THE SELF BEYOND THE MIND
Attempts to control the uncontrollable
Control. We are all familiar with it. One could even say we are masters of it. Control equals safety to a mind that is isolated from its true nature. It also provides a sense of power. If we perceive control then we don’t feel as powerless. However what lives underneath control is a deep sense of powerlessness. It is this powerlessness that we avoid because it feels like a black hole from which nothing ever escapes. Most people loop in a pattern of powerlessness and control for their entire human existence, never experiencing anything beyond them. In order to penetrate beyond the confines of control and the limitations of the mind we have to go beyond the known, which our minds rarely let us do. When big life events occur, particularly catastrophic ones, we finally get an opportunity to truly experience beyond our control. While we tend to resist, avoid or push away these types of experiences while grudging our way through them with frustration and fear, what we are actually meeting along the way is our own resistance to the the unknown. This is where the self beyond the mind lives.
What is knowable or certain? Frankly not much. I would say that only what is present in any given moment is knowable or certain. Each next moment is a “wholon” in and of itself. Our mind creates continuity between moments and then makes assumptions about what is, or should be in moments to come. This creates a false sense of security to a mind that believes its safety is dependent on particular things being present or absent in future moments. Control is an attempt to ensure that those certain or specific things are present or absent in order that we perceive and feel safety. If we remove our sense of control from the equation what remains is simply what the present moment contains, but to our mind this often equals fear because it doesn’t know what is going to happen next. Due to it’s safety being dependent on what is next, a sense of control is the mind’s only way to feel “comfortable” and in charge, even though it’s not.
This cycle of needing certainty for safety keeps us limited and feeling stuck. Control is our substitute for true power. While it might feel better to our mind to think we can control something rather than to feel absolute powerlessness of it, control only delays our forward movement. The paradox of it all is that when we can actually be with our feelings of powerlessness that arise from the uncertainty of each next moment, can we begin to know true power. While logic will argue that this is not the right direction, experience proves otherwise. To be with what we avoid liberates us from and beyond it. This is the entry point to the self beyond mind.
TRUE POWER
Freedom through inclusivity
If control isn’t power then what is? To answer that question we first need to distinguish self from circumstances. When we control often what we are trying to control are the circumstances of life, inclusive of other people and our own body, so that we will have a sense of safety, joy, peace and overall well-being. Sometimes we also try to control ourselves, which includes our thoughts, feelings, emotions, sensations and behaviors. Anyone who has spent a significant amount of time attempting to control themselves will tell you that at some point the repression bubbles to the surface and needs to express. Anything that is not allowed will take over. How does this look? For example say that you are exerting precise control over a specific thought that is “negative”, or a behavior that does not move you in the direction you feel like you want to go, but then one day after many days, weeks or months of successful suppression, you “fall off the wagon”. The negative thoughts appear loud and clear and you perseverate on them all day, or you indulge in the behaviors that you had so successfully suppressed. The words failure enter your mind and spin you deeper into despair.
Why does this happen? It is the difference between “management”, of which control is one of its finest expressions, and true power. Power does not suppress, rather it allows everything, and through this radical inclusivity it selects what is most relevant. It is only through this radical inclusivity that choice becomes an option. With control and the resultant repression, you are always controlled by the thing you are attempting to avoid or not experience. True power lives in inclusivity, even though the mind will tell you differently. When our eyes and heart are wide open we are incredibly clear and discerning. We don’t become weak, passive doormats like the mind might try to convince you that you will become. Rather your openness and inclusivity moves you in the direction that is perfectly aligned for you, without you even needing to know where it is going or what it will look like. Self trust arrives on the scene and with it trust in life and all of its expressions and experiences.
This doesn’t mean that every decision or choice you make will be easy. Many will feel tough and take discipline, particularly when you begin to make the transition from control to true power. You will come up against your mind’s insistence on what it feels it needs to know and what it thinks life should look and be like. You will oscillate between giving your state of being over to life’s circumstances and recognizing that you can decide. It takes time and practice to reorganize yourself to align with inclusivity and freedom rather than avoidance and control. However as you do you will get lighter and lighter in your being. You will care less about what might or might not happen, and care more about what is happening and how you are inside of your experience. This is an indication that you are moving in the direction of true power. This is the fertile ground to experience the self beyond the mind. Where your mind-body become a vessel for the intelligence of the heart. This is a level of being that the mind doesn’t understand, but which it can be utilized by. Only utilized by once it gives up control and moves into true power.
You can’t skip steps. You can’t arrive sustainably in the heart without softening and seeing through mechanisms of management and control. You may visit the heart, but to live as it, the mind and body must become clear vessels for the heart to utilize and express through.
Dr. Amanda Lalita Love, Subtle Energetic Chiropractic and Integrative Somatic Healing utilizing Network Spinal, Boulder, Colorado
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