If we stopped giving each other advice, what would happen next? Because we can’t solve our own problems, much less anyone else’s! Once this is seen, all we can do is go back inside our heads and shut the heck up. When it gets too quiet in the head, try moving a floor down into the heart. Don’t go too far, or you will end up Lord knows where. Giggle. Just the heart for now.
The heart doesn’t think. It is in the business of being. And don’t ask me how I know. I don’t know. I feel the heart. I feel things that I love and that I don’t love.
Someone was talking about their “happy place.” I tried to come up with what mine was and frankly, I ain’t all that happy because nothing jumped out and said “I’m it. I’m your happy place.” The best I can do is say that when I am working hard crossword puzzles, I am not as apt to be thinking, so that makes me happy. That’s because mechanical thinking makes us miserable.
Being an introvert, I am happy when I am alone most of the time. The occasional social engagement is fine, but I usually have to recuperate from it. I rarely get dressed up and won’t travel unless I am guided to do so. (See Leonard Cohen, Amsterdam 2013).
When I traveled to hear Vernon Howard, it was because I dreamt of a classroom in the desert. It all worked out when I followed the dream. He, by the way, never gave advice on his students’ personal problems. I wrote about that earlier. He said “Never answer a question on the level of the question.” “Who am I?” is the perfect example of that. If you answer it, you are on the wrong level and what you say will be wrong.
In real estate, the expression is “Location, location, location.” That applies to inner work as well. Locate yourself in your heart and see if you don’t feel better than you do when you wander the streets of your mind alone. Thoughts are waiting to mug you and steal your energy the minute you stop watching them. So if you do venture inside your mind, beware! And don’t come to me complaining about how you beat yourself up. We all do it. Learning to yell Stop, thief! is not a bad practice unless someone is in the room with you.
Vicki Woodyard