|
Every month, Karen will offer her
spiritual insights for "being present"
in all aspects of life, by calling upon the techniques
of her four guiding principles,
MESHE, HESHE, MISON & ORBIT.
Tending to the Negative Mind
In the early years of discovering my spiritual path,
I was introduced to several big concepts that I was not
yet ready for. I didn’t really understand Love or God
as it was being described to me, and Positive Thinking
sounded and felt like lying to myself. Lying to myself
was something I was trying to stop doing.
I opened up to the power of Love and the concept of
God within the first year of my journey, but Positive
Thinking took a much slower route.
One day, after being on my path for several years, I
found myself in an argument with my best friend over
whose driver’s license had the better picture on it. I
thought her photo looked better than mine, and she
thought my photo looked better than hers.
If you can picture this scene: two grown women,
standing in a large living room, huddled under a small
light - because it was the brightest light in the room
to judge ourselves by - arguing over whose driver’s
license photograph looks prettier!
Finally, the absurdity of what we were doing hit me
and I said, "Wait a minute. You are the most
beautiful person I have ever met in my life. If you, who
I think of as the peak of perfection, wants to tell me
that my photo looks great, what is wrong with me that I
cannot just say, thank you?"
It hit me like a ton of bricks that I had always done
this. That I had been putting myself down and keeping
myself under, even in the face of uplifting events, for
the whole of my life. I said to my friend, "I do
this with everything. And so do you! We have to
stop...."
And that is when Dollar Therapy, a game I invented to
teach myself more about ORBIT (OR-BIT), was born.
ORBIT is the activity in the mind when it is
producing thoughts that are born from fear and
negativity, untruthfulness and denial. It is the
recognition of the chatter in the brain that goes on,
which is false or self-effacing, that can enable the
chatter to stop. Naming this vapor-like noise in your
head, "ORBIT," returns you to the
present moment and the power of your mind back to its
rightful owner - your heart and spirit.
Dollar Therapy is like taking ORBIT and adding a
price tag to it! The rules of the game go like this: For
every ill thought, undermining act, or unsupportive
behavior toward myself that I witness, I am to put into
a jar, one dollar. At the end of the week, I am to give
the collected funds away to a charity or person of my
choice. In this case it was to my best friend. She could
use the money, and I needed a good healing!
After only a few hours I had to call and tell her the
price had just gone down to a dime. She was
disappointed, but I wanted to be able to hold up my end
of the bargain and it was busting my bank to give one
dollar for every slip.
The next afternoon my friend arrived to see how I was
doing. I answered the door with an abundant source of
life. "Well! Look at you!" she commented.
"I know!" I replied, "I am an abundant
source of life! You should see how much writing I have
done just since last night. I cannot remember a time
when I have written so much!"
I had been writing a screenplay, which was
progressing comfortably at the pace of a snail for six
months. Now, when I sat down to write, I had to pay out
for every one of my negative thoughts about myself and I
found that without my undermining feelings about my
screenplay, I had no reason to stop writing it. I was
forced into being more productive because, as I quickly
discovered, it was my lack of believing in myself that
was aborting my creative endeavors in the first place.
While my creative outlets were being given a shot of
adrenaline, my thinking mind was becoming increasingly
more challenged. By the third day, my mind felt like it
was going to crack, and my creative impulses came to a
screeching halt. It was as though my identity were
breaking apart as the negative thoughtforms that made up
so much of my integrity, were being derailed and
confronted.
The first and most shocking response to this was the
flood of memories from my childhood that arose into my
consciousness. This was not negative thinking, this was
recollection.
I kept remembering being little and playing
peacefully and with abandon, and then having a shock.
Like a blast of disruption came tumbling into the room.
It was as though I had been minding my own business when
a bomb went off. This memory left me with a terribly
unsettled feeling and I got progressively more agitated
as the day progressed.
By the afternoon my skin was crawling, and I called
my friend to say that Dollar Therapy and I were taking a
24-hour hiatus! I felt I had to start thinking
negatively again or I was going to die! I made a solemn
promise to resume after my short break, and then, though
it was only five o’clock, I took off all my clothes,
turned off all the lights, and hid under the covers
until morning.
I lay in agony, hardly sleeping all night. The bad
thoughts unwound themselves into bad feelings, which
unwound themselves into more memories - over and over
again. At one point I had the realization that my father
had taught me to think low of myself as a way to protect
me from disappointment. I was able to understand that no
one had meant me harm. My parents and teachers were only
treating me as they had been treated, and as they were
then treating themselves. But I was now healing and
would be able to break the chain.
Finally the process became complete, and I was able
to fall asleep.
The next day, after a glorious walk and a wonderful
meal, I explained to my friend that I had seen what
looked like pterodactyl birds coming out of my head and
flying off to another world. That was exactly what it
felt like, big black thoughtforms with wings and high
scratchy voices leaving my aura and going off to haunt
some other universe.
The good news was that they were leaving because they
knew they were not wanted here. I was no longer serving
food to the low self esteem-eating pterodactyl-like
birds. What a frightening and bizarre evening it was.
That same day, I resumed the noting of my negativity
and plopped a dime in the jar for each digression. My
energy returned, my screenplay writing resumed, and the
rest of the week went off without a hitch.
Dollar Therapy is a way of taking notice of the mind’s
activity and separating out the wanted thoughts from the
unwanted. Just like ORBIT, it makes the notation, but
with an explanation mark! It says: I hear you, I see
you, but I am not you. You are a thought. ORBIT.
You are an undermining thought - ORBIT. You are a
really mean and nasty thought. ORBIT!
And so was born, not only my understanding of
negative thoughts, but my relationship with Positive
Thinking. It took, for me, which it may for many of you,
the deep listening to my negative mind, before I could
create a safe and welcome place for my positive mind.
I encourage you on your path to Affirmation &
Visualization to develop a relationship with the voices
that want to counteract your production of useful
helpful thoughtforms. It is okay to make a place for the
arguer in your mind. Give it a voice, a spot in your
journal, or a temporary run at your thinking. But always
be watching, and naming it - ORBIT. That thought might
just be worth a dollar some day!
© Copyright 2001 Karen Deborah
Farris.
Read
Karen's Current "Being Present" Column
Read Karen's Past Columns:
May
2001 - "Gentle Conscious Living"
April
2001 - "MISON and The Moment"
March
2001 - "The MESHE Concept - A Path to Soulful
Living"
Karen Deborah Farris is a successful counselor, healer, and bodyworker. For more than fifteen years she has taught extensive workshops based on MESHE, HESHE, MISON & ORBIT as well as many other self-discovery topics.
Farris began developing her integrated bodywork and counseling techniques in 1984 under the tutelage of many prominent doctors and healers throughout the United States.
Her education into the spiritual and physical aspects of the human experience served as the foundation for her own private practice and the development of a new philosophy. She combined her techniques into four guiding principles, which she shares in her book,
MESHE, HESHE, MISON & ORBIT: What My Grandmother Taught Me About the Universe. She is currently touring with a companion workshop series, where she creates an interactive environment demonstrating the material from her book with tangible, life altering effects. In these workshops, individuals discover a deepening of their relationship to self, others and the world around them.
Through individual counseling and group workshops, she has taught her results-oriented programs to many different types of people
including those confined to mental institutions, substance and food abusers, and generally, people in life transitions, struggling with intimate relationships, or who lack direction in their lives. Karen lives happily with her husband in Southern California.
Visit www.MESHE.com.
For more
information, contact Karen at: info@MESHE.com
|
