"Inner dialogues drain our energy. Caught up in mindlessly chewing over the past or the future, we are not connected to the present moment. Complete periods of our lives may pass without being experienced and will thus go unremembered. ~Maitland
When I'm unhappy, hurting, disappointed, frustrated, angry, anxious, and/or afraid I sometimes stop to see what is going on with me. Always there is an inner dialogue going on. Unhappy with my current circumstances I obsessively chew over my past and kick my own ass for unfortunate poor past choices. When I'm afraid I am grazing through a buffet of my fear I remind myself of my own definition of fear.
Fear is anticipated pain. ~tn
Sometimes, for me, everything seems to go wrong. For example, yesterday Kathie asked me for something on a shelf right next to where I was sitting. I pull it from the shelf and half the stuff on the shelf falls to the floor. Much of it was in expended files and they spilled all our documents everywhere. (Did I say, "I'm such a clumsy klutz!" Yes, that is exactly what I said to me, and I was harsh.).
Later that same day I sat in a chair, one we'd bought only 3 weeks before, and a weld in the metal broke making the chair unusable. (Did I say, "If I wasn't such a lard-ass the chair would not have broken!"? Yes, I did say that.)
I was putting together a cabinet out of that cheap particle board stuff and got it together, perfectly, and as I carried it to where it goes, a door swung open and the particle board at the hinge broke off. (Did I fuss at myself for buying cheap put-together particle board furniture? Did I yell at myself for not being more careful when I moved the fragile item? Yeah, I did fuss and yell at me.)
I had $20 in my pocket, and when walking the door I apparently pulled a plastic bag from my pocket to gather and dispose of Peaches' poo, and it must have pulled the $20 out where it lay on the ground until one of my fellow apartment dwellers had a stroke of good luck. Then when I captured the poo, I discovered the bag had a hole in it and I had to finish the walk with dog shit on my fingers, and that is not as fun as it sounds. (Did I say, "I am such a careless fool!" Oh, yes, I certainly did. I said that and much more.)
More bad stuff happened that is not listed here. (Yes, I know that these are trivial frustrations and that hundreds of thousands of people have it far worse as they struggle to stay alive, and in their struggle they know they are losing the battle, nevertheless, it is this big ole steaming pile of frustration that tests my being as I work to resist my depression prone ness) The whole day stuff went wrong, broke, was dropped, misplaced, or totally and forever lost. One of these frustrations could be easily shaken off, but through out the day the bad stuff seemed to pile up and I start feeling sad.
You do [want] to accept what is happening-- because it is. To accept it, you have to let yourself see it. To see it, you have to notice that you are turning away. Let yourself feel whatever you're feeling; let yourself grieve the unmet desire.
~Ihnen and Flynn
I don't like the idea of letting myself feel what I'm feeling. It isn't fun. Feeling frustrated leads me to seek someone to blame for my frustrations and that blame worthy target always, always, always turns out to be me. When I single myself out for blame my inner voice starts telling stories about how I happened to do what has resulted in crushingly stupid circumstances for me. Since my stories are gleaned from my memory and memory is selective, and rarely even comes close to the truth, my stories can be very harsh and compassionless.
If we know our suffering comes from the stories we create about the events of our lives -- and not from the events themselves -- we can let ourselves be there for the freshness of the experience as it is. Let yourself be there for the uniqueness of your experience. ~Ihnen and Flynn
When I'm unhappy, hurting, disappointed, frustrated, angry, anxious, and/or afraid I sometimes stop to see what is going on with me. Always there is an inner dialogue going on. Unhappy with my current circumstances I obsessively chew over my past and kick my own ass for unfortunate poor past choices. When I'm afraid I am grazing through a buffet of my fear I remind myself of my own definition of fear.
Fear is anticipated pain. ~tn
Sometimes, for me, everything seems to go wrong. For example, yesterday Kathie asked me for something on a shelf right next to where I was sitting. I pull it from the shelf and half the stuff on the shelf falls to the floor. Much of it was in expended files and they spilled all our documents everywhere. (Did I say, "I'm such a clumsy klutz!" Yes, that is exactly what I said to me, and I was harsh.).
Later that same day I sat in a chair, one we'd bought only 3 weeks before, and a weld in the metal broke making the chair unusable. (Did I say, "If I wasn't such a lard-ass the chair would not have broken!"? Yes, I did say that.)
I was putting together a cabinet out of that cheap particle board stuff and got it together, perfectly, and as I carried it to where it goes, a door swung open and the particle board at the hinge broke off. (Did I fuss at myself for buying cheap put-together particle board furniture? Did I yell at myself for not being more careful when I moved the fragile item? Yeah, I did fuss and yell at me.)
I had $20 in my pocket, and when walking the door I apparently pulled a plastic bag from my pocket to gather and dispose of Peaches' poo, and it must have pulled the $20 out where it lay on the ground until one of my fellow apartment dwellers had a stroke of good luck. Then when I captured the poo, I discovered the bag had a hole in it and I had to finish the walk with dog shit on my fingers, and that is not as fun as it sounds. (Did I say, "I am such a careless fool!" Oh, yes, I certainly did. I said that and much more.)
More bad stuff happened that is not listed here. (Yes, I know that these are trivial frustrations and that hundreds of thousands of people have it far worse as they struggle to stay alive, and in their struggle they know they are losing the battle, nevertheless, it is this big ole steaming pile of frustration that tests my being as I work to resist my depression prone ness) The whole day stuff went wrong, broke, was dropped, misplaced, or totally and forever lost. One of these frustrations could be easily shaken off, but through out the day the bad stuff seemed to pile up and I start feeling sad.
You do [want] to accept what is happening-- because it is. To accept it, you have to let yourself see it. To see it, you have to notice that you are turning away. Let yourself feel whatever you're feeling; let yourself grieve the unmet desire.
~Ihnen and Flynn
I don't like the idea of letting myself feel what I'm feeling. It isn't fun. Feeling frustrated leads me to seek someone to blame for my frustrations and that blame worthy target always, always, always turns out to be me. When I single myself out for blame my inner voice starts telling stories about how I happened to do what has resulted in crushingly stupid circumstances for me. Since my stories are gleaned from my memory and memory is selective, and rarely even comes close to the truth, my stories can be very harsh and compassionless.
If we know our suffering comes from the stories we create about the events of our lives -- and not from the events themselves -- we can let ourselves be there for the freshness of the experience as it is. Let yourself be there for the uniqueness of your experience. ~Ihnen and Flynn
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