Two Questions That Constantly Get Me Free From Feeling ‘Stuck’
I have one post-it note on my desk here in my home office that stays there.
The other post-its are temporary scribbled notes to help my short-term memory as a reminder to get something-or-other done. They soon get scrunched and thrown into the paper recycling bin. The one that stays has been there for 3 years now. It stays just in case I forget a realisation I had on the day I wrote it. It says: “2 questions that always help when I feel stuck, bad, low, insecure, anxious or scared.
- What have I made up?
- What have I forgotten?”
That’s it. There’s nothing more I think I ever have to remember. Because the answers to these 2 questions are, to me, fundamental truths about every human being. Me included.
- What have I made up?
Everything. Always. I live in a world of thought. The list of feelings I sometimes struggle with are all thought in the moment. They can not come from anywhere else. The past is a memory come to life via a ‘now thought’ about an event that is no longer happening. The future is unknown. And via thought I can imagine a future and I feel what I’m imagining. It’s another ‘now thought’ about an event that has never happened and is not happening now. And if there’s something happening in my life right now that occurs at the same time as any of these feelings, I am still creating the meaning of that event via thought. I am making that meaning up. 100% of the time. For as long as I live. Once I remember the truth of this, I am then free. There’s no need to change what I’m thinking when I see it’s a temporary illusion, appearing real, causing feelings I don’t like. Feelings that are left to their own devices will change without me doing anything about them. Because that’s how feelings, created by transitory and illusory thought work in human beings.
2) What have I forgotten?
What I’ve forgotten comes down to 2 further fears:
a) What if I can’t deal with something in the future?
b) What if I don’t get over the feeling?
Both are dissolved by the following realisations about the truth about being human I’ve had.
I forget that I’ve coped with everything life has thrown at me in the past. While I know there’ll be more heartbreak, pain, loss, disappointments and failures in my life; I have this innate ability to bounce back. I’m more resilient than I think. We all are. It’s innate — a born-with capacity that is ours for as long as we live.
Every feeling I dislike, goes. Changes into another feeling. Yes, they can and do come back. Yet, nothing can come back if it hadn’t gone before. I forget that. And then I remember.
I did have to see these truths for myself. There’s no shortcut to that. And that was simpler than I thought it would be too. All I had to do was be willing to look and let go of what I had believed to be true before. I saw more, and listened to the nudges of the still sure voice within, that some call wisdom. I’m wiser than I give myself credit for. Not in a personal “wiser than the next person” way, in a true for all human beings way. An internal guidance system with far more intelligence than my computer-brained IQ.
The same innate wisdom that tells me what to do in real-time whenever I need it. Allowing me to deal with whatever life throws at me; regardless of how I feel.
I don’t need the post-it note on my desk. Truth requires no willpower. Truth requires no manifesting. And truth requires no trust for it to work. I don’t need to repeat it to myself 20 times in the mirror each morning. Insight requires no repetition. If what I’ve seen is true I will keep bumping into it. And see more about it as my life unfolds.
Regardless of how stuck, bad, low, insecure, anxious or scared I may feel.
