“When personal identification vanishes, all that then remains is a sense of presence without the person, which gets translated into a feeling of life as total freedom.”
~Ramesh Balsekar
Are you a complainer? Are you constantly fretting about your problems and trying to fix what you think is broken?
Are you in your head believing thoughts that judge, compare, and project fear everywhere?
What I’ve noticed is that the unexamined mind is full of negative thinking. When we’re not awake to what our minds are actually saying, it drones on with words that bring us down, put us on edge, and separate us from peace.
But don’t take my word for it. Turn toward your own mind and notice the stories it repeats. How do these stories affect you?
I’m not at all anti-mind. The human mind is amazing in its expression of creativity and its ability to help us navigate practical aspects of our lives.
But when we step back from thinking and open to all of our present moment experience, we find that when we’re tied up in sticky and negative thought patterns, it just doesn’t feel good. And there’s a lot we’re overlooking about what’s here in the present moment.
For many of us, the negative content in our minds is compelling. Some stories are dramatic and emotional, and all of them are so familiar we don’t realize we’re lost in them.
I used to live in these negative thoughts. If you had stopped me in any moment and asked me how I was doing, I would immediately tell you what was wrong with the situations and people in my life. I was definitely a complainer.
Over time, I put the pieces together to help me understand why I felt so badly. And I was surprised to discover that these stressful thoughts had become my reality. With this new insight, I began to give them less attention and explore my actual present moment experience beyond them.
I couldn’t believe what I’d been missing—wonder, amazement, peace, stillness, the quiet reality of appreciating life as it is—and so much love. These experiences had always been available…they were simply clouded over by believing thoughts.
Complaining, criticizing, and judging thoughts will flourish if you feed them with your attention—and they’ll seem undeniably true.
It’s freeing to realize that there are always options:
- Bring to mind something you often complain about. How can you hold it differently, with clarity and compassion?
- Think of someone you judge (maybe yourself?). What’s an alternative, loving response?
- See any moment as it is and not through the filters of thinking.
Keep letting your heart guide you out of fear and separation. You just might discover the peace you’ve been longing for your whole life.