Three Questions to Guide You Home
Home — to where your smile is
Wading through a fresh wave of contrast…
What made me think contrast was easy…?
Life has been feeling so sweet! For weeks, I’ve basked in wall to wall smiling…
Yes! I cried, I have arrived! Joy, joy, JOY!
Complacency wrapped its warm arms around me…
Oh what a cosy embrace!
Then, news of two deaths chucked me out of my smug-hug, all in the space of a day…
What made me think my grieving was done?
Silly, silly me!
I was supposed to be over Michael. Isn’t two years the cut off point? I’m sure I read that somewhere… (Where do we getthis stuff?)
Much as I tried to shake off the weeping, there was more momentum in the tears than expected… My puppy-mind had been left unattended too long.
What’s the weeping really about?
I checked back… what was this weeping really about?
It wasn’t too hard to fathom.
After news of the first death — the brother of a friend — the thought train of grief had been boarded.
My friend talked about his sibling’s final days. It brought me right back to Michael’s…
Tears shed, thoughts downloaded, with a little focused effort I got my mind-pup facing the sun and the sea once again…
Then the news of the second death came. A rumour at first — of Michael’s big brother; a death I wasn’t expecting.
Alike enough to be mistaken for twins, Michael and his brother weren’t close. They hadn’t seen each other for a long, long while. Troubled waters flowed in between them…
It wasn’t a great move to confirm the rumour by checking out the photos on Facebook. Pictures of Michael’s brother… looking just like my soulmate, but… not…
Never again would I glimpse him — Michael’s double — from a distance; in the grocer’s, in the chemist’s, walking streets where we live.
Both versions of Michael’s features are gone now, for good.
Not ideal for a mind-pup not long out of the shadowlands; even if she has been getting into her swing…
There were a lot of connecting thought trains surrounding this death. Bleak, sad, tragic thoughts. Thoughts of desperate dysfunction. Thoughts of violence and uncontrolled rage…
They’d make good blog-fodder, they’re laden with drama.
But my first guiding question steers me away… I’m not going there, into the drama. No matter how compelling it seems.
Question #1: Do I want more of this?
This question stops my train in its tracks.
There’s no getting round it. If I stay on this thought train, it will take me on towards more…
It’s not: How valid are my sad thoughts on the subject of Michael’s brother?
It’s: Do I want more of the way these thoughts feel?
Easy question.
If that makes for a blander blog, so be it.
That’s precisely the point.
Nothing matters more than the choice I make, right here, right now.
Which thought do I choose to make more of in this moment?
What determines my direction of thought?
That brings me to my second guiding question.
Question #2: What influence am I under?
When life is easy — under Love’s influence — I journal less, I talk less to my Dream Team. I meditate daily, I appreciate, always, but I don’t tend to talk back and forth all that much.
That’s fine, when I’m under Love’s influence…
But when contrast hits, the influence shifts.
It knocks me for six.
Pain. Anguish. Sadness. Despair.
Anger, jealousy, rage…
Painful emotions flood in, soaking each cell and sinew.
I’m under the influence of loss.
Loss of Love.
Loss of joy.
Loss of meaning.
My knee-jerk response to loss:
What do I do to make this loss go away?
I download it on paper. I cry. I meditate more.
I focus on the emotions I’d like to be feeling.
I focus-wheel and ladder and more…
I do all I can to control it.
Momentum is strong on this subject. It takes a while to ask myself the pivotal question:
What influence am I under as I try finding my way out of pain?
Trying to control loss is a sure sign I’m under its influence.
When I’m under the influence of loss, I have no hope of thinking my way into improvement.
I keep forgetting that! I imagine I can think my way out of those dark, dark places.
I can’t!
Until I am under the influence of Love, it’s best to leave a subject completely. I was trying to ‘fix’ my thoughts on the subject of Michael; from the heart of a bout of significant loss.
If I can’t fix or control or avoid or evade it, what can I do with the pain of such loss?
This brings me to my third guiding question. I’m amazed at how long it can take me to ask it…
Question #3 — What does my Dream Team say ?
The problem with bliss is it makes me complacent. I forget my Dream Team builds its reality daily. Skip even one day’s dialogue and I weaken my awareness that My Beautifuls exist here, inside me.
It’s astonishing how fast I default to not bothering; not taking the time to engage with my team; smiling and appreciating as another day ends; and then just heading for bed…
As the sadness continued to seep through me last week, I knew I didn’t want more of it. I steered thoughts away from it; over and over and over again.
Trying so hard to feel better, I knew I was under the influence of loss.
The first two guiding questions led me to the third, it’s this one that brought me back Home.
What does my Dream Team say?
There’s no substitute for the relationship we long for. The living, breathing, connection we have with the divine.
The subtle, sweet, warm sense of kindness — the guidance of my Beautifuls, of Michael and more — it’s a source of unconditional love.
I brought this fresh wave of sadness for soothing.
My Beautifuls spoke to me, softly…
It’s ok, Amanda.
It’s ok to be right where you are.
Stop judging the sadness.
You’re getting sucked onto sad trains of thought.
Start by getting off each of those thought trains.
Over and over and over again.
Keep coming back to the platform.
It’ll take time to catch a good-feeling train.
Don’t even try, for a while.
Keep coming back to the stillness of the platform.
Keep coming back to your now.
No future. No past. No story. No need.
Practise now-focus when in contrast.
Practise til you’re stable on the platform.
Practise til you’re rooted in a place of No-Need.
My smile returned so fast once I’d talked to my team! Listening, leaning into their kindness, I was soon headed Home; basking once more.
If you’re tackling a fresh wave of contrast
Let these three questions guide you back Home.
#1 — Do you want more of what you’re thinking about?
> Stop perpetuating the problem — be picky about the thoughts you indulge.
#2 — What influence are you under; Love or loss?
> Choose your influence; remember, loss can masquerade as ‘learning’ or ‘fixing’ or ‘improving yourself’.
#3 — What does your Dream Team say?
> Talk to your inner team; make them up if you need to. Let them speak words of wisdom — write them out to yourself on the page. Imagine what unconditional love would say to you now. You’ll feel better for it, for sure.
Acknowledgement: My blogs, my coaching and my life are founded on many wondrous teachings, most particularly those of Abraham-Hicks