We Can’t “Mind-Set” our Way Out of Grief

We can’t mindset our way out of everything…

I’ve been really tracking just how masculine my “mind map” for life is. The template I was given early in life was one oriented to taking action. Conquering. From my outer world to my inner world, I was a “doer.”

I gained significance through my ability to troubleshoot. It was part of my self-worth package. I was a great old paradigm “manager.”

Queen of my Mental State

Let me explain:

If I had a perceived “problem” in my midst, my orientation to it was often to fix, tweak, repair, etc. in an effort to not feel as uncomfortable or unsafe as I did when I hung out in the midst of it.

What’s wrong with fixing problems?

The issue was this:

1. if we move on the problem from the lens of feeling more comfortable/safe/mentally aligned how true is the “solution”?

2. It’s an attempt to dominate/conquer reality. It’s applying force to a problem.

Now I’ll admit, like most things, It’s paradoxical. We are often called to respond and take action. Or to have better quality thoughts.

It’s when we are always doing it, when our entire orientation to life is to approach it as a petty tyrant, it becomes an issue.

Most problematic for me was I cut myself off from all of the wisdom my body was giving me. All of her cues. And over-rode it with logic and reason. Thinking I was oh so sophisticated.

———-

This past year, I had begun to really work and tease out this particular pattern even further. I noticed the way I applied this even to my “mindset”.

As a survival adaptation from an anxious, hyper-vigilant childhood, I could effortlessly reorient my metal realms to something more pleasant.

Then the unthinkable happened. The unfixable, untweakable, unrepairable thing arose.

This latest threshold has taken me into even more subtle layers of nuance around these patterns. Because there is nothing at all that can be different. I cannot rearrange even the smallest piece of death.

My practice these past two months has been to really surrender to reality, and BE WITH what is naturally arising. To hold myself here.

To let go of the reigns completely.

This way, when I do move, I know it’s true.

This practice of tracking how I apply force to my inner state, has revealed just how much domination of reality is still part of my game. Just how much my world has been built on “reactionary” solutions, or thinking my way through something vs Slow Unfolding Truth that my body is on board with. It’s required so much trust.

I can feel the pattern play out in my body. The way it tightens and constricts when I am in resistance to reality. I feel the compulsion to save myself with quick fix solutions.

That’s the physical signal that I’ve left or abandoned myself somewhere. My body has essentially “closed”. The gripping, the tightness means I have no capacity for reception or connection.

As soon as I feel it, I get low. I slow all the way down. And open as wide as I can inside the pain. I grieve it all the way out. Because I’ve discovered, so much of the resistance I feel is in relation to a perceived loss. Loss of normalcy, loss of comfort, loss of control, loss of connection, loss of safety, loss of intimacy, loss of relationship, loss of security.

There is so much to grieve in our everyday lives. Every change should evoke grief. Yet how often do we push through shifting ground with mental toughness?

I can’t believe what a difference it makes to be able to grieve, to feel, to emote, without the mind playing all over the place. Tweaking, editing, fixing, rearranging reality. Without stories. It really is a huge shift to be in my body when all this is happening. To not “mindset” my way out.

There is so much here.

In this…Slow. Unfolding. Truth.