Читать книгу Somebody Should Have Told Us!: Simple Truths for Living Well - Jack Pransky - Страница 15

II: Wisdom Is Always Available to Guide Us If We Know How to Access It

A word of caution: A few people have told me they felt uncomfortable reading this next story. Interestingly, in a perfect illustration of what the last chapter points to, others felt no discomfort. Still others have had important insights from reading this story. The fact is, for better or worse, this story happened exactly as written. I decided not to whitewash it.

Out of the blue a woman named Diane sent me an e-mail telling me how much she appreciated my books. She wrote that Health Realization helped her so much her life was “99.9% better.” Only one little thing kept her from total 100% health.

I e-mailed back, “What’s that?”

She wrote back saying she’d been having an affair for five years, and that was the one thing keeping her in a state that wasn’t perfect health.

“It sounds like you’re in pain,” I responded.

She wrote back. “Oh my God, I can’t believe it! I didn’t realize I was in pain, but I am. What you said just turned me around about this, and I know now that I need to end this relationship. I’m ending it right away.”

A couple of days later I received another e-mail from her: “I ended it. Everything is fine.”

A few days later she wrote back again: “At first the man I was having the affair with was fine, but then he wrote me this long, heartrending letter, and now I’m really troubled.”

It so happened I had an opportunity, on my book tour, to be in the Midwest city where she lived. I asked her if while I was there she would be interested in a counseling session. She said yes.

When I got to town I called her and we arranged a place to meet. It was a beautiful day so she suggested a nice park, which sounded fine to me. When I arrived at our rendezvous spot she had changed her mind and said we should go to a different park, not as pretty but closer. Didn’t matter to me.

We parked ourselves at a picnic table. Immediately Diane began talking a mile a minute, telling me she ended that affair but now found herself embroiled in another.

Whoa! I had to shake my head. This was almost too much to comprehend.

Diane was in her mid-40s. She volunteered that she had been sexually abused by her father for many, many years and was pretty much a mess because of it. She told me she recently spent a lot of time working out at a gym and had lost twenty pounds. She dressed provocatively to show it. It wasn’t hard to tell she wanted men to notice her. Apparently it was working because in the gym this new guy became attracted to her. They went out together, then started having sex.

Listening deeply to her, something nagged at me. I couldn’t put my finger on it. I didn’t know Diane, but she seemed extremely uncomfortable. Something was up that she wasn’t telling me. I kept listening. She told me how this new guy was giving her advice about how she should be with her husband.

“Diane, let me get this straight,” I said. “The guy you’re having an affair with is giving you marital advice?”

She said, “Yes, because I haven’t known what to do with my husband. Our sexual relationship isn’t good at all. I think my husband is gay. I love him as a friend but there’s no real intimacy in our relationship.”

“Whoa, Diane, slow down.” It was hard to get a word in edgewise. “Let’s back up a moment and take one thing at a time. First, do you really think this guy is in a position to give you advice about your marriage? He’s having an affair with you! Do you really think those two things mix?”

Diane began looking very sheepish. “I wasn’t going to tell you this,” she said, “but he’s here.”

“What?”

“He’s sitting in a car over there watching us, to make sure that nothing goes wrong.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No. He is.”

“Diane, come on! Do you really think we can get anything accomplished with you being distracted about the fact that this guy is here?”

“No.”

“You need to ask him to leave.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because I just can’t.”

I’m thinking, “If you don’t, kiddo, this session is over.” I mean, it was freaky enough to think we were being spied on. Besides, I didn’t know this guy, and she had only known him for two weeks. For all I knew he could be dangerous. But I didn’t want to alarm her with that thought; mostly I wanted her to come to her own conclusion.

“Look,” I said, “What is your wisdom telling you to do about this?”

“I can’t tell him. That’s not the kind of person I am.”

“That’s not what I asked, and yes you can. You know what’s right. He’s over there spying on you. I repeat, what is your wisdom telling you to do about this?”

Diane reflected a moment. “I guess I have to tell him to leave,” she sighed.

“You’re right, and if he doesn’t leave when you ask him, that will tell you a lot about him, won’t it?”

“Yes.”

I prepared her a little for what she might say if he didn’t leave, and she got up and walked over to tell him.

I kept my eyes glued to the table in front of me, hoping the guy wouldn’t do something we’d all regret. Apparently I hadn’t listened to my own wisdom when I agreed to meet this strange woman in a park.

After a few minutes Diane came back and said, “I told him to go.” She felt good she followed her wisdom and was strong enough to do it.

“Great,” I said. “I knew you could do it.”

“But he said something really weird at the end there.”

“What’s that?”

“He said, ‘You know you’re going to be thinking about me, whether I leave or not.’”

I sat up straight. “Diane, what do you think he’s trying to tell you? Doesn’t that sound a little off to you?”

“Yeah.” She peered over to where he’d been. “You know what? I think he just moved to a different part of the park. I don’t think he left altogether because he’s got to drive by here to get out, and I didn’t see him drive by.” She couldn’t see him though.

“Do you think that’s a problem? Are you going to be able to focus?”

“I am. I know him. He’s not going to cause a problem.”

“Okay, but as I said, if he hasn’t left after you asked him to leave that tells you something about him, right?”

“I know.”

We walked into the middle of an open field away from any cars and where we could see anyone approaching. Diane again started to speedily ramble on about what she’d learned from Richard Carlson’s book, You Can Be Happy No Matter What, and how it had helped her.

I said, “You know what? I don’t really care what you know. I’m glad the book brought you out of your depression, but what matters now is what more you can know to get yourself living more in wellbeing. Besides, happiness is overrated. What you really want is peace of mind.”

Diane quieted for the first time. She nodded and said wistfully, “Yes, that’s what I want.”

Softly I said, “It’s there for you, you know?”

“What do you mean?”

“Peace of mind is built into us. The only thing that can get in its way is our own thinking. We don’t have to think anything to be in peace of mind. In fact, when we’re not thinking anything we automatically have peace of mind.”

I talked about how we have two voices inside us: our voice of wisdom that speaks very softly, and our habitual thinking—our typical, everyday habits of thinking—that speaks loudly. We get to choose which voice we want to listen to. It’s very tempting to listen to the loud voice.

“Yes, I’ve got to try to drop those thoughts. I’ve got to try and reach a tranquil state.”

“It’s not really that. It’s knowing which voice is speaking to us at any time, and truly knowing which one is good for us to listen to and which isn’t. We get to decide for ourselves which to give power to. That’s all there is to it. That voice of habit will keep talking to us. It will keep trying to get us to pay attention, but if we know listening to it is not going to serve us well, we’re in the position to decide whether to listen to it or not.”

That seemed to calm Diane. She said, “Thank you so much! I don’t want to take up any more of your time. I feel so much better.”

“Wait,” I said. “There’s one more thing we ought to deal with. There’s your peace of mind in general, but there’s also your immediate situation. The fact that your situation remains unresolved in your mind means you’re going to be thinking about it, and that’s going to get in the way of your peace of mind. Wouldn’t you want to start with a clean slate?”

She hadn’t told her husband about either of these affairs.

I asked her, “Do you love your husband?”

She gave me an immediate “Yes.” She had two kids. She said the older one was deaf and very sweet, thirteen years old; the younger one, seven years old, was very angry. Apparently a lot of bickering occurred in their household.

“I may have to leave this relationship,” Diane mused, sadly.

“Look, if you love him, there’s a solid foundation there. But what does your wisdom tell you about where your relationship can go with your husband if you’re involved in these affairs and there’s always something hovering over you that you’re hiding from him?”

She sighed, “I really need to get out of this affair totally.”

“See, this is your wisdom speaking to you now. Can you hear the difference in the voices?”

“Yes. I know I’ve got to end it with this guy immediately.”

“And then there’s the fact of your husband not knowing, and you keeping this secret and hiding it.”

“I know. I’ve got to tell him.”

We talked about how he might react.

I said, “Then there’s a third thing.” Diane and her husband supposedly had a solid friendship relationship, but she’d said she thought he might be gay. Was he really? What if he didn’t care for her sexually? Sex was obviously extremely important to Diane.

“If he is gay,” I asked, “how do you think he would react if you both got your sexual gratification elsewhere?”

“No way! He’s a strict Lutheran. He would never be able to handle that.”

“Well, what about him? What does he do?”

“He gets his gratification by going onto the Internet and looking at naked men, and he got his penis pierced and all this kind of stuff.”

“So there’s something he feels a need for that is outside of your relationship too; in fact, outside of himself.”

“Yeah.”

“And what about you?”

“Well, I’ve got all these sex toys.”

I’m thinking, “Whoa, this is a world I know nothing about. In fact,

I don’t want to know anything about it.” So I said, “Look, if there’s a solid foundation in your relationship and everything is honest and on the table, doesn’t your wisdom say that you could come to a meeting of the minds about this?”

“Yes. But how?”

“Your wisdom will tell you if you get quiet. One possibility is you could go out of your way to really listen to him deeply so you can see his world the way he sees it and be fascinated by what would make him want to do those things. Then he could do the same with you. When the two of you are able to see each other’s worlds, you then have a chance of coming to a meeting of the minds about what you could do together to make your relationship satisfying for each other.”

“Yes, that is really, really important for us.”

“Which voice is speaking to you about this now?”

“This is definitely my wisdom.”

“Then you know what wisdom sounds like. You know what to do. It’s always there to guide you. You can never go wrong if you listen to it.”

Diane got teary-eyed and thanked me profusely. Our session ended. She went off to see whether that guy was still in the park, and I left.

Later I learned he hadn’t left the park. That sealed it. Diane put an end to that relationship. She told her husband about the first affair at least, and they began a healing process.

When it comes to wisdom we are always at a fork in the road. We can listen to it or not.

Fortunately, we are not left to the devices of our own thinking. If the power of Thought is a creative gift we can use in any way we want, and if the power of Consciousness is a gift that makes whatever we’re thinking look real to us and gives us the experience of whatever we’re thinking, where do these phenomenal powers or gifts come from?

They come from something we could call “Universal Mind.” Mind is the third (actually, the first) of three Principles*—Mind, Consciousness and Thought—that work together to create our life experience. I’m not talking about our own little minds here. I’m talking about something way bigger than ourselves that flows through us. I’m talking about the force or energy that keeps us alive. What it is is a mystery, but it is the energy behind all life that seems to have an intelligence attached. I’m talking about something of which we are one little part: One huge Intelligence or Mind; the Energy of All Things. If you don’t like the term “Mind,” call it whatever you want. It doesn’t matter.

What matters is that we are a little tiny piece of this formless, universal intelligent energy that flows through us continually and never stops. It can’t stop, for it is the life-force itself. Without it we wouldn’t exist. That is a fact! What matters is when we’re in touch with that tiny little piece of infinite Intelligence, we can hear wisdom speaking to us.

Wisdom, then, as I mean it, doesn’t really come from us, per se; it comes through us. Wisdom is something that never goes away. It is always there, able to be accessed at any moment. The only way wisdom could disappear is if Mind disappeared, and that is impossible because life itself would cease to exist. Even if we wanted to get away from our wisdom, we couldn’t.

This raises a question: If people have all this wisdom, why do most people walk around looking like they don’t have it?

Our thinking obscures our wisdom; indeed, it is the only thing that can. Our thinking obscures our wisdom the way a veil covers a beautiful sculpture. Even though we can’t see the sculpture, it is there. Our thinking is the veil. When the veil is pulled off the sculpture it is there for everyone to see because it never went anywhere in the first place. We can have faith in that. We could have the same kind of faith in our wisdom and innate Health.

Because Diane’s thinking was so scrambled she could not see her wisdom. Once her mind calmed down her wisdom appeared. It was there all along. She only couldn’t hear it because of the noise in her head.

The two voices—wisdom and our typical thinking—are always speaking to us. We can notice the difference. If we listen closely we would notice our habits of thinking sound like old news. Many times before we’ve had these types of thoughts. That voice tends to grab us. It’s enticing. On the other hand our wisdom has an “Oh yeah, I see it!” or an “ah-ha” or “ah, yes,” feeling attached, a solid knowing deep within ourselves. Everyone has experienced both. The decision about which voice to listen to can be the difference between living a life of well-being or a life of problems and difficulties. All we have to know is how to access this wisdom [see Chapter IV].

Postscript: The next Spring and then the following New Year’s I received e-mails from Diane, which I combined here:

Guess what Jack?! I finally got it. I am now living for today only. I realized “ I AM “…I am NOW. God is and always has been NOW… No worrying about yesterday or what will happen to me tomorrow or “me” in general. I noticed colors are brighter too. The bad habit of daydreaming is almost gone. When I start thinking about something that isn’t...relevant to what is important NOW, then it isn’t worth thinking about. It makes my mind more clear to think, and it seems to flow better. Also, I stopped looking at men to see if they’re looking at me… It’s cool. Life is good NOW. And if it isn’t, the next moment will be… I am free!!!... Free from everyone finally and for good… I tell it like it is fully and leave out nothing. Truth all the way…I am free of all guilt, and I am happy with me (because being a “totally” a good girl is what makes me feel good, strong and real). I have no burdens on me anymore…I am entering a weight lifting contest (my first) in March. It’s a new beginning… So, now nothing bothers me anymore. It’s a miracle. A wonderful gift I have for the New Year... I am so comfortable in my skin it’s corny. I think I look the best I’ve ever looked… It shows on the outside how wonderfully free I feel on the inside...and I keep it good and wholesome... Jack,it’s nice to feel good about yourself, huh?

* By “Principle,” I mean the root of the word: “a fundamental law or truth” that exists as a fact whether people know about it or not. For example, by this definition three principles work together to create a musical note from a stringed instrument: the tightness of the string, the thickness of the string and the length of the string. Depending on how we use those principles, we get different notes. In a similar way, Mind, Consciousness and Thought are the principles at work in the psychological-spiritual world to create our experience. How we use them gives us different experiences.