Find New Strength in Awakened Attention

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Guy Finley/PositivelyPositive

Imagine for a moment a man walking through his office when his boss passes by and gives him a blank look. Suddenly, the thought pops into the man’s mind that his boss is criticizing him or doesn’t like him.

Now, as he starts to fear this idea, a negative picture is produced by his imagination. His mind focuses its attention on this disturbing image. And the more he attends to this dark dream, the further into its labyrinth he descends, strengthening its presence and power to further frighten him. A heartbeat later, he has no doubt: the boss has it in for him! This thought grows in authority for him, tormenting him for the rest of the day and causing him to snap at his family when he gets home.

And all of this suffering is born of what? The conjunction of a passing glance and a moment of misdirected attention!

Here’s the amazing thing about this illustration and what we want to learn from it: This whole drama has been played out inside of the man—storyline, stage, cast, and leading characters. But he doesn’t see how this painful state is self-created; instead, he believes it has been cast upon him by someone else—his heartless boss! So, what else can he do—being in the dark as he is to his true condition—but try to rid himself of his stressed feelings? How? By arguing with his boss, either outwardly or in his mind? The more he feels punished by the situation that he sees in his mind, the more he wants to fight with it.

He’s sure his unwanted experience exists independently of his perception of it, but we can see he’s mistaken. His pain is a product of how he sees the event and then all of the misery that comes with resisting his own mistaken perception. He is quite literally lashing himself, and the more he resists what he thinks is happening, the more it happens to him! This is a good description of what I call the “circle of self.” In it, we can see how the pain of our own mistaken perception produces the enemies it needs to keep itself alive.

From our vantage point, we can see how the man’s unattended mind first animated a fearful thought, which leads to wrongly feeding it with his own life. We can also see that nothing can change for him until he sees the truth behind his trouble and withdraws his consent from it.

We suffer because we consort with painful thoughts and feelings, thinking somehow that not wanting them makes them go away. But our unconscious actions betray us: first, by animating what makes us ache, and then, by binding us to that relationship through our resistance to it.

Here’s a simple way of saying these last few ideas: Not wanting our negative states actually nourishes them!

I can almost hear the question that comes next: “Wait a minute! You can’t be saying these dark thoughts and feelings are good and that we should want what’s hurting us, are you?”

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