Disturbance
Question: Whenever I feel disturbed, there is so much pressure inside of me to share it with someone else, but doing so only seems to keep the turmoil going. What higher action would relieve that feeling of pressure?
Answer: The next time you feel as though you just have to talk to someone about something that's making you uncomfortable or unhappy, don't do it. You can learn to use that pressure to free yourself from all such feelings that want to push you around. Here's the explanation: finding relief is not the same as finding strength.
That disturbance within you, whatever its reactionary nature, isn't real. It's really nothing that just feels like you. That's why you mustn't do what it urges you to do, or you'll unconsciously lay claim to its weak and self-compromising nature.
From this moment forward, consciously challenge the right of any dark disturbance to direct your life. Stand your inner ground until its demands drain away. Negative states have no real life of their own, so consciously withdrawing your life from theirs is the same as commanding their dark presence to fade. Once the pressure is off, you can then choose to say something (or not) about the conflict that was in question because, at this point, you'll be in command of yourself and the situation instead of being unconsciously commanded by it.
Excerpted from Freedom From the Ties That Bind, Page 115
Question: There's not a day that goes by where I don't feel disturbed by something. Most of the time I push these disturbances away because I want peace in my life… not to be upset. Is my wish to have peace at odds with what I must learn about myself?
Answer: Sadly, we have yet to become "teachable" by truth. A short review of where we refuse her instructions will help us to better see the light and how it waits on us.
Take any of those daily disturbances that course through us and have their way with us. We resist these little shocks with our whole being. Yet each and every one of them brings a needed life lesson to us. The problem is that we usually don't "hear" these silent teachings (of peace) because the noise of our own answers drowns out her voice. With a touch of hindsight we see that all of these lessons boil down to one instruction: "Stop! What you are doing does not work. Wake up! You're looking in the wrong place. This kind of pain does no one any good!"
If we could only become quiet enough to listen anew, we would learn that peace is a gift given freely to each of us, right where we stand. But it is a gift given only when we give up our position that it is in our power to possess peace as we would all other desires.
Peace cannot be bound but must be let loose by our growing realization that only in willingly losing ourselves within its life can we hope to know its everlasting tranquility. And yet, even though this peace cannot be bound, neither can it be lost! If you ever feel that you have lost peace, you must look to see where it is that you unknowingly, in error, gave it away or set it down by identifying with disruptive dark thoughts and conflicted feelings.
Excerpted from Let Go and Live in the Now, Page 77
Question: It seems like the more I struggle with a disturbance, the more it stays with me. The more I think about it, the more intense it gets. What is the way out of this trap?
Answer: No disturbance of any kind has the power to swamp and sink our heart or mind once we realize that we are the one lending these storms the force they need to drag us down. In practical terms this means that whatever disturbances we unknowingly create within us may be instantly un-created in the very same moment we withdraw our consent to remain conflicted.
The storms we suffer are not born simply from any particular event that takes place, but rather they rise from an unknown ground in us due to our undetected resistance to them. Further, these unwanted events that we so strongly resist are not the actual events themselves. What we secretly struggle against in these moments are unwanted images of that event fashioned by ourselves. This occurs, for example, when we imagine a fearful future, or see ourselves thrown for a social loss of some sort. In these moments we suffer, as we do, because we are looking at what we don't want to see. And then, because we don't know that we have been tricked into giving these negative fantasies our attention, we try to imagine ways to escape their punishing presence. The more we struggle to get away, the more attention we inadvertently lend to what we wish would disappear! It's a great paradox: not wanting to look upon what is bothering us keeps what is bothering us in plain view! But now we are beginning to see our way out of this trap.
From this moment forward, whenever some dark storm appears in us, we must neither run from it nor stand there and hate what we think is happening. Instead we must awaken to ourselves, bring ourselves back into the Now and quietly, deliberately, drop any image that our thought-nature presents within us to justify the brewing conflict. Learning to dismiss the storms that sink our chances to be happy takes dedicated inner work, but you may be assured such powers are possible. Your True Nature already dwells beyond the reach self-wrecking storms. Join it; begin Now!
Excerpted from Let Go and Live in the Now, Page 164
Question: If I pursue this inner work, will I actually be protected from having so many disturbances run through my life?
Answer: There is no power on earth that can make you feel safe and secure because it isn't this world that threatens or disturbs you. It is your own undeveloped nature that punishes you because it doesn't as yet understand that the disturbance it perceives as being outside of itself is itself. And so this unconscious nature keeps you ever seeking power and authority in the hopes that with enough of it, you will eventually have the force to be able to control your life. This is like throwing a rock into a pond to quiet the ripples. The more you toss in, the more waves you get.
At our present undeveloped level, we believe that another person or event is causing our unhappy feelings. We want power over them in the hopes that it will give us power over our punishing feelings.
Look for this power not in a person, place, possession, idea or belief, but through the new understanding that your higher, permanent nature needs no power outside of itself in order to be in charge of an inner or outer attacker. Its strength is a Silent Force. It alone can do for you what you have been unable to do for yourself.
The Silent Force is the understanding that you need not answer to any disturbance within you. You must not respond. You have been taught by wrong example and false traditions that negative thoughts and feelings such as fear, anger and hatred are something that you are responsible for; that they belong to you. You are indeed responsible for them, but not to them. Inner aches and dark feelings are not yours. They never have been and they never will be no matter how much these inner-impostors try to convince you otherwise. It is unnatural for any human being to be dominated by anything. Your only true responsibility is to understand this higher fact. And your corrected understanding places you in the right relationship with all gloomy thoughts and defeated feelings; which is that you simply have nothing to do with them.
No grief or disturbance of any kind is yours. These huge inner-shadows with all their howlings may be present, but where is it written that they belong to you? When we walk through a zoo, we don't identify with the shrieks and whines of the animals, so why do we fall into the self-confining cage of trying to make what is dark into what is light? Ever tried yelling at a bunch of chattering chimps or squawking birds to quiet them down? Insistence they settle down just disturbs them all the more. Inwardly, the same law holds true. When we seek some power to make a fear go away, all we have done is empowered the fear. There is no power that can make light out of darkness. Remember this lesson the next time you feel compelled to help yourself out of a dark inner thought or feeling. Remember the Silent Force. Go silent! This silence and inner-light will do for you what you have not been able to do for yourself. It will turn the dark inner-skies into pleasant blue ones. Go silent. Let the threatening clouds of thoughts and feelings go by. Behind them is the sun.
