For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
And then for that reaction there is an action.
And it goes on and on.
So it seems that if we could intentionally shift our thoughts, feelings, and behavior to reflect what is 'good' we could conceivably create a different, or 'good' experience.
Sounds great.
Until we begin to learn how deeply embedded these 'actions' are in the subconscious.
Some scientists say up to 95% of our 'actions' (habits, patterns of behavior) are rooted in the subconscious.
And then scientists start talking about this thing called Epigenetics, which seems to be demonstrating that these subconscious beliefs that drive our habitual responses can be linked back to our ancestry up to seven generations.
So is the question we need to ask: How do we access and undo our subconscious patterning?
A suggestion may be to start by noticing the space between cause and effect.
With students or others that I have talked to about this, I seem to begin by putting my hands together in front of my face. I say something like, 'This is you and your anger." They are enmeshed, no space between the two. In this example the person's identity is linked to anger. Cause and effect are one. Healing, or undoing, is only available in the present moment. Bringing focus to the breath can have this magical quality of present moment experience - linking mind and body.
To simplify a method to create this 'space' between cause and effect, it seems that it would have to begin with belief. A belief in 'something more', a belief that there is a way out. As with my own experience of depression, I remember a moment that I believe to be pivotal in finding the way to freedom. I recall sitting with 'it' and coming to a conclusion that this was my reality and I had to find a way to live with it. Had I not been sitting in the depression in the midst of graduate school, I most likely would have assumed that the clinical explanations in books was the only answer (often a combination of medication and talk therapy - and this is trite because there were other methods available, but in my experience and limited mind capacity at the time I was only drawn to what seemed to make sense according to what I knew).
The experience of depression allowed (forced) me to connect eventually to an inner experience of what was going on. At that moment of (almost) submission, was when I chose to feel good. I knew that I had these amazing, clear moments where I felt that anything was possible and I could do anything - and I knew those brief, inspiring moments were genuine and authentic, not a response to a particular event or activity. I chose (and this was completely on my own, I wasn't reading and understanding all these amazing ideas and insights that I have access to today) to believe that if I had that clarity and peace in the brief and fleeting spaces, then I could invert my experience: I could live from the space of clarity and peace, and perhaps now and then enter the sadness as a fleeting experience.
What begins with belief that 'it' can happen, then needs to become desire - creating an enthusiasm about finding the answers. What motivated my desire to 'feel good' was that if I could figure it out, then I could help others (particularly the teenagers that I had worked with and were so close to my heart).
Depression has a way of stripping you bare of all the external, tangible resources you think are certain to help - or the 'if only' external circumstances that would 'change everything'. Depression pushes you to the edge of a cliff and forces you to scream out and grasp onto the only thing available - faith...a knowing that not knowing is okay. Faith is not found outside of you. Faith can only be attained from within, and then its limitlessness expands beyond you.
Belief attached to desire and enthusiasm, entered into stillness (the present moment), can create that tiniest space between cause and effect. In my experience, I began to notice and observe the sadness as opposed to 'being' the sadness. Going back to my initial example of my hands clasped together, now they separate just the slightest bit. A space is created by expansion. Light enters. Now there is room to flow.
Love = expansion, light, harmony. Now truth has been uncovered. 'Now' is when one's inner journey can begin.
I choose to believe that we don't have to uncover every subconscious part of us. Through belief, desire and enthusiasm, and intentional stillness we can undo the limiting patterns and begin to live in a way that is linked to our 'highest and best'. When we connect to this feeling of expansion, light, and harmony we radiate what is 'good' from the core of our being. Old patterns disintegrate and new patterns emerge that 'feel good'.
We're strange allies
With warring hearts
What wild-eyed beast you be
The Space Between
The wicked lies we tell
And hope to keep safe from the pain
- Dave Matthews 'The Space Between'
I took this next quote from Brian Johnson, creator of EnTheos - promoting Optimal Living. I deleted the post...but you could check out his 'Big Ideas' here: http://www.entheos.com/
“All of this is already in you. The great use it. The non-great do not, so they remain the non-great. Decide upon some thing, situation, or condition that you want right now in your present life. Be definite in this decision. Do not limit your decision by investigating the probable reasons why it will never happen. That is the detour to nothing. All false speculations of defeat have to be ruled out of your consciousness. If they enter into the decision for even a fleeting moment, the decision is robbed of authority and the subconscious mind cannot act upon it. You do not need to know how the final result will come to pass. That is the function of the subconscious. It has ways and means that, if they were known, would stagger the intellect.” ~ Raymond Charles Barker from The Power of Decision
