How to Go Beyond the 'Story-Telling' Habit

How to Go Beyond the ‘Story-Telling’ Habit

Comment: "An area of my ongoing 'work' is to watch my reactions to the happenings that come my way. There are never ending opportunities to be alert and especially so in relationships. To reduce unnecessary suffering to oneself and others, one must be aware of one's habit to add 'mental stories' to explain away what is happening. It seems so hard to stay close to the unfolding life, in the present moment. It seems there is an irritation with 'what is' happening, we want to fight it, and it arises because we want/expect things to be different! It seems the best we can do is to accept it ain't going to be how we want it, then to drop our story telling habit - and this is all one can do and needs to do to go beyond it."

It is a good ability to be able to see one's own story-telling mode when it arises - it takes a lot of awareness to see it, to know it's happening when it does and to recognize it. It takes even more awareness to be able to truly let it go and drop it because one has to be willing to not want to do it. I also agree with you that relationships provide such a fertile growing opportunity, and especially when there is conflict. I grew a lot from such a situation a few years ago. (I'm not saying you have conflict...)

I remember questioning the phenomena of 'story-mode' itself as a whole, I wrote a sequence of articles on it, Why these persistent internal dialogs? (These articles are on my website). What was interesting to me, is I knew this talking was nonsense and defensive as I could see that when I looked at the content, it was totally ridiculous stuff and often not very nice to myself or others.

Also I noticed that when it went on too long unchecked, then it would effect my emotional state, stress built up, I would get all wound up, likely would get sick and then was more likely to react at anything with all the force of the built up energy - with my ego. I saw it later as me allowing personality to activate - to get strong, and then after this would happen, there was nothing more to do, then do more meditations and wait until this state de-energized. Depending on how far I let it go on, it could take from 3 days to a week to de-energize. So I am sure you know all this too, having observed it.

For me I was doing the same, noticing it and setting it aside, and thinking it was enough if I just did this, yet doing this often it still wasn't changing, it was still happening - so persistent. I could even go to sleep at night after meditation and wake up in the morning, talking away. So curious how it was, like it had a wheel of it's own, driving all by itself. I felt I needed to know something else about it in a more general sense to be able to get a stronger control over it. Why did I still do this - get sucked in - even though I knew the harm it caused me and others when I did it, it all reduced to the question of:

"What benefit do 'I' get out of it by doing it?"

I realized that one does a habit or behaves in a way, because by doing so, one gets something out of it. To drop a habit, we have to know what we get out of it by doing it, and only then when we see that, will we be ready to make a clear decision to be able to drop being in that way. One adopts a habit at a point in one's life, because it was helpful for oneself at the time one adopted it. The habit we are talking about is one that has been with humans for a long, long, time, so also why it's so hard to change/transmute/drop.

To change any habit, one must see clear what benefit it gives you to do it. Once one sees the benefit one gets - one can only 'observe this' while/when it happens to receive this understanding, it can't be understood intellectually - then one will have a new 'self-knowledge' about one's conditioned habit/aspect in a general way - what we call an 'aha' or leap in understanding.

Once we have that piece of information, then our willingness to drop it will increase and as we practice doing that more, then also we start to spend progressively more time in quiet than in talking, and our perception and ability to be present will be enhanced along with our doing this. Our growing awareness will start to pick up significantly after that - as moments of quiet time increases...

Hint: One must be willing to enter into a totally unknown, still and quiet field of being. At first this is very scary, because one has never encountered it before or been like this before, so being unknown it will take much courage to enter into this darkness.

Betsy

How Exactly Does One Surrender?

When you're very still and quiet, then observe and notice how there is this nearly constant internal chatter going on -- one is thinking. As one thinks certain things, this generates emotional energy in the muscles of the body according to the 'way YOU feel' about what you are thinking. This thinking and changing one's vibration with an emotional signature is basically - being identified with one's reflection - or with one's personality -- a capability inherent in how our brains are built.

So now all that to see what not-surrendered is. Not surrendered is engaging in the mind-voice, the story telling, thinking, being identified with all that and allowing those feelings to happen. Surrender, and it's a practice, not a one-time thing, is like meditation, you work to become the still observer, quiet in thinking. So it's much like observe you are thinking, be WILLING to set all that aside and just sit in silence, it helps to have a focal point, such as feeling your breathing. Then you feel your breath go in and out, and before you know it, seconds actually, the mind-voice has started up again, and you have totally forgotten about feeling your breath (which doesn't require thinking). Then you give yourself a reminder, I don't need to think right now, I’m meditating, and you return to feeling your breath. And so you repeat this for about an hour, good to do it each day and twice a day if possible. This is 'surrender' practice. In a nutshell it's about not engaging in the fun you get out of talking to yourself (internally). I mean we do the story telling, chattering, emoting, because WE GET SOMETHING OUT OF IT. What we get out of it is the feeling this is US, that we are alive in this manner. So then you might imagine, it's kind of scary to totally 'shut-up' the first few times, because it's like we don't feel alive if we can't hear that echo of thought going on constantly inside our head.

Betsy

Why do Humans Resist Change?

For a real change to happen there must be a transformation of energy, from the old form to the new form. This process, of the old dying and of the new forming, is perceived by the one having the experience as a sensation of pain. This is because the transformation process itself is biological and the intense heat given off from the old tissue releasing the held energy and changing into the new tissue is truly painful. This is true on all levels of our physical existence including our thoughts, emotions and body (our own form) and also of the forms outside of us, such as organizations or structures, etc. It is painful to find out one might be wrong in one's thinking, it is painful to cry; it is painful to heal torn muscles or broken bones. But know that all pain is healing; pain is the symptom of transformation - of the old giving rise to the new.

We have pain sensors all over our body to protect us in case our life is physically threatened, so our innate tendency is to avoid the experience of pain. The problem comes in with our identification with our personality or self-image. We have the tendency to believe that the energy that keeps the personality together is a physical entity and thus we avoid anything, which might threaten its demise, because this kind of transformation also causes pain: mental, emotional and physical. So we avoid anything, which might be painful, because pain for us is a signal that we might be dying.

What we need to know is that the energy held in the personality (and in all forms) is mutable, it's not our permanent self (its not a permanent structure), and if we allow for the transformation of this energy we will not die (the things won't disappear). Allowing for transformation to take place means we are allowing ourselves to adapt to changes that are happening around us. With this attitude we are physically mutable and thus much more likely to survive, then if we resist change. If we resist changing ourselves when happenings indicate, then what we are doing is becoming more solid or holding our energy as being the personality in a kind of tension. This holding of energy to try to maintain static familiar shapes is that which restricts the flow of energy and causes pain and subsequently acquired disease, conflict, aging and illness to build up in our physical body. All structures become weaker the more they resist change. If we let go of what we are holding onto, then this pent up energy is released from the personality and back to our body causing a transformation of ourselves - now we feel the pain - as the old part of us dies and another part takes place in it's spot. Nothing is ever lost, a new form always supercedes the old, and the new is adapted to the existing changing conditions around us and is thus more likely to survive.

While transformation of one's personality is painful, it doesn't have to be EXPERIENCED that way. This is because we have the ability to be the observer of ‘personal’ transformational energies when they happen - from the observation platform one can observe the process but one doesn't feel pain because one is no longer identified with the old form. This is known as being the observer. It is being in this position as the observer, which then is that which allows the old form to transform into the new. After experiencing this kind of transformation then we become secure in the position of the observer - at the center -knowing that we can never truly lose ourselves or lose anything. Then we see that all is transformation, and to allow ourselves to change we survive, and then we allow change to happen whenever it’s needed.

Betsy

What does being Independent mean to you?

For me, Independent means 'independent from authorities'.

This is all about self-sovereignty, it's about becoming a master over one's own life, it's about learning to make decisions and live one's live according to one's truth. This is not to say when one is independent that one doesn't consult other people and get other people's feedback in regards to decisions that one makes. It is about becoming one with oneself and integrating all the skills one has of observation and questioning. It is like being spiritual and a scientist at the same time, one integrates the two parts of reality - what one can observe - the past or the happening and what one can intuit about it by questioning what one has observed and waiting or listening to receive an answer.

So for example, something 'new' and 'unknown' happens in your life, which requires that you make a decision on how to proceed. Because you've never encountered exactly these circumstances before, it is an unknown for you. To be able to proceed and make a good decision, which is in-line with your life and journey, then you make use of what is available to make your decision or conclusion. You observe the happening, you get information about it by doing research, questioning others, consulting experts, etc. Part of this is observing yourself, your reactions & your current life. Then after you've questioned all that you can about the happening, then you will need to make a decision on how to proceed. To do this next step, then you ask yourself, what rings true here, what is it in my heart that I really want to do here, what is the best possible scenario. Because you've never encountered this scenario before, then you can only make 'your best guess', the best decision possible; even it might turn out to be a mistake. But that is how we learn, and the more we rely on our what’s in our heart to make the final decision, then the more we will grow in self-sovereignty and self-reliance, knowing truly that we are in control of our own destiny, that nobody is forcing us to make our decision the way others might dictate.

To contrast this, it might help to know what being dependent means. It means that instead of making your own decision in regards to what to do, you just do what others tell you, or you do what is normal - what the majority is doing. People take this route, because they don't want to accept responsibility in case the decision they make ends in disaster or is a mistake. The benefit of this is that if a mistake happens, you can then give the fault to another person and feel like a victim: you told me to do this, or the doctor misdiagnosed my disease, or the lawyer made a mistake, etc. Then you can take it a step further and sue the people who 'did you wrong'. That's pretty much the society we have today, a bunch of sheep, not taking self-responsibility, going with the crowd, and then when bad things happen they find someone else to blame it on. What a game this is, and all because people are afraid to take ownership of their life and wield their abilities to observe, question and make decisions.

Betsy