Not Another Conditioning
No otro condicionamiento
A question about what to do practically when habitual avoidance arises throughout the day, and whether the answer is simply to sit still each time.
Not Another Conditioning
A question about what to do practically when habitual avoidance arises throughout the day, and whether the answer is simply to sit still each time.
Practically throughout the day, when conditioning pulls you toward a beer or whatever it is, is the answer just to be still? What if it happens fifty times a day? Do you sit and be still fifty times a day and digest?
I'm not saying what to do. I'm not saying "sit," because that can become another conditioning.
If you know that going for that beer is problematic, that it's habitually problematic, then the question becomes: what can you do differently? Maybe staying with what you feel is part of it, but I'm not prescribing sitting still as the solution.
There is no single prescription
It might be to go for a run, or to talk to your wife, or to attend to your kids. We could talk about specifics: a specific question, a specific action, a specific situation. Then we could have a back and forth about what might work in that particular case. But if I were to say "whenever X, Y, Z happens, sit still," that's just another conditioning.
The general thing I'm trying to offer as a rule of thumb is this: if you realize you're in fear, and you realize how you're reacting to it and avoiding it, try to reverse that. Try to be with the fear. Get closer to it. Become friends with it. The same goes for pain.
Yeah, easier said than done. But I've been trying.
Finding something beautiful
As we talked about last time, it worked quite well for you to look in your experience in that moment for something beautiful, something you could feel a lovingness toward.
I can feel it even right now, I don't know why. I tried to do it just now when you said that, and just seeing the two of you snuggling on the couch is beautiful. It's good vibes for sure.