Definition of Hijacked feelings and thoughts
We want to know our feelings and thoughts. But sometimes they seem to take off on their own and we experience overwhelm which I am calling Hijacking.
Examples of Hijacking
The Stages of Grief are a clear and poignant example of feelings hijacked. As a psychotherapist for over 30 years and as a parent in grief I know the experience of hijacked feelings and thoughts. In grief, society now labels what I am calling hijacked feelings as the Stages of Grief. In the US, there is a prominent belief that: the degree to which we loved the person,is the degree with which we will suffer after their death. What? Do we need to have our life over, because we loved? What about living bigger in honor of the one who is no longer alive?
Acceptance is listed as the last of the Stages of Grief. There is a mistaken idea floating around that Acceptance comes as a result of going through the other stages. Acceptance can happen after the shock is integrated that our person is no longer alive. It is often the fight with what happened that keeps us stuck in the overwhelm of the Stages of Grief.
Where are you stuck in your life? Are you fighting with a memory or situation repetitively in your mind?
In earlier posts and in the Unworthiness Quiz on my website, I spoke of the fact that we are not our thoughts and feelings. Thoughts and feelings change as we move through the day. Sometimes we return to a certain thought or feeling and sometimes stay in a loop by adding on.. But when thoughts and feelings change, there is still a continuous you that is aware of the feeling, right? If you have been with me, this is not news. Stepping back and resting in the space of the noticer can create the disruption in what we experience as a self imposed prison discussed in a recent Musings
It takes only a second to step back. Let’s go a little deeper today. We’ve said before that there is an awareness that the first level of observer is still invested in your point of view. We put on armor in defense of our thoughts and feelings based on our perceptions of ourselves and other people.Then we carry on as though we are living from Truth, rather than our point of view. Do we want to be right or happy? Many times we do not realize that we are turning down contentment by holding on to our stories about others and ourselves.
The outer world is noisy and full of polarities like: wins and losses, you and me, inside and outside. When we take a pause and get curious about that continuous ‘I’ that spontaneously notices all thoughts and feelings, life offers us a new opportunity of freedom from our past point of view. We could call our past points of view memory.
The stages of grief: Shock, Denial, Anger and Bargaining include a lot of loud thoughts with overwhelming feelings that usually lead round and round in loops. The mind says things like why did this happen? Why did they die? They shouldn’t have. If they’d only done this or that … Can you hear the suffering that will ensue from these loops? It’s almost a guarantee that if we feed the last thought with another similar thought or emotion, suffering will result. Fighting with ‘what is’ guarantees we lose, because ‘what is’ has already happened. Freedom is available still in the next second. The mind thinks freedom is far away when our feelings have been hijacked. We think of ideas like: I need to return to my morning practice to feel ok again, or I need a nap to regain peace, or I need to exercise to regain to peace. Oneness, peace and freedom from psychological suffering are always available in the next second. It is not necessary to pull in an activity to regain peace. Presence is naturally available when we don’t join the last loop. Peace always exists underneath the drama and noise. Presence does not belong to a separate you. It belongs to Life.
Recently, I had a moment where I thought I should have rewritten a proposal. The mind said: now that you have new information about the project goals, could write a better proposal. But the quiet space within was not interested in joining the idea that my original proposal was not good enough.. I felt the quiet Presence holding me back from joining the mind’s upheaval. By pausing a second, I knew my work would be chosen, or not, and either way, all was well.
In this way of living, there are no rules. Next time I might get a prompt to rewrite the proposal. But I know I would only do it from the Quiet that might be urging that movement. It is like following a sense to turn right, even when you did not have the navigation directions to turn right. We are always being guided, but in the noise it is hard to hear. We will talk more in further Musings about guidance from the Quiet. The next second of freedom is available to all of us, when we turn away from the noise.
See you next Thursday.
Rosalyn