We dissect what are the facts about the situation, the truth of it, and what we make of that truth – the story we tell ourselves about it. This story usually forms in dialogue with ourselves…
“I cannot deal with this.”
“How could they do this to me?”
“I’m heartbroken.”
We make our own argument as we painfully talk to ourselves in the shower. But there are not actually two people inside that it would require for this conversation. There is only the one experiencing reality, life as it is. The ‘other’ simply is a voice in the head commenting on it. When we are in pain, can we identify who really is the one in pain. You or that fictitious voice?
As we catch the voice fabricating pain by telling stories, we become aware of it happening and can see its utter falsehood. What the voice says is often a cruel distortion of reality. This will not necessarily halt the experience of pain, which is not something we can do anyway, but it removes the drama from the story we have of the situation. It allows us to look at both the pain and the associated situation directly, without the filter of our ‘inner voice’.
Seeing pain for what it is, a feeling that passes, without clinging onto it by identification and making it into our story (“I’m the heartbroken one”) has it dissolve quickly and enables us to deal with the situation if and as required. Some situations are harder to deal with, like loosing a close friend or family member. The pain can be overwhelming. We must see if we can be present to it anyhow, that is simply to feel it without making a story of the feeling and labelling it as any particular emotion.
We practice this by listening to ourselves in conversation. Witness the stark difference between the statements “I’m heartbroken” or “I feel heartbroken”, for example. The former implies identification with the emotion behind ‘feeling heartbroken’. It is nothing more than a set of emotionally charged thoughts about ourselves, triggered by the situation.
The other is an experience that you’re having which passes as it is not who you are fundamentally.
All that we are is infinite and all that we are not will pass. This is freedom.
