There are times when an energy brews up inside of me and launches an action, from suggestion to execution, faster than I can pause and consider if it's actually an action I want to take. These times are rare but they are startling, primarily because it's a flavor of energy I do my best to eliminate within me. It's destructive and volatile, and when it does leap into movement, I can only watch suggestion and execution roll out of me, like a thunderclap.
It's in this watching position that I learn a lot about how far I've come, how much I've been able to use yoga and meditation to still myself into pieces, like frames in a movie. Outside of me, regular seconds occur; within, each second feels tripled, leading to lots of time to catch errant vibrations I don't want to release into my world, attitudes I might want to change before they're expressed. Observing myself in finer and finer details, cause-effect, action-reaction -- this has given me the ability to increase time when I need it. Handy, but it's secondary to the real prize: the ability to think before I react.
This has helped me change my world from a place of suffering to one of honest exploration. Things still aren't super fantastic; I want more money for traveling, courses and clothes, I wish I was more active, my house is messy, my day job is dull, I don't go to as many dinner parties as I like... but I'm not trying to spiral into stories about it all that make me feel bad about it. I don't slip into painful living all that often. This is something I see a lot of people experiencing. The gap between action and reaction is so small, stories run their world, and the stories they choose to live focus on their suffering.
What if they knew they could choose any story they like? Wouldn't that way to live be a bit better?
This was step one of my self-growth: switching the story I was tuning into inside. For a few years I did this; swapped one story for another, no matter what life was telling me. It wasn't truthful but it felt better, and actually made some things better. Eventually I arrived at step two: did I even need stories at all? I had been participating in swapping out stories and while they helped, they weren't truthful, and I wanted to feel what it would be like to see my life, and live in it, and be as non-judgmental as I could be as it played out.
I did this for a while until I came to the next step: being so close to my life, experiencing it as an observer and a participant without any wavering into daydreaming or judgment that it just merged one day, like a piece of my consciousness got a little wider and stronger. Presentness became all encompassing, time became flexible, and any deviation from being where I was (either physically or mentally) was painful, in a new kind of way.
And so I stayed there, even though it wasn't always what I wanted it to be. It was living honesty, nothing more. If I stayed present, I could do anything. If I wandered off (physically, with distractions or avoidance, or mentally with daydreaming or stories) I could do nothing. Time sped up and would run out and I'd be dazed, wondering what just happened in that time I lost. The awareness of how much of the suffering of life is self-generated became second nature. I am either where I am, or I am elsewhere. There's no in between.
So I invite you to see where you might be. Are you living a painful life? Are you swapping out stories? Are you done with story making as best as you can? Are you present to where you are, dropping attachment to distractions and daydreaming? Do you recognize the suffering you are living is self-generated?
As I write this, see the steps, I see where I can go deeper. That's the beauty of self-reflection and self-growth: the opportunities are never ending. You learn and live great skills at one level, and then they move you up a grade. It's not failure, it's mastery. And it's never ending.