Are you satisfied?

Are you satisfied?

Are you unconsciously searching?

Do you go off in tangents looking for….…….? You might not know what!

Someone said to me recently, that they never felt satisfied with their life. That it seems to be a pattern for them. A concern because its keeps them moving away from uncomfortable situations, or towards something perceived as better, or just trying this and that.

I remember a time when someone said that to me…….”You’re never satisfied”. It did stop me in my tracks for a second or two. And I asked myself….”Am I or am I not?” Since obviously I have remembered that comment, there must have been some impact. What I thought at the time was…..isn’t it okay to not be satisfied? Isn’t that how we grow?

I’m guessing that there are different levels or parts to this being satisfied. We can feel satisfied and still want to change and grow. Satisfaction does not mean stagnation. Satisfaction does not mean avoiding any chance to expand and grow. Satisfaction might mean acceptance of circumstances just now, in this moment, without precluding being open to possibilities.

Dissatisfaction with life could mean that the person is on a mission to discover the meaning of life, to discover themselves, to find out who they really are. Dissatisfaction can provide the energy to expand, to open up and shift thinking. A person could find themselves trying different modalities, going for readings, starting practises to help fix themselves. Do you?

Dissatisfaction can turn into a search. A search for what? Maybe a search for someone to tell you the mysteries of life. Or who you really are? Maybe you want to be told. You might decide to believe what someone else says.

Or, you could turn this around. Instead of going on a search outside, why not go on a search inside you. How? As humans, we just pile up the knowledge, the emotions, and the wrong beliefs about ourselves all our lives….…….all on top of who we really are.  It’s a matter of getting underneath all that stuff and then you can discover your self. You can discover the part of you that is unchanging. The part of you that is you.

For me, stopping the external search has revealed what I am not. It has given me multiple experiences of the truth of me. Am I satisfied with my life? Yes. 

And I continue to be vigilant for the patterns and behaviours that are not the real me. So that, in the moment, I can choose differently. I can choose truth.

The Power of the thinking Mind.

Our minds are working all the time. It’s very useful that they are really. We need our minds to keep working. So let’s appreciate our brains and minds.

But how is it, for someone when what they see is not what is actually there. One of my jobs is working with children with learning difficulties and I am really aware of how frustrating it must be when what you see is not what’s there. For example, if you are learning maths and read the number as 42 when really it is 24. (How many numbers can be reversed?) So how does one learn when what one sees is that confusing   - well not confusing to start with, because the child thinks it’s okay and it becomes confusing when the answer doesn’t work out. Or reading words and see “was” as “saw”?  How does one make sense of the sentence? See the possibility of growing feeling of failure? Then the strategies to avoid this feeling? The strategies of avoiding being a failure? Be a clown, act silly, become labelled as disruptive?

As adults, how often does this happen for us, in different ways. Do we see things as they are, or is what we see, veiled by some idea we have in our head.

As adults, how often do we think we hear someone say something, and then find out later that that is not what they said? That we interpreted what they said into something else.

Are you aware of this, in you? Or is it too much like being a failure?

I had a realisation along these lines the other day. I was reminded of someone I worked with a several years ago, and this lead to a memory of how she was and what she said. Then, into the gap while thinking, dropped the realisation. I remember that she told me to do things, that she was bossy. I remember the specific commands. But what I got now though, was that maybe she was asking me to do things and I interpreted what she said as telling.         Oh, s…t. You mean I have been carrying round the uncomfortable memory that she told me what to do, when actually she was asking if I wanted to. That I was carrying round the uncomfortable feeling of being bossed, when actually she was asking. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm. You know, I think I may have interpreted other people as commanding me to do something when they weren’t really. Maybe I had a veil of sensitivity to this sort of asking, having experienced something early in my life which created a mind job of interpreting questions as commands.

And this sort of thing can lead to an inability to say no, to a sense of having to do what someone asks you to do. I certainly felt that I had to do what this person asked. What do you reckon?

Funny things, minds. Have a look at what yours is doing.

Being Still. Being Present.

Being Still. Being Present. Being Here. Being Quiet. Being in Truth.

These being states might be a spiritual goal of yours. They certainly are for me.

It’s funny though, because we can’t make ourselves be this way. We can’t even practise these skills. Even meditation doesn’t do it. Meditation is a practice of meditation, not of being still and quiet and being in truth. Unless it’s a walking meditation, it’s about the body being still regardless of how painful the body gets – and then its willpower!

Being still inside is a different thing altogether. Because it’s not about the body being still, it’s about a stillness inside, even when the body is moving in daily tasks, even when the brain is engaged in whatever it needs to do. I feel excited when I write this. Why? Because I have felt it. This stillness that is here inside me, even when life goes on. It feels so magical.

And sometimes illusive!! Those times when I suddenly realise that the stillness

is not here, I catch myself in awareness. And in the catching, I go still. Usually.

When my mind is busy and at the same time, not focused, that’s when the stillness isn’t present. I caught myself the other day when someone rang me just when I was about to call someone on skype. The phone call was unexpected. I thought that I listened well, but later I realised that I had not been totally present and certainly not still inside myself. Half my self was elsewhere concerned about the skype call. I felt rather disgusted with myself about this. However, a few days later a similar situation occurred and I was able to be still and present in the moment, in each moment. 

I often remind myself of a lesson that I learned on Mt Arunachala in India – just one step. Not one step at a time, because this implies that there will be a further step so it is slightly looking into the future. But just this step. Just this moment. Being still.

The more we bring ourselves to this moment, the more we can.