Jump Around

Transcript

Let’s talk about becoming aware. I noticed today I was scrolling through the Instagram, of course it’s not a particularly aware thing to do.

This is what I was doing, I saw a post from my friend Flo Perlin. She had this great photo of her sitting on a chair and behind her was a window leading out to the backyard to the patio, facing left with her face in profile and I’m like “This is a great composition”.

Its got a quote there, some quote from a critic with the BBC or something like that and I thought “I wish I had been allowed to take that photo” and I was envious in that moment of her photographer which is kind of odd in a sense.

It’s demonstrating in a sense how passionate I am about photography but not necessarily the most healthy way to think about it. This is what happens among artists sometimes.

I wish I had been the one to come up with that!

The point of it is a lot of the time, in the moment I noticed that I was envious, I noticed that I had this thought going through my head and I noticed the feeling. A lot of the time I guess you could say there are three normal strategies people would have.

Of course there are a lot more ways people can think about these feelings when they come up but generally I think they fall into three categories.

I accept the envy as something real, as something true perhaps identifying with it. This is something in some way integral to my being. I believe in the envy and a lot of us will do this especially when we don’t fully become aware of what it is, of what is with us.

Part of it will be in our awareness and part of it will be in the periphery not fully accepted into our being and so somehow paradoxically we identify with the parts that are hidden from us perhaps.

The second strategy a lot of the time will be something like “Oh, I shouldn’t be thinking that” and then we experience resistance to that emotion. And then it may persist or be suppressed. Various ways people handle these adverse emotions they don’t like. I’ve talked about that before.

The third way to be is just to say “Ok, I am envious so that’s that” and quickly we find if we have this attitude these emotions pass quite quickly.

As I thought about that I thought it was interesting that I would be envious in that situation. I start to think what is the assumption behind it just like in principles of cognitive behavioral therapy. So what’s the belief?

What is it that I must believe about this situation in order to experience that emotion. I guess its something narcissistic. Everything has to be about me.

Of course this is not true, its kind of infantile but these are the thoughts that go through our heads sometimes and its good to be aware of it and make it even more conscious. That’s the assumption that its about me, but its clearly not about me other than I am an audience member seeing this photograph.

Then I asked, what’s a better way to look at it? A healthier way would be…..I could just negate it and say its not just me but that could lead to indifference or apathy. If I create something, not just negate but create, or as I have said previously phrase it positively I said well I can be happy that other people have good fortune, that my friends are enjoying praise from the BBC, having great photographs and releasing an album.

To be honest I feel a little embarrassed talking about this. But you know this is the reality, the authenticity, so many times we have these emotions and they are passed around in one way or another. Trying to be more authentic in this moment.

A lot of time what happens is perhaps we have an idea of ourselves like “I play guitar all the time, I could be a great song writer” then we try and pick up the pen and play a few chords to see what sticks and we are like “this is a lot harder than I thought.”

We become aware of our own limitations. Or likewise we might notice things about ourselves, we might say “I have noticed that I am a little deceptive, I try so hard to believe certain things that I convince others of them.

We can berate ourselves of this or say good, ok, now I am aware. Or likewise we look at our friends and judge them, kind of harsh but all of us do it.

So if we do that, we can say I believe in this judgement, a lot of the time we know the judgement isn’t entirely accurate or fair to our friends. At least we want to believe the best in our friends and even accept them as they are.

We become aware of the judgement and we say “Ok, that’s a thought and assumption I had, not necessarily true” and we move on.

The message, sometimes when we become aware of things we think it’s bad because these are things we don’t like or prefer not to think.

The fact that we are becoming aware is absolutely positive.

We don’t have to be hard on ourselves because we are becoming aware of our own flaws. Actually this can be cause for celebration, so congratulations on becoming more aware of judgements, yourself and of others. Of unusual emotions, of the feelings of envy or jealously, insecurity now coming to the surface.

When it comes to the surface it can be healed. So lets celebrate in becoming aware.