Tag: #inspiration

Welcome to Riley On Film

I watched a movie today about:

the practice of letting go

The more I get into being conscious in my life, the more I realize the value of stress. If that caught you off guard, it was meant that way. We are so anti-stressed in our American society these days that it must sound odd for somebody who tries to write inspirational blog post to be thankful for stress, allow me to explain: Stress can be really good and really valuable something to be cherished for three reasons. The first reason is it builds endurance of acceptance, secondly,  it strengthens the small motor mentality that holds down the big panic some may call this wisdom,  and thrdly it keeps us from being paralyzed by our fears of failing if we practice and live in it just a little bit. I contend and I even teach this to young people in college that an informed decision however, stressful the information may be, is always better than an impulsive one without information. No matter how scared I may be of what I see in the data. I must resolve to take a breath and look at it even when it causes The Spectre the villain we call stress. Let me get right to this. First, it builds endurance of acceptance.

I suppose you could say what we’re really talking about here is looking at our fears. On Tuesday I have a conundrum. I don’t really wanna think about it. In fact, I don’t even want to take out a pen and sketch ideas on how to solve my conundrum it’s that bad. It has to do with two of the things that cause mega stress to Americans and mega stress to me how will I find the time or how will I find the money. So I must remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day. My strengths have come about over the course of my life through stress and yes through panic. That doesn’t mean I’m advocating panic. In fact I think panic is completely unnecessary most of the time. In our evolution as a species if a tiger said his eyes on us decided didn’t wanna chew on us like a chew toy or better yet eat us like buffalo wild wings. It’s pretty good to panic at that point because your legs will make you run or climb up a tree or do whatever you have to do Based on that panic to get the heck away from a predator. I have no doubt that that’s what panic evolved from and other things like that. But what it’s turned into for humans has become a way to get our story straight and stick to it. In other words lie. If we’re afraid somebody’s gonna catch our lie, we start to panic that is not what panic is for. The problem is we become kind of addicted to the adrenaline of it. I’ve seen my ex-wife and myself, and my kids and my students and my parents and my extended family and my friends, and just so many examples of people who launched the panic over things that panic isn’t meant to solve. So I encourage you right now with me to find the courage to say “I refuse to panic over my situation. I recognize that panic in humans has a purpose, but I also know it’s rarely for this one. In fact, it’s never for this one. I will view my situation or my worry if you want to call it that as an opportunity to build endurance and trust of my own intellect to find a solution to my own problem and to the universe for having an infinite amount of possible solutions and I need to be open to them without panicking. A very important tool is a journal. But a journal doesn’t have to be a little black Lichtenstein book as I’ve been flushing out all these songs I’ve written through the years, recording them and publishing them to ask cap in the past year I’ve used my walls in a sharpie as my journal. I don’t recommend it to everybody. If you’re a neat freak, it’s gonna drive you nuts and probably make you sick to your stomach to look at it. But because I enjoy the smell of paint and I don’t mind listening to music. I look forward to a paint day when I’m gonna cover over it. I’ve already done it twice. But I digress, I’m not here to talk about writing on walls to talk about writing. Peter elbow and Linda flower are two people. I really respect and academic writing education. Both of them came up with syllogism on how free writing or journaling can actually generate new information and thereby easy solutions to many problems that were not evident before the writing began. I recommend having a journal that you love or a wall that you love. Calmly taking the time to use a favored pen and a favored paper or journal to write possible solution solutions to possible worries is exactly what I’m talking about in this first thankful component for worrying. Even if you just think of one rational solution that might involve a lot of work and a lot of chance and maybe even isn’t really a very good solution at all at least it is a solution so write it down and any alternatives that you can think of. Then, and this is really important, walk away. Learn to detach from your upcoming problem. In my particular case that I referred to the beginning of this post, I have the rest of today, Saturday, Sunday Monday, and then Tuesday is the day where my challenge will call it. I don’t like the word worry, must be met and must be solved and so not only will I take this first step to write things down which I’ve already done and give them myself a solution that will work. It’s not a very fun solution. It involves a lot of physicality which is actually a good thing and I don’t know why I kind of dread that but it is a solution and it is rational and I came up with it. My guardian angel Dane I sometimes talk about him is patting me on the back right now telling me I’m already done. I already solved my own problem. But I Deepak Chopra has taught me through his writings and through his readings and verbal things that are on YouTube That we can trust that there are an infinity of possibilities of the universe for solving our problem we just may not know them yet and by worrying we can’t add a single quiver of hope so it might be safe to say at this point panic and warrior out let’s not do those at all. We’re taking steps so we don’t have to panic and worry we’re doing the best we can and don’t you love it when you see a kid doing the best they can out on the soccer field. Don’t you love it when you see a student teacher it are sweating and nervous giving a practice lesson. Don’t you love it when you see firefighters in LA doing their best to quell a killer force wind. You’re just like that. You’re a human animal of the most highly intelligent animal probably on the planet and you’re doing your best. What more could you ask from yourself. To close up number one I’ll just say this Remaining calm writing in your journal coming up with solutions for your worry or for your predicament will yield an answer or not, but it will make you more familiar with that which is. You’ll be more in reality. And ultimately if you’re a child of consciousness, if you’re Seeking to live in the universe as you are as it is without delusion and without sadness, and yes, with happiness that you need to be able to accept what is so step one is very important. Write things down come up with solutions and do your best. This process while tedious, possibly in fact probably Will build endurance and letting worry go. Make sure you get yourself a really sweet journal. One thing I do is I have all these books that I don’t even read. They’re on my shelf sometimes I’ll just get a thick felt tip pen kinda like a sharpie or something of that caliber and I’ll just write real big and an old book and that becomes my journal so if you think of it that way, most people on their cells have books they’re willing to sacrifice or transform Into journals. They don’t even have to go to the store.

As we let our emotions occur, we can let them go. As we avoid painful emotion, we haror it in our subconscious and it harms us sometimes for decades, sometimes for our entire existence on earth. My brother Collin told me a really valuable piece of advice. One time he said you can’t just be a miser with your money if you wanna have money flowing then you have to let money flow through you if you have $100 use 10 of it to buy bubblegum if you love bubblegum if you can afford to buy a better Lock for your bike, buy the better Lock in the long run letting the money flow is gonna create a vacuum for more money to come through you don’t want a bunch of money, just sitting in your mattress you want money to flow your entire life and so just like a whirlpool once you get the momentum going of letting money flow the theory is Money will continue to flow and continue to manifest itself. I have found this theory to be incredibly reliable. My brother Collin is just full of wise aphorisms. I love him. At any rate, the reason I brought up the money Afrim is because it’s true in our worries as well and in our solution process. If we avoid our worry and we don’t bother to think of a solution, it stays there and it festers now don’t get me wrong. There’s a time to rest. There’s a time to put things on the shelf and that’s all part of this. That’s all part of the endurance of letting things go. So the second thing I’m talking about here really has to do is taking that worry, putting it on the shelf after you’ve thought of your solutions write them in your journal and then forget about it. When you come back to it, you’ll have a fresh mind. You’ll be so proud of the words that you wrote in your journal the ideas that you had to solve the problem and depending on how much time has passed or how the vernal equinox has turned on its access if you will, your solution may be irrelevant because the problem may be gone. Do your best in coming up with solution then let it go put that journal and the same place you always put it on the shelf like a candle. Relax if you smoke have a cigarette if you take walks, take a nice afternoon leisurely walk. Don’t think about your worries all the time start practicing writing in your journal ideas to solve your worries and then put the journal on the shelf and forget about it. This builds the endurance of letting things go which I would argue at my age Looking back and also in the present is the most valuable thing that I possess as a human, the endurance and the ability to let things go and that’s what grows stronger when you do these two steps. It’s the kind of strength that no one can ever fault you for and no one can ever take away from you. Finally, let’s look at the third step, to not let paralysis from fear take over.

I can explain this one much more adroitly than the other two. I’ll do it with an echo totally quote.”Is that so.” he shares in his books and an in a few of his speaking videos that I watch on YouTube a story about a high-level monk who is greatly beloved in his region. Unfortunately, for him, someone tried to soil his reputation by claiming that he had done something improper to a child. At least I think that’s the story. He very calmly responded to the accusation by saying simply is that so. when confronted by a reporter, he simply replied with is that so in saying this I think he was showing that he was OK to allow an uncomfortably motion to pass through him. That’s the benefit of paying attention to your worries and staying calm and trying to find a solution. It’s not denial. It’s the opposite of denial. It’s embracing your worry and trying to come up with a solution because you worry, it’s only one way to look at it and your brain has evolved for so many billions of years through so many different forms and you’re gonna be here at 80 years 90 years maybe use that brain. The next time you hear something I can accusation or maybe even it’s just your own mind your worst villain and enemy really your only villain and enemy telling you you’re not going to succeed let that uncomfortably motion pass through you do not deny it and say something of acceptance of it and understanding of it, not deflecting it but saying something like is that so. This Higher monk was completely exonerated and actually was even more celebrated after this accusation was proven wrong. Wouldn’t you be happier if you got something through that got through something like that by not worrying about it so much. 

To conclude this hopefully helpful post, we should confront our worry, but not in a panicked way. We have an amazingly evolved brain and by sitting and meditating and practicing these three steps we engage in the practice of letting things go, and we are made more mellow through our years we will still suffer, but my friends we will suffer less when we follow these three steps: 1) journal solutions, 2) Walk away from the priblem knowing you are doingvyour best to solve it, and 3) take heart in knowing that facing your worry will build a strength that alliwsvyou to be mire at peace because you engaged in a practice of letting go.