I knew I wanted to write something one year from the time we went to Hawaii. Our trip to Hawaii last year embodies happiness for me. Despite my brother's struggle with cancer, it was best he felt and the best he looked since being diagnosed; his attitude was so uplifted. It was such a joyous time for all of us.
This comes at a time when I've had a slight revelation in therapy. In relying on energy psychology sessions to calm my anxiety, I've noticed it's not doing what I want or am expecting it to anymore. And in talking with my therapist yesterday, I now realize what a disconnect I have had with my thoughts and beliefs and what is actually reality. Instead of looking at the time earlier this year as a whole, a time when all these horrible things happened at once, I need to assess each one individually and see where I am on each.
He introduced me to Byron Katie's, "The Work", which includes four questions to ask yourself in trying to facilitate working a concept into reality; A way for me to get to acceptance. Starting with a belief you have about a person (most likely, a blanket statement) and turning it into what is reality and a thought that you can own individually.
For example, the first belief that came to mind when I think of my brother is, he should still be here. That's what I have thought and believed up to this point. It's why I'm so puzzled and in disbelief when I start to think about it. Now, turning to the questions and how I answered them:
1. Is it true?
Of course it's not true. None of us should be here. We just are.
2. If the answer is yes to the first question, can you absoluetely know that it's true? Do you have proof?
3. How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?
I am sad, tense, frustrated.
4. Who would you be without that thought?
Happy, content, calm.
And lastly, turn the thought around so that it is true just for me, not as something that should be for all.
I wish my brother was still here.
We can all have wishes and hopes that are our own. We own them; nobody else does. And as such, we do not own anybody else's wishes, hopes, business or the way they go about their lives. He told me there are three types of business: my business, the other person's business and God's business. We cannot change anybody else's business except for our own. For instance, the weather; we can say all we want that it should be sunny today; it has to be! But really, we have no control over that. The weather is God's business. We can say, I wish it was sunny today, and that becomes our own business.
What is reality is what is (got that?). It is already here and there's nothing that we can do to change what is happening right now and what has already happened.
In talking to my husband about this over lunch today, he said something to me that made this whole process come full circle for me. He said, "Then, Jesse is God's business now?" And I thought, yes....yes! And there's nothing I can do about that. :)
