Reactivity
We “hear” happiness is an inside job, but this is VERY DIFFICULT to accept when your moods are so quickly affected by outside circumstances.
A person insults you, and that provokes you to be angry.
A person praises you, and that provokes you to be happy.
This is how much of my life has been led, until one day, something inside me stirred me enough and I didn’t want to be weighed down by heavy emotion. Something inside said, even if not consciously, I don’t want to be “pushed around” by what is happening around me. I want peace.
Inner Understanding
I guess this is how my own interest in my inner state awakened. When I no longer could bear taking everything that happened around me personally anymore. The pain of not feeling ” enough and loved” and the pain of feeling “alone” became too much to endure. That was 2007. And then the journey of inner work continues even to this present day.
I have come to learn that all that “stuff”, full of expectations, demands, frustrations, blame, projections, is hidden deep within our unconsciousness- and by that, what I mean is that, we don’t know cognitively why we are full of expectations and demands etc etc even though it affects our behaviour. Everything seems to happen on autopilot.
So even though we don’t know why our reactions arise, nevertheless it is all coming from OUR UNCONSCIOUSNESS – it does not belong to anyone else. And with that, no one else will ever be able to “do” anything to help heal those ideas and stop our reactions at others from arising.
Apologies – Skin Deep Impact
So, if we judge someone for their perceived wrong behaviour, even if they apologize to you, your “stuff” which is also full of your insecurities and inability to love yourself fully, will erupt over and over again. The apology will do no real good.
You can judge others as much as you like, blame others for your pain as much as you want, point fingers until you go blue in the face, but nothing is going to improve INSIDE you for the long term.
The only way to not judge others is when you have learnt to find the warmth within, when you know yourself as everything outside of what the mind thinks you are. When you have even learnt that although you see yourself as a physical form, even that is just clothing hiding a presence within, and so that form is not real either.
Knowing Yourself- Presence
This knowing yourself is when you recognize that you are simply an empty presence – witnessing events around you neutrally. Accepting them as they arise, without fanning them with additional fuel of your own drama that comes from your own “stuff” comes easy with this higher level awareness and understanding. With this, there is no me, my, mine!
Take for example, when someone is badmouthing me, is this relevant to me or not? Is it worth responding to or not? I could choose not to respond at all and pull away into silence or passive aggression. I could engage and defend. I could engage and slap back. I could engage and pacify. But all that I will do, will not change the unconsciousness of the person bad mouthing me in the first place.
When I truly accept myself for who I am, from that place, who says what, doesn’t matter at all…. and what I even say, doesn’t matter either.
Learning
I have discovered we have lots to learn in this human form…. and since no “ego” is a picture of perfection, struggling becomes inevitable. … sadly! But struggling with someone elses’ unconsciousness is an impossible cross for anyone else to carry. That is not your responsibility.
The only responsibility we have is to deal with our own unconsciousness and find peace within as an individual. That part of the struggling we can stop.
Self-Acceptance
Who would have known, that self-acceptance is the key that unlocks us from being “pushed around” and is the key that prevents us from reacting with extreme turmoil and emotions within, provoked by outside events.
For in the end, happiness is truly an inside job. An inside recognition of who we are ….
And in the meantime if we find ourselves unhappy at someone, we have a responsibility to ourselves to unhinge ourselves. To check in with our “inward” conditioning, belief, judgments, programming that is driving that feeling and discover how that can be released and transformed so that we come to full acceptance.
And for this, I have discovered, that there is no more powerful tool than the Dalian method….
Be happy inside ❤️ since struggle is futile.
