20210924 - Labeling Into Space

Disease, dis-ease. Lack of ease. The lack of ease can range from not even noticeable until it goes away (like a kitchen fan) to a perfect hell, but the components are usually the same: - Difficult emotions such as shame, guilt, anger, sadness or fear that we are resisting in subtle ways, most often not consciously - Discomfort in the body in form of tension to various degree - Non-productive thought patterns like judgement, criticism and blame agains self or other, obsession on getting out of the experience and thoughts centered around past of future. In this state it seems like we are trapped inside our experience, “this is what we are”. We might not think so consciously but it is our experience of ourself in the moment. We will try and escape this lack of ease in various ways depending on how strong it is and if it’s strong enough we will go to great extent to find release. We turn to alcohol, drugs, sex, food, gambling, work, social media, constant stimulation, personal growth, meditation, yoga, dancing or basically anything else to distract and escape from this dis-ease. Most people do this, all the time. It’s the normal state of affairs. There is nothing wrong with this. But there is another way! What is lacking is space! We have forgotten that we are also the space of awareness. And when there is no space, there is nowhere for the pain to go. There is nowhere for us to rest because all we have is our painful experience wherever we turn. To look for release in whatever strategy we have available is human. But when we are in contact with the space that we are, we can hold our experience without needing to escape from it and in that way the pain can release, slowly but surely. Today we will invite some space.