Agapite o Filo Mou - Making Your Mind Your Beloved Friend - Part 3

Scratching the Record - Carpe Diem

What do you do when the thoughts, images, memories, and painful experiences invade your peace of mind?  You've got to interrupt them right when they happen, you've got to scratch the record, and replace it with a thought that empowers you, enlivens you, enriches you, and makes you feel good about who you are.  So, for instance, you have a disquieting thought, you pass by a place that reminds you of a person or an event from your past, at that moment, you will either get caught up in the maelstrom of the toxic emotions and feelings associated from your past, or you can choose to replace that thought from your bliss list.

How to create your bliss list

• Sit down with a blank piece of paper and write at the top of the page 'My Bliss List'.  Make sure when you do this, there are no distractions, it's quiet and peaceful, and allow yourself the time to really sink into the deepest part of yourself so that you can hear what makes your soul sing.  Meditating for 20 minutes before you do this is highly recommended.
• Write down 100 things which brings you joy.  You want to discover within you what it is that connects you to your bliss.  Ideally, you want to list as many things as possible which are not dependent on anyone or any thing to give it to you.  It is a feeling that comes from within whenever you see something, hear something, do something, smell something, taste something, or feel something.  Activate all your senses and feelings.  Examples might be:
• walking in nature
• seeing an eagle soaring in the sky
• watching the sunrise over a beautiful mountain lake
• eating a juicy peach
• smelling a rose
• snowflakes on my skin
• the sun on my face
• the sound of the waves of the ocean
• driving a motorcycle
• riding a horse  
• writing
• Your bliss list can involve another person or persons, say for instance, you love long, slow, wet deep kisses, or you love spending time with friends, or going to a football game with your brother, or a baby's laugh, having some of those are great!  Without question there are many joyful experiences you have with others, and they can be included, but I want you to emphasize finding the things which give you joy which you do only for the joy of it.  This list in not about them, it is about you.
• Once you have composed your list, read it over, make sure you are satisfied with it (you will know this because it makes you feel good inside, it makes you feel happy to read it), then, make copies of it so you will have it in various places for you to refer to when needed.  A great place to put one is in your car.  Another great place is in your office.          

The exercise in creating the bliss list is a way for you to connect with what truly gives you joy without being dependent on anyone else. The purpose behind it is to give you a tool to help you interrupt the pattern of disquieting and disturbing thoughts and memories which intrude upon your daily life.  When a negative, painful thought or memory comes in, you go to this list right away.  You want to scratch the record of the unconscious program operating your life with new thoughts to pick you back up again.  These thoughts from your bliss list will pull you out of the painful remembrance of the past, even if it's just for a moment, and by doing this consciously and consistently, with time, you will begin to break the pattern of painful memories controlling your life and destroying your peace of mind.  

Whenever I was being tortured by the thoughts, memories, images, and painful experiences of my past, I would go to this list right away and say to myself, 'This too shall pass, this too shall pass..' over and over again while I thought of one thing which brought me joy: the smell of a flower, the sun rising over the mountains, an ice cream sundae, the flight of an eagle – whatever it was, I found the thought which brought me joy, which made me feel good about me, which made me smile, and I would immediately replace the disquieting thought.  Sometimes I would only feel better for a brief moment, and then I would get sucked back down into the pain I was experiencing, but I kept doing it, and as time went on, the episodes where my mind was attacking me from all sides began to lose its power and strength over me.  Eventually, these negative thoughts lost all their power because I could connect to what brought me my bliss immediately and that feeling negated and cancelled out the negative thought.  This one tool helped me tremendously!  By consciously doing this mental work with my bliss list everyday, combined with the other tools I had created for myself in my program, I had successfully re-programmed my unconscious mind.  I was no longer at the mercy of the pain and suffering I had experienced as a consequence of the PTSD and trauma I'd been through.  I knew what my joy was, and nothing could keep me from connecting to that joy.

By doing this consistently, you are breaking the pattern which has now become unconscious, which is the recycling of all this old thinking and feeling, and you are replacing it with something that is you, defined by you.  The more you do this, the more space you will create, and the more you will connect to who you really are.  It is a process, and as with any process, it grows with consistency, dedication, and commitment.  It's like building muscles.  It may seem tedious, it may seem like its not working, but nevertheless, you still go to the gym to workout.  After a while, you begin to notice how your muscles have changed as a result of consistently working them out.  They are bigger, stronger, and leaner.  Well, this same idea applies to working out your thoughts.  You've got to go to the 'mental gym' on a daily basis and feed yourself with the thoughts and feelings that will give you the healthy results you are looking for.  Your bliss list is part of your mental workout, a tool you can use to exercise your mind and make it strong.

You've got to do this with smells too.  You've got to remind yourself, ‘OK, that smell reminds me of this, that gunshot smell reminds me of that place I was in in Iraq or Afghanistan, and what I've got to do is think of a smell that I enjoy, that pleases me.’  You've got to do it right then, something that makes you feel good, something that makes you feel happy, whether it’s the smell of a rose, or the smell of the mountains by the lake catching fish, or the smell of the exhaust of your 1940 Coupe – whatever it is, you want to bring that image, that memory, that feeling, that smell back so that you are interrupting the pattern.  And you want to do it consistently, over and over and over again.  It seems tedious in the beginning, and you may find resistance to it, but you are establishing a new pattern, you are introducing a new software program to replace the old one in the hardware computer which is your brain; you are systematically and consciously breaking the habit of getting caught up in those negative, debilitating, toxic thought forms which are causing you so much pain.  

You are not your past.  This present moment does not have to be defined by your past.  You have the power within you to define what this present moment will be for you.  This moment is, and will always be, defined by you.  Seize the day!

"Happiness, not in another place but this place...not for another hour, but this hour."  -Walt Whitman

Agapite o Filo Mou - Making Your Mind Your Beloved Friend - Part 2

A Course in Miracles

Now, meditation is just the beginning.  Doing this every day consistently, regardless of what might be happening in your lives, will initial a sequence of shifts in your thinking and how you perceive yourself and the world outside of you.  I also implore you to find a spiritual tradition which emphasizes the re-training of the mind to bring you peace.  There are many traditions out there, but the one that resonated most deeply with me was A Course in Miracles.  The Course is a self-study program for retraining the mind that is spiritual, rather than religious, in perspective.  Although it uses Christian terminology, it speaks in universal spiritual truths, it is not a religion or dogma, and echoes the world’s most hallowed, sacred, and ancient spiritual traditions.  It is pragmatic in its method, where the student has one idea to contemplate throughout the day, incorporating it into his or her daily routine, and its aim is to bring the student a peaceful, loving, and forgiving mind.  It guides you to an awareness of love’s presence, and helps you to remove the blocks that prevent you from experiencing what is your natural inheritance.  The course can be summed up in a very simple way:

            Nothing real can be threatened.

            Nothing unreal exists.

            Herein lies the peace of God.

Again, this is not the only way to achieve peace in a mind consumed and overwhelmed by the thoughts, memories, and images of the past.  If it doesn't resonate with you, that’s fine, just find a spiritual meditation tradition that works for you rooted in love, peace, and forgiveness.  Nevertheless, this was my way, and because I am on the other side, I know it works.  When I was in the battle for my life, I clung to this book as my life boat to get me through the most torrential internal storms.  I would diligently work with the thought for the day, even though my mind wanted to re-cycle the painful experiences of my past.  And some days, the memories would win.  Some days I didn't know if I was going to make it through, I was in so much pain, but I kept at it, kept praying, kept meditating, kept doing the work with A Course in Miracles, and with the work I am detailing in these posts.  You must never give up.  Never.  Have faith and trust in what I am telling you, and each day, even if you are not aware of it and it seems like it will never end, keep doing it, the light will come.

Agapite o Filo Mou - Making Your Mind Your Beloved Friend - Part 1

Challenging Your Thoughts

One of the things Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder sufferers and survivors experience is the bombardment of unwanted thoughts, memories, images, and hauntings of the past.  These various thought forms invade our peace, make war against our minds, and keep us trapped in a vicious cycle of remembering and re-living these painful events.  Our minds, in an effort to make sense out of what happened, and bring some kind of resolution to the wound we received, or to assuage the tremendous amount of guilt and shame which most likely is attached to the traumatic experience, or to just find a way out of the excruciating pain, re-cycles the event over and over again like a broken record.  We re-live the experience incessantly, and become imprisoned by the brutalizing thoughts we have about ourselves, about the people involved, and all those who were affected by the consequences of the actions taken or not taken. 

So how do you break this pattern?  You’ve got to learn how to challenge the thoughts and memories as they come in, de-construct them, learn to separate illusion from reality, and replace those thoughts with images, feelings, sensations, and memories that make you feel good.  At my lowest point, when I was in the midst of my deepest and darkest attacks my mind was making upon me as a consequence of the PTSD I suffered and the excruciating pain I was experiencing, my thoughts were unmerciful and punishing.  I would re-live every moment of every step which led to the moment when I opened the door and discovered all my ex-fiance’s stuff gone.  I’d re-live the trauma experienced, every single moment, day after day, month after month; I’d go back in my mind and look for clues as to what I missed; I’d blame myself for what happened; I felt enormous guilt and shame for the errors I committed in the relationship and mercilessly attacked myself for having done them; I’d blame her and wanted to seek revenge; I had fantasies of retaliating and satisfying my bloodlust; I’d shame myself for wanting to act out such fantasies and think of myself as an evil person;  the devil was in my mind, his minions were attacking me from all sides, and he was winning.

My whole body and sensory memory was negatively affected by the PTSD I experienced.  A sound would remind me of something.  I’d hear a voice, and it would remind me of her.  One of my many experiences with PTSD when I was in the military, there was a bottle smashed in the background of my telephone, which led to the crisis where one of my family member’s life was in danger, and every time I would hear a bottle smash, it would remind me of that painful memory.  Visiting old places my ex and I would go to would trigger certain things – for instance, eating at certain restaurants would trigger a flood of memories that would cause me a lot of suffering and distress.  Smells had the same effect, especially a woman who wore the same perfume as my ex did.  All these triggers would excite a deluge of negative emotions: anger, grief, guilt, shame, fear and uncontrollable rage.

These thoughts, feelings, and emotions have to be interrupted, they have to be scratched.  You must learn how to challenge your thoughts, and to do that without having to resort to alcohol, drugs, or medications.  The best way to do this is to establish a meditation practice.  A daily meditation practice, where you get up in the morning and spend at least five minutes in meditation, and close out the day in the evening with at least another five minutes of meditation, begins the process of you interrupting those thought patterns.  Below, I have provided a simple meditation technique to get you started.  If you have never meditated before, don’t worry, it’s not difficult, and only requires your commitment and dedication to the practice.

Meditation Technique:  Sit down quietly with your feet firmly planted in the ground, your hands on your thighs, back straight, but not rigid, relaxed, and close your eyes.  Focus on the breath coming in the nose.  Take a long inhale, filling up the lungs, and a long, slow exhale.  Pay attention to the air coming in and out; bring all your attention there.  Then, imagine a ball of golden light hovering right above your forehead.  This beautiful golden light.  Then, this ball of light begins to pour this purifying, healing light on top of your head, washing you clean.  This river of golden light starts from the head, and slowly moves down your face, feel it relaxing your eyes, your cheeks, your mouth and jaw, and as it moves down, all the stress and strain of the day is washed away.  Feel the light move down your neck, into your shoulders and chest, in your arms and hands and fingers and thumbs, filling up your limbs, down your abdomen and torso, all the while it is washing away all the stress and strain of the day, cleansing your body of all pain, worry, anxiety, or fear.  Feel the light move down into your legs, filling them up with this beautiful golden light, all the way to your ankles, feet, and toes.  Feel your whole body relax in this beautiful, healing, golden light.  Then, when you’re in this space, watch the thoughts that enter your mind from the observer perspective.  Ask the question in your mind, “I wonder what my next thought will be?”….”I wonder what my next thought will be?”  And as the thoughts come in, say the thought is “I need to get some apples from the grocery store,” hold it in your mind, thank it, and let it go, and start asking again, “I wonder what my next thought will be?”  The key is to let go of the thought, and observe how the mind is just receiving these thoughts that are affecting you, it is not thinking them.  Eventually, with continued practice, you will create space between those thoughts, and the more space you create the better.  It brings calmness and peace to the mind.  The more you do it, the easier it becomes, and the more space it creates.  As you survey your inner world, merely let whatever thoughts cross your mind come into awareness, each to be considered for a moment, and then replaced with “I wonder what my next thought will be?”  Try not to establish a hierarchy among them.  Watch them come and go as dispassionately as possible.  Do not dwell on anyone of them in particular, but try to let the stream move on evenly and calmly, without any investment on your part.  And breathe.  Breathing is the most important thing you can do during meditation.  I recommend you meditate at least 2 times a day, morning and night, a minimum of 5 minutes each time.  For best results, do it for a minimum of 20 minutes every time you meditate.