We do it. We all do. At least, all the people I know do. We create pain in our lives, we recycle painful memories, we keep re-creating the thoughts and push on the pain buttons of our soul that hurt. And why? To relieve pain? To reach solutions? To work through the problems? No. Maybe we think that that is what we are doing, but we’re not. We’re just making the sores ooze, and take some sick pleasurable comfort in feeling our own pain. Like my dear friend Karen says, “It’s like watching a train wreck, in slow motion, over and over again; and not being able to stop watching that.”
So, using the inspiration of Vietnamese Zen Teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, I bring you 15 Ways To Stop Re-Creating Pain. It has helped me a great deal.
In Buddhism, The Four Noble Truths tells us to follow The Eight Fold Path. The Eight Fold Path guides us through eight principles we want to envelope to reach enlightment. The second one, Right Intention or Thought, is privital in reaching Panna (wisdom). It helps us stop ourselves from living in thoughts that bring us more suffering. Thich Nhat Hanh suggests four practices that can help us do this on a daily basis.
1- Are You Sure?
Thich Nhat Hanh says we should make a sign and post it where we can see it everyday. When we have a thought, he suggests we stop and think for a second if it is even a true thought. Because wrong perceptions lead us to incorrect thinking, which leads us to more pain; Thich Hhat Hanh says a constant reminder to examine my thought, can help stop it from escalating.
This is very much what Byron Katie teaches us to do in “The Work”. Socrates did this too. Before we run off and have an emotional rollercoaster, hand-made soap opera from our thought; how about examine it. “Are you sure?” is our invitation to stop and really think logically about this emotionally-charged assumption, before we go spiralling down our own next victim-story of pain.
Am I sure my husband needs to love reading my excessively long emails?
Am I sure I’ll get so fat because of all the pizza I ate last night?
Am I sure my kids should go to bed at 10pm and stop jumping around hysterically?
Am I sure? Am I really sure?
Do I want all of those alternatives to what is? Am I sure? Maybe it is alright, as is, even if it frustrates me. Am I sure? Examination leads to freedom from being stuck in my own emotional inferno of unexamined beliefs. Am I sure?
2- What Am I Doing?
Thich Nhat Hanh, like us, knows that a great deal of our life is spent thinking of the past or the future. And therfore, we waste a great deal of our lives re-creating painful memories from the past or creating worries and fears about the future. “What Am I Doing” is our inviatioton to return to the present moment, and live here and now.
Modern therapy does a beautiful job in doing this by inviting us to use our five senses. Let me explain for a second here. The mind is a simple machine. A delightful one, but a simple one. It cannot deeply think of two thoughts simultaneously. It can’t. Try.
I’m not talking multi-tasking, I’m talking deep thought. Try to solve a details math problem and remember in detail a memory, and you can’t. Not at the same time. So, if the mind is going into painful memories (again), give him another assignment to fulfill simultaneously. Manually, take your mind to aonther task, and it will have to drop the former one.
Ask yourself, and answer:
What do I see? (in details, relish in the details of the sights around you. in darkness too)
What do I feel? (pysically around you, on your skin, clothing against your skin, breeze, sheets)
What do I hear? (notice and you’ll hear tons. we usually don’t listen in detail. listen to silence too)
What do I smell? (there is always smell, even air again. nuetral, our skin, clothing, soap)
What do I taste? (no need to put something in your mouth, there is taste there too, always. note it.)
Once we command our mind to focus on the senses that are, we cannot simultaneously be trapped in our emotionally wheel. It takes time and practice, but it works.
3- “Hello, Energy Habit!”
I think Thich Nhat Hanh was a cute, enthusiastic sort of guy. I like him.Here, he is telling us to notice our own self-destructive habits. I have some. You do to. Do you eat when you get sad? Do you go pick a fight with someone? I stay up late at nights when I am too tired to get anything done, and start abusing myself in thoughts and eating. Rather than put myself to bed and respect my limits, I have a destructive energy habit of creating drama at night.
Energy habits are anything we do, out of habit, to avoid the real issues, and deflect ourselves to anything else. Energy habits are things we do that pull our energy away from us in unhealthy ways. We want our energy to spiral within us, not to drain away. We want to cut the energy habits. Thich Nhat Hanh invites us to call the fraud by it’s name. “Hello, Energy Habit! I see you! Hi there!”
4-Cultivate Buthichitta
Buthichitta is “a compassionate wish to realize enlightenment for the sake of others.” It is the absolute purest form of Right Intention). This, is powerful. Why? Because it shifts the focus from us to others.
I have always done things because of me. I have volunteered because it makes me feel like a good person. I have worked on cleaning up my issues and my pain, because I was sick of feeling that I can’t breath. Simple. I do because I want to gain from it.
Buthichitta says ‘do it for the sake of others’, meaning for me, I will clean my soul and heal my own pain so that my children can have a mother who is calm and loving and attentive and not wrapped up in her own dramas. For me, buthichitta means I will clean my soul and heal my own pain so that my dearest Kobi, who has held me up for years, can take care of himself, of our children, and can pursue a life not so heavy because of his wife’s issues. Buthichitta means I do what I do because I want to have more light to give others, to inpsire others to heal their lives. Buthichitta means I know that the collective consciousness deserves more love and joy and light, and less recycled pain.
Buthichitta means I do for others. Wow.
Another Gift (from Gabi)
So Thich Nhat Hanh gives these four precious gifts to help stop us from re-creating our own emotional inferno. He inspires me, and I’m grateful for that. I’ve created another ‘note’ (like his “Are you sure?”) that is helping me stop myself. When I start ‘going there’ I look at my note, I answer my questions, and I manually force myself out of my own re-created spirally depression. I call it “CATCH MYSELF”
There are 11 questions in total. You simply ask yourself, “Is this thought, is this line of thinking I’m walking into, is this memory going to __________ (fill in the blank using the phrases below)? It is a simple ’yes’ or ‘no’ answer. You’ll know.
CATCH MYSELF
Cause me more pain or create in me more light?
Add to a positive life view and positive emotions or create more negativitiy in me?
Time well spent doing this or are there other things that would bring me more joy/happiness?
Change my actions in a positive manner/empower me or weaken my behaviors?
Help me enter new, helpful information into my system or simply recycle unhelpful baggage?
Make me make a wise decision about something relevant in my life today?
Yearn, jealous, needy, angry, victimized- is this what this thought will lead to?
Shine light on my healing process? If I go through this, does it clean my soul?
Eleviate pain and bring solutions or just plays in the pain with no progress in sight?
Leaves me englightened? Brings me to new insights that can help me heal or just hurts?
Finds more light, love, peace, relief, direction, inspiration in my soul and life?
Two very related articles written write before this one are: Conscious Suffering- How I Drag Myself Back Down and Ending That Suffering- Four Decisions To Pull You Back Up. I think you may enjoy them both.
I’ve put it into a pretty pdf that you can print and hang it in your home. Just shoot me an email or leave a comment, and I’ll send it to you. It has saved me from walking into it. Let me know if it helps you too.
So, friends, again we’ve shared, we’ve walked a bit together. If you feel like saying something, do so. I am listening. If you feel like staying quiet, do so. I am listening.
I bow to you,
Deeply, slowly, silently,
Ending That Suffering- Four Decisions To Pull You Back Up
Gabi
This is the continuation of Conscious Suffering- How I Drag Myself Back Down. That was the pain stage and the Buddhist teachings stage; this is the solution stage. In Part One, I realize I’m doing it to myself. I’m constantly recreating the rhythm that leads me to my own depression. I keep going there, allowing myself again and again to walk down the path that takes me exactly where I don’t want to be. So, read Part One first so you’ll know what’s up; and now, Part Two: Ending That Suffering- Four Decisions To Pull You Back Up lovingly awaits you.
In Part One: Conscious Suffering, we talked about how I allow the stimulus to drag me down, how I seek ‘pure consciousness’, and what Buddhism’s Six Sextets Model of Consciousness has to say about it. As I learn new things, I’m playing therapist on myself, and using the new tools to relieve suffering. I ended Conscious Suffering identifying a short list of What Exactly I Am Doing Wrong. You may find yourself in my lists. You may just find your thoughts and motives there too.
So, in this solution stage, I want to know how do I stop doing that which I know is wrong for me, and start doing that which I know is good for me. Deep breath….
And How Do I Do That?
The magic question to end my own inferno. Here is what the Buddha himself said in Majjhima Nikava:
“…[K]nowing & seeing the eye as it actually is present, knowing & seeing [visible] forms… consciousness at the eye… contact at the eye as they actually are present, knowing & seeing whatever arises conditioned through contact at the eye – experienced as pleasure, pain, or neither-pleasure-nor-pain – as it actually is present, one is not infatuated with the eye… forms… consciousness at the eye… contact at the eye… whatever arises…. The craving that makes for further becoming – accompanied by passion & delight, relishing now this & now that – is abandoned by him. His bodily disturbances & mental disturbances are abandoned. His bodily torments & mental torments are abandoned. His bodily distresses & mental distresses are abandoned. He is sensitive both to ease of body & ease of awareness…”
Translation, as if the Buddha himself were smiling down at me and speaking:
Dearest Gabi. Take that which you give passion and delight to, take that which you associate craving and torment to; and note what comes up. Observe it. Become aware of your body’s distress, Gabi, become aware of your mind’s distress, Gabi, and, with time and practice, they will become at ease.
So, Buddhism tells me to take at my yearning for my addiction (and for the late-night Snicker’s bar), and just look at it. Look at it. I can write about it, talk about it, walk with it, or close my eyes and meditate through it. I don’t have to act upon it. I don’t have to allow myself to create that contact, that will lead to that feeling, that will lead to that craving. If I can observe it earlier and stop it, great! But I don’t think I can just yet. I would like to change my translation in the contact stage from ‘painful’ to ‘neutral’ but I don’t know how to do that, just yet. For now, I can see myself doing four things that I think will work for me, right now.
The Four Decisions
1- Stop looking at all the things that bring it up. Just stop it. Decide (I have) and stop it. We often allow ourselves to get sucked into the comforting pain of self-inflicting habits. It does you no good, dear Gabi and dear you. And we’re both doing it, for no good reason. It brings us absolutely no light. Not at this point anyway.
No light. Won’t do it.
I decide. And so, I stop it. You can decide too.
2- When I begin going down that mental path of memories, stop it. Again, does you no good. Again I can use my life jacket ’I control my thoughts, I control my emotions’ mantra to get me out of that old, familiar path I keep walking down that hurts so much. I just repeat ‘I control my thoughts, I control my emotions’ as long as it takes me to stop myself from that thinking, and start to manually think of something else.
At times, I’ve had physical panic attack reactions, as I manually change my thoughts away from that which I so victim-like, zombie -like walk into and onto something else. But, if I can do it, so can you. Manually force yourself to go somewhere, anywhere, else.
3- Create active outlets for me to get out what it within me. In the last week, I have stopped cold-turkey 100% all forms of exercise. I can tell you all the great reasons why, but it’s irrelevant. I need that. I need that time alone, I need that physical burning of my muscle’s juices to let my chi flow freely.
You may need to play guitar, write, sing, swim, dance, read, or paint. Otherwise, you also might turn to less healthy escapes from what is stuck within. Otherwise, I start eating sweets at night, like I used to before I lost 25 pounds. And am I willing to go back there again? No, I’m not. Are you? No, you’re not either.
4- Love myself to death. I am doing such a great job in overcoming the hardest thing I have ever had to in my life, and in overcoming the medium and small things along the way. So, this last week, I’ve eaten more sweets than I have in the past two months. Ok, I hug myself, and stand ready to observe all that comes up with love and light. And for me, part of that loving myself is actively making decisions to stop unhealthy habits that escape my pain. I will not continue on this destructive pattern of self-abuse. That is what it has become. And I recognize that with love and light. Loving myself means forgiving myself for hurting myself (physically and emotionally) and deciding to do something else.
The Take Away Message
I realize that all of my four ways to help myself may sound similar, and they are. But, they are different enough for me. For I need to hear the same thing in several different angles. You need to hear the same thing in different versions. Why? So that when when hit we moments of weakness, we will have several different life-jackets to hold onto.
Will I look at that picture when I’m lonely? No.
Will I let myself daydream into depression? No.
Will I down into inactivity that makes me heavier? No.
Will I continue in these destructive habits that try to escape my pain? No.
Will I berate and begrudge myself for feeling this pain? No.
But… I will exercise, I will write through it, I will seek knowledge, I will celebrate who I am, I will play guitar, I will look deeply into my children’s eyes, I will hug my husband really hard, I will talk to my body, I will breathe.
And, yes, I will recognize the deepest truths in Rumi’s quote from the beginning of this entry:
I have lived on the lip of insanity,
wanting to know reasons,
knocking on a door. It opens.
I’ve been knocking from the inside. – Rumi
No one, no one, no one will give me what I need. Not the reasons, not the apology, not the righteousness I seek. Not the relief for my jealousy, anger, or pain. No one will relieve my suffering, no one will make me whole again. I was insane seeking that from others. I was. Until I realized that I was knocking on my own door, from the inside. It is just me. Just me. Just me. Everything else is just cream. It is just me.
I’ve squeezed the juices out of my soul to bring you this one. This post took so much out of me, professionally and personally. Putting it in simple terms, expressing it just right, touching all of my pain after so long was really tough. Should you have any thoughts you wish to share with me, this is the time and place. I await anything you may want to say. And, I know that if you are silent, that I will answer the knocking of my own door.
Gabi
Leave a Reply