Introduction
Welcome to today’s Thursday conversation! In this blog post, we’ll explore the concept of self-imposed prisons and how to step outside the prison walls into freedom.
Reminder
Before diving into our topic, I want to remind you that I would love Thursday Musings to be a two-way conversation. Please share your questions, comments, and reactions. For those new to these Musings, consider exploring earlier episodes of Musings to gain a better understanding of my perspective: your personality may not be your True Self!
DESCRIPTION: What is a Self Imposed Prison? Our prison is simply thoughts and feelings that go around and around inside us that include a polarity such as fat-thin, success-failure, safe-unsafe, more money-less money, connection-disconnection, worthy-unworthy. Which polarity is your inner theme and has become your prison walls? Awareness is our doorway into Pure Presence or Freedom.
Understanding Feelings
In our journey towards embracing Pure Presence, let’s take a different approach to feelings. I approach them by finding them on a continuum of more bold descriptions. When we use a more extreme word like anger instead of annoyed, we have an honest opportunity to see what is going on within us. For instance, can you notice the difference in: “I feel frustrated,” vs “I feel pain and anger.”. Acknowledging that feeling is on a more powerful continuum of anger can give us the pause and the pattern interrupt that are needed for a new moment. Below you will find more details on using your feelings.
The Power of Vulnerability
Vulnerability is a precursor to working with feelings effectively. If you’re not willing to be vulnerable with yourself, it may not be the right time to embark on an emotional inquiry. Be honest with yourself and acknowledge your emotional state without judgment.
Steps to a New Homebase of Equanimity:
#1 Acknowledgement that we got hooked by the polarity theme underneath our focus.
#2 Name the inner fight with the opposite polarity. (i.e. worthiness-unworthiness)
#3 Drop the Tug of War rope. Why let go? Only do so, if you are interested in a new inner experience. Here is my calling card that I borrowed from my upcoming book.
#4 Find where your feelings lie on the continuum in these pairs : joy-pain, anger-fear, guilt-shame and aliveness (lust). Sometimes we exaggerate and include only one feeling like anger and other times we minimize and say anger is happening, when there could also be pain and fear for example. While using a kind voice ask yourself: is there any pain here? And is there any fear here? I suggest asking about all the feeling pairs. If we check- in with sincere inquiry, a paradoxical effect can happen. Unlike armor or denial, truth is grounding.
#5 Breathe into the moment when you realize the feelings you started with were just energy in motion. Feelings are neither good nor bad. Stepping outside this polarity is where freedom lies.
#6 I believe we all long to have our insides and our outsides match. Let me know if it is now possible for your inner experience to match your spiritual beliefs. Could you feel more congruent with a statement like: I am more than the state of my feelings and thoughts, I am an embodiment of life.
Inquiry into our belief in a Personal Self
Here is a hint: we have changeable thoughts and feelings, but there is something enduring about us that does not seem to change. The Sages ask us to inquire into the nature of that enduring thing. In what I am calling Practical Spirituality, if we focus on the Knower, instead of the thoughts and feelings, release from imprisonment becomes possible. The knower is apart from the feelings and thoughts. I believe our bodies are our vehicles for living: but we are more than just our individual physical forms.
Acknowledging the Presence Within
Presence is the state we experience when we step outside the loud mind story and become available to life in the present moment. By tapping into this space like place behind or beneath feelings and thoughts, we can discover a deeper sense of home within ourselves, irrespective of external circumstances.
The Nature of Prisons
The experience of imprisonment happens when we are caught in a constant looping of inner conversation.The loops can be about ourselves or others and they create a sense of uncertainty, insecurity and imprisonment. It does not matter if your topic is about a lack of money, too much weight, a partner’s anger or work challenges. No topic is better or worse, or higher or lower than another. The looping back-and-forth becomes the self-imposed imprisonment.
The Polarity behind your “Tug of War”
Freedom from prison can happen, when you bring Awareness to the polarity about the issue you have been recycling within. Polarities are intrinsic to the outer world of fixing and changing the self. Changing thoughts and feelings are not necessary. All that needs to happen is that you do not add to them: instead see them as an event that is over! Feelings and thoughts do not continue unless they are being fed. Feelings are also contagious, so they may not even be your own.They can even be passed down by ancestors. Awareness can be curative?
Conclusion
We are even beyond the question of worthy and unworthy. We are life and life is us. Our “isness: is beyond our thoughts and feelings– it is our ‘True Self.’