This morning, on the way to dropping off the boys, I was listening to another one of Tara Brach’s podcasts. On this one, she mentioned how feelings only last for just a few seconds. The life of an actual feeling is pretty short, and yet, we carry them for such a long time. What makes us get attached to the feeling is the thoughts we have around it. We feel something, however ephemerally, and we immediately attach meaning to it. We’re meaning-making machines after all. So we create this story around what this feeling “means” and then we spend the rest of our lives feeding that story. We do it so often and with so little mindfulness that it simply becomes “truth.”
At some point, we completely forget that this “story” was never true. We feed it more and more until it’s just a part of who we are and how we define ourselves. Everything that comes after that is just more fodder for the “story.”
As I listened to this, I thought of all the areas of my life where this is true. All the beliefs I have about myself. The way I think of myself and look at myself. Some of these thoughts and beliefs are so engrained in my core that it’s hard to tell when they started and how to separate them from who I am. Or who I believe I am.
Tara mentions Byron Katie in her talk and I’d read some of Katie’s books a while ago when I took Stephanie Lee’s classes. And she has these four questions:
- Is it true?
- Can you absolutely know that it’s true?
- How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?
- Who would you be without the thought?
And Tara talks about doing an exercise where you just assume it’s not true. Like if I believed that I am a person who needs to be peaceful. What if I just assumed I didn’t need peace. What if each time the thoughts/feeling came up, I just said, “I don’t need peace.” I am Ok or I am already peaceful or whatever, just let that thought not be true. What would happen then?
This idea made me very curious. What if I questioned some of my fundamental beliefs about myself (especially the negative ones) and just practiced assuming they were untrue. What would happen then? It’s as if I am going all the way back to that one moment of first feeling an emotion and choosing not to write the story I wrote. Choosing to let that feeling float away without it meaning anything. So now I have no story. Nothing to feed over the next 30-some years. And maybe then it’s no longer a belief. No longer a part of my identity.
Even the “good” parts of our identity can sometimes weigh us down. For example, I am quite responsible. It’s at the core of who I am. On the whole, this is a good thing. It’s helped me achieve a lot of success and respect in life. But sometimes this feeling of needing to be responsible can make me feel crushed and stressed and cause me to overwork, overcommit, etc. So even a seemingly positive trait might be worth questioning.
This talk made me think all day about all the “automatic” thoughts that come to my mind. The way I react to things. The assumptions I make about what I “have to” do. Who I am and who I must be. It’s shocking how many assumptions I make all day long. It’s shocking how many core beliefs I have that I could easily question now that I notice them.
I decided that I would spend one whole day next week taking notes as some of these things pop into my mind. So I can see them in plain sight and see all the assumptions I make. See all the stories I created. If I spend a whole day believing nothing about myself, assuming nothing, and creating no new stories, how would that look? I am curious to see if it’s even possible.
But I love the idea of the possibility. If nothing about me has to be true, I can let anything go and pick up anything else I want. Or I can just be present and open to whatever is here.
Wouldn’t that be magical?
That would indeed be magical and I am allowed to say a tad scary (in a good way if that makes sense?) Hope you tell us what happens after your day of jotting things down. I would like to be brave enough to do this too.
Thanks.