Come Away From Sucker Choice

I had a wonderful experience during my meditation last week. I started to feel a strong and persistent pressure on my 6th chakra, followed by "seeing" a concentrated projection of brilliant white light in the shape of a diamond appeared in front and slightly above my forehead. It is non-glaring and just suspending in mid air. I asked for clarity of the meaning, turns out my soul is sending me a message. "All things in moderation". A while back I was very stressed out so I started working on relaxation and de-stressing. And I've been staying up late playing games on my iPad, watching tv shows, and getting up even later. And I've not been doing and tracking keeping my budget because I was afraid of going into "money constipation" when I see how little money is left since I just did a few big purchases. And right now my purpose is to follow disciplines that serve my growth, not stifle it. It is important to exercise self-control but not to be self-denying to the point that it robs all sweetness from my life, or to be so indulgent that my excesses sicken me. Interesting that I was just wondering how come the more I work on "relaxing and de-stressing" the more I feel an underlying tension building - I was SO over-indulging myself with the games and tv shows and rationalizing that as the need to "de-stress", but my soul and my body is not buying any of that! How perfect is it that my soul's lesson for me is to "follow a spiritual discipline of moderation and avoid extremes of any sort"?!

I needed to hear that reminder "the option of all or nothing is the one choice that never works" because I do that a lot, in my effort to get off one extreme end I ended up in the opposite extreme end. I realize now, when I find myself in one extreme end, I don't have to get off it, I can choose to come away from there. And that it's time I release that belief of "work hard play hard" because it is no longer serving me, and it is so totally not in alignment with my intention of living with ease. Besides, I'm too easily confusing all-or-nothing with this work-hard-play-hard in my attempts to excel, which is really just another way of keeping myself to repeatedly choosing that sucker choice without even realizing it. Got the message loud and clear.

Micro-shift

I have been studying the art of allowing and the path of least resistance for a while and I finally come to realize that it lies in micro-shifts. The art of allowing, simply put, is about understanding what I have not control over and let go of trying to control it. And the path of least resistance is about shifting away from resistance because whatever we resist, persist. So now, more than ever, I'm practicing on really tuning in to my feelings, then using them as my guide to consciously micro-shift my thoughts. I've worked on making bigger shifts, the thing is just thinking about it feels tiring. Yet not thinking about it isn't doing much for me either. Then I learn this brilliant yet simple concept of focusing on the next baby step and then the next one right after that and so on. And in doing so created a path redirecting myself to come away from whatever I'm resisting with ease.

Here's an example: if I'm not feeling good, immediately check what is the thought I am having. I'm feeling frustrated and perhaps some what pissed that someone I'm counting on is not doing his/her job and as a result I have to go the extra mile to clean up after him/her. Yes I need to have a conversation with said person. But I'm so steeped in my feelings I'm resisting to have any contact with her, let alone getting myself to a neutral mindset with sincere intention for a productive win-win type conversation. I know I can shift the whole thing by focusing on the positive aspects of that person, but from where I am to there seems a huge step. If I just think "I'll think about his/her positive aspects later." I'm already shifting away from focusing on that person's negative aspects. I know this because I'm immediately feeling less negative. And then my next thought I focus on making the immediate next baby step, and then the next baby step. When I find myself unable to make the big shift, focus on making the baby ones. The sooner I shift, the faster I get back to feeling good again.