into doing something it’s not aligned to do, you will constantly be suppressing its uniqueness and in the process you will feel suffocated yourself. The mind left on its own always comes to a harmony and its movement comes in sync with the wisdom inherent in your life-stream – it just finds its own balance, it own stability, its own place, its creativity and personality. It also comes to accept itself, it understands its limitations (physical and mental) and stays in harmony with it. All that’s required is that you let go of the mind for a while, so that it can find this harmony – it’s just a temporary phase that you need to go through (what I call phase 3 in this post “Awakening, Transcendence and Return of Focus”). It’s common to feel some uneasiness, fear and disorientation, when you start letting go of your control over the mind – but things start falling in place, and a stability comes in, soon enough.
Unless you allow the mind its freedom to be what it is, it will keep shouting out its anger at your suppression of it. The reason your mind is so noisy is because you are constantly trying to suppress its natural movement. As I mentioned before, your mind is made from life energy and hence has the nature of being a “free spirit”. The reason we try to control, and suppress, “others” is out of the same fear that causes us to control and suppress our mind. Why are we afraid of allowing the mind to be free? It’s simply because we have a sense that if we let the mind be free it will end up becoming “bad”. It’s true that people who are lost in their minds, unconsciously, can become prone to some unwise actions, that’s why the first step is to be “aware” and the next step is to allow the mind its freedom – awareness allows the required field of “wisdom” which ensures that the your consciousness is not pulled into taking any unwise actions. It’s one thing to allow a mind its free movement (its positive and negative thoughts) in your awareness, and a totally different thing to be unconsciously lost in the mind’s pull and taking actions based on its narrow perceptions.
Most adults have enough awareness in them and can start allowing their mind its free movement, this is what allows you to move out of any stagnation you might be in. When you allow your mind its free movement, you start understanding your mind’s makeup and the mind also comes into sync with its desired reality by attaining the maturity required for it. Moreover, since you are not making an effort trying to control the mind, you feel free and there is a lot more energy in the body/mind to enjoy the waking hours. Just because you are allowing the mind its free movement doesn’t mean that you will be taking actions on all its thoughts, your awareness will ensure the required wisdom to follow up on actions that are aligned with your well-being.
Sen! Does this mean there is no way that we can ultimately change our programming. For example an introverted agg person through effort and constantly leaving their comfort zone can become an outgoing social person? Or are we destined and completely stuck with the way we were born.
The factors that really allow for a positive life experience are – maturity and inner-wholeness, both of which can be attained by someone who has the capacity to become conscious. The natural make-up of your mind is hard wired, just like the color of your skin or the texture of hair is hard wired (of course you can change both through artificial means, but in the core they always remain true to their original nature). So it’s possible to force some aspects onto yourself, and even carry it off for a life-time, but inherently your natural make-up remains the same. When you are aligned with your natural make-up, you can explore the depths of it in your expression/experiences, and in this way you stand true to your natural expression and feel an sense of “effortless existence” because you are moving in congruence with your life-stream.
The way you’ve defined “introverted” is as if it’s a negative trait, but it’s not a negative trait, it’s just a trait, a nature. The question is are you being introverted because you “like” it or are you being introverted because you are “afraid” of being extroverted. It’s very possible that you are an extroverted person (as your natural make-up), but you are trying to be introverted out of certain “fears” in your mind – and that’s why you are finding introverted as being negative. In this case, when you let go of your negativity, through awareness, you can re-align with your extroverted nature and feel congruent with yourself. There are many people who enjoy being introverted, because that’s their natural make-up. It’s also possible that a naturally introverted person is made to feel “bad” about himself/herself because of their friends, or parents, who are extroverted – and this causes them to stay wondering if there is something wrong, and this judgment causes they to “try” to be extroverted, though it does not feel natural to them. When they awaken, and align with their mind, they stop bothering about other’s opinion and enjoy their experience/expression of introverted nature.
Sen,
All of your articles have been of great help.
I sometimes struggle with recurring thoughts (mostly just a single word); whether I’m listening to music or doing something else, almost out of habit. I feel stifled and cut off. It’s like a trigger. I am otherwise very creative, happy and outgoing when I am not stuck ruminating on what is depressing me in this manner and have never gone on medication. How do I overcome this and re-align myself to be free?
For so long you’ve been trying to oppose or resist this habit of your mind to create a “recurring thought”, however your annoyance or irritation indirectly fuels your mind to keep producing these thoughts. AS long as you are stuck in the mindset that you need to “get rid” of these thoughts, you will feel shackled to them. If you want freedom from your mind, you need to align with it first – as long as you oppose it or resist it, you will feel like a prisoner to it. Next time this recurring thought arise, allow yourself to stay with it in a conscious way, embrace it in your awareness. Don’t try to oppose it, don’t suppress it or resist it, and don’t be lost in identification with it either, just allow yourself to be aware of it fully without any motivation to “get rid” of it – it’s almost like bringing a field of unconditional love to this mental noise. When you do this, you will see its momentum ebbing away on its own because it’s no longer being fueled by the fear-based energy of your opposition – any unharmonious pattern will melt away in the presence of this unconditional love of open awareness.
Brilliant! Thanks!
Thanks, Sen. I appreciate the profound insight.
My resistance is what fuels the thoughts more and more.
Are you implyng that one must first accept this in order to be rid of it, or become accustomed to it always?
I am striving to be more open, have awareness and not live in fear or against anything.
To take an example, when you resist a fear based thought in your mind, you are bascially adding resistance to resistance, which just amplifies the resistance. Fear is a low vibration thought but it’s natural for the mind to produce fear based thoughts because fear is a dimension in the mind (you can read about all the dimensions of a human mind in this post – the 6 dimensions of human mind. The problem is not that the mind is producing fear, the actual problem arises when we become unconsciously lost it and start being “obsessed” with it (thus fueling and amplifying it), or when we “resist it” out of fear of fear. Both suppression and over-identification are states of imbalance or unconscious behavior. In this example, I just talked about fear, but the same holds true for all the other dimensions in the mind also. You cannot get “rid” of any dimension of the mind, what you can do is not go into an imbalance with any of it, and actually align harmoniously with all the dimensions of the mind by consciously “allowing” it, which automatically channels them in a positive/constructive way – you can also read my latest post on how aligning with these dimensions in the mind, in a balanced way, allow for a harmonious reality, here’s the link to the post – dimensions of your mind attract your reality.
Hi Sen, such great article quiet helpful. But i have a question, my girlfriend is very sensitive, and she gets panic attacks a lot so i can’t afford to ask her out. So here is the story, a long ago i found out my girlfriend’s inbox and i saw some bad words i thought to be cyber sex and i questioned my girlfriend about it so much, she got panic attacks and she got nervous and said yes i did with this guy and one another guy.. Anyway i was so upset but upon investigating i found it, she never did cyber sex with this guy, and i asked her that its not cyber sex she said well i was fainted and i was out of mind. But when i asked her if she did cyber sex with another guy, she said yes she i did. I can’t read that conversation, but i have weird feeling that maybe she didn’t do it, because when i asked that guy, he said she never did cyber sex with her. But my girlfriend said she did have cyber sex when i asked her twice, now i cant ask her again or she will have a brain damage shes too sensitive and i believe she cant really do anything like that, but when i lay down on bed at night i have thoughts that maybe she did have cyber sex with him, i cant really feel any good now. So, if i don’t think about thoughts and let it go would i be able to have trust on my girlfriend? i want myself to believe that she didn’t do it, but my brain says that she said she did, so am confused. If i believe my brain i have difficulty in relationship but if i don’t then my brain bothers me that maybe she did that with him. Can it be controlled by that therapy of not hearing your brain and let the thoughts go? would i be able to believe she didn’t do it?
Monis – There is a difference between letting go of “holding on” to the mind and trying to ignore/deny the mind. Your brain/mind can connect with the intelligence, and guidance, of your life stream if you just allow it the freedom of movement, without constantly imposing your control on it. When you say that you want your brain to somehow believe what you want to believe, it’s like using force on the brain or trying to make the brain disconnect with its instinct and intuition – the reason why you might be doing this is because you feel a sense of neediness towards this relationship. First you need to come to a place where you don’t feel so needy of this relationship, only in this place can “wisdom” operate because now you won’t be imposing your neediness on the mind’s thinking (on its intuition and instincts) and hence you will be able receive the inner guidance/intelligence of your life-stream in a clear manner. May be this relationship is right for you or may be it’s not, you can’t know that by thinking a narrow manner – you will need to let go of wanting a certain result and allow life to guide you towards what’s right for you. When you don’t have the energy of neediness in you, you will always feel assisted and guided by the deeper intelligence of your life-stream which has the bigger picture.
Dear Sen, i have come to a point where i was alone and not in need of this relationship, i completely accepted that she didn’t do such thing, but after talking to her for a week, such thoughts again coming to my mind when i saw that guys name. When i let go of the relationship and stay alone think that i am alone, i believe she didn’t do anything like that but whenever i talk to her after few hours such thoughts start coming to my mind. I can’t ask her at all i made my promise to her, i need to find some other way to fix this problem i don’t want to keep having doubts and fake this relationship of being true. Is there a way i can just let go and not let my mind start judging her or thinking of past?
Monis – The simple question is what do you feel when you are with her? – all that’s needed is that you be totally honest with yourself about this question and get in touch with your “instinct”. If you feel compatible with her, and find enjoyment in her company, then this relationship has a value for you because it allows you to have a positive experience of life. If on the other hand, you feel insecure, conflicted and stressed out in her company, it’s just an indication that you need to work on your own inner alignment and see if the relationship stays or dissolves. By inner alignment, I just mean align with your own joy without making it depend on her, if you are going to make her choices define your happiness, you will be a prisoner to the relationship and hence will not able move from a place of wisdom, there will always be a sense of insecurity in you. For a while, don’t make her the focus of your mind, rather make your own “state of being” your focus and work on your own inner alignment – focus on aligning with your wholeness in an independent way. When you are aligned with wholeness within you, you will always attract people who are compatible with this wholeness and would automatically be moved out of situations that are not compatible. So if you really want to know if the relationship is right for you, just align with your own joy/wholeness and see if it lasts – if it does, it means that it’s in alignment with your well-being.
The mistake we make is when we start focusing on the outside and allowing the outside to dictate our state of being. Rather just focus within, and keep moving towards aligning with your own peace/joy and allow life to orchestrate the outside events to align with this peace. This is how you attract a positive reality. Your personal reality is purely a mirror reflecting your own mind, so the problem is not out there, the problem is in the insecurities present in your own mind. The way you let go of these insecurities is by not depending on the outside for a sense of wholeness – don’t try to control someone else’s behavior, rather just align with your own joy and see if this person stays around or if you are moved into a new reality by your life-stream.
Thank you very much Sen, i feel extremely happy most of the times when i talk to her, but whenever something relating to that “mishap” comes i again have war inside me whether she did it or not, very well i will try this out and try to enjoy my time without her and align myself within.
Hi Sen, In response to letting go and neediness. Does neediness come from the fear of letting go? We feel we need to control our lives because if we don’t control them then we will suffer. So in order to let go we need to believe that our life flow will bring us the best possible life for us, without suffering. For most of us this is very difficult to trust in because we see so much suffering around us. The idea that something is guiding us and working for us to have the best possible life seems like a far fetched fantasy. My question is then, how do we begin to let go if we feel that letting go is putting our selves at risk. We have been conditioned to believe that we need to worry and we need to listen to the voice in our head in order to protect ourselves and survive. You can’t really let go until you believe otherwise, so how do you change your belief in the need to control your life by remaining in the grip of your mind, to prevent suffering?
Many Thanks.
Neediness is when your mind clings to something/someone out a feeling of lack (where you believe that this is the best you can get in life, and hence you want to cling to it will all your being). Neediness is a negative/imbalance basically coming from the dimension of love in the mind, which operates in the form of “attachment”, but it’s fueled further by fear (you can read my lastest post on how fear influences the other dimensions in your mind – freedom from resistance of fear. The reason why we get rooted in lack based thinking is out of fear-based conditioning and an ignorance of the science of life. The more you understand (scientifically) how the energy of life works, how it attracts realities and how it’s natural movement is towards well-being, the less prone you are to believe the lack based thoughts – the more rooted you are in understanding of life, the more aware you are about your choice to align with well-being and abundance. When you are run by fear based conditioning, you basically have no choice, you are just being dragged around by your fears.
The phase 2 of awakening (you can read about the various phases of awakening here – Awakening, transcendence and return of focus) is when you start “understanding” life in a scientific manner, where you become curious to know how life works, what existence is all about, who you are, the value of your desires, your natural expression (the natural make-up of your mind) and the principle of creation. Several posts on this blog are focused on giving a scientific understanding of life, thus answering the various logical questions that a human mind is bound to have about the functioning of life. Once you’ve acquired a clear understanding of life, in a scientific way, where you no longer need to have any “faith based” beliefs, you become ready to align with your life-stream. Until then you will continue to be ridden by doubts. Only a scientific knowing can give you a stability to align with your life stream, faith-based or forced positive beliefs can be shaken down as soon as some challenge arises.
Thank you Sen,
This does seem to make sense. Do you think we are at a point in evolution where the spiritual and the scientific must finally meet. To most people this blog would seem based on spiritual/ abstract thinking that most think is not practical for use in everyday life. Which is why I think many peole are annoyed by spiritual talk- they think it is just not usefull in today’s world. But if there is a scientific way to understand life/spirituality beyond what traditional science has taught us, meaning that spirituality does not have to be based on faith, (which as you say can be very flimsy), there is hope for us to move forward and evolve into humans that do understand life and our purpose here…I can see how the energy of life-the law of attraction- can be linked with the scientific, but as for believing and understanding that life’s natural movement is toward our well being, how can this be proven scientifically? I want desperatly to believe that this is true but I, like many others, because of fear conditioning, have many doubts. doesent this aspect of expereincing the truth of how life works require faith to begin with? Doesnt one have to first gather the courage to take the plunge of letting go of fear, to expereince this guidance toward well being? If this cannot be scieintifically proven, where do you get this faith from? Is there any evidence or way of understanding how life works without having to suffer first? I gues essentially what I am asking is, can attaining the belief that we can be guided through life, toward well being, be understood in a scientific way? or do you have to suffer first to the point when you have had enough of fighting a loosing battle- the point where you come to the conclusion that you have nothing more to loose so letting go cannot cause any more suffering.
The scientific proof that life is a stream of well-being is evidenced by the simple truth that “joy feels good” and “struggle feels bad”. Is it not obvious, in your heart, that struggle and lackful thinking feel bad to your being, and love & joy-based thinking feel good to your being – does this really require more scientific proof? The secret to having a positive life, and creating positive realities, is to simply align with your joy/ease on a moment to moment basis – when you align with joy, you align with life-energy, and that’s why it “feels good”. The problem with a lot of mind-oriented people is that they totally miss this simple truth that’s so evident in their heart. If joy-based thinking feels good in your being is it not a proof that your being is joy-oriented, that life energy is oriented towards joy? A thought of well-being feels good because it’s in alignment with your life-stream, which is a proof that your life-stream is moving in the direction of your well-being, this truth is so evident if one would just let go of one’s “skeptical” mind for a while and listen with one’s heart.
For example, is it not true that in your heart you can sense the truth of the words “you are not here to struggle, but to express/experience joy” – does this truth not resonate in your heart? If it does not, well, it just means you are disconnected with your heart. You can read and understand as much as you want but you will always have your doubts and will thus never be willing to align with joy. You can read my post – The Science of Manifestation – to get a scientific understanding of how life is a stream of well-being (it’s simply because the very movement of your life-stream is created by your true desire, which is a thought of creation, and your desire is always aligned with your joy), but in the end a person who is disconnected with his/her heart is never going really get a resonance of the joy of being.
If you are purely heart-oriented and are not willing to work with your mind, you will have an incomplete understanding of life, but you are far more connected with life than a person who is mind-oriented but is disconnected with his heart. If you are only working with your mind and are not using your heart, you can have all the understanding, but not be able to “realize”, or live, any of it because none of this understanding ever touches your heart. You say, you desperately want to believe that life is a stream of well-being, but you want “proof” for it before you believe it, however this very attitude of “skeptism” will keep you from ever opening up to the “heart” of life. Because your vibration is mostly one of “doubt”, it’s very difficult for you to ever align with true knowing, because true knowing always arises from the heart. First it’s important to connect with your heart, and stop living in the brain alone. From this place you can look at life scientifically also, but first you need to connect with your inner guidance by connecting with your heart.
Everything physical is in fact energy vibrating in a condensed manner, or in simple words what you see as physical reality is basically a “thought” condensed into solidity. The characterstic of life energy is that it’s pure positive (or high vibration), you can check this out scientifically by thinking a low vibration thought like fear or hatred and see how you feel a “pull” in your body (what you call suffering), this pull is an indication that a low vibration thought pulls away from the natural high vibration of life. It’s so easy to see that thoughts which are against your desire feel bad, and thoughts with are aligned with your desire feel good – the only reason a thought feels bad is because it resists your life stream (it stands against it) and the only reason a thought feels good is because it’s in alignment with your life-stream. You can also read the post – Why Do Positive Thought Feel Good – which is again gives a scientific understanding of life-energy.
You can align with your joy/ease at any moment, it’s your choice. You can keep delaying this alignment by saying that you are looking for more proof, and that you want to keep suffering more till you are finally exhausted by it all, or you can start aligning right now.
Thanks for the very insightful article.
I got a question. You have mentioned here that ” leave your mind on its own always..” does it mean let any kind of irrational/un-real thought come to your mind even if it does not make any sense? My mind sometimes makes me think that I will get some unrealistic unpleasant thought and I try to avoid that thought..what should I do in this type of situation. Most of the time I try to watch my mind with relaxed awareness but I still don’t want to let my mind come up with any kind of random thoughts. Please advice
Abhyasi, if you are afraid of your mind, you will stay a prisoner to it. So when you say you don’t want to let your mind have any kind of random thoughts, it just shows that you are afraid of the mind’s tendency to produce random thoughts. The mind by its very design will produce random thoughts time and again, because you are not in isolation but are connected to human consciousness, and the mind is like an antennae which keeps picking up signals. In your awareness, you can simply allow the mind noise, the way you allow a radio station, without being afraid of it – this is how you become free of the mind, you don’t become free of the mind by wanting to suppress it or wanting it to stop producing random thoughts.
Hi Sen,
I stumbled across your website on the weekend and find it very insightful, and alot of what you have written makes so much sense to me.
I particularly found this quote helpful: “The mind left on its own always comes to a harmony and its movement comes in sync with the wisdom inherent in your life-stream” …
It reminded me that deep within I know what my values are and what is most important to my life, and if I just let go of my unwanted thoughts, all of this will come back to me…
Does this notion apply to feelings also…?? I find sometimes when I am having so many recurring and fearful thoughts, I am also suffering from unwanted and painful feelings that confuse me… most of this comes from stress, anxiety and exhaustion… but I find if I try and let go of thoughts, those feelings still exist…
Im sure they are very related, but sometimes and I just accept that this is how Im feeling “now”, I will realign again.. I guess Im just seeking some reassurance 🙂
Jess, you are right in identifying that the negative momentum is not only present in the mind in the form of negative thoughts, but also present in the body/inner-space in the form of accumulated negative energy (which is felt as emotional turbulence and intense feelings). In fact, one fuels the other, the negative energy in the body fuels negative thoughts in the mind, and the negative thoughts in the mind generate more negative energy in the body – creating a vicious cycle. The only way to break out of this is to bring in a space between this negative movement and your being – the state of being “aware”, in an open away (without being to run away from the negativity), allows for this space. When you are aware, it just means you are “seeing without believing” the negativity. Slowly the negative momentum starts ebbing away in force in the mind and in the body, as you continue staying in this place of open awareness, what I also call relaxed awareness.
Thanks for the reply Sen, that is very reassuring!
Ive found that this vicious cycle becomes most evident during and after a period of stress/exhaustion. I am in the process of moving house and the stress of it all has accumulated and developed into a horrible negative energy. I have found the most useful way to feel at ease with this energy is to accept that it is short term and is my minds way of sorting through all the crap its been dealing with for the last month. I feel that I am beginning to be much more aware of my mind/body in these times, and reading your articles as well as other theories has been very useful… I am very interested in the therories behind acceptance and commitment therapy, which seems to complement everything you have spoken about. I would like to continue exploring these teachings, and Im wondering where the best place would be to start?
Thanks!!!
Jess, for a while it can be help to just practice this form of sitting in open awareness as discussed in this post – liberation from mind’s pull. You can do this for 15-30 minutes a day whenever you feel free, until you start feeling a sense of groundness in this space of awareness – this stability becomes the pre-requisite for seeing through the mind’s negativity. Usually it can take a month or two to start feeling so level of stability in your awareness as you do this practice, initially it can feel a little overwhelming to become open to allowing a free movement to the mind and your energy space, because all the suppressed energy and the suppressed thoughts can come up randomly to be released – it can feel a little challenging, but the more allowing you are the faster the release.
Sen..What do you think about people who are being immature or even joking around senselessly? Me being mostly “dark minded” in thinking and fairly laid back .. i immediatly want to make fun of their stupidity with a witty remark of sorts. Is this just immaturity on my part as well?? i feel like im losing my sense of humor in “finding myself” by holding back these “punch lines” verbally and trying to not identify with them mentally because a part of me is saying its childish and im simply stooping down to thier level in my own dark manner?
Bill, the energy behind what you do is what is of essence – for example, you can deliver witty remarks, or punch lines, without the energy of inferiority (from a place of defensiveness) or a deluded sense of superiority about yourself (arrogance) and they have a balanced energy about them. However, when you get witty from the energy of “I need to cut him short” (and this thinking can have a childish fervor to it), your target is bound to feel your energy and is bound to retaliate or harbor strong resentment towards you.
how can you do that though, much easier said than done. In a way it is being inferior because they are acting like a meathead. The remarks i usually congere up are mostly bringing a stability or “class” even back to the environment. Also i feel contradicted in doing so since i genuinely dont want to hurt anyones feelings or have them view me as a shitty guy.. but my natural negative make up is dying to put the dumbass in his/her place.
Bill, it’s possible that you are a “touchy” person mostly owing to certain insecurities, which creates a lot of passive aggression in you and this attracts you to people who are aggressive towards you (verbally and may be even physically). This process of balance is about doing the “inner work” first, using the challenging situations are a mirror to unearth your own insecurities/imbalances – for this, you will need to let go of the mindset of blame for a while, and just focus on your own imbalances. Think about this – there is this 6’2” guy, and someone riles him with “hey shorty”, do you think it would bother him? It won’t because he’s confident about his height and he knows he’s not short. Now consider a 5’3” guy and he gets the same verbage, now he may or may not get bothered depending on what he feels about himself, if he has a complex about being short he will get riled by it and his response will come from a place of touchiness. If he doesn’t have a complex about being short, he can respond without being touchy. There is a huge difference in the energy of both the responses.
The deal is not so much to work on aspects of confidence, rather what’s needed is to let go of the momentum of ego-force that’s so hooked on insecurities. If you don’t have a strong momentum of ego-force, nothing in you feels touchy, or inferior, or superior – because there is no momentum to do that. This is not something you achieve over-night, the process of dissolving the ego-force is a part of finding inner freedom and balance. You can read the below posts that talk about working with the ego-force
http://www.calmdownmind.com/identifying-your-ego-force/
http://www.calmdownmind.com/ego-force-brain-momentum-and-emotional-accumulation/
Also when you say “how can you do it though, much easier said than done” – the pointer was no really you finding some technique to execute, but about you identifying that its the aspect of your inner imbalance that attracts an external reflection of it and thus use this awareness to do the inner work of dissolving this imbalance first within you instead of making this about the outside. Working on dissolving the inner imbalance requires you to first let go of the attitude of external blame. When you do find an inner balance you will be in a position to work with the external aspects with an energy of objectivity rather than the energy of touchiness or insecurity.
Bill, even though their behavior may be “annoying” to you, your desire to set them right indicates a superiority complex as in “*tsk tsk, why don’t you act as polite as me?” or something along those lines. In the past few weeks, I’ve noticed the big decrease in situations in public that could rile me up and people who may look at me funny. I liken it to the inner changes that are happening, so there is a lack of forces on the outside that could provoke me.
Even if you did react to them with “Hey dumbass….”, that would incite a reaction out of them which would no doubt be coming from a state of defense. So you wouldn’t really be diffusing anything, just making a scene.
As for Sen’s “shorty” reference, I can find some resonance in that, as I’m short. I’m a lot more accepting of it now than I was a few months ago, although I would like to grow a few inches taller, but I’m not “needing” it to feel good.
Sen, I need some help. I’ve been practicing relaxed awareness along with BrainEv everyday for 30 minutes and for awhile I felt as though I was moving forward, but recently (as of the last few weeks) I have felt what I can only describe as a subconscious regression. It happens almost every day, where I wake up okay and just sort of fluctuate normally, with the awareness and ability to let go rather easily that I’ve had for a few months, but as the day goes on it feels as though both the feelings and thoughts get much worse (much the way they were before I found any semblance of awareness and was stuck in a cycle of fueling my thoughts) and I feel almost no sense of intelligence for which to allow these thoughts. I just feel a strangely childish fear and I can’t let these thoughts go at that point. It always cycles back once I meditate again at night (I don’t do this to force the resetting of the cycle, just to practice allowing and settling in the space of awareness of always) and I’m very confused and a tad scared. What is going on? I thought it could be me releasing some intense past energies, but if so, shouldn’t I maintain my awareness/ability to allow? I feel like I lose my knowledge as the day goes on and I revert over and over again. Please help me, I’m absolutely letting this happen as terrifying as it is, but I need some guidance with this.