[Gem]

Originally Posted by naturesflow

Yes I remember that point of being aware of the story in my own process and seeing that I could actually let it go now. My balance had reached a point where by the process over many years allowed me to go deeper into that attachment, keeping myself in patterns and old reactions etc. From that point on nothing was quite the same in my processing and life experience. I found myself more able to shift fast through any activations or reactions that might arise through external happening as things were. I feel reaching that point of letting the story go was actual one of the most crucial points of awareness in mindfulness for me at least. I also became aware that when I let the story go, I was propelled faster to let go of the old surface stuff I used to react to in myself, beyond the old games and needs, desires that often would play out. I shifted faster and found my centre faster. So your right it is a key ingredient as I see it.

I think it happens that we don't really have a choice of letting go because, for me, I recognise a story as a story so it has no truth in it for me to believe, and even though it might be well ingrained in my conditioning, it is recognised, like, 'this is one those stories I have been conditioned with'. I might see it as futile if it does me no good or it holds me back, so I don't want it anymore and I stop investing myself in it. To me there's no point trying to make it stop, as why did I think it in the first place if I didn't want to think it? Why think it and then try not to think it, right? Better to recognise it for what it is and leave it as it is. Then it 'comes to light' in that recognition and can pass as it will inevitably do. There is no point putting up a fight and developing a habit of fighting inside - which is the basic problem in the first place. Better to stop that fight and leave ugly things to their own devices, so they can pass as they will without creating more raucous than what already might be the case.

Yes I get it. Noticing and staying present, being mindful in the process of all that occurring and allowing is a mindful practice for me. It just poses another aspect of yourself in that dynamic to notice how all that feels, another layer added into the mix to listen and notice more. Honesty is a good thing, so is timing and discernment. So I listen to the whole dynamic more aware of such matters. When I am engaged with another, I am very conscious of myself as being very honest and open, but to be attentive and listen to another, that immediately sets the shared space up to notice more, add more than one into the mix and you get the picture, when you have differences that are quite extreme, that again poses another level of awareness and engagement of them especially if things are being directed at you from their own containment and your open feeling it all exposed and trying to find your place in that space, where they cant yet see or feel, or perhaps don't want too. It poses a very mindful practice for me in how I relate to this space. I have to let personal go, it doesn't serve me to take it personally even as it may be directed at me from their " inability to be fully honest with themselves" and seeing me as the source of their issue.

In me there is another who is just the same as me, so what they do is felt in it's effect on me. I don;t become overly concerned with it because it always comes back to me being at peace with myself, in my sensational experience. The problems are never 'because of them'. The problems are always my own reactions to how I am affected. I have to deal with the average male tempers because males are raised to be angry and aggressive, but it's all in me and has almost nothing to do with anyone else. That's how I 'live with myself' by which I mean live with the ego reaction I refer to as 'me, my, mine and I'. I recognise it's all a bid reaction, and that's where I just surrender it because I see it as the imaginary thought it is. Then I notice how its 'reality' is only sensations rising in my body, and there's usually no use adding a lot of stories about these.

I know what your saying, I have to learn to love what is contained in others. Letting go of my own containment is one thing, but if I witness the blocks in others as contained I am containing myself again and I don't want to be that way, it doesn't serve me to hold my own presence, so the nature of deeper awareness in myself is simply to notice and just be present with the story as it is in them. Find a place to relate and let things be as they need to be. I have been allowing myself to deepen through these connections to just get clear in myself. I know I have to do the work if I see a problem. It is my problem and my block seeing it externally. I notice that clearing that space in me, bridges an open clear awareness to let whatever outside of me come to light of itself. I have to manage myself in all that as a mindful practice.
I do believe that once you have the foundation of mindfulness in yourself in place, that supports you to not be engaged in ways where your expending energy and effort in ways that keeps you locked into the drama or pain of others. Rather become more effortless and flow as your own presence in all that mindful and aware of you in it, aware of other life, but continuing to "Ground" deeper beyond the games or unaware aspects that can be noticed once your aware in this way.

I'm one who has almost no problem with others, and I understand we need to have these blocks until we're strong enough to open those doors, otherwise we'd be flooded with things we couldn't cope with and seriously unbalance to mind. A lot of people have this on both ends of the scale of traumatic emotional contents and also opening up with energy flows. That's why mindfulness is a very particular thing... for that finer balance of awareness with equanimity. I guess that's what 'staying grounded' is. People still have to accept their particular limitations, though. In spiritual discourse it is popular to say 'there are no limitations', but it's better to see when you lose that stillness so you come to know where limitations lie. It's more honest, so meditation constantly returns to the ethical foundation.

It is young but I never underestimate the potential in young or even old people in the space of awareness and potential they each hold no matter what age. Often when parents or guardians of others, have this kind of awareness brought to one's attention, it can open up how we can either support or hinder the connection of those around us by our engagement and also by what we entertain them with as their carers or guardians. The environment plays an important role into our deeper awareness and connection to self. So if your being responsible for others, this little man shows me in reflection how important it can be as parents of young children or carers of the aged, how easily we set the environment up for distraction away from their inner world. Its the nature of the world, but certainly these moments open awareness if one is listening deeper and realizing distractions can be very detrimental to not staying present and noticing things like "how you feel" "how your seeing" or just letting thoughts come up and flow to notice more of yourself or others.

Yes. The social world is manifested from human thought, so where people are largely distracted they create things in the world to distract themselves. Now days with all the electronic media people don't really see what is around them, so we have many becoming very highly distracted. On the other hand, a wave of spiritual awareness seems to be sweeping the world - maybe because people feel so distracted from themselves they start to want to discover themselves just as much.

I recently had to pay a visit to an elderly aware lady, she was full of life but unwell. I noticed that in the short time together I allowed her space to speak her worries and fears arising in my presence with her. After that short but quality time, I saw that her illness was less infused in her body, she was more alert and open and feeling connected again. Staying present, mindful and aware of another, can be a major turning point. Not needing to do anything but listen and allow.

True. In humanities I usually found it was enough that I was there, and often there was no point trying to solve people's problems. I found people sort their stuff out just because they can talk it through without anyone trying to find a solution, giving advice, trying to fix it. It enables them to talk it through and organise their thoughts a bit. Then they have ideas about where they want to go from here, which means they see themselves and their life path a little clearer - and then I might be able to give a few options which I could assist with. It has to come from them, so all I do is provide a space, and when they have their ideas, let them know what options are available so they might choose one direction or another. I mean it is their life to live, and I have no say in that.

Yep I get it, my focus is still by physical body. I still have a way to go, but I know the way and when you see and feel results more complete in yourself, you do feel a sense of deeper immersion into the lived experience. For me I am in the place where the whole body cant be ignored so for me its deepening and opening to my own seeds of potential in this way. (I did a bush hike recently up some pretty big hills, I was pleasantly surprised at my cardio doing this, it was pretty steep, but I loved it, I need to do more of this)

I certainly don't let life stop moving in and around me and my participation in all that all the same. For me the balance of being and living my life, comes into my wholeness of being as one. What I am in myself leads itself in the world, so I cant ignore that now in me. Being open and honest with myself in a deeper awareness of truth, I cant ignore myself. There is no where to hide now. Well I could make choices to pull away from myself and life, but I don't want that. I have worked to hard on myself and want to enjoy my life as a quality of being and living, engaging and connecting. And I only have to be more present and truthful with myself to build this in each moment I exist on this earth and stop chasing after things that don't align to where I want to be in myself ongoing.

Sure, going deeper into the body is pretty much the way forward, and it will go on subtler and subtler, dissolving the physical solidity into such a dynamic myriad. We can notice when we feel the details of a solid body sensation that it is made up of millions of tiny subtler sensations. The over all solid feeling seems to last a long time, but the detailed collage of tiny sensations that make it up are changing very very rapidly. When the senses become extraordinarily sensitive we don't live 'solid lives' so much, and the hard stuck places of the body dissolve into myriads of movement.