Reconnecting with Sanity

In the last post, I talked about the Principles and attempted to define them based on my current understanding. In this post, I want to talk a little about what seeing the Principles at work in our lives can mean for us and how it can help us reconnect with our own sanity and wisdom in real situations in our lives. Along the way, I want to point out some of the stumbling blocks that I’ve experienced in learning this understanding.

First, knowing about the principles doesn’t mean that we will always feel happy. At least, I can say that has not been my experience. We still experience lots of ups and downs. Sometimes our state of mind is up and sometimes it isn’t – we all experience those ups and downs virtually every day. There are some days that are more up than down and some days that are more down than up. We still sometimes feel irritated, bummed, angry, sad, worried, overwhelmed – the full catastrophe.

What it does mean is that we know that life is full of highs and lows and that those experiences are coming to us via our own thinking. We know that events in life aren’t inherently good or bad, happy or sad. We can see that our thinking about the event is what is creating our experience of the event in the moment – moment-to-moment – EVERY moment!

Second, knowing about the principles and seeing them at work doesn’t mean that everything always works out in our favor. Far from it. My bank account is not bursting at the seams, our house lacks curb-appeal, I could stand to lose 15 pounds, I am still bald, and I still drive a 13 year old Eurovan that needs new tires.

What it does mean is that we understand that these external events and things are not creating our experience of life. Our state of mind is creating our experience of life – and as our state of mind varies, so does our experience. When I’m in a good state of mind, I’m grateful for what I have, that my body is still working relatively well, and that my Eurovan still runs and I don’t have a car payment! When I’m in a low state of mind, well…suffice to say I am far less gracious and grateful and I see those events and things very differently.

Third, knowing about the principles and beginning to see them at work in life helps us understand that ALL of our experience is originating in our own thinking. Strong emotion and upset still comes, and sometimes it lasts longer than we prefer. Uncomfortable feelings do not immediately disappear when we experience them just because we know they are being created via Consciousness and Thought.

What it does mean is that we are no longer freaked out by strong emotion. We know where it is coming from and we know there is NOTHING WE NEED TO DO ABOUT IT! That is a very big deal. We don’t need to believe our thinking; and, we don’t need to believe that the strong, uncomfortable feelings are telling us something about our lives! They are telling us something about our state of mind and that’s it! What a relief that has been!

Knowing that all feelings are just feedback about our thinking and that they will settle on their own if we do nothing about them helps us not make (as many) really stupid moves in life attempting to correct/change something or someone ‘out there’ in order to manage the upset we feel ‘in here’. We know that if we just wait the internal, self-correcting mechanism that is standard equipment with every human being will activate and gently guide us back to neutral where we will be able to more clearly see the next sane, healthy step to take.

One of my clients – I’ll call her ‘Jane’ – showed up very agitated about a friendship. She was upset that her friend didn’t really attend to her in the way she attempted to attend to her friend. Her friend had done something that she interpreted as betrayal and she was loaded-for-bear and anxious to let her friend have it! She felt slighted, angry, betrayed, and sad all at the same time. Her thinking was running fast and furious and it was obvious to me that she was in a very low state of mind. I did nothing other than let her talk, and I did my best to not add any fuel to the blaze. Very near the end of the session, I could hear the momentum of her thinking slowing down and her state of mind began to rise bit by bit. She knows about the principles but really didn’t see how they had anything to do with what she was experiencing at that moment.

Suddenly, Jane’s eyes brightened, she looked at me and said, “Wait. This is all my own thinking. I’m feeling upset because of all of this yucky thinking right now! I don’t have any idea what my friend was really thinking when she did that – she may not have been thinking of me at all!” In that instant, she really saw the principles at work creating her own upset. She knew she needed to do nothing to get back to a more balanced state of mind – she was already reconnecting with her own sanity – in fact, she had never lost connection, it had just been covered up by her thinking.

We talked more and Jane understands that she will still want to have a talk with her friend about the situation. But, what a different talk it will be! As a result of understanding the principles at work, she’ll be able to have a heart-to-heart with her friend in a way that will allow both of them to feel heard and understood rather than attacked and defended.

Try it out for yourself. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how easy and natural it is to reconnect with your own sanity and wisdom. And, if you want help (shameless plug on the way…), please call or email me for an appointment.