Stop for a moment and think about your actions and why do you do them. What is the main reason why you do what you do from moment to moment? You might come up with a whole range of possible answers but the one thing that I can almost guarantee will link all of them is, the desire to change what you are feeling right now.

Take for instance your actions after a hard day’s work, what might someone do? Classic behaviour I observe is that they will sink into the couch, turn on the TV, maybe pour themselves a glass or two of wine, or more likely leave finish the whole bottle. And to top it off it, they will pull out the cake icing mix or a tub or ice cream for a couple scoops. Now I’m not saying you do these things, but you can see that many people would fall into this category. And more problematic, is that difficulty at work isn’t the only reason why people get caught up in these things, there are endless reasons why.

But take notice that those actions are about changing their current state or feeling. And unfortunately the pain that is causing them to have that desire to alter their mood hasn’t changed and will still remain within. This is due to the fact that suffering doesn’t diminish just because we have pushed it to the outskirts of minds and tried to make it unconscious.

This examination into the coping that people do with their troubles can seem gloomy but don’t fear it. Since that would be turning away from it, and that never works and trust me when I say that there is always a way through it.

So how do we get through it? Well, we face it that’s how. Give all of your attention to the pain not to the event, person or situation that you think caused you to feel that way. Don’t let your mind write a script as to why you are a victim. Take the time to allow your being to be washed by the pain inside of you. Your full attention will create full acceptance within yourself, and this will allow you to survive it without trapping yourself in coping strategies that harm you.

How does this attention dispel that negatively in your life? Well, think of it like this, when you don’t give full attention and acceptance to your feelings it’s like eating only half of a meal then putting the leftovers in the fridge to rot. If you do that over a lifetime, your “fridge” will be full of all these half eaten meals that you left to develop mould which will in turn take up space that could be used for something else. As well as it will have a corrosive effect on your character because you will be holding onto all these half eaten pains.

Remember that full attention creates presence, and presence removes time from the equation. Without time, no suffering or negativity can survive within you.

As an exercise this week, I want you to investigate what you do when you are faced with hardship in your life and then think about if those feelings were to erupt again. What could you do to develop attention towards those feelings instead of retreating into the tub of ice cream. My thing is to use mediation to focus my mind and body, if you come up with something else, please write in it in the comments as I myself am always on the hunt for new methods.

Live a lifetime of love my Hedites.

Peace.