That middle layer of ick

I sleep really well at night, and I have great dreams. Dreaming is something of a sport to me, I can have a lot of fun there. My waking moments are fun, too. My life is joyful and satisfying.

But sometimes I'll be cozy in my lovely bed, drifting off happily into la-la land, and suddenly some scene of tragedy is playing out before me. A refugee camp. Or an accident scene. Occasionally, when waking up from a perfectly nice sleep, I'll find myself in the midst of swirling thoughts. Worries about loved ones or even just acquaintances from the web.

Has this happened to you?

What the hell is that, anyway?




I call it the middle layer of ick.

I didn't really notice this phenomenon until recently. It was during the summer, when I decided to start really cleaning up my life, that it came to me that this sort of thing isn't okay. Up til then, I was so used to negative thoughts and worries cluttering up my thinking that I thought it was pretty much normal.

The clean-up was one of the best things I've ever done.

First, I basically quit the internet for quite a long time, and that freed up a lot of space in my head. Apparently - who knew? - I had been expending quite a bit of energy thinking (and caring) about world events which were outside of my control and that had nothing at all to do with my life.

I'd also been expending energy thinking (and caring, ever so deeply) about other people's lives, the stories they were telling me about their circumstances, which were also out of my control and had nothing to do with my life.

In both cases - the world events and the other people's lives - the stories were nearly all negative. In some cases quite dire. But even when they were actually positive or just neutral, it was still a matter of my attention being drawn away from the here and now.

All without me even giving it all a second thought.

Have you ever noticed how many human conversations focus on the negative? How much we tend to complain? I'm offended by fillintheblank. My this&such hurts. The government should/shouldn't do that. Take a couple of days to pay attention to what people (and you) are talking about, and you'll see what I mean.

When we focus our attention/energy on something, we get more of the same. Some call that the "law of attraction". Some say "seek and ye shall find". Or "we get what we concentrate on". However it is phrased, it's a well known phenomenon.

Well known - but oft forgotten and rarely applied to day to day living.

As part of really cleaning up my life, I decided to apply it. Seek and find the good. Use positive thoughts to attract more positive thoughts. That's not as crazy as it might seem at first glance. And it actually works. Thing is, once you get the momentum going, you're quickly introduced to a part of you that you might not have known existed.

Let's call it "the trained seal". The one who does tricks for fish. By which I mean the one who is fed and grows fat on focusing your attention, thinking the thoughts society expects it(you) to think. That's the part of you that cares ever so deeply about what you're supposed to care about, rather than what's actually important to you. That's the part of you that's held captive in the zoo rather than swimming free in the ocean where it belongs.

And that part can be pretty noisy if it doesn't get its fish. Ever hear a seal bark? It's a hard sound to ignore. And while my trained seal has (supposedly) been set free to live its life on the high seas or bask on sun warmed rocks (yes, I am aware my analogy is breaking down here, ha!) it still once in a while barks at me for fish. I still retain the training that says I should give my attention to the sad and the dire and slings and arrows of misfortune. Those things that distract me from the here and now and make me feel ineffective and helpless still tug at me now and then.

That's the middle layer of ick. Deep down inside I am happy and well, so I sleep well and my dreams are fun. Up here in conscious awareness I'm well and happy too. It's just that in-between place that retains a little of that ick.

One would think that the right thing to do is to resist thinking those thoughts. But the funny thing is that those thoughts are actually coming from a state of resistance. Because, illogical as it may seem, we're trained to resist happiness, so as soon as we find ourselves "too happy", we make a point of finding something to bum us out. Oh sure, a little happiness is great. But we're taught - all of us - that to be fully happy can only happen within certain parameters. A certain amount of money. A certain level of health. The people around us behaving the way we want them to. And even if those parameters are met, there's this one, the real kicker (don't get me started!) the deeply ingrained belief in our inherent unworthiness (because we're all "fallen") that lurks within most human psyches.

Lies.

"Tis a lie, this folly against self" as Frater P. would put it.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with being happy. There is absolutely nothing wrong with aiming for more happiness. There is nothing selfish about it, either. Nor is happiness dependant on circumstances or parameters or even worthiness. Happiness is simply well being, that natural state of our bodies that I referred to earlier, a couple of posts back. I've been learning that just as our bodies have the innate ability to correct themselves, to readjust into their natural state of well being, so do our minds.

So too, I'm learning that just as I can ease myself back into feeling physically better by allowing the body to do what it knows how to do, I can do the same with my thoughts. I can allow myself to know better. I can allow myself to feel happy.

Remember how I talked in that last post about how bacteria don't actively resist antibiotics, instead they do an end run around them? Remember how I said that in herbal medicine we don't attack the infection, instead we support the tissues so that the infection has nowhere to take hold? It's the same thing when it comes to thoughts. Resisting thoughts that are coming from resistance is a fool's game, it doesn't work. But doing an end run around them - simply choosing different thoughts - works. Attacking the infection (lousy thoughts) doesn't work either, but supporting the tissues of my mind, by which I mean developing the habit of focusing my thoughts on the positive, works.

So in essence, it's another place to use the expressions "help is on the way", or "there's nothing serious going on here". Well-being is the natural state, happiness is the natural emotion that stems from that state. I come across that "middle layer of ick" less often now, just as I find myself feeling poorly physically less often now, and in either case I can get myself out of it quicker each time I do find myself in the midst of it.

It has to be mentioned, of course, that life has its challenges (and so it should, or we'd never grow!). We're often faced with examples of the kind of events or people that we don't want in our lives. What to do then?

Good question.

I think we choose.

If my happiness is a choice I make - and it is - then I can, in theory, make that choice no matter the circumstances. Sometimes that means I literally have to turn aside from something, not give it my attention at all (turn the other cheek). Sometimes it means that I have to choose to give my attention to the part of it that I can have a positive affect on. And sometimes it means, like the little girl in the old joke, that I have to keep on digging through that pile of horseshit til I find the pony.

The point is that living this way is a matter of taking complete responsibility for my own happiness. It means that there are times I have to watch my thinking quite carefully, because the belief that happiness is dependant on circumstances can take a while to fade away. It's only by owning my happiness, by putting my happiness - which really means my sense of fulfilment - above all else, that I can be the best version of myself that I can muster.

It's the only way I can find out what the best of me is.

And that, in turn, is why there is nothing wrong or selfish in choosing to be happy. If it means that we are at our best, then we have far, far more to offer the world than the shadow versions of ourselves that we are when we don't even know what that means.

So when something comes along that throws me for a loop, I'm trying to remember to stand back and ask myself "how does the Me of me see this?" If I catch myself sliding into trained seal mode, or if something about how I'm responding has a whiff of ick to it, then I know I'm not in alignment with who I want to be.

That word - alignment - has become a real favourite of mine.

I had a round of pain yesterday that (seemed like it) came out of nowhere. It really threw me. After a moment or two (okay more like 30, ha!) of indulging in "this isn't fair! I was fine! Where the hell is this coming from?!" I got a grip and started talking myself off that ledge of despair. And when I got to the part where I reminded myself that I wanted to be in alignment with the Me of me, I cracked up laughing. My physical pain was that of something out of alignment in my back. As soon as I made the connection between the pain and the emotion I'd been feeling when it started .. it disappeared. Poof. Gone.

Imagine that.

I am not going to try to pretend that doubt or fear don't stand a chance of taking hold in me any more now that I'm focused on being happy. Darn straight they do. But now I know that when they do, I can use them as indicators. They're showing me what I do not want. From there I can see what I do want and orient myself towards that.

We get what we concentrate on.