I know it's silly of me and I do laugh at it in ways, but I still seem to get stuck in control dramas with people. In this particular situation I am miffed about a certain individual's ability to sway other people very easily (she has this adoration thing going), and she gets them to take on her idea of truth as their own truth - if you know what I mean?
My struggle is that I am resisting the urge to get involved and to push-buttons. I know it's not my responsibility to interfere and I should just allow things to play out, but I seem to have this internal struggle playing out in my solar plexus which is making me quite ungrounded. I won't interfere, but I still having this inner battle and won't let go/detach.. or at least it feels hard to.
I'm sure there are other things connected to this, but for now i surrender all this to goddess. goddess has it handled!
Hey Blossom, I know what you are going through here. One the biggest problems I had/have is with judgment. Sometimes just seeing a person would bring on a heavy wave of frustration and I found my mind going down the list of what I didn't like about whoever was in my field of view. Deep down I knew it was dysfunctional, but getting the steering wheel back from my ego was VERY hard.
One thing that helped me with this was not resisting the feelings, but actually giving them some room to move through me, consciously. Emotions are momentary if I let them be. For me, holding on to them through resistance was my problem, and in some cases lately I've noticed surrendering things has been used by my ego as a form of resistance, if I am not completely grounded - ie; I've noticed its harder to work with surrendering if I'm out in the world and on the move. I know when a surrendering works b/c I feel the issue move out of my body; if I offer it up and I still feel whatever it is that I'm trying to give up still there, even though it may not be as sharp, I know my ego just "faked" a surrendering and is trying to keep its hands on the wheel.
Before I found FST I just tried my best to maintain a witness state and let everything happen. I gave up the struggle with my ego and said to myself "Be what you are and just watch" - and while I knew much of my behavior was hurtful to me and others, it gave me some breathing room to let judgments of others and negative emotions move through me while I was able to sit a watch it all go down. As soon as I took this stance, I noticed that even though the flare-ups happened more often (and sometimes stronger) at first, they lasted only seconds and what followed was a few moments of peace. The more I practiced this and gave myself room to act out without judging myself, the moments of peace became more frequent and longer. In the end these issues just sort of got quiet b/c I had removed the fuel they needed to persist.
In my head I see the ego struggle as trying to wrestle a toy away from a dog - he gets worked up, you get worked up and its back and forth for as long as you both hold on. Let go of the toy and the dog spins in a circle for a second as if its still in the struggle, then it lays down and drops the toy with a "What's next?" look on its face...my ego is exactly the same way - very stubborn, but ultimately looks to me for its fodder...
I hope this helps...
Blossom - One more thing I should note; to me, resistance and judgment are the same thing. Ideas of should/shouldn't are usually how they come out in me - if you are not sure how to identify a judgment in yourself, look to see if there is an opposite position to the thought you are having in the moment - if there is, its a judgment and you have one foot off the ground.
The immediate thought about who/whatever is in one position, and "you" (your ego as identified with itself in the moment) is in the other. Two poles spinning. As my friend told me just this morning "Remember to stay warm; not hot, not cold - but warm."
I hope this helps...
Hi,
Thanks for your reply. It does make sense, thank you. I tend to get stuck in self-criticism a fair bit when an 'unwanted' emotion does come up, and yea I do try and express it, but I fail at times - they turn into internal struggles instead. :-)