Ahem - ~me me me me me~
Jun. 4th, 2011 11:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trickykittyImaginations and Expectations are always Egotistical.
I am WAY too wordy for my own good. "But they were all good words." (Said in the innocent voice of a drugged up Arnold Schwarzenegger, a la "But they were all bad people.")
IMAGINATIONS
I don't like that I have allowed my imaginations to take hold of my reality. I don't like how my mind contemplates an idea and instantly goes into enacting the entire scene that could happen in the future (or should have happened in the past). I have such a vivid imagination, and my brain has a bad habit of latching on to those imaginations as expectations: expectations that shouldn't be there; expectations that a conversation or event of that nature WILL/DID occur as I imagined it. I get upset when that conversation or event doesn't/didn't occur as I expected, and therein lies the problem.
Recently, I have been censoring my imagination process by telling myself NO and putting a stop to it after only a few "sentences" in. That's step one. It's becoming easier and more common for me to recognize when I'm just randomly starting to imagine something. I seem to do it quite often.
I start the imagination process because....ego. The ego is running the imaginations in an effort to put me up on that wonderful egotistical pedestal.
"This is because you want people to know how good, attractive, generous, funny, wild and clever you really are. Fear or revere me, but please, think I'm special."
There it is - The Pedestal.
Every imagination I have has one thing in common: My life will be great - I am great.
I imagine interactions with co-workers, and it always plays out with me on top being the winner. I imagine how hanging out with friends at a gathering will play out, and I walk away the life of the party. I imagine a date night with someone, and I get everything that I might want, and interactions always turn out in my benefit - I end the night (or morning) with a huge smile on my face every time.
I wrote down a quote from a website:
"Quit picturing things that hurt."
I think this corollary is also in order:
Quit imagining things that don't exist and aren't real.
There is nothing wrong with simply having the initializing thought. Thoughts must exist. If I didn't have the thought, I wouldn't be able to think of reasons that it is a good or a bad thought, and THAT'S what I need to fill into that imagination gap.
I need to analyze the thought while utilizing real, tangible knowledge. I need to decide if it is a good or bad thought, and then I need to act on that decision. Decline the invitation or accept the invitation, and possibly discuss why this is a good or a bad idea, but don't spend time imagining how things will turn out.
"Pass the mustard" - I could sit there and start imagining [stuff] about this scenario, but instead I quickly and succinctly assess the situation and decide if this is a good or bad thought, and then I act upon that decision. No, nothing's wrong with your legs, and you're actually closer to the fridge than I am. [OR] Oh yeah, sure, here ya go - is there anything else I can get for you?
It's not some huge proposition to think like this. I think like this all the time. I just need to be very aware of when the ego is taking the thought and trying to run with it for its own purposes into Never-Never Land.
So, in recap - have the thought, stop the ego in its tracks from trying to run with it, analyze it using REAL information, make a decision regarding the thought, and consider discussing the decision. Sounds pretty duh, huh?
-------------------------------------
#10
Can you coax your mind from its wandering
and keep to the original oneness?
#20
Stop thinking, and end your problems.
#38
He has no will of his own.
He dwells in reality,
and lets all illusions go.
EXPECTATIONS
I'm going to start this discussion by describing my number one problem with having OCD. Now, first, let me skip over the two obvious problems that OCD can produce. The first is the detrimental aspects that can accompany OCD, like washing your hands until they bleed. I do not have OCD to that extent, so I'm skipping it completely. The second is how the need for perfection can stymie personal accomplishments. This can be on a large or a small scale. For example, creating a report for work or school must be "perfect" and runs the risk of not getting turned in by the deadline. Again, I'm not commonly prone to this, so I'm also not really addressing it here. In fact, if I'm running late on something it's usually because I'm too damned scatterbrained or I'm just being lazy. If I'm trying to make something perfect, that usually includes making the deadline.
------------------------------------------------------
I understand that My Way is not Your Way. I had to learn to deal with this over the course of many years sharing work spaces with other people. When I had to share a front desk space with co-workers, if I noticed a pen stored in a different drawer or a different divider section than I preferred, I would move it. This is an ongoing thing for me. If in the copy room I noticed small and large paper clips in the wrong sides of the two-sided storage box, I would separate them out. It didn't hurt anyone, it was helpful for when someone was looking for something in particular, I may have had those extra couple minutes to otherwise waste while waiting for the copy machine, all's good. At home, I volunteer to empty the dishwasher as much as possible as one of my regular chores, but mostly because I prefer My Way of where and how clean dishes should be stored in the drawers and cabinets over where and how other people might store them.
When things are not done My Way, I run the risk of letting those things bother me. This leads to mental griping and bitching, if not out loud, about how other people are doing things. This is despite knowing that My Way is not Your Way. So, believe it or not, my number one problem with my OCD is that it makes me want to go on a murdering rampage when people continuously insist on doing things Their Way and that rubs against My Way like sandpaper.
Have I gone on a murdering rampage? No. Will I go on a murdering rampage? No.
More than anything, I just don't like that that's where my mind takes things. I do not like thinking badly about my co-workers, my house mates, or even strangers just because Their Way is not My Way.
Think carefully about this though. Everyone does this. Everyone gets upset when they put enough emphasis on My Way versus Their Way. A person changes lanes in front of you without using their turn signal. Their Way. A person in the grocery store suddenly stops in front of you, thinks for a second, and then quickly turns around while running right into you and possibly stepping on your toes, because they weren't paying attention to the other people around them. Their Way. The child slams the door while running through the house and playing with friends. Their Way. The list goes on and on.
These things typically upset us, and they upset us because we are too focused on My Way versus Their Way. We are too focused on our EXPECTATIONS that other people would follow My Way of doing things. It has nothing to do with the fact that Their Way could hurt someone, or cause damage, or otherwise cause some form of inconvenience. That is only the justification for having a My Way in the first place. We believe that if a person were to act My Way, then the world at large would be better for everyone involved, and that may very well be correct. My OCD tells me that "a place for everything, and everything in its place" would be of tremendous assistance to everyone, not just me, so why isn't everyone following it? No, I get upset not because there is potential for harm, but simply because my ego cannot stand it when someone does not follow My Way and my expectations are not getting met. My goals and expectations are very important to my ego; they are what fuel it. When these expectations are not met, THAT'S when I get upset, not when the potential for someone getting hurt arises.
Think about that for a moment. I get upset when someone doesn't properly use their turn signal, not when their actions (don't) cause an accident. I have not otherwise been harmed by their lack of consideration, but my ego has been bruised because my expectations were not met.
#55
He never expects results;
thus he is never disappointed.
This becomes an issue for me when I allow my want of someone else to follow My Way to cause me personal anxiety and anger because they instead choose to follow Their Way.
There is a difference between teaching a child a lesson about slamming the door while running through the house versus getting your heart rate up and getting angry and upset at the child and then beating them senseless because they slammed the door while running through the house. I'm trying to provide a strong visual, but the idea is actually quite simple. There's a brief moment in time when the mind decides between acting angrily and acting calmly.
What is the difference? How can I get in the habit of making the right choice in that moment? How do I choose to be calm versus getting upset?
The secret is that the choice isn't made in that moment. The choice is made ahead of that moment.
This is one of the things I'm hoping will start to alleviate a bit as I get more and more into my Tao Te Ching meditations. This technically falls under the basic idea that I am expecting something out of the universe when I shouldn't be.
#1
Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.
My Way = My Desire
I desire the universe to be a certain way. I desire people to act a certain way. When I desire these things, I see only the fantasy world that I have created in my mind. I do not see the world directly in front of me as it actually is.
When I stop desiring, when I stop expecting to see my fantasy world, when I stop expecting people to be fantastically perfect, then I can see the real world and the real people and the things that make them who they are, faults and all.
#2
Things arise and she lets them come;
things disappear and she lets them go.
#16
you can deal with whatever life brings you
I can also be open to those faults. When the faults appear, I am prepared and I can let them come. I can still react to the person changing lanes without a signal, but I react to prevent damage, not to get my blood boiling. I react to the situation, not to my unmet expectations. An accident doesn't come, everything is back to being okay, and I have avoided getting that much closer to a heart attack. The situation disappears and I let it go. Or maybe an accident does come. I can still deal with the situation at hand, as it is, without getting upset, without grabbing a gun and shooting the person dead, without a public display. Likewise, I can be open when the faults don't come. The person puts on their turn signal, they change lanes, nothing extraordinary happens, and I am still just as calm either way. The situation comes, and if need be I deal with it and accept my own personal inconvenience that the world has thrown at me, and eventually the situation goes away. Maybe I lose my legs in that accident. I accept that this is what the world has thrown at me. I am not a brick wall standing against Their Way - standing against THE WAY of the universe (that's the essence of the Tao, by the way). That hurts, and it will always hurt me much more than if I were to just yield from expecting My Way in the first place. The more I can let things arise and let them go, and the more I can move with the waves of the universe (oh, shit, I just got a bunch of monk-talk on ya - sorry 'bout that), then the less I will feel of the universe pounding back at me.
#30
He understands that the universe
is forever out of control,
and that trying to dominate events
goes against the current of the Tao.
Expectations means not being open to letting things arise. It means being closed off to one potential manifestation of the world and disregarding all other possible manifestations - disregarding the mystery that the world has to offer.
When my OCD is telling me there is only My Way, I am closing myself off to the mystery that interaction with other people produces.
Nothing says I can't still move that one type of glass in the cupboard over to where all the others of the same type are, thus handling the situation that has arisen in the moment, but I don't have to get upset that it wasn't where I would have placed it to begin with. If I open the cabinet and expect to see things a certain way, and they are not that way, then I set myself up for making the choice that I'm going to get upset that my expectation was not met and at the potential people that caused it. I know in my heart I don't want to think that way about my friends and co-workers and strangers. I don't want to think badly of them. 99.9% of the time THEY ARE NOT BAD PEOPLE. They are merely choosing Their Way over My Way, and this follows THE WAY of the universe. If I stop expecting them to follow My Way ahead of time, then I can accept that when I go to open that cabinet door I may not see things as I expect to see them. When I go for a drive, I may not see other drivers behave the way I wish to see them behave. When this happens, there is no blow to my ego because there were no egotistical expectations to be met or not met, and therefore there is no cause for me to get upset.
#55 (repeated from above)
He never expects results;
thus he is never disappointed.
#31
His enemies are not demons,
but human beings like himself.
This is okay. The is THE WAY of the universe. I just need to stop pitting My Way against THE WAY.
I am WAY too wordy for my own good. "But they were all good words." (Said in the innocent voice of a drugged up Arnold Schwarzenegger, a la "But they were all bad people.")
IMAGINATIONS
I don't like that I have allowed my imaginations to take hold of my reality. I don't like how my mind contemplates an idea and instantly goes into enacting the entire scene that could happen in the future (or should have happened in the past). I have such a vivid imagination, and my brain has a bad habit of latching on to those imaginations as expectations: expectations that shouldn't be there; expectations that a conversation or event of that nature WILL/DID occur as I imagined it. I get upset when that conversation or event doesn't/didn't occur as I expected, and therein lies the problem.
Recently, I have been censoring my imagination process by telling myself NO and putting a stop to it after only a few "sentences" in. That's step one. It's becoming easier and more common for me to recognize when I'm just randomly starting to imagine something. I seem to do it quite often.
I start the imagination process because....ego. The ego is running the imaginations in an effort to put me up on that wonderful egotistical pedestal.
"This is because you want people to know how good, attractive, generous, funny, wild and clever you really are. Fear or revere me, but please, think I'm special."
There it is - The Pedestal.
Every imagination I have has one thing in common: My life will be great - I am great.
I imagine interactions with co-workers, and it always plays out with me on top being the winner. I imagine how hanging out with friends at a gathering will play out, and I walk away the life of the party. I imagine a date night with someone, and I get everything that I might want, and interactions always turn out in my benefit - I end the night (or morning) with a huge smile on my face every time.
I wrote down a quote from a website:
"Quit picturing things that hurt."
I think this corollary is also in order:
Quit imagining things that don't exist and aren't real.
There is nothing wrong with simply having the initializing thought. Thoughts must exist. If I didn't have the thought, I wouldn't be able to think of reasons that it is a good or a bad thought, and THAT'S what I need to fill into that imagination gap.
I need to analyze the thought while utilizing real, tangible knowledge. I need to decide if it is a good or bad thought, and then I need to act on that decision. Decline the invitation or accept the invitation, and possibly discuss why this is a good or a bad idea, but don't spend time imagining how things will turn out.
"Pass the mustard" - I could sit there and start imagining [stuff] about this scenario, but instead I quickly and succinctly assess the situation and decide if this is a good or bad thought, and then I act upon that decision. No, nothing's wrong with your legs, and you're actually closer to the fridge than I am. [OR] Oh yeah, sure, here ya go - is there anything else I can get for you?
It's not some huge proposition to think like this. I think like this all the time. I just need to be very aware of when the ego is taking the thought and trying to run with it for its own purposes into Never-Never Land.
So, in recap - have the thought, stop the ego in its tracks from trying to run with it, analyze it using REAL information, make a decision regarding the thought, and consider discussing the decision. Sounds pretty duh, huh?
-------------------------------------
#10
Can you coax your mind from its wandering
and keep to the original oneness?
#20
Stop thinking, and end your problems.
#38
He has no will of his own.
He dwells in reality,
and lets all illusions go.
EXPECTATIONS
I'm going to start this discussion by describing my number one problem with having OCD. Now, first, let me skip over the two obvious problems that OCD can produce. The first is the detrimental aspects that can accompany OCD, like washing your hands until they bleed. I do not have OCD to that extent, so I'm skipping it completely. The second is how the need for perfection can stymie personal accomplishments. This can be on a large or a small scale. For example, creating a report for work or school must be "perfect" and runs the risk of not getting turned in by the deadline. Again, I'm not commonly prone to this, so I'm also not really addressing it here. In fact, if I'm running late on something it's usually because I'm too damned scatterbrained or I'm just being lazy. If I'm trying to make something perfect, that usually includes making the deadline.
------------------------------------------------------
I understand that My Way is not Your Way. I had to learn to deal with this over the course of many years sharing work spaces with other people. When I had to share a front desk space with co-workers, if I noticed a pen stored in a different drawer or a different divider section than I preferred, I would move it. This is an ongoing thing for me. If in the copy room I noticed small and large paper clips in the wrong sides of the two-sided storage box, I would separate them out. It didn't hurt anyone, it was helpful for when someone was looking for something in particular, I may have had those extra couple minutes to otherwise waste while waiting for the copy machine, all's good. At home, I volunteer to empty the dishwasher as much as possible as one of my regular chores, but mostly because I prefer My Way of where and how clean dishes should be stored in the drawers and cabinets over where and how other people might store them.
When things are not done My Way, I run the risk of letting those things bother me. This leads to mental griping and bitching, if not out loud, about how other people are doing things. This is despite knowing that My Way is not Your Way. So, believe it or not, my number one problem with my OCD is that it makes me want to go on a murdering rampage when people continuously insist on doing things Their Way and that rubs against My Way like sandpaper.
Have I gone on a murdering rampage? No. Will I go on a murdering rampage? No.
More than anything, I just don't like that that's where my mind takes things. I do not like thinking badly about my co-workers, my house mates, or even strangers just because Their Way is not My Way.
Think carefully about this though. Everyone does this. Everyone gets upset when they put enough emphasis on My Way versus Their Way. A person changes lanes in front of you without using their turn signal. Their Way. A person in the grocery store suddenly stops in front of you, thinks for a second, and then quickly turns around while running right into you and possibly stepping on your toes, because they weren't paying attention to the other people around them. Their Way. The child slams the door while running through the house and playing with friends. Their Way. The list goes on and on.
These things typically upset us, and they upset us because we are too focused on My Way versus Their Way. We are too focused on our EXPECTATIONS that other people would follow My Way of doing things. It has nothing to do with the fact that Their Way could hurt someone, or cause damage, or otherwise cause some form of inconvenience. That is only the justification for having a My Way in the first place. We believe that if a person were to act My Way, then the world at large would be better for everyone involved, and that may very well be correct. My OCD tells me that "a place for everything, and everything in its place" would be of tremendous assistance to everyone, not just me, so why isn't everyone following it? No, I get upset not because there is potential for harm, but simply because my ego cannot stand it when someone does not follow My Way and my expectations are not getting met. My goals and expectations are very important to my ego; they are what fuel it. When these expectations are not met, THAT'S when I get upset, not when the potential for someone getting hurt arises.
Think about that for a moment. I get upset when someone doesn't properly use their turn signal, not when their actions (don't) cause an accident. I have not otherwise been harmed by their lack of consideration, but my ego has been bruised because my expectations were not met.
#55
He never expects results;
thus he is never disappointed.
This becomes an issue for me when I allow my want of someone else to follow My Way to cause me personal anxiety and anger because they instead choose to follow Their Way.
There is a difference between teaching a child a lesson about slamming the door while running through the house versus getting your heart rate up and getting angry and upset at the child and then beating them senseless because they slammed the door while running through the house. I'm trying to provide a strong visual, but the idea is actually quite simple. There's a brief moment in time when the mind decides between acting angrily and acting calmly.
What is the difference? How can I get in the habit of making the right choice in that moment? How do I choose to be calm versus getting upset?
The secret is that the choice isn't made in that moment. The choice is made ahead of that moment.
This is one of the things I'm hoping will start to alleviate a bit as I get more and more into my Tao Te Ching meditations. This technically falls under the basic idea that I am expecting something out of the universe when I shouldn't be.
#1
Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.
My Way = My Desire
I desire the universe to be a certain way. I desire people to act a certain way. When I desire these things, I see only the fantasy world that I have created in my mind. I do not see the world directly in front of me as it actually is.
When I stop desiring, when I stop expecting to see my fantasy world, when I stop expecting people to be fantastically perfect, then I can see the real world and the real people and the things that make them who they are, faults and all.
#2
Things arise and she lets them come;
things disappear and she lets them go.
#16
you can deal with whatever life brings you
I can also be open to those faults. When the faults appear, I am prepared and I can let them come. I can still react to the person changing lanes without a signal, but I react to prevent damage, not to get my blood boiling. I react to the situation, not to my unmet expectations. An accident doesn't come, everything is back to being okay, and I have avoided getting that much closer to a heart attack. The situation disappears and I let it go. Or maybe an accident does come. I can still deal with the situation at hand, as it is, without getting upset, without grabbing a gun and shooting the person dead, without a public display. Likewise, I can be open when the faults don't come. The person puts on their turn signal, they change lanes, nothing extraordinary happens, and I am still just as calm either way. The situation comes, and if need be I deal with it and accept my own personal inconvenience that the world has thrown at me, and eventually the situation goes away. Maybe I lose my legs in that accident. I accept that this is what the world has thrown at me. I am not a brick wall standing against Their Way - standing against THE WAY of the universe (that's the essence of the Tao, by the way). That hurts, and it will always hurt me much more than if I were to just yield from expecting My Way in the first place. The more I can let things arise and let them go, and the more I can move with the waves of the universe (oh, shit, I just got a bunch of monk-talk on ya - sorry 'bout that), then the less I will feel of the universe pounding back at me.
#30
He understands that the universe
is forever out of control,
and that trying to dominate events
goes against the current of the Tao.
Expectations means not being open to letting things arise. It means being closed off to one potential manifestation of the world and disregarding all other possible manifestations - disregarding the mystery that the world has to offer.
When my OCD is telling me there is only My Way, I am closing myself off to the mystery that interaction with other people produces.
Nothing says I can't still move that one type of glass in the cupboard over to where all the others of the same type are, thus handling the situation that has arisen in the moment, but I don't have to get upset that it wasn't where I would have placed it to begin with. If I open the cabinet and expect to see things a certain way, and they are not that way, then I set myself up for making the choice that I'm going to get upset that my expectation was not met and at the potential people that caused it. I know in my heart I don't want to think that way about my friends and co-workers and strangers. I don't want to think badly of them. 99.9% of the time THEY ARE NOT BAD PEOPLE. They are merely choosing Their Way over My Way, and this follows THE WAY of the universe. If I stop expecting them to follow My Way ahead of time, then I can accept that when I go to open that cabinet door I may not see things as I expect to see them. When I go for a drive, I may not see other drivers behave the way I wish to see them behave. When this happens, there is no blow to my ego because there were no egotistical expectations to be met or not met, and therefore there is no cause for me to get upset.
#55 (repeated from above)
He never expects results;
thus he is never disappointed.
#31
His enemies are not demons,
but human beings like himself.
This is okay. The is THE WAY of the universe. I just need to stop pitting My Way against THE WAY.
