The Book of Secrets - Deepak Chopra [33]
Toxic relationships: There are only three kinds of people in your life: those who leave you alone, those who help you, and those who hurt you. People who leave you alone are dealing with your suffering as a nuisance or inconvenience—they prefer to keep their distance in order to feel better themselves. Those who help you have the strength and awareness to do more with your suffering than you are able to do by yourself. Those who hurt you want the situation to stay the same because they do not have your well-being at heart. Honestly count how many people in each category you have in your life. This isn’t the same as counting friends and loving family members. Assess others solely as they relate to your difficulties.
Having made a realistic count, take the following attitude:
• I will no longer bring my problems to anyone who wants to leave me alone. It’s not good for them or me. They don’t want to help, so I will not ask them to.
• I will share my problems with those who want to help me. I will not reject genuine offers of assistance out of pride, insecurity, or doubt. I will ask these people to join me in my healing and make them a bigger part of my life.
• I will put a distance between myself and those who want to hurt me. I do not have to confront them, guilt-trip them, or make them the cause of my self-pity. But I cannot afford to absorb their toxic effect on me, and if that means keeping my distance, I will.
Beliefs: Examine your possible motives for wanting to suffer. Do you deny that there’s anything wrong? Do you think it makes you a better person not to show others that you hurt? Do you enjoy the attention you get when you are sick or in distress? Do you feel safe being alone and not having to make tough choices? Belief systems are complex—they hold together the self we want to present to the world. It is much simpler not to have beliefs, which means being open to life as it comes your way, going with your own inner intelligence instead of with stored judgments. If you find yourself blocked by your suffering, returning to the same old thoughts again and again, a belief system has trapped you. You can escape the trap only by ending your need to cling to these beliefs.
Energy and sensations: We rely on our bodies to tell us when we are in pain, and the body, like the mind, follows familiar patterns. Hypochondriacs, for example, grasp the first sign of discomfort as a clear message that they are seriously ill. In your own case, you are also taking familiar sensations and using them to confirm your suffering. Many depressed people, for example, will interpret fatigue as depression. Because they haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep or have been overworked on the job, they interpret feeling depleted as a symptom of depression. The way to deal with these sensations is to strip away the interpretation. Instead of being sad, look upon this as the energy of sadness. Like fatigue, sadness has a bodily component that can be discharged. Instead of being an anxious person, deal with the energy of anxiety. All energies are discharged in the same way:
• Take a deep breath, sit quietly, and feel the sensation in your body.
• Feel the sensation without judgment. Just be with it.
• Let any feelings, thoughts, or energies that want to come up do so—this often means listening to the voice of anxiety, anger, fear, or woundedness. Let the voices say what they want to say. Listen and understand what is going on.
• Watch the energy disperse as much as it can. Don’t demand complete discharge. Take the attitude that your body will let go of as much stored energy as it is able