I want to share a distinction I created:
Ignoring vs Observing
I have been speeding up in the game of life. Getting more and more attached to the outcomes of my day and taking things quite seriously.
I noticed that what I was spending a lot of time thinking about what might happen – a lot of time on the ‘what if’ train!
What if that client doesn’t sign up?
What if I don’t deliver a powerful enough coaching session?
I should create a post.
I should have a book or a podcast.
I need to be more present with my family.
I’m too in my head!
As I was attached to these thoughts, I began to speed up and react to them.
Then I started to experience anxiety.
Then I told myself I didn’t like the feeling.
Then I ignored all the thoughts and feelings, telling myself by not getting involved with them, they would go away.
And the mind said: ‘Good job, the less you do with the thoughts and feelings, the quicker they’ll pass.’
They didn’t pass.
They got more intense.
Because ‘ignoring’ something is an active and intentional disregard of that thing.
Ignoring is a form of resistance.
Being resistant to thoughts and feelings, for me, looks like not liking the experience I’m having and trying to change it with force.
The mind convinced me to ignore it all, and this little trick of the mind had me believing that I was doing nothing with the thoughts. That ignoring them meant I wasn’t getting involved with them.
So if I wasn’t getting involved, why wasn’t it passing?!
Well, ignoring is very different to observing.
Observing means to notice without emotional attachment.
Coming into a place of observation meant being aware that the thoughts I was having created feelings that I decided I didn’t like and so the mind began actively resisting the experience it had created, all the while, telling me, that ignoring it all was the answer to get to a state of peace.
When I saw this, I felt for the mind like you feel for a child tying their shoelace and tying themselves in knots, even though they already know how to tie their laces.
My mind had gotten knotty and I mistook myself for being the knots.
When I saw the mind like an innocent child, I was able to tend to it with love and reassurance.
Nothing needed to be done with the shoelaces.
Just like nothing needed to be done about the thoughts I was having.
All that was needed was a moment of observation and to slow down to see what was going on.
When I stopped being resistant to the experience and started being loving to myself in spite of it, the intensity began to pass.
I have always heard that you shouldn’t ignore things but I never quite realised the the mind had created this supposed ‘shortcut’ of ignoring things, disguising them as something else š¤Æ
