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What We Get Is What We Are
In my therapeutic sessions,
I often find myself explaining that there are two kinds of people who come to see me -- those who take the time to practise the self-hypnosis techniques I teach them as an adjunct to therapy, and those who don't.Those who do, tend to make very real and rapid progress, while those who don't will eventually get there - but perhaps much more slowly.
Often, the slower responders are those who say they 'haven't had time' to practise the few minutes of daily self-hypnosis that I recommend. And it's really no coincidence that they are also often the same ones who say that they feel guilty for spending time on themselves, simply 'doing nothing'.
For these individuals, relaxation is often a commodity that exists elsewhere, somewhere other than where they actually are, and one which they are only too painfully aware that they do not themselves possess.
And the challenge with such clients, of course, is in facilitating the awareness that relaxation is anything but a commodity: It is a state of being. And as such, it is something that needs to be allowed, and certainly not 'done'. In fact, the more we try to relax, often the less able we are to really 'do' so. It's usually only when we stop doing and begin allowing ourselves to be relaxed that we are able to enter a truly relaxed state.
You see, self-hypnosis -- and a good part of life -- is much more about allowing than it is about doing.
Given the chance, our insecurities can so easily combine with life's uncertainties and fool us into believing that we must continually do rather than simply be. And so we fool ourselves into believing that we want this or need that in order to be happy.
Through our thoughts* and feelings, our words and actions, we choose -- and teach ourselves -- how to be.
Now, we can choose to go through life following a script, as it were.
We can continue complaining about our lot. We can lay the blame for our difficulties at the door of others, filling our lives with resentment and playing the victim until we convince ourselves that this is indeed our fate.
But by doing this we miss out on being ourselves -- we miss out on life.
You see, in a very real sense, we are what we focus upon. Each one of us really does have a choice. We can define ourselves by our wants and needs, or by the past, allowing these things to dictate who we are, or we can decide to accept responsibility for ourselves, realising that we do not get what we want or need so much as we get what we are, what we choose to be.
In our mad hurry to do this and do that, we can so easily forget to take the time to simply be. Yet it is in being, as well as in doing, that we truly live.
In a very real sense, what we get is what we are.
* All that we are is the result of all that we have thought.
It is founded on thought. It is made up of our thoughts.
Buddha, The Dhammapada
It is founded on thought. It is made up of our thoughts.
Buddha, The Dhammapada Copyright © 2008 Peter Field - All rights reserved.
Reproduction in any form is prohibited
Reproduction in any form is prohibited
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