weakness

Well, this post is my views today about weakness.

Weakness is a terrible thing. I mean, it can help us to act in very negative ways, ways that we don't wish to. It can even make us depressed. Pure plain physical weakness does a lot of damage.

I wonder why weakness was invented? Perhaps it indicates that one has some sort of conflict, a really important conflict and it must be addressed before anything else. So maybe that's why it encourages us to act so bad.

Is weakness caused by eating the wrong foods? Well, it's not very clear. I have two thoughts: Either it is not caused by illness or the wrong foods, or it is! You see, weakness could be a symptom of a disease, or a symptom of a disease being cured (according to what I understand from meta-medicine).

Yesterday, I was really, really weak, and it could have been related to that I had been taking GSE, which fights bacteria and fungi. So if the disease was that these bacteria and fungi had built up in me, then the weakness from taking the GSE might have been to do with releasing the disease. A repair stage. Some say that candida releases toxins as they die.

On the other hand, I also had a lot of inner conflict yesterday as I did a lot of energy work about very significant things. Perhaps the weakness was the aftershock of the energy release.

Yet, in my opinion, neither of these is the truth, I think, because the weakness wasn't a peaceful weakness but a sort of highly distressed weakness. Since it felt so awful, I tend to think that the weakness was telling me: "You're close, but you haven't got there yet. There's still something important you have to address!" And indeed, late at night, I realized something really important, tapped for it, and this morning I woke up feeling much better.

If you want to know what it was to do with a 'vow' or belief I'd held for many years, see Chip Englemann's articles on releasing vows.

Was the weakness a prerequisite to discovering this vow? Did all the tapping for weakness and moodiness guide me in uncovering it? Or was it just fluke that I finally thought of it?

Today, as I said, I've been feeling much better, although not exactly energetic. But I can move around. Suddenly a friend phoned me, and as I spoke to her I felt my energy just dissipate until I was sitting - then lying - on the couch. I just couldn't move.

We got to speaking about EFT, which she doesn't know much about and I explained to her how tapping the KC point
helps a person to make peace between their two parts. For example, if one part wants to be kind to a child, but another part wants to be horrid (for some reason, eg because they don't want the child to take advantage of them) then tapping the KC point can help find a resolution between the two parts, eg "I will be kind, but then I am going to my room for ten minutes of quiet time"; or "I will be horrid, but I will be reassuring to the child at the same time".

As I described the effect that tapping the KC can have, even without words, in resolving inner conflicts, I tapped on my own KC. Suddenly, I found myself off the couch and ready to deal with the wet laundry.

What had happened? Why did I get all tired when speaking to her, and what got resolved? I would really like to know.

However, I will do a little experiment. I'm right now writing and don't seem to have energy for much more than this. So I'm going to try to stop writing and instead try tapping on my KC and see if that makes a difference. Thanks for reading!

giving up judging

I just wrote a post and lost it in cyberspace.

I wrote about how it's easier said than done. To give up judging, that is. One think that was particularly hard for me to give up is that I want to be what society's image of a "good person" is. It's very reassuring to be apace with society's image. However, what if your emotional or physical make-up doesn't match society's current trend? Really we should give up trying to be society's "good person" and be the best person we can be. But what if society's opinion is rather important to us? What if we need approval?

So I just wanted to mention that it may not be so easy.

Tidiness

This is a blog about tidiness. It is inspired by Andrea Amador, and her approach to dieting.

This blog is written for people who have a hard time keeping their place tidy, or clean, yet they really want to.

The old way seems to be to judge yourself, (relative to other people, or to what you want your space to look like) and basically fail. Then you eat, or despair, or go to bed, or try to force yourself to try harder.

The problem is that the natural you still gets a failing grade.

Here's the new way. You let go of the judging step.

It's that judging that locks you into a certain mode of behavior.
It's that judging that makes you hate yourself, and not have confidence in your ability.
It's that judging that makes life seem trudging and drudging.

We've all been to school, and we've all had our tests marked. But most of us have left school. Can we let go of judging?

Look at it this way. What might be a good reason to judge?

• To know where we're up to.
• To measure progress.
• To punish ourselves if we fail.
• To claim that we understand fully all the reasons for failure.
• To force ourselves to try harder.

And what are the downsides of judging?

• Much of the mark is based on our mood at the time, not our performance
• We sometimes don't notice the improvements. If we do notice good things, we are much less excited about them as we are upset about what is wrong.
• We also use improvements to prove to ourselves that it was all a matter of willpower, eg to say "SEE what you can do if you try".
• When we see improvements, we measure then against a higher standard that we can envisage, not against where we were.
• We don't notice how we have acted or thought or believed differently, when we see improvement, we just express happiness that the result looks better.
• We give ourselves a physical reward to show our approval, like food, as if to say that we are just performing doggies looking for approval.
• We ignore the spiritual pleasure of moving from a place of mess to a place of tidy.
• We ignore the spiritual conquests we dealt with as we improved, and we don't try to develop them further.
• We ignore the feelings that are involved in the creation of tidiness and we swamp the feelings that are involved in the finished creation.

Julie Englemann writes that we should phrase affirmations as follows:

I feel (positive feeling) ________ now that I have done (practical goal) ________ and (spiritual goal)_________.

You probably agree with me by now that judging does not get you out of a rut. It ignores so many basics.

Many of us make the following associations:

• problems mean that we need motivation, and
• if we need motivation, we must use judging and prizes.

It's too simplistic. Problems don't always indicate the lack of motivation. Motivation isn't long term solved with judging and prizes. In fact, I'd reformulate the above:

• If we use judging and prizes we imply that we had no motivation, and that
• motivation comes from getting pleasure.

So when we judge or use prizes we reinforce for ourselves the belief that we are lacking pleasure. We also reinforce the beliefs that we are in control of how much pleasure we have in our lives, and that we can earn it if we conform.

The whole cycle goes wonky when we leave school, which actually does have a lot of ways to reward and punish us. After school is over, we see that we are not really in control of how much pleasure we have in our lives. We can't earn or have as much stuff as we would like to. Even if we do try to conform, we often don't get paid in full. So the only part of the reinforced beliefs mentioned above that is left, is that we are lacking pleasure.

So the next time you see something "wrong" with you, or with your house, and you find yourself measuring it to another standard (eg comparing it to what others have, or what it once was like, or what it should be like), stop for a moment, and say, why am I judging?

Judging and comparing are so automatic nowadays that we do not stop and think. We don't notice quite how hurtful and stupid it is.

We judge because we think that judging will make it better.

We forget that judging has no power to improve the situation.

We forget that judging just reminds us that we need pleasures, and that we don't have them.

I'd like to stop here, but I'd also like to go on a little further.

I'd like to think about what happens when we stop judging. We look at that smear on the window, or those hundreds of smears, and we are about to say "Stupid me, this is what I'm capable of". We pause, cause Rachel said not to judge! And then what do we do?

How about a mini conversation?

Window: I'm dirty. You didn't clean me.

Me: I am bad. I deserve 3% in cleanliness

Window: Yes that's true! NOW CLEAN ME NOW!

Me: Sorry, I'm not in school any more. You don't scare me.

Window: CLEAN ME NOW! YOU MUST! YOU'LL BE PUNISHED IF YOU DON'T!

Me: Ok punish me. What have you got up your sleeve?

Window: Please clean me now, I'll reward you if you do. You'll feel SO GOOD!

Me: Sorry. I don't buy that. I can feel good already if I want. Stop trying to bribe me. Anyway, what is your bribe, and what's stopping me from getting it without earning it your way?

Window: YOU MUST, YOU Must, you must, you...

Me: Ok, now back to my personal plans. What do I feel like doing today?

Window: please, you must, you must

Me: you're not in charge of me anymore, I'm in charge here. And I'll make my plans without your screaming or wheedling, threats or promises.

Window: You must, you must

Me: how do you know I must?

Window: I'm the boss here. Dirt is the boss. You only mater according to how you perform

Me: So that's your new line is it? It doesn't sound too convincing to me. First you decide what I should be doing, and then you judge me for how well I'm doing it? But I think I'll leave it for another blog post. In the meantime, I'll just remember, that you don't have any way to hurt me nor any way to benefit me. And that if there are pleasures available to me, I don't need to earn them, I can get them already.

Conclusion: There may be real pleasure involved when one CHOOSES to clean - try it and see! Yet this pressure that most of us feel about cleaning is very off-putting. Not only is this pressure off-putting, but it also DENIES that there is any real and direct pleaure that comes from cleaning. It also DENIES that we are the kind of person who might CHOOSE to clean if it is part of our spiritual goals. Instead, the pressure implies to us that we are not the type of person who chooses spiritual goals, and it lies to us that it can force or bribe us, and it implies to us that the only pleasures we are looking for are junk food, increased self-esteem, and things to show off about.

For those of us who have more spiritual aspirations than that, or if we're just plain rebellious, we often don't obey. Yet why do we even believe that these things can be earned? It's like we are saying - they can be earned, but it's below me to take advantage of this offer. It's also like saying: I make it into a god in my beliefs, but I don't obey it. It's a prison mentality.

Physical pleasures can't be earned. They whole equation is wrong. It's only our mind that's associating the pleasures and punishments with practical perfomance.

At the risk of ostracizing you, I'd like to point out that after we have got rid of the false gods, we are free to notice that there is a true G-d, who does care about us, who is giving these pleasures and punishments free of charge in exactly the right proportions to help us grow. Spiritually. And merit eternal pleasures in our eternal life.

Sugar

So what was behind all that craving for sugar? I don't know all of it yet, but here's something I came up with.

I feel like I need to drown out some feelings. So my reaction - to eat sugar - comes really fast, before I can feel the feelings - instead of feeling the feelings. And what are those feelings that I don't like?

If someone is not respecting me. Even if something is not respecting me, I feel terrible. So why do I need others' respect so much ? My guess is that I don't want to rely on my own self-respect! And why not? Because sometimes, I don't really respect myself too much. And that feels horrible! What is there not to respect? Well, sometimes I don't do the things I ought to do... and that makes me feel very guilty. So my question is, isn't there a better option than feeling guilty - ignoring this by relying on other people's opinions of me - then drowning these other people's opinions out when they don't approve of me by eating sugar? And my conclusion is YES

Stage 1 is to take back my own opinion of my self-worth and not rely on others.

Stage 2 is to learn how to do deal with the fact that sometimes my opinion of myself is low. There are two options here:

a) Let's say that sometimes I am being overly strict with myself, and asking of myself things that don't actually need to be done. Or else, they don't need to be done by me, or they don't need to be done in a certain way, or they don't need to be done right now. It's OK to explore whether my conscious mind is setting me the right goals, the ones I believe in. If I find it's so, I can modify the goal. This would help me to be able to do it. Anyway, if the source of the bad attitude towards myself is a goal I don't agree with, I don't need to maintain the bad attitude! I can change the goal.

b) Sometimes I think I run away too fast! Even if the goal seems right yet I'm not doing it, I am so scared of this scenario that I immediately change the subject in my brain! Quick - get the sugar! It's OK to live with conflict for a bit - it could be the conflict that creates creativeness. Conflict ain't dangerous, but it sure feels that way. Also, it's hard to keep two opposites in your head at once, and accept that they might both be true, when they really don't feel like it, until the new idea comes up that is able to unite them. (From Rabbi M Miller). But denying that one of them is a truth is not a solution. Entertaining the option that they MIGHT both be correct can be more successful.

c) I may have a block that is preventing me from doing what I want to. The block might be any of a number of things, and it may need to be be worked through - or worked around - first.

d) I may need to find the awareness that a solution outside of me exists, and the courage to ask for advice or new tools to find that solution. Or I may need to look inwards, or upwards.

Releasing method

I visualize a container inside of me. Well, first I say, which sort of container is it that represents eg the anger I feel right now. I then take that container out of me, figuratively speaking, say it looks like a suitcase, and I put it down on the rocks. Once stuff reaches the rocks it is neutralized, but the stuff inside the suitcase has not reached the rocks yet. In order to neutralize the suitcase contents, I open the openings of the suitcase one by one, which allows the contents to be released. All sorts of things pour out, whatever does I am OK with. You have to look all around the suitcase for openings of different types. There are usually loads of different openings, screw lids and other types of openings. You can't force them open, it simply doesn't work, nothing is released. But if you uncork corks, or unscrew lids, all sorts of things can pour out, like pus, or liquids, or little rocks, or blue flashes. Sometimes they come out slowly and sometimes hissing. You don't control what comes out, and how. All you do is put the suitcase on the rocks and open the openings one by one. You have to watch to see if the pouring starts happening or else you don't know that you've properly opened it. When you are done, and there are no openings left, the suitcase collapses.

Best wishes

Rachel