I've been noticing a number of bad equations circulating in my head. These formulas equate two things which are, in truth, not the same. But I often act and feel like these formulas are valid. Here are a few of my untrue equations:
Someone is disappointed = I've done something wrong.
Someone is pleased = I've done something right.
GLEE still = good television worth watching.
Everything got completed and was done correctly = I'm a good person.
Things did not go as planned = I screwed up.
The script of any Twilight movie = ...Wait a minute, they had scripts?!?
What untrue equations still operate in you? Often I don't even realize that I'm being run by one of these faulty formulas until I've made myself, and most likely those around me, miserable.
I have, however, found a reliable way to change my operating system so that I'm running on a truer equation that yields better results. In last week's post, I wrote about living from a place of "belovedness", from the sense that I am already and irrevocably loved, and I am eternally ok.
I'm discovering that the key to living from this belovedness is physical, not mental. I can't think my way into belovedness. Instead I rely on my body. When I have felt in my bones, down to my core, that I really am all right...in those moments I sensed a warm, vibrating, open peace. Rather than try to reason my way back there, I get still and focus on returning to that same felt sense. It's not so much the feeling that I'm going for, but the shift in perception because everything looks much different from a felt sense of "all is well".
It's much like meditating with a mantra. A mantra is a word or phrase chosen before meditation begins. When the chatty-Cathy mind inevitably starts to wander, focus returns to the mantra as a way to re-center. When I drift off into a Sea of Bad Equations, my body feels tense, closed, cold and agitated. By shifting my focus back to that space of "all is well" within me, I use my body as a mantra that resets my entire way of interacting with life. My body becomes the sacred path back to reality.
Those false equations still float around within me, but I don't have to be run by them anymore. My body tells me so.
P.S. If you'd like to practice creative ways of resetting your old equations, join us on Tuesday nights, starting April 16, for a weekly gathering called Tuesday Night Live.