Mindfulness/ Awareness can Break Down Limiting Dualities

[Bubba66]

Here I just want to thank Leo for posting a video a while back called "awareness alone is curative"  

NOTE: Before you skip, observe your resistance to reading all this text. Practice observation here. 

My lack of decisiveness is my core issue. Through simple awareness, with a dash of self-love and compassion, I have had these insights:

1. my lack of decisiveness = lack of time spent observing the truth. 

2. Awareness can cure procrastination and suffering for good, here's how: realize that the duality between "what you'd rather be doing right now" and what you "have to do to survive/ pay the bills/ pass the test/ get fit" is nonexistent. There is no difference between suffering and discipline, and the freedom of relaxation and fun. In fact, I have used awareness to build a "positive feedback loop" relating to anything requiring discipline, such that i have been way more consistent and actually EXCITED to work! The harder I work now, the bigger my excitement becomes for the things my discipline will afford me on my off time. Just apply awareness to solve your suffering, again, with a dash of self-love and understanding. 

Note: this "excitement" to work does take a few cranks to get going. For example, school work usually requires that i am sitting quietly for at least five minutes becoming present. Its kinda like warming up and stretching your awareness muscle before a workout... Be sure to do positive self talk and love for added benefit. Dont knock this hippy dippy bullshit until you try it for yourself... "I am a hard worker, Look at my discipline right now, When i am done with studying i will feel great and a lot smarter!" just as an examplar.

3. There are some parts of myself which i can trust, and other parts of myself that i cannot trust. The difference is asking the question: "who would be ok just sitting and observing this right now?" ... whoever squirms or tries to distract you is the traitor. example: I needed to read for school. Parts of me resisted and said "lets do some dishes, or even laundry..." While the part of myself that I trust was OK with simple sitting and observing myself reading for school... observing the boredom and passage of time until i got interested in my work again...

4. You have creative responsibility in relationship to your habits and mental hygiene. I mean, that you literally create your own positive/negative feedback loops, so do this mindfully. For example, take the time out of your day to mindfully create a positive logical system surrounding getting gas for your car. Think it through: instead of taking the gas pump for granted and grinding your teeth at the gas prices, observe just how cool it is that you are putting a combustible fluid into an elaborate system of bio-mimicry, metabolizing this fuel for the sole purpose to automatize and optimize your travel towards YOUR GOALS and LIFE...you can literally think of filling your gas tank like an act of freedom and an ability, rather than a hassle. 

5. sit and wait, and it will come... I promise you, that feeling you had when you were little and could play all day in the summer time. that memory you have of family holidays playing monopoly, or that feeling you had when you first played Skyrim or some other cool game, or that feeling of touching your first football or playing your first guitar. It all comes back to you, in your gut, balls/ovaries and bones. I promise, with enough patience, observation, and self-love not judgement, you will allow the deepest most passionate recesses of your past selves to have the courage to step forward and infect your current circumstance. I just found myself making jokes with a cashier the other day out of no where, and when i observed this for what it was, i discovered it was a previous self having the courage to step forward and be fully present in the moment, rather than my normal status of self-absorbed planning and worrying about work or school. 

 

And finally, 6. Courage is a muscle which is hypertrophied through continue self-exposure to work and suffering. I know, its not what i wanted to hear either. consider it like a workout the next time you just sit and observe your own emotions, the next time to resist an addiction through observation and love, the next time you listen and observe to your loved one without trying to manipulate them to your needs. Remember, positive feedback loops are your responsibility to build, so take full responsibility for the training required to stomach this work: take the time to practice observation and build courage. You feel that "gravel" like feeling in your gut at the thought of this work? Observe it. Feeling resistance to reading a long paragraph? observe it. Anything at all, just observe it.

 

Observation is marching up the sled hill. Once you put that work in, you can enjoy the ride down