The first time I ever really began to understand that the way I think about things, and subsequently the way I feel, affects EVERYTHING else in my life...was several years ago. Many years ago? (What's the dividing line between "several" and "many"? Five? It was more than five years ago, so many. Let's go with many.)
Ahem: it was many years ago.
I was at a good friend's home in upstate New York. This friend and I had been talking (well, she had been advising, and I had been peppering her with questions) about the importance of choosing our thoughts. Specifically, the importance of choosing thoughts that support rather then drag down. And at this particular moment she had gone upstairs or to the bathroom or something, and I was alone, standing in her dining room, looking out into a copse of trees swaying outside the window.
Side note: this friend's house is a wonder. Viewed from the outside it looks much like any other new york upstate home--it has rambling stone steps and a drive-in garage and big sleepy-eyed windows, but inside (much like the friend who owns it, actually) it is just a bastion of serenity. It is inviting the way a set of clean crisps sheets is inviting--it just wraps around you as you walk through it. And the quiet. Oh man, the quiet.
(I love this house.)
Anyhow, so there I am, standing at the window, looking at the trees, and I'm consciously--I'm letting the trees in. I'm choosing the trees. And I remember, at this moment in my life, I was recovering from the end of an intense (though short-lived) relationship, I was jobless, I was living in an apartment about the size of my thumb, and I was feeling just...lost. So, I'm letting the trees in, which was not something I had been taking time for, due to this lost-ness feeling. Because who the hell has time for tree-gazing when there is anxiety to be tended to? But we'd been having this good talk and I was interested in this idea--this idea that I might be able to CHOOSE my thoughts (which I didn't really quite believe)--and so I was admiring the trees. And for a moment I felt--just glorious. It was just me and those trees and that silent house. I started to settle into my own skin a bit more...
And then BAM! A very familiar voice piped up: "Yeah, great, this is going to help you get a job...how?" WHAM! Stomach drops to knees. POOF! Beautiful trees? Disappeared. And in their place...just a big old bucket of shame and aggravation. Trees? What trees?
Now, I don't know if it was the magic of the house, or the power of an inspiring conversation, or just the plain and simple fact that I had had ENOUGH of feeling lousy, but I did something in that moment that I had never ever done before.
I said no.
In that moment some other voice--some from-the-depths-of-the-well voice rose up and told that first voice, the hall-monitor one, to go fuck herself. I think the exact words I spoke to myself were, "I am not letting you take this away from me." And I turned my attention back to the trees.
And in that moment, as the trees reconvened in my consciousness, a kind of bliss washed through my body the likes of which I have rarely felt since. I was...dumbfounded, that I had this kind of power. I mean, why didn't anyone tell me this? Why didn't anyone ever tell me that I get to decide which thoughts I want to entertain?
I have been thinking a lot lately about that moment.
I have been thinking a lot about those trees and that house and that...liberation. Because sometimes, Shanti-towners, I feel like I have lost the ability to choose. Sometimes it feels like my thoughts are wild animals. And they don't want to be hushed or told no. Sometimes, Shanti-towners, it doesn't feel like there are even any trees outside the window to choose instead. Sometimes it feels like it's the hall-monitor, or nothing. And at least she's an old friend...
And I know, or I'm guessing at least, that if I feel that way...then some of you might feel that way, too. Sometimes. So I want to tell you (and me), I want to remind you, that you DO have a choice.
I want to remind you that you don't need anyone's permission to feel good. You don't need permission that comes in the form of money, you don't need permission that comes in the form of friends or lovers or parents. You don't need permission in the form of books or of grades or of beautifully executed handstands. You don't need the permission of a yoga class or a meditation workshop. You don't need anyone's say so or any concrete proof of your good-ness in order to make choices that support your well-being.
This is the magical (and challenging) thing about the space inside our own heads. It's ours. No one, and I mean no one, can get in there and mess around (for better or worse). That's your little kingdom up in there and so, Shanti-towners, that voice inside that says you're not allowed to be happy? That voice can go fuck itself. Because you know who's in charge? YOU are.
And, damnit, there is some bafflingly beautiful array of trees out there somewhere, just waiting for you to come and admire it...
