Cut the link between emotion and thought

When pain body is activated, how to lessen grip on me?  Despite awareness, feel agitated and at its mercy.  How to flap wings to release energy?

What is the trigger?  Certain thoughts in the head.  How to turn it off?

Observe link between thought processes and emotions.  Important to cut the link.  Pain body feeds on certain thought processes.  By feeding the thoughts, you amplify the pain body.  Ducks do not think about...
Thinking becomes totally contaminated by old emotions inside you, total distortion of reality, thinking through the emotion.  One can be totally deluded at the moment.  No separation from emotion and thought.

See how it arises and catch it at early stage.  See that it is the pain body.

Be the awareness, allow it to be there.  Don't think "I shouldn't be feeling it."  In the spaciousness, it disintegrates.  Be careful it does not feed on your thought.  It requires alertness.  Go into the feeling of the inner body so that attention moves away from mind to the inner body.  Be present as part of your being.  Emotions feed on the mind.  Catch the thought.  Cut the link between emotion and thought by being aware, being alert.  The sword of presence to cut the link.

The duck which flaps its wings leaves no trace of the fight.  Nothing, just gone.

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Busy and Yet Able To Remain Still

It is amazing how I have learned to remain aware of who I am and what I do in the business of life.  I am busy yet able to remain still.  I go through my daily activities - getting up in the morning, making the beds, doing the laundry, feeding the fish, having breakfast, reading the papers, clearing/cleaning the bedrooms, mopping the floor whenever required, washing the bathrooms whenever required, cooking dinner, ironing the clothes, sweeping the dining and kitchen area after dinner, mopping the dining and kitchen area whenever required, sweeping the living area, mopping the living area whenever required.

Some would call these chores mundane but I find them meditative.  I do them with awareness, and I am even aware of my thoughts and my emotions.  Sometimes I do my ironing and I am thinking and it becomes meditative.  Sometimes I do it in a fit of anger and as I iron, I find the anger easing off.  The same with mopping the floor.  I find it meditative, contemplative.  It is not a waste of time.  It is being.

I may be busy as a bee, and I am aware of what is happening around me.  I take time off to look at my plants.  I enjoy watching my flame tree with its leaves rustling in the breeze or branches willow in the wind as the rain clouds roll in.  I enjoy seeing the birds swooping down to stand on the tree.  I enjoy listening to their chirping.

Life is so beautiful, and it is OK to suffer from depression.  It has opened up my senses.  I am more aware of what is happening inside of me as well as what is happening around me.

Awareness and Presence

I have been keeping my senses up these days with a few intervals of being lost in thoughts.  I start the day with a positive thought about the morning and take note of my surroundings.  I helps keep the thoughts at bay and I only work with thoughts that are productive.  The course of the day is rather routine, with chores in the morning, a bit of internet surfing and facebook.  The floors are swept and mopped if sticky.  The clothes are washed and hung up in the sun.  The fish are fed.  Then it is some free time to read or write.

Joey comes home at 12.30 and it is best to keep him happy so that there is little opportunity for a face-off and a tantrum.  Jordan stays in school until 3.30 as the school prepares Std 6 students for UPSR.  Johan comes back at 1.30 Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and 3.30 on Mondays and Thursdays (extra class and co-curricular activities).  Thereafter, he goes for tuition at 4.  Jordan attends tuition 5.30 to 7pm and Johan comes home after Jordan is sent.

In between, I may read or tend to the fish or the garden.  Then it is dinner preparation as dinner is typically at 7.15 after Jordan comes back.  Ironing is done in between dinner preparation and after dinner.  Then dining and kitchen are swept and mopped if sticky.  The day slows down with a bit of TV (news at 8) and then it is shower time and more reading as the boys settle down for the day.  Bedtime for the boys is 9.30 while I go to bed at about 10.30.

And the whole time, I stay awake and aware of my thoughts, emotions, actions.  I end the day with a prayer of thanks and a positive thought.

From totally lost to awareness

Yesterday was an experience to remind me again of my own true self.  It started normally.  But somehow by evening, I was tensed and tired again.  After a short nap, I woke up feeling worse off than before.  My chest hurt, especially when I swallowed my food at dinner time.  Then after my shower with the kids all over me, I started to lose my cool.  I cannot remember everything that happened but I just started shouting and screaming at my kids.  I could no longer hold it in.  I felt I was losing it.  I felt like dying.

I locked myself in the back room for a while after asking the boys to leave me alone.  I was lost in my thoughts and emotions.  My ego was feeding on them, making me like a person gone mad.  I started to look at myself, at my thoughts and emotions.  Tears rolled down my cheeks.  I sat so quietly.  My older sons knocked on the door to find out how I was doing.  I let them in but did not talk to them.  They became quiet.

Then I started to read Eckhart Tolle's new book Oneness with All Life.  After reading the first chapter, I decided to re-red his earlier book A New Earth to better understand what had happened to me.  In reading his book, I felt a calmness over me as my ego diminished.  I became aware of my thoughts and emotions, that they are not who I am.  Watching them, I became awareness.