Life feeling like a Kafka novel?
If you’re like me, your mind’s default setting is “I suck and everything sucks.” Your life may have lots of wondrous things in it, but still you wake up in the morning with a feeling of dread that could impress Franz Kafka. This feeling can shake off at some point during the day– or it can grip you continuously. It’s paralyzing and heavy. It can make it difficult to complete creative projects, go to work, or just be out and about in the world.
This perception of suckiness and the feeling of heavy dread that accompanies it is part of a spiritual illness that many of us human beings have, namely, the disease of addiction.
The disease of addiction is, at base, just that: dis-ease. It’s the discomfort, difficulty, suffering that comes from attaching to and believing in the thoughts and stories that the mind produces, especially the negative and frightening stories. Once that basic dis-ease is happening, it prompts us to reach towards behaviors and substances to soothe the internal discomfort: over-eating, over-sleeping, coffee, cigarettes, obsessive romance, drugs, on and on.
Unsurprisingly, the “soothing” behaviors that we adopt to cope with the dread themselves have painful consequences that only make us feel worse. Every high brings with it a yucky low.
You probably have experience with quitting your symptom-level addictions. That’s what New Year’s resolutions are for, right? But don’t your symptoms always re-surface again, in some form? Life gets stressful and soon you’re back on the wheel?
What if it was possible to strike the disease of addiction right at its root? What if you could be free not only from the substances and behaviors that hook you into painful cycles, but also from your addiction to suffering itself?
This is the possibility that interests me. Lately I’ve been smoking like a forest fire, pouring coffee into my mouth, eating chocolate in quantities that would astound Willy Wonka himself (“Augustus! Augustus, honey, stop! Save room for later!”), and procrastinating on important projects. I want to stop indulging in these dubious “comforts” — but I want more than that, too. I want to drop the painful mental processes that cause me to reach for such comforts in the first place.
I know that this dropping is possible because I’ve accomplished it for periods of time recently. I know that freedom from the mind’s tyranny feels like wondrous spaciousness, deep love, and a rich sense of hope and possibility. It feels like being in total agreement with the flow of reality– even when reality doesn’t match up with my ego’s dictates of what should be happening. What interests me is living in this spaciousness and flow all the time, not just for short visits.
So I’m inviting you to join me on a journey of letting go of the fundamental dis-ease. This journey consists in a series of nine daily commitments that are simple but radical:
- Notice that your mind continuously judges against you and against people and situations in your life
- Understand that these judgments, though voiced by your own internal monologue, represent the distorted perceptions of a spiritual dis-ease and not “the truth”
- Get honest with yourself about the consequences of exactly what happens when you accept your mind’s judgments as “the truth” and then act on them or allow them to affect your mood
- Recognize when you’ve hurt someone as a result of your dis-eased thinking and make immediate amends
- Vividly imagine what your life would feel like without your mind’s judgments and stories about the past and future playing all the time
- Practice having faith that it’s possible to be totally sane, joyous, and free, no matter what’s happening
- Experiment with fully agreeing with reality as it is rather than as your mind says it should be
- Attempt to be fully present as loving awareness with yourself and with others
- Give up trying to figure out the future at all and instead simply trust that the silent, loving awareness of your being will lead you where you need to be
I'm a counselor for creative people, committed to living in the spirit of the gift. I also write books of all sorts, make music and throw art parties.
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
Those are some powerful commitments, Carolyn. Would you recommend someone who’s new to the idea of letting go of dis-ease try to commit to all of them in one go, or would they be better to try to ease themselves in and get a handle on one thing at a time?
Blessings – TANJA
Tanja recently posted..Monday Resource Review: today I’m loving… Drop Box
Tanja– They’re powerful, indeed! I recommend easing in. My next post will be about the first commitment, and I should be posting about the second, third etc. in the weeks following. So maybe follow along with me and go a week at a time, introducing yourself to these?
Awesome – I really look forward to reading the posts and you publish them
Tanja recently posted..Monday Resource Review: today I’m loving… Drop Box
This is so true. Thanks for sharing.
Janet Vanderhof recently posted..The iPad the imPact by guest blogger Jonathan Grauel
Thank you, Janet!
I love this. You’re totally talking about what I call the Evil Auctioneer – he helps us stay addicted through encouraging our shitty feelings about ourselves, others, and our environment. This is some real Zen stuff you’re laying down here; looking forward to seeing the individual posts!
Ellie Di recently posted..The Eyes in the Mirror: Reading My Own Mind
“the Evil Auctioneer”– love it! — Thank you, Ellie!
Answering the question of is a life of non-suffering possible, perhaps is impossible??
Jesus was portrayed as suffering while being crucified but on what level was the suffering?
Can we just suffer from physical pain and not have an accompanying emotional pain.
I can suffer in life and also be grateful for the lesson it has taught me, so is suffering than an essential tool for learning and not something we need try not to experience?
Experiencing an event such as 9/11 how can my heart not burst open with witnessing such suffering even though I may personally understand we are ‘dreaming’ of separation from our Source.
So having said all this I will say, for me, although I understand on an intellectual level we do not need to suffer, on an emotional level for me, now, it is impossible to not experience some suffering.
Carolyn, it’s funny – I only just read this blog post, because I was just thinking about suffering. It’s also funny because as I was reading your book (and well before I read this post), I wanted to write you an email asking you this: Is it possible to live without suffering?
In your book you mention how we are sometimes so afraid to even dream up an ideal world because we are afraid it will never even come to pass. You then tell us to ask ourselves what we’re afraid of dreaming up.
For me, it’s a life without suffering. I’m realizing now that, yes, I really do believe it is completely possible. 100%. I just don’t know how exactly to realize it. But you’ve got me to at least consider the possibility, which is really something
I guess this is just the beginning!
Abigail recently posted..The Moment
Abigail– Oh yeah, I totally believe it’s possible to live without suffering. Not that I’ve achieved it yet, though!
Have you ever read Byron Katie’s _A Thousand Names for Joy_? Katie lives entirely without suffering– and in A Thousand Names for Joy she discusses her experience and it’s fascinating. If you’re just starting to explore the possibility of suffering-free life you should definitely check her out– I recommend the audio book version because it’s most fun hearing about Katie’s far-out experience from her own voice.
A buddy talks about us being like computers in that sometimes we get error messages – crazy ideas or feelings that don’t stand up to any rational critique – but since they come from the same place as all the messages we get (ourselves) we have to train to recognize that they are error messages, or consult with other people to identify them as error messages.
He goes further and concludes that we’re not broken computers that have to be thrown away – we just need to tweak the software and get rid of the bugs in the software.
The bugs in the software, of course, are the negative thoughts that we throw at ourselves, the bad self talk, etc.
So, love those 9 commitments!
zane recently posted..Comment on The Basics by Conni
I love Byron Katie and am glad to see you’re familiar with her work. I’m looking forward to seeing how you take each one of these suggestions and break them down.
daphne recently posted..Setting Desires, Getting Clear on Your Why and Creating an Ideal Life
Thanks so much, Daphne– I heart Byron Katie big time, it’s true.
Can we live a life free of suffering…I say a big YES! Because this has been my practice for over 18 years and in my experience, we do not need to suffer. That doesn’t mean we won’t experience pain and loss, but even when experiencing these things, we do not have to suffer.
It truly is a powerful practice. So happy your are writing about this! yay!
much love,
gina
gina recently posted..Anxiety Busting Challenge ~ Day 3
Thanks, Gina!
I feel that so much of where we get hooked is deeply buried in our psyches and culture – so buried that we don’t even notice how it creeps into everything. I’ve been working on repatterning self-judgment for quite some time and love how your steps outline what I’ve uncovered along the way. May we all free ourselves!
Jo recently posted..Releasing 2011, Receiving 2012
Amen to that, Jo!
It is so easy to get sucked into our negative self talk daily. I love the way you break it down into steps!
I have been doing a lot of dialoguing with my self and my art lately to counter these dragging down inner voices and I encourage others to do the same. It can be downright comical at times!
Petrea recently posted..The Space Between the Jump
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