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The War Within

This came in via the Parlor >>

I’d like to share how the work has been helping me lately. Often a picture will come into my mind and tempt me. Something like a Braum’s burger, fries, and an ice cream cone sundae. This may sound silly, but I am often a slave to such thoughts. So what I’ve been doing lately is to focus on that tempting image- what it is I believe I want. Then I pose the question that this picture implies to myself. This items promises that if I engage it,it will give me pleasure, it will be a good experience. It also demands that I satisfy it immediately, because I can not survive with out it. I’m am hopelessly incomplete without it. I take that false promise to inquiry.

When I believe that thought, I leave my perfect universe and battle this temptation. Believing the thought, and struggling against it is the war BK speaks of. Far better to doubt the thought & never struggle! Also I’ve been testing it- for instance, I disobeyed the thought and found that I was still breathing and in fact was very happy! Wow, without Braums too! 🙂

I find that I have a same pattern to my aversions that I have with my desires. For me a project that I’m behind on starts to represent something bad, to be avoided. Why? B/C when I look at it, what I actually perceive is a promise that if I tackle it, I will be frustrated, overwhelmed and
incapable. Yet when do I actually tackle such projects, I experience the opposite in reality.

I realized that I created a whole universe in my head this way. I create a personal relationship with everything in my mind- I call this thing a “goodie” and this other thing something terrible- aweful. In this way, I am driven, emprisoned by my desires and aversions.

The crazy part is that I’m almost always wrong in my attributions. Things I dread turn out to be great, and things I desire aren’t that great. I always hate it when someone tells me how great a movie is before I watch it. If they build it up too much, I leave disappointed- at a great movie too!

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