I used to blog every single day for literally 6 years or more. Then in March this year, after a few months of struggling to write every day, I stopped completely. It’s been a long time now since I have blogged, the longest break in all my years of writing.
Why did I stop writing?
I told myself nonsense. I listened to the mind and all its sabotage. I choose to allow myself to believe the stories that I have been making up all my life. I said ‘What’s the point?’ and stuff like ‘it’s rubbish’ and ‘no one cares’.
To be honest, it doesn’t matter if nobody cares or it’s ‘rubbish’ as I realised a long time ago, I am actually writing for myself and if someone else benefits too, then great, but if not it really does not matter. I lost sight of that and my ego and mind became active again.
I started to listen and analyse everything which was present not just in my writing but also in my life. I had slipped heavily back into my unconscious mind and all its repeating mind streams.
I had slipped back to moaning, judging, complaining, and the stories of ‘poor little me’. All of this only leads to suffering and we seem to be completely OK with inflicting this upon ourselves on a daily basis.
Have I gone back to just being and floating on my cloud like Buddha? No…I was not there before. What’s different now is I am not kidding myself that I am there. When we create this persona that we are ‘spiritual’ or ‘enlightened’ or ‘transformed’ we are exactly not that and we have just replaced one self-image with another in our unconsciousness.
What I am now is free of the burden of pretending to be something I am not and that feels great and that’s why I am writing again.
So, I am back, again. Back on the blogging horse after a short but needed sabbatical.
I am going to have another tattoo, big surprise!! You become easily addicted. I waited most of my adult life to get round to having one, even though I’d always wanted one. I finally overcame the fears, not fear of the pain particularly, just the fear of having one and ‘what if it looks shit?’ or ‘what if I don’t like it?’ and so on. Endless crap that my mind threw up to sabotage my soul’s desire to create beautiful art on my skin. I love art and all things spiritual, so I designed my own owl tattoo and the amazingly talented Mo set to work. I have always loved owls and see them as my spiritual totem. Then I had a raven, and thankfully Mo talked me out of my design this time for her amazing design. Of course, now I’m onto the next one…
I am going to have the words “I may be wrong” tattooed on my left forearm. This will be a permanent reminder of my new mantra…I have believed for a whole lifetime that “I am right” and protecting that at all costs. Now I am able to accept that I have a view, and usually based on nothing other than my mind telling me useless shit and then convincing me that I am right, based on nothing other than the fear of not having an opinion or view or knowledge on/of something and that view is just that a view, neither right or wrong, good or bad…just a temporary mental position that might change and is nothing very important.
I picked this tattoo idea up from listening to one of the many amazing fab Fearne Cotton podcasts, Happy Place, with Bjorn ‘Natthiko’ Lindeblad (check). He quit his amazing career as the youngest CEO of a company at the time to become a forest monk, which he continued to be for 40 years. He was taught the mantra ‘I may be wrong’ at the monastery as a way to avoid conflict. When you feel any conflict about to arise with another, simply repeat ‘I may be wrong’ a few times before reacting and the conflict always subsides, it gives us a chance to become conscious and step away from our ego.
Interesting, as a male, we are expected to know everything and it is a burden that we all carry. Society also expects us to have a view on everything and this was perfect for me as I grew up in a household where everyone had an opinion on everything and my father’s favourite phrase was ‘fact!! not opinion son’ for anything that was his view. Based again on nothing. He would have an opinion on mushroom growing out of season in Mongolia, if there is such a thing, even though he’d never grown mushrooms, or much else, and had never been to Mongolia.
We create so much conflict, suffering and damage battling it out with another person’s ego on what are just views. All views are just temporary thoughts amongst the thousands and thousands of usually repetitive daily thoughts.
When we do not attach ourselves to our opinions we release the need to defend them at all costs. The human race has killed each other in the millions just on the views of, or a group of, egos.
More and more I have less and less opinions on anything, I am no longer the ‘know-all’ and the defender of nothing that important as to be worth conflict of any kind with another.
So I am no longer of the ‘fact not opinion’ mantra and it has been replaced by ‘I do not know’. If it is really important to know, then, of course, I can do some research of my own or listen to others. However, my life journey has taught me that nothing really matters and very few things other than this eternal present moment that is now can be 100% true. Truth in itself is just an opinion and there are no facts.
Once you relieve yourself of the burden of having to know something or have a view, you reach a state of inner peace and freedom from the burden. We also release others from the burden of our knowledge and the lack of resistance to others releases the need for any conflict and suffering.
The human race would be in a more peaceful and joyous state if we knew less and had fewer views on stuff we knew nothing about.
Philip Dodson 