Invisible State of Mind
It amazes me that my state of mind can be invisible to me. What I mean by that is that in my perception I think I am okay and in my right mind, but actually, I am destabilized. It is obvious to me when I am feeling extremes of upset, but what I share about in the Vlog is more subtle. Now I know when Angus says I am being stern, critical or on my high horse, he is probably right. He is picking up on my feeling state.
Normally I think he is the crazy one and just out of balance, so I dismiss what he is saying. I feel even more righteous in my sanity because he is losing his cool and telling me that I am upset. Clearly, he is the one with the problem! Until something clicked when I heard a colleague speaking about his relationship with his daughter and how he thought he was rational and reasonable and then recognized he was out of his mind. A light bulb went off inside of me and revealed to me what was previously invisible. I started to see when I am in my hyper-rational and reasonable state and feeling very justified my feeling is right.
I am judgemental of Angus. I am not compassionate and loving. I am thinking things like why can’t you just get it together? What is your problem? These aren’t really the quality of thinking of an enlightened master. And then what also blew me away was when my colleague said he decided to get over himself in service to fostering goodwill in the relationship. That had never occurred to me because I didn’t think I had anything to get over. It looked to me like the only person who had anything to get over was Angus.
All of a sudden I realized I had an opportunity to get over myself and not take my thinking seriously so I could get back to a loving state of mind. This was now obvious to me. And I knew it was possible because I have done this before. There are many times when I don’t take Angus’s upset personally, but when it was related to our daughter it was like Kryptonite to Superman. I was brought to my knees but didn’t even realize it.
Seeing this is the antidote. It is going to be much harder for me to not notice when I am becoming tense in the face of Angus’s upset now. And it is much clearer to me that anytime I feel he needs to get over himself it is an indicator that I need to do exactly the same thing. And getting over myself is so much easier than I used to think. I thought that talking, processing, mining my emotional pain, revisiting my history, looking at my weaknesses, was the way to heal and become stronger. Now I see that all that does is take me deeper into the mire. It is like Superman sitting down and eating a meal of Kryptonite.
Rather than looking in the direction of the content of my mental and emotional suffering. I can instead take a step back and understand where my experience comes from. I can look at how my upset is a temporary experience not based in the past, but 100% coming from the present moment. My thoughts and feelings are real time and they move through me. Whatever my experience is, it is created by my thoughts in the moment, and the good news about that is that thoughts are fluid. There is no fixed story or narrative. There is thought. And that thought is part of the divine expression of who we are.
It comes from the pure creative potential that is the essence of who we are. When I see this there is nothing to be afraid of. There is no need for Angus to be different. There is no need for me to be different. There is simply the awareness that all is well with whatever emotional experience I am having. This is what allows me to get over myself. Rather than delving into the content of my thoughts and thinking they are a problem. Instead, I can remember the truth of who I am as I let the emotional experience move through me.
Rohini and Angus are both coaches. They work with individuals, leaders, and organizations to increase performance and success. They also love working with couples and helping them reduce conflict and discord so they can experience more love and harmony in their relationships. They co-facilitate individualized three-day couples intensives that support the deepening of connection and understanding. They work with couples who are struggling and couples who would like to deepen the love and intimacy they already have. Rohini is the author of Marriage (The Soul-Centered Series Book 1) and founder of The Soul-Centered Series: Psychology, Spirituality and the Teachings of Sydney Banks being offered in Santa Monica, California starting October 2018. You can also subscribe to her weekly blog that includes this weekly Vlog on her website, rohiniross.com.
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Are you self-critical, hard on yourself, and constantly trying to “fix” whatever you think is wrong with you? Perhaps you have tried all kinds of different personal growth techniques and spiritual practices in the hope of solving all your problems. This cycle can be exhausting and never-ending, because there will always be something to improve about yourself, from that mindset. Sydney Banks’ teachings can help you to see how your humanness is normal and not something that needs fixing: as a spiritual person, you don’t need to change or eradicate your humanness! Seeing yourself as normal allows you to love and accept yourself exactly as you are—warts and all. Adopting this perspective naturally brings out the best in you and helps to find peace with your personality. Self-love and self-acceptance is your natural state, and any disconnection from your true nature is only temporary. What a relief!
In our culture, success is often associated with hard work and narrowly defined as material gain. However, authentic success, as shared by Sydney Banks, includes such intangibles as happiness, well-being, love, joy, compassion, and peace of mind that are innate in each one of us, along with outward goals and achievements. It honors the whole person in all walks of life, whether you are a professional, leader, executive, solopreneur, employee, mother, teacher or student. From this knowing and experience, you can access the infinite wellspring of love that is your essence, then share your gifts with the world from a place of fulfillment and meaning, through a profound understanding of the interaction between your psychological and spiritual natures. While conventional success can deplete you, authentic success only fills you up.
Your ability to enjoy life comes from being present in the moment rather than caught up in habitual, negative thoughts that take you out of the Now. Sydney Banks’ wisdom supports you in becoming aware of how you get seduced by your limited personal thinking and thus, create a painful reality of misunderstanding, fear and restriction. When you recognize how and why this happens, you can step free of the pattern. This understanding assists you to dismiss unhelpful thoughts and not take them seriously. Unlike traditional self-help or therapy, experiencing more psychological freedom and enjoyment does not rely on techniques. There are no magic bullets on the path of well-being. All you need to do is follow an internal compass that points to the truth of who you really are—beyond transient thoughts to your unchanging, formless essence.
Greater psychological freedom is the gift that keeps on giving. How grateful would you feel if you no longer had to listen to your negative, self-punishing and painful inner narrative, day in and day out? Understanding the role of thought and recognizing how it creates your feelings of insecurity and self-doubt is truly liberating! You will be better able to hear and heed your inner wisdom and become less driven by the noisy thoughts of fear and constriction. As an ongoing practice, this allows you to more fully experience your resilience and reach a greater sense of clarity about how you want to move forward in your life. As a result, you can live in a way that feels authentic and true in every area, including your career, family, home, creative expression, play, relationships and overall well-being.
When you no longer give authority to the fear-based thoughts in your consciousness, all you are left with is happiness. Through the teachings of Sydney Banks, you can see how your psychological functioning works, which makes you less compelled to follow those thoughts that do not serve you. Becoming more aware of the wholeness and integration of both your human and spiritual natures helps to ground you in the unchanging essence of who you are, and ride out the ups and downs of your emotional experience more gracefully. Accepting the normalcy of your humanness will naturally reduce your anxiety and fear and enhance your joy and happiness in each moment. By placing less pressure on yourself to feel a certain way or be hung up on self-improvement, you may find that low moods do not derail or debilitate you; instead, you will become much more attuned to your innate wellbeing and peace of mind and experience more happiness as a result.
One of the first areas people often experience profound transformation from the teachings of Sydney Banks is in their relationships, both personal and professional. While it often seems like another person’s irritation, anger, indifference, insensitivity, rudeness, etc., directly affects your experience, in reality your disturbance is a product of your own individual thinking. By making someone else responsible for how you feel, that person automatically becomes the cause of your suffering. Once you understand that you always have a place of well-being inside, independent of another’s behavior, it is easier to maintain equanimity through their changing moods and behaviors. Romantically, you may experience deeper love and intimacy with your partner, but the teachings benefit all relationships. This awareness supports more authentic connection and expression, while facilitating greater understanding, improved communication, reduced reactivity, more acceptance of self and others, and improved ability to work out differences and find common ground. Best of all, just one person shifting in a relationship is enough to transform it.
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