Play today's Going Deeper session below:
We are halfway into this 30 Days of Love Challenge. There likely have been moments when you felt excited, learned something new, and also moments where you felt disappointed, frustrated, or even had that thought, “I know this already.”
I invite you to take a deep breath. Everything is ok. You may feel frustrated with the lack of tips, tools, and “to-do'” or you may find this refreshing and relieving.
Whatever you are feeling, trust what called you here to do this challenge. You are here for a reason, likely because the “how-to” articles, books, and advice-based methods have not fostered a deeply transformative and sustainable shift in the realm of love for you, on a daily basis.
Intellectual Understanding vs. Embodied Understanding
Most of us think of ourselves as reasonably intelligent people, so we don't find many of the concepts already presented particularly difficult.
It is easy for us to catch onto intellectual ideas such as:
- the “ego”
- the issue with shame and self-criticism
- the trap of “Better, Skinnier, Prettier”
- the spell of inadequacy / “not enough” thinking
- insecure vs. secure thought
- the needless and unhelpful nature of envy
- the rat race of grasping for someone or something outside of yourself to make you feel better
In fact, you may have even said to yourself, “Duh, I know about that” every time I have spoken about thought so far. Since many personal development methods (NLP, Law of Attraction, Coaching) and psychology theories (ex. CBT, Positive Thinking) speak about thought, you likely have made an assumption that you already know the context in which I am talking about and describing thought.
This egoic part of you may claim that you either know this already or that this couldn't possibly help you and your unique situation. I mean, “you are really screwed up! You have real problems.”
But, I invite you to inquiry more deeply.
“The power of thought is not self-created.” – Sydney Banks
Inquire if thought does create feeling and thus if our sense of feeling loved or unloved really is as simple as that…that each one of us has a constant filter on that shapes our experience of the world.
…That there is no objective world out there for us to experience, only our own rendition of it. Can you feel the truth of this viscerally?
(This doesn't mean bad things don't happen out there, but how they affect us and for how long is the result of one thing: thought.)
Do your natural actions show that you really know this? Are you still berating yourself or blaming others based on a thought that looks real to you? Do you still find yourself in conflict with a loved one or feel bored or dissatisfied in a relationship? Do you still blame yourself for not finding Mr. or Mrs. Right yet? Do you still spend much of your time in rumination, worry, fear, and overthinking?
Whether we think we know something or if we think we will never know something, we stop listening deeply. We stop being receptive to a new idea or understanding.
“The most difficult thing to learn is something you think you already know.”
– Jiddu Krishnamurti
See there is a distinct difference between understanding something intellectually and knowing something viscerally — understanding something so deeply that it impacts your day-to-day living. Often times this instinctual learning, also called an embodied understanding, takes some time, until some critical mass occurs and a lighting “a-ha” moment emerges.
I like to imagine we all have little popcorn seeds of insight that lead us to a kinder and kinder life, that are just waiting to pop.
No matter where you are in this moment, I encourage you to finish this journey. To start becoming even more attune to that little voice in your head…that voice that is always either accepting, rejecting, or questioning everything you see and hear. To play around with the notion Eckhart Tolle proposed that who you are is not actually that voice that is constantly liking or disliking things, but that who you really are is the observer…the space of pure awareness/consciousness.
So take one day at a time. Remember, if you miss a day, pick up on the current day's intention. You can always go back to the ones you missed later.