Better drop the subliminal dualistic definitions now. And take many aware showers!
Subtitle: Monitoring the balance of voluntary / subconscious moves while taking a shower
I have reached the amazing conclusion that I move like a robot 99% of the time and I have no idea why my moves/actions come in a certain order. Ok, I know that I have formed various habits in my 45 years of existence and I am on autopilot almost all my life (thoughts included), but during this particular exercise of taking a conscious shower, immersing into the moment more than ever (supposedly), something really weird happened: my mind got angry at my autopilot! For brief intervals of a few seconds, the cross armed funny looking angry observer of the exercise got really pissed off at the performer of the exercise.
Parents, remember that cold feeling down your spine when your quiet kid is out of sight?
Do you, guys, have kids? If you do, you will better get the following. This dissonance between what the observer was expecting to experience and what the doer was actually doing “felt” exactly like watching my daughter at the playground playing quietly with other kids. I would become relaxed, the kids are playing nicely, right? Maybe open my book, read a little and the first time I check on her…bam!!! she is gone. Parents, remember that cold feeling down your spine when the quiet kid is out of sight?
Washing your armpits? Who the hell told you to go there?
That’s what my “observer” experienced while watching the action doer go astray. This is what happened: the body moved randomly like an unpuppetiered Pinocchio! Washing your armpits? Who the hell told you to go there? You just beat me to it….said a very angry observer. And slowly but surely, over a period of 5 minutes or so, I (whoever I may be) noticed that there is nothing I (the observer) can do to change what happens on autopilot. And I (another I, I guess — lol) decided that those 5 minutes were and still are the essence of what I am. I am a sum of all my previous programming, my parents’ programming, the humanity’s programming, all the programming that ever was is and will be in relation to our perception of the world. And suddenly, all of “it” there seemed funny. I laughed wholeheartedly seeing myself as an ant in a colony, being stepped on by a mean kid who was just playing nicely with other kids. Until he didn’t.
Lovingly,
