Who’s complaining?
This time last week I spent 24 hours wrestling my puppy-mind’s complaining… about a friend’s complaining… about a colleague’s complaining... Cheez Louise!
On and on the moaning went… steeping my whole day in sewage.
I was so angry!
After working so hard to find joy in the months after Michael’s dying, joy has come at such a high price. The fury I felt at this friend’s toxic dumping — seemingly robbing me of my hard-won relief — it was intense and out of all proportion.
As ever, I went inwards for answers. The dialogue I have with my Dream Team — Michael and my Beautifuls (teachers, loved ones — my non physical cadre of joy co-creators)— it never, ever fails.
A single awareness changed everything.
The knowing popped, fizzed, shimmered — like fireworks in my mind.
Here’s what my Dream Team shared as I journaled back and forth… Their words as I imagined them, in bold italics.
Thought trains are… just trains
Why am I struggling with this complaining chain? Why is it so difficult to let it go?
That’s the wrong question.
What’s the right question?
How do I change this train of thought? How do I exchange it for another?
Ok. That makes sense. No use digging around in the problem. Focus towards what is wanted, not on what is not… Thank you.
So, how do I change the train of thought?
Thought trains are just trains. You can get off them when you want.
Hmm. I like the analogy… Continue?
It’s a train. All that complaining your friend shared with you… It’s a thought train. Step off at any time and let the train continue without you…
It’s not your train. It’s going to keep going. It’s not for you to change its speed or trajectory… It’s contrast to feed someone else’s creation.
There’s nothing to be fixed, there’s nothing going wrong.
But you do get to choose what trains you’ll take today…
BAM!
I saw, so clearly, suddenly, a thought-train with Annette (my friend, the complainer) as the driver. A sign on the front, made the destination clear. This train was heading for Meltdown Town, then on to Implosion City…
I saw how easy it was to get off at the next station. To let the train clatter on down below street level, tunnelling into the dark… as I stood blinking in the light.
Wow.
I felt such a shift inside… I journaled some more...
A train of thought!
Not mine.
And a choice as to whether I stay aboard it!
Wow. That’s amazing! I feel completely free!
I don’t need to rescue my friend from her thought-train’s destination. Not that I could if I tried. She is perfectly on track, her stories are unfolding.
All will be well.
All is well already!
She will either take charge and change direction himself, or she will explore those intense destinations for more enriching contrast. She will line up with the gifts, or she will go on complaining, until she goes Home full-time.
Either way, joy will engulf her in the end!
But I get to choose whether to stay on his train with her.
That’s it.
Or to hop off.
Immediately.
Wow.
Stepping off the pain train
It was so SO easy to step off that complaining train and let it charge onwards, without me. I saw myself on the platform awaiting the next good-feeling train. The train named Relief. A fresh one came by every few seconds, with all kinds of connecting stations on offer.
Cycle-to-the-Sea
Cowl-knitting-by-candlelight
Painting-blogging-playfulness
Fence-painting
Learn-to-hoe
Plant-out-my-cyclamen
and so many others…
My Dream Team journaling continued, building understanding…
Use beauty and distraction to step off the problem train. Get onto the delight train, the appreciation and soothing train, leaving the problem train to hurtle on.
I don’t need one minute more aboard that train.
Exactly.
It’s done its job, it’s served its purpose.
The contrast brings its own treasure.
Treasure?
Yes. Treasure. You have expanded into more. What you don’t want makes you stretch towards what you do want. It’s an inner stretching at first. Your soul expands to a version of you who is experiencing the improvement you desire. Your outer, physical self needs to catch up to feel better.
To catch up?
Yes, you have to catch up with the faster moving trains where your expanded thoughts and feelings are feasting on the improvement you have summoned through this contrast. These trains hold the treasure that has come from this expansion.
I like the thought that the contrast creates expansion, summons treasure. Life as a treasure hunt… sounds like fun!
But you don’t find the treasure by searching the problem train. No matter how thoroughly you do it. Investigating the problem won’t yield the solution. You won’t glimpse the treasure on that slow moving train.
Catching the treasure train
You find the treasure by getting up to speed with the treasure train. The pleasure train. The train that feels best to you right now. You might take a number of different pleasure trains, taking different connections, swapping platforms or services…
I can see this unfolding like a sweet, warm adventure. I love the thought of taking trains that appeal, without one more thought to the problem…
You start by relaxing, by enjoying simple pleasures — feast on what seems like treasure unrelated to your problem. Only, the pleasure is not unrelated to your problem. It’s totally related.
‘Unrelated’ pleasure connects you to your problem’s solution by the way that it feels. The simple, off-topic pleasures build your speed. They bridge you to the way your solution will feel when you’re moving fast, high and happy enough to receive it.
Wow. Mind-blowing. THANK YOU!
One more thing
The train swapping insight was a game changer, it brought huge relief. It wasn’t solid in me yet though: there was more.
I don’t understand. I love the train metaphor. I love the thought of swapping to a train that feels better. But each time I do it, I find myself getting sucked back on board the pain train. What’s up with that?
There is one main barrier to lasting relief.
Do tell!
Judgement. You are judging your feelings as bad/wrong/ or failing. You aren’t letting yourself off the hook because you think you should feel different. You’re at odds with yourself.
Really? Tell me more…
What’s not ok with you about the way this feels?
Well, I want to love unconditionally. It feels bad to be so at odds with my complainer. I don’t like who I became as a result.
Whilst you’re on other folks’ pain trains, you will have an unpleasant reaction. You’ve got to be ok with that.
You’ve been pressurising yourself to feel love for the suffering as you find it. You want to be love unconditional…
Yes!
You think that means that the contrast won’t hurt.
That’s not how it works.
You’re right! I was trying to feel good, sitting in the sewage stream! Instead I sat resisting my own toes’ curling, grim with the effort of staying on the train…
I gave myself such a hard time about that!
How can I love humanity, I thought, if being with people’s pain sets my own teeth on edge?
You’re SUPPOSED to feel dreadful when you’re invited into contrast. Your emotion — aka your Inner GPS — works perfectly in recoil.
You’re not supposed to put your hand on the hot stove without flinching. You’re supposed to yell “OW!” and whip your hand off PDQ.
A moment from an action comedy — The Hitman’s Bodyguard — came instantly to mind.
Ryan Reynolds looks up at the torso of his torturer. The man is tattooed from chin to waistband in red and black ghoulishness, like someone’s puked Hallowe’en down his front.
Our hero’s face contorts. Is he going to plead for clemency? We are horrified by his predicament; but he reacts only to the bad taste in body art, in the way that only Reynolds can, saying,
“Ewwww!”
Perfect! That’s exactly how I would honestly respond to trains that feel like that.
I don’t want to make myself enjoy them!
Fantastic!
You want to make the most of the contrasting experience. You don’t want a life where no contrast happens. A short spell on a train like that expands your inner being ma-houss-ively!
All that complaining makes you want the polar opposite. You’ve created more harmony. More appreciation. More ease and flow and playfulness; all because your complainer let you share in her experience.
As you catch up with your expansion; as you catch that faster moving train, not only will you benefit, but so will your friend. Because we are all energy. Because we are one.
Her world benefits from the harmony you bring. Remember that quote about the toaster?
“Every time you use your toaster the fields around it perturb charged particles in the farthest galaxies ever so slightly.” — R.O. Becker & G Seldon
Wow. Yes. As I allow my own reactions and then take a different train, the impact ripples out to the farthest galaxies, ever so slightly!
That’s it!
Hop off her train. Love the willingness of your friend to engage in this way. Appreciate her struggle and admire her good heart.
She’s doing brilliantly.
You head off and enjoy your day.
Let others create from their contrasting experience.
If they want to know how you change and choose your trains, they will ask.
In the meantime, have a great day!
Such liberation — from the realisation that all thoughts exist, but they don’t belong to us and we don’t have to take them seriously…
Like trains they move, chug, speed or hurtle about us…
Whatever train you’re on, you can always make the simple choice — to stay aboard, or hop off!
The choice needs no more from us than that!
‘Ewwww!
Is this the
Non-Stop Complainer Express,
heading for Meltdowntown?
I think not!
Hold the doors please…
Thanks!
Cheery bye!’
‘Phew!
Now, where’s the
All-day Appreciator…?’
Hello Baby! That’s more like it…
Acknowledgement: My blogs, my coaching and my life are founded on many wondrous teachings, most particularly the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.