I salute you and bow deep in gratitude!
The first was actually on the tube - a lady, standing in the middle of the tube, grasping firmly on to the pole in the middle, so she was well balanced with her big heavy rucksack behind her, and smiling the most wonderful calm smile. If she hadn't been listening to music, I would have thanked her for her smile - not a bit toothy one, just a turned up at the corners regular type smile. Watching her made me remember that Thich Naht Hanh saying, which I think goes something along the lines of,"Breathing in I am peace, breathing out I smile". So I did - and boy did I need to lol! More of that later.... I dont remember the exact Thich Naht Hanh bit, so I will look them up and report back.
The second was a lady on the train on the way back home. A lovely, chatty lady, we were soon deep in discussion about ME, adrenals, social wellbeing, id cards etc. She was great! She was asking my about how I recovered from ME, and was interested to hear about pacing, and reverse therapy. I cant claim to have had reverse therapy, I've only read the books after all, but practicing what is written in them, I find very helpful. Links to them here and here .
I was explaining how my perfectionism was a real problem, and my lovely Boddhisattva (here's what one of those is, if you dont know) said, "Do you take personal responsibility for things? I felt as if I was the only person fighting against the Iraq war, and it was my fault that Tony Blair led us in!" Such honesty, I do admire her self knowledge! We were both laughing about the shared horror of being lazy perfectionists, and home soon appeared. It wasn't until I got into the car when I realised, how I really should listen to my 2nd Bodhisattva's statement, so I'm writing it down here, to remind myself. Reverse therapy uses statements to re-educate ourselves, although that wont be a statement for healing specifically, I'm going to use it to remind me that I dont neeeeeeed to solve the world. I can feel the tension as I write that, so I'm going to extend to remind myself, that I dont neeeeeeed to solve me immediately - please imagine that we're sharing the most enormous belly laugh right now!
Actually it was my Lama that pointed out my perfectionism to me. I'd managed to hide it very well from myself, and I often think that was the single most useful thing anyone has said to me. He is very kind though, I dont think he's ever pointed out I'm a complete drama queen with an addiction to stress that's really the root of my physical manifestations that I dont like... So kind, and so gentle. To think I didnt' believe himwhen he first said it *sheesh*! Such a clever way of allowing the message to drip through... This reminds me that in Tibetan Buddhism there is a teaching on the 3 cups - one is turned upside down, so you can't pour stuff in; the second is full of junk, so the tea has no place to go, and the 3rd has holes in it, so the tea pours away. Replace tea with teaching and cups with heads, and you get the picture. I'm sure I'm not the only Buddhist to feel like their head has a bad case of all 3 lololololol. So deep bows of gratitude to all our kind teachers for not despairing even when there's tea all over the place lol.
Onto the real point of this post that I neeeeeed to remember - I'm a stress junkie. Yup, I hold my hand up, and I finally admit that yes, my ME symptoms, my eczema, and probably my asthma too are largely caused and exascerbated by stress... That's hard to admit! Online blogging is very cathertic. Last week I had a perpetual cold, prickly skin etc, and I finally realised it's beacuase I was stressed. For some strong reasons I am addicted to drama, which means I respond to an awful lot of things with stress. So hard to break! I feel like I just realised I'm an alcoholic or something, I'm not trying to be a drama queen here, but if one realises that all my ME could have been caused by my drama addiction, well thats a very cool thing to know, and going to be a very interesting one to work with. Isn't it great I live with a 3rd Bodhisattva who reminds me to be gentle?
Finally, it was my Dad's birthday today. I'm sending love to him.
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