| Topic: |
Religions > Bible |
| User: |
"V" |
| Date: |
30 Oct 2005 07:46:56 AM |
| Object: |
Cultivating The Garden of Our Mind |
Written for a 12 step group
"A mans mind may be likened to a garden which may be intelligently
cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected,
it must and will bring forth. If no useful seeds are put into it, then
an abundance of useless 'weed seeds' will fall therein and will
continue to produce their kind." ~ James Allen
French psychotherapist Emile Coue (1857 - 1926) came up with this
famous saying; "Every day, in every way, I am getting better and
better." He wrote "If our unconscious is the source of many of our
evils - it can also bring the cure. You have in yourself this
instrument of your cure." Sometimes this simple technique of Coue's,
worked miracles in cases of health improvement for persons using this
daily suggestion. We are all born with a clean and sterile "garden" of
a mind. Everything we plant in this garden is from our own efforts and
thoughts. And as the good book said - "as yea sow - so yea reap." You
many times hear a phrase thrown around in 12 step circles, "Stinkin
Thinkin" which is another way of describing negative self talk. I often
hear addicts beating themselves up with their own mouth continually
programming themselves with many of these comments:
"I am no good"
"I'm a failure"
"Diets don't work for me"
"I can't lose weight"
"What's the use in trying"
"With my luck only bad will come out of it"
"I'm too old to try"
"I can't stand the snow"
"I can't remember anything - my brain is sh*t"
"What do you expect - I'm just a drunk?"
"I'm too fat to do it"
"I'm in a daze all the time"
"My marriage is on the rocks"
"I'm a mess"
"My house is a mess"
"I am always late"
"I'm sickly"
"There is something wrong with me"
"I'm a screw-up"
"I feel like I'm dying"
"What a pain in the *****"
"I'm always bouncing checks"
"I can't help myself"
"I always get sick this time of year"
"I always pick out an abuser"
"I'm always upset"
"I'm depressed"
"I'm stubborn"
"I feel like sh*t"
"Everything I touch turns to crap"
"I can't remember anything"
"I shop till I drop"
"I can't do any thing right"
"I'm no good with directions"
"I always hurt the one I love"
"I can't read a map"
"I can't cook anything - I burn water"
"No one likes me"
"I'm no good with names"
"I never win anything"
"I'm not very smart"
'I can't figure it out"
"It's my cross I have to bear"
"I'm not too sharp"
"I'm no good with computers"
"I'm always late with the rent"
"I can't balance my checkbook"
"I'm unlucky"
"I can never get any sleep"
"Whenever it rains I feel blue"
"I wish I was dead"
"I can't save a penny"
"I'm no good with numbers"
"I know it is good for me...but I still wont do it"
"This is a pain in the neck"
"My back is killing me"
"I can never figure women / men out"
"It's my Karma"
"My head is splitting"
"Everything I eat turns to fat"
"I don't like fruit or vegetables"
"Why doesn't anything ever go right for me?"
"I'm so stressed out"
"I'm always hungry"
'Why does (it) always happen to me?"
"I always end up offending people"
"My boss always ends up hating me"
"I'm no good at sports"
"I'm a klutz'
"I hate to exercise"
"I'm always making the wrong choices"
....and on and on.
Notice anything repetitive about these statements? Many are in absolute
terms that specify always, everything, every time, never. While many of
these statements can apply to some of us one time or another, few of
them are hard and fast 100% rules in our lives. Yet, we are working
overtime to make sure they do become us 100% at every turn. This type
of thinking just programs our minds and our bodies to accomplish these
tasks as we ask our subconscious to do these things. Sometimes this
programing starts passively by another's offhand comment to us or even
when we are kids and our parents or other adults tell us such things.
Then little by little they creep into our mind and take hold. Now we
don't have to be perfect with changing our talk or our life, but we can
be aware of how we talk to ourselves and make an effort to change our
thoughts so they can work for us instead of against us. To develop a
desire to change, we must first recognize there is a problem or
sickness in us. Recognition or awareness is the fist step leading to
the desire to change. I go into this in more detail in an earlier post
entitled "The 3D's of Recovery ~ Desire, Determination and Diligence"
All of the above examples are negative auto suggestions or negative
self talk that can be overcome - we have it in our power to change
these ideas - maybe not perfectly, but we can change them in a positive
direction. Philosopher David Hume defined a miracle as "the suspension
of natural law." While the subconscious can do many amazing things, if
we ask too many unrealistic "miracles" of it on a continuous and daily
basis that violate physics or natural law we can get disappointed when
it does not come through. A common complaint with persons seeking
spirituality is that they ask God / HP for a daily suspension of
natural law so they can keep violating the 3 branches of laws that
govern us and get disgruntled when God / HP does not answer the
requests. Entitlement is something we all can suffer from, it stems
form our ego. So, they get their ego hurt and give up spiritual ways
with a sigh, "What's the use." The "use" or "answer to their prayers"
is in themselves with how they live and think. We should not forget
that life on earth was never promised to be heaven on earth and as we
live - we die and as we die - we suffer. This is the suffering of
impermanence the Buddhists talk about in the 4 Noble Truths.
An older Christian lady talked to me about "her cross" she had to bear.
She was starting to suffer from old age at 79 and felt this was a
"cross" for her from God. As I spoke with her I could see she had a
very low level of acceptance with many areas of living. She also told
me about a water heater that went out after 10 years of service and how
that upset her so much. I thought to myself well, I'd be ever so
grateful to get 10 years out of mine, as our heater went out with just
6 years of service. At the time, I was grateful to get 6 years of
service since I had talked with a fellow that had a water heater go out
in 4 years. She had no insight or acceptance into the impermanence of
things. Everything that lives gets old and suffers more or less the
same way. It is natural law and without this law nothing could grow and
we would not know life as we know it on our planet. Our babies would
not grow, there would be no rain, sun or nighttime and we could not
even taste foods or even digest it. She was not singled out to "bear a
cross" to suffer from old age at 79 years of age. In fact, from my view
she lived a life of little suffering with health issues up to that
point, since she lived a life that was unhealthy, yet did not suffer
much from this anti - health lifestyle and was rewarded with moderately
good health. No, her problem were not due to God giving her a cross to
bear - it was simply due to natural law, the same law that applies to
us all. And, if anything, she had much good fortune with her life, yet
had a hard time seeing it and being appreciative and grateful for it.
All problems are creations of the mind and all that is created in the
mind can also be removed. It seems that many of us get stuck with
looking for hope of change someplace else other than within us. All
change is ultimately internal in nature, but we have hopes that someone
else will do it for us, rather than we doing it ourselves. Many
religious practitioners feel that any good change in their lives will
come from the outside -- as a gift from God / gods without much effort
from ones own self to change.
Unrealistic use of the subconscious? If we give ourselves positive self
talk or suggestions that we are thin when we are fat and the reason
that we are fat is that we are eating 6000 calories a day, our mind can
only do so much with countering natural law. So, we should not say that
positive self talk does not work if we are constantly working against
it by violating the laws that govern us all. If we are working a
program of recovery and pointed in the right direction of weight loss
and food addiction recovery then giving such auto suggestions to
ourselves would be of benefit, just as all the other tools we use to
restructure our life are of benefit. We are suffering from a case of
egoism when we think we alone should be exempt from the laws that
govern everything else. The same would go for a person that beats
themselves up for not being able to slam dunk a basketball into a 10
foot hoop when they are only 5 feet tall. There might be someone,
someplace that can do it, but it might be 1 out of many millions.
Sometime we get stuck with defining our self worth with the
unattainable and when we do not reach these lofty goals our ego says we
are a failure. This was a problem with me in my prior life - seeking
the unattainable and defining who I was by the failure or success of
reaching unattainable goals I set out for myself. As I wrote in an
earlier post entitled "On Meditation and Finding Universal Truth,
"People are too busy developing what sounds good to the ego instead of
what is good for the body and soul."
Many years ago after squandering much money trying to "buy" happiness I
learned that "one thing only goes so far with giving a person a good
life." True happiness and serenity is composed of many qualities and
not just one. Positive thinking as well as everything else falls into
this category requiring us to live balanced lives. Positive thinking is
important and useful, but it must be coupled with realistic and
attainable goals as well as doing the footwork to reach those goals. If
the goals are never realized with our best effort, (Efforts that are
within our personal and recovery programs limits) then we can
gratefully accept that it was not meant to be and move on without shame
or regrets. We can go too far with positive thinking just like anything
else the addict abuses. The perennial positive thinker must spend much
time and energy to displace negative thoughts that pop up in their mind
and this causes blindness to the big picture. This unrealistic view
could be dangerous in some cases when caution is thrown to the wind and
thoughts of temperance and caution are viewed as negative thinking when
a "can do" attitude gets overblown with egoism. An excess of
positiveness can also block creativity and problem solving by
displacing those thoughts we view as negative. Moderation in all things
as the ancient Chinese sages said. On pages 122-125 of AA's 12 and 12,
it goes into detail about living right size. If realizing and staying
within boundaries was not an important issue, the 12 and 12 would not
mention it. So, no matter how we program ourselves, we all still have
limits as humans...and especially as recovering addicts.
There are many things required to cultivate a garden and the seeds we
plant are only part of the equation. If we have good seeds but do not
water them they will not sprout and grow. If we have plenty of water
but dead seeds, it yields nothing. If we only have one crop and it
fails due to bugs or a crop disease, we will starve, so it is good to
have diversity. There is a saying in Buddhism that a clay Buddha cannot
get through the water - as it will sink. A wood Buddha cannot get
through a fire - as it will burn. A bronze Buddha cannot get through a
furnace - as it will melt. But, a clay Buddha can get though a furnace
to become stone. A wood Buddha can float on the water and not sink. A
bronze Buddha can get though a fire without melting. In the same way,
we can use positive thinking and affirmations to give us a diversity of
tools to supplement our "crops" in our recovery work and in our search
for a peaceful life. But we must also not forget to do our physical
footwork required in recovery and restructuring our lives as well as
doing our spiritual recovery or 12 step work to make our garden
flourish.
V (Male)
For free access to my earlier posts on voluntary simplicity, compulsive
spending, debting, compulsive overeating and clutter write:
vfr44@aol.com. Any opinion expressed here is that of my own and is not
the opinion, recommendation or belief of any group or organization.
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