Some time ago, I wrote a bit about my state of mind and what
had been happening in my head. Today I’m
going to write some more about this. I
always wonder if it’s too personal to go onto a public space, but again, I feel
this is relevant to everyone as most people play similar games in their minds,
and it’s always good to be reminded how much of our thinking is complete and
utter bullshit.
First of all, some terminology. What is a Victim? A Victim is someone something bad happens to
which is out of their control, right? So
you could be a victim of crime, or an accident, or train journeys that take
twice the time they should, not an uncommon problem when you’re using Network
South-East. But what about being a
Victim in terms of your outlook on life and other people? How many of us play at being a Victim because
it gives us an excuse for feeling or behaving in a particular way? How many of us like to feel sorry for
ourselves, or like to blame people around us for our anger or pain? It’s not a nice game to play and it doesn’t
make us happy, but it’s enticing and deeply addictive.
“It’s
not MY fault!”
How many times have we all said or thought that?!
Then there’s the Robot, and this really is the monster in your
head! It’ s like a computer programme
that’s always running in the background, constantly telling you you’re
deficient/ no good/ hopeless/ fat etc etc.
Most of this comes from childhood, not just from parents but also
teachers, friends, friends’ parents and so on.
It’s a truly powerful opponent to real happiness and self-acceptance, incredibly
hard to become aware of, and equally hard to overcome.
Don’t worry! This
blog is not about to become a New Age self-help manual! These are all things that I have noticed in
my head over the last nearly six months.
In fact, I have a list of these unhappy games I like to play, including
self-pity, blaming other people for how I feel, and imposing a characteristic
onto another person because then I don’t have to be aware of that
characteristic in myself.
Imposing a characteristic onto another person is quite
interesting. I read a long time ago that
what we notice in other people is a reflection of an aspect of ourselves. If there’s someone in your life who you think
is a touch arrogant, for example, it’s so much easier to think of the arrogance
as coming from them rather than being part of yourself that may need looking
into. I struggled for a long time to
make this idea real for me. Recently, a foreign
student with good Chinese language skills came to the school. At first I didn’t like him so much. I thought he was pretty arrogant and full of
himself. All the Chinese students
thought he was wonderful, but it seemed to me that he was reveling in this
adoration. I didn’t like the way he
practiced the form either, and for about a month I found him very hard to be
with. Eventually, I realised that I was
comparing myself to him and seeing myself as being ‘less-than’ he was. That thought was too uncomfortable, so
instead I imposed an unpleasant character trait onto him so that I could feel
better about myself.
And most of the time that I’ve spent in Chen Jia Gou has
been time spent getting fully acquainted with these games, and believe me,
there were many to become acquainted with!
I realised that I was spending most of my time trying to do something
that I really wanted to be able to do, while simultaneously bombarding myself
with thoughts that confirmed a belief that what I was doing was completely
impossible and I might as well give up and go home. It was like having a little devil sitting on
my shoulder whispering all this crap.
That was a useful image because it helped me see these thoughts as being
separate from myself and not really who I am.
It’s been an incredibly painful, difficult process, and has
meant that a lot of the time I haven’t felt too happy about life, tai chi or
myself. It seemed to go on and on; all
these horrible, insidious, manipulative thought patterns kept becoming more and
more obvious and it got fairly depressing.
Finally, one morning a couple of weeks ago, it really hit me
how much I was making myself suffer by playing these games, by having this
constant voice in my head telling me how bad I was and twisting the truth about
other people to make myself feel better.
And I decided, no more. That’s
it. I don’t want to live like this anymore. I started to imagine that these thoughts were
part of a totalitarian regime that I was trying to rid myself of, and every
time I felt one of these thoughts begin, I refused to follow it. This was extremely difficult at first because
that Robot is almost as old as we are, and the thought patterns are ones that
have been running for a long time so are very familiar and tricky to spot.
However, just like a political dictatorship that has existed
for years only to seemingly crumble away after a few days of protests, after
one week of standing up to the Robot, it simply disappeared. I got a huge shock when I realised that I
hadn’t fallen into a Victim pattern, I hadn’t even been tempted to do so for an
entire day. And not the next day either. I suddenly feel free in a way that I’ve never
felt before because it’s a freedom in my mind which I’ve never had before. And I feel so happy, in a way which is at once
calm and joyful and, I think, genuine.
It feels like a real, balanced state.
Don’t get me wrong. I
do not think I have reached a state of Nirvana quite yet! Things change very quickly and I’m already
aware of a new layer of thoughts and feelings that I didn’t notice before. And I have no idea how it will be to be back
at home dealing with “real life”, a misnomer if there ever was one. But I have the feeling that if I can achieve
what I’ve achieved here, I should be able to deal with anything!
BTW: The ideas about
Victims and Robots are not mine! If you’re
really interested you can read more in a book called ‘The Shamanic Path
Workbook’ by Leo Rutherford.
