The how to
In most of the things we’ve talked about in the last dozen years that you and I have been having this conversation I have explained how moving out of the unconscious mind into the conscious mind can change how you feel about things and mitigate how they affect you.
The advice is always something like; “Hey look at this irrational fear your subconscious is generating for you based on some strange wiring in your physiology or some pre-built cultural assumptions you have, and, hey, you know what, once you start looking at it your big-brain will realize that it’s dumb. And once you get that realization, you get your power back and you can decide how to act or react.”
(Those are two massive sentences, by the way, coming in at 50 and 70 words apiece and a helluva way to start an essay.
Someone call the writers’ guild.)
On the whole, it’s good advice to get you back in the driver’s seat of your emotions.
But it misses a layer.
Are you ready to turn professional?
It misses the ‘why this works’ part of the practice and it misses the ‘taking it to the next step’ part as well.
What’s actually happening when you stop to look at an emotion from the ‘big brain’ perspective?
You are moving into the role of the observer.
You are, if you do it right, transcending.
Not to bury the headline, but, that is the final step. To move through the cognitive understanding of a thing and into true transcendence from it and its construct.
The first step is recognizing and understanding. But this is only partly about recognizing and understanding.
The mastery is then to move into awareness and pass through that awareness into the true ‘you’ that exists outside, or above all of this day-to-day life stuff.
The super-mastery is then to take this awareness of the true ‘you’ who is unaffected by any of this real-world-life stuff and move with it back into your day-to-day living.
What do they mean by transcending? Transcending is simply isolating the observer. The ‘who’ that is observing that pain or that emotion and disconnecting that observer from the physical and emotional.
The way it is described is to pass through into the vast empty expanse of space inside.
Back behind this awareness is the whole universe.
Once you transcend the cage of whatever it is, physical, emotional, cultural…the canvas is blank. It is yours to do with as you please.
Going back to the starting point. This method of moving things into the big brain is not wrong. But it is incomplete. It is a doorway.
What stops us from opening the door is our desire to control. We think we are understanding to gain in order to control.
Control of our emotions, control of our achievement, and ultimately control our lives.
It’s a catch 22.
There is no control.
When you strive for control, you drop back into the mealy melee of battling with everything.
But if you keep going through awareness to transcending there is no control.
And that’s ok.
Because once you come to awareness it opens you up to that vast empty space of potential inside. It frees you to accept the gifts of the universe.
And it gives you choice.
Choice of how you want to live.
Choice of whether to be happy, or grateful, or loving.
Paradoxically once you give up control you are no longer controlled.
And this is common across religious beliefs. ‘Letting God take the wheel’ so to speak. You don’t have to put a face on it.
I’ll stop there to let you think about this.
Why am I thinking about it? Partly because I’m still reading “The Untethered Soul” and partly because I am always working on my practice and always working on myself. I find these conversations helpful. I find they help adjust my attitude as I move through challenging opportunities in my world.