Safety In Sadness
“Ninety percent of the thoughts you have today are the exact same thoughts you had yesterday.” ~ Dr. Joe Dispenza
Dr. Dispenza teaches that people become addicted to feelings.
We repeat over and over the same thoughts so that we can recreate a familiar feeling in our bodies.
I like to feel a moderate level of unhappiness in my body.
If I start out a day feeling pretty good, all I have to do is get in my car.
I don’t have actual road rage, though I have been known to throw out a few F bombs! But I always do it with a smile on my face so other drivers don’t know what I’m saying… I’m not a psycho.
I start driving, and my mind starts automatically rehashing over every argument I’ve ever had. I go back 25-years to something someone said to me and I chew their asses out in my head. Then I sing a little bit of a song on the radio and think, “What a beautiful day to be alive!” And immediately go back to my angry analysis of my past and everyone in it.
I am realizing that this mental behavior does create a feeling. One that I need to have every day. Whether I want it or not. And if I don’t drive, I will still find a way to access that general feeling of discontent, I am quite good at it.
I can’t help but wonder, how much of my life is driven by thinking the same thoughts so that my body has feelings that don’t even serve me anymore?
It’s like my body is an oven. I don’t feel normal unless I’m set at 400 degrees.
I wake up at 225 degrees. I can never let myself stay there. No matter the day, no matter what is going on, I need to get my body up to that 400-degree feeling and I do it with my thoughts. I do it without even NOTICING. There must have been a time in my life when that exact level of feeling made a cellular impression on me.
And it stuck.
I am sitting here right now at around 300 degrees, writing and thinking and sifting through feelings and I could bring myself up to 400 degrees in about 2 seconds.
Learning that my default setting is running hot inside with a loop of swirling thoughts and feelings has been the most important thing I’ve learned about myself. Ever.
There was a very long period of time in my life where this served me quite well. It kept me on alert, and protected from the chaos around me.
If I’m in a level of moderate discomfort, then I feel in control somehow. I’m not far from the bottom so falling isn’t as scary. And I’m not too far from the top either- so there remains the hope that I’ll have a good day.
I think the real issue is that my body has become addicted to stress hormones. Trying to rewrite the past in my mind is what gets the temp up to a level in which I feel at home inside my body. Which means I’m living in the past.
Homeostasis at 400 degrees does not come without a cost.
I am missing the present. Even worse, I could easily live the rest of my life in a state of being that steals my joy. My god. What a waste that would be.
I’ve created a life that I should be able to settle into and enjoy, but I don’t because if I am not running hot, I feel uncomfortable. Imagine that. A good day actually feels uncomfortable.
The biggest shock of this whole revelation is that all of this has been going on in my mind and body for over 20 years and I never saw it at all. I could never understand why I couldn’t seem to grasp happiness for any length of time. It came and went so often.
My mission now, is to be ok with feeling uncomfortable. This is what I hope will allow me to find a new normal… a nice 300 degree setting for an entire day. A week. A month.
Yesterday was my birthday. I am a big believer in the power of birthday candle wishes. I also believe that if you tell your wish, it might not come true. You’ll just have to guess what my wish was…
What temperature is your oven set at?