This came in via the Parlor >>
I'd like to share how the work has been helping me lately. Often a picture will come into my mind and tempt me. Something like a Braum's burger, fries, and an ice cream cone sundae. This may sound silly, but I am often a slave to such thoughts. So what I've been doing lately is to focus on that tempting image- what it is I believe I want. Then I pose the question that this picture implies to myself. This items promises that if I engage it,it will give me pleasure, it will be a good experience. It also demands that I satisfy it immediately, because I can not survive with out it. I'm am hopelessly incomplete without it. I take that false promise to inquiry.
When I believe that thought, I leave my perfect universe and battle this temptation. Believing the thought, and struggling against it is the war BK speaks of. Far better to doubt the thought & never struggle! Also I've been testing it- for instance, I disobeyed the thought and found that I was still breathing and in fact was very happy! Wow, without Braums too! :)
I find that I have a same pattern to my aversions that I have with my desires. For me a project that I'm behind on starts to represent something bad, to be avoided. Why? B/C when I look at it, what I actually perceive is a promise that if I tackle it, I will be frustrated, overwhelmed and
incapable. Yet when do I actually tackle such projects, I experience the opposite in reality.
I realized that I created a whole universe in my head this way. I create a personal relationship with everything in my mind- I call this thing a "goodie" and this other thing something terrible- aweful. In this way, I am driven, emprisoned by my desires and aversions.
The crazy part is that I'm almost always wrong in my attributions. Things I dread turn out to be great, and things I desire aren't that great. I always hate it when someone tells me how great a movie is before I watch it. If they build it up too much, I leave disappointed- at a great movie too!
Comments (3)
For fifteen years I worked the famous AA prayer - "Lord, give me the courage to accept the things I cannot change, change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." Today, thanks to Katie, I approach the world a bit differently. First, I wholeheartedly accept everything. Then I change the things I can primarily by questioning my thoughts. So, I want to say thanks to Katie. And I invite any comments or criticisms that anyone might be willing to make concerning the AA prayer and Katie's Work. They seem very similar but yet Katie's Work seems to have an important twist.
Posted by gene cruz | June 10, 2007 6:35 PM
Posted on June 10, 2007 18:35
I guess this post deals with addiction (Braums?) in a way, I mean something that we crave (or just do) that we've been told is bad for us (or we feel is bad for us). I'm not really clear about how the work "works" as far as addictions go. I just smoke cigarettes and I don't really suffer too much mentally because that's the "reality". The suffering takes place when I think that I shouldn't smoke but I am. And I drink sometimes! Most of my peers drink and smoke! That's really reality as I have known it.
I wonder. . .is there an untrue thought which goes unexamined with every cigarette I smoke, that doesn't cause me to suffer because I'm somehow unaware of it? Drinking is another story.
I would really love to see an excerpt of The Work on addictions "in action". . .
In love,
Liz
Posted by Liz | May 29, 2007 6:53 PM
Posted on May 29, 2007 18:53
This is so wonderful! Thank you to whomever wrote it. It reminds me of what kt says about "alcohol and drugs" always keeping their promises.(that sure was my experiences with them) And now I can examine what promises I "believe" food holds for me, and find the reality. Without the goal of losing weight or not eating it. I may eat it, but I will eat it with a clear mind!
Thank you lovely friend.I can't wait to point my friends in the Work to your lovely words.
Lisa Lee
Posted by Lisa Lee | May 28, 2007 4:19 AM
Posted on May 28, 2007 04:19