It does take time and practice Barnacle, I was surprised at how hard it was also. But the pain itself became my motivator because I so very much wanted to stop feeling the pain. In a way now the pain may become your teacher by teaching you how to deal with it.
There was a book I read call Dune by Frank Herbert which had a lot of useful saying in it by a spiritual tradition called the Bene Gessit. Which was a powerful order of women Priestesses. They used the Litany Against Fear to calm their mind and re-center themselves.
I memories this as a teenager and chanting it as a litany helped me during the awakening when waves of loss and mourning would crash over me.
I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.
There is another technique I was taught by a Bodhi which helped me to stay in the Present moment and not stray as much into the woes of the thinking mind. It has 3 parts - all 3 must be done.
He called it Noticing. And I had to do this every minute during the worst of what I went through, I still do it to this day to shift from the Thinker to Observer mode.
While it was hard to get going on it initially as it was alien to me, much like the Bene Gessit Litany against Fear I now find it a highly useful technique for changing my reaction to an environment situation that I can not change.
1: Stop and Notice.
Say to your self I notice ... (name something around you or inside you) ie, I notice that the birds are singing and it's beautiful. Or I notice my brains is trying to eat itself again with it's many fears. Or I notice I have tension in my jaw, or I notice that truck going by and it has a leaking muffler and the timing is off or I notice the sun sparking on those leaves is very pleasing".
2:Then Notice that you've noticed it.
"I notice that I have noticed the birds singing (or whatever)."
3: Congratulate yourself of Noticing.
"Well done Self! You've arrived back in the moment of Now!"
You've now just spent roughly 5-6 second into he moment of Now.
Seems simple enough yes? But it might be a little tough to keep doing it because the thinking mind doesn't like the moment of Now.
It likes to think in the future or the past or about things which never happened or never will happen. The thinking mind or ego actually live in a made up world, a world it designs which has little relation to actual reality.
As you study your mind you will notice this, it tears off on tangents of imagination which will most likely never actually happen, are a changed version of something that did happen and so on. It's almost impossible for the thinking mind to be in this exact moment of Now.
This Noticing exercise begins to re-train the brain that it's thinking can be stopped at any given time and the Observer can take over.
Sort of like a dog who just wants to run around and chew on things and bark and resists training initially, so it is likely your brain will resist being trained and do everything it can to stop you.
Notice thoughts like "This is stupid, I'm getting nothing out of this" Caught them "I notice what you did there brain"
"And I Notice that I noticed it.
"Good job Barnacle! You just brought this whole inner discourse back to the moment of Now."
I remember this one morning after practicing this technique for hours every day when I woke up and my brain started to make some comment like "Oh slept well" and just suddenly stopped in the middle of the word 'slept' and seemed to look around for permission to speak!
I totally cracked up laughing! It was a pivotal moment for me when it sank in that it was working and for the first time the brain was actually starting to realize it wasn't running the show and something else was in charge.
To this day when it tries to dive into negative thoughts and perseverating I'll just start Noticing again and after 10 minutes of this it gives up and changes gears to a more pleasant subject. Sometimes just the thought of doing Noticing will make it change gears. lol
Sort of like telling a dog who's begging that if it keeps it up your going to point to its bed and tell it to go lay down, knowing what's going to happen it decides on its own to stop doing the offending behavior.
The Noticing will also help you to quickly establish the Observer and give you more space between objectively seeing the thoughts and then being pulled into the illusion of being the one thinking the thoughts and all the associated emotions and thoughts of the egoic mind and its pain and suffering.
The Observer once firmly established becomes a Gateway state between you and your Higher Self and is the begging of some pretty amazing stuff which can unfold. It's like a switch from corporal world to the multi-dimensions and with practice and training you can use this gateway state to launch your consciousness out of your body and into those other worlds which exist super-imposed over this dimension and separated from us only by frequency. In time you'll learn how to raise and adjust your frequency to access these realms.
So not only will this Noticing (and do it 10000 times a day if you need too) spare you from some of the more morbid flights of fancy from the egoic mind but ultimately it is something which will open the gates of wonder for you.
Awakening Consciousness could be said to be tuning into the Subtle World. It is becoming aware of the subtle energies, the subtle frequency's and vibration, the subtle chemical shifts inside the body, being able to discern between your own thoughts and those of others interacting inside your field, being able to sense the subtle Higher Self, the Angels and Guides surrounding you energetically, being able to notice the Little People and Fairy Realms which exist with us but unseen until one learns how to see them, noticing the Chakras and what those energies move to you into he way of information and so on. There's a whole `nother level of life and existence which the thinking mind can not see/feel/sense or penetrate that will begin to unfold to you over time as you learn to control the very mind stopping you from perceiving what else is here and always has been.
It's not an over night Journey to be arrived at, it's going to take time and training just like learning to play a musical instrument, but with hours of daily practice and dedication You Will Achieve it
Be patient with yourself, give your self the time it takes, do not judge yourself or get impatient - it's a loving journey - love and nurture and encourage yourself there.
Your brain has been programmed over your entire lifetime, you won't be able to unprogram it in a mere few weeks or maybe even months.
Be Patient and diligent.
Linear Mode
