Hello hello this is Sabrina Amina and this is the feelings pod. Today's episode
is about questioning our thoughts and doing the work with Byron Katie. Byron
Katie's work is... I've come into my life recently at a moment, at exactly the
moment it was meant to, and I've been learning a lot about how to navigate
difficult emotions by questioning the thoughts that bring about those difficult
emotions. And her methods are deceptively simple and
usually these are practices that we do when we're having difficulty or
challenges with the folks that we're in relationship with and it illuminates
really the challenges we have with ourselves. So if we can imagine that
every person who comes into our life is a mirror for ourselves,
everyone becomes your teacher, everyone becomes someone that you can learn
from, and what are we learning? We're learning a little bit more about
ourselves through the mirror that is held up in these relationships
reflecting ourselves back to us. Now I'm gonna just give a simple example. Today I
had a challenging thought during a transition and I thought I was visiting
my mom's home and getting ready to leave after a really nice afternoon
spending time with my siblings and my parents and my niece and nephew and I
had seen my brother who I hadn't seen for a really long time and I was so happy
to see him and then it was time for him to leave. Goodbyes are so challenging for
me. It's so hard for me to leave part ways with the people that I love and so
I've always felt a little lost because whenever I've had to leave a loved one
or a loved one left me, I'd experience it as a loss, as a loss of love really.
But through this work of inquiry I'm understanding that this experience is
is more about a loss of myself. I lose myself so much in these connections and
these relationships because I have this false belief, this false thought that
when the person I love is no longer present, physically present with me, the
love is no longer there. And so the process of inquiry really gets you to
question these thoughts and it might seem very obvious but just because you're
not with the person that you love doesn't mean that the love is no longer
there. Even when it seems as though a person leaves for good, that love doesn't
go anywhere really. The love is still alive. Love is this mysterious phenomenon
that is not bound by constraints like time and space. And so it still
brings up challenge for me to say goodbye to someone but what helps is
questioning the thought, he doesn't love me because he left. So you ask yourself,
is that true? Is it true that he doesn't love me because he left? Well, no. And then
the next question that she asks is, who would I be without the thought? He
doesn't love me when he leaves. Well, without that thought, I get to return to
love. I get to experience love. I get to know that love is here and love is
present regardless of whose coming or going. And then I think one of the most
profound parts of the work is turning these statements around, he doesn't love
me and changing that statement to its opposite basically. So for example,
instead of he doesn't love me, the statement becomes I don't love me. And we
explore if the new statement is true and perhaps even truer than the initial
statement. So yes, when I imagine that love is gone, I'm not really loving myself.
Another way to turn it around is I don't love him. Is that true or even truer
than the original statement? Well, of course. I'm doubting the love that exists
and assuming that this person's love is so frail that it can only exist when
we're standing right in front of each other. This process of inquiry is so
amusing because it's it it illuminates the insanity of a lot of our thoughts of
the way that we think. And I really find this work so profound and meaningful and
so much so that I decided to jump back into recording my podcasts. I'm so
grateful to Byron Katie for this body of work and I'm also grateful to another
teacher of mine, Luis Mojica, who I think first put Byron Katie's work on my radar.
You know, lately I've been in the past I think several years actually perhaps even
all my life I've struggled with this fear of this loss of love and this this
process of inquiry has really given me a beautiful gift and if you are feeling a
bit unsettled or constantly find yourself agitated by troubling thoughts I
really encourage you to look into Byron Katie's work and see if it resonates
and give it a try for yourself. So yeah just a short little episode today I
wanted to jump back into sharing on my podcast and thank you so much for
listening. Let's get into a short breathing practice for today. Find a
comfortable position if you can at the moment. If not you can simply pause and
come back to this later. Close your eyes and start to tune into your breath.
Notice the inhale. Notice the inhale as it fills your lungs and your belly and
let it go. And perhaps as you take your next inhale you can visualize breathing
in love breathing in the abundance of love that surrounds you all day every day.
We can even imagine the abundance of air around us as love. What a loving and
benevolent world that we live in where our needs are taken care of without
having you without even having to think twice about it. So breathe in that love.
Take it into your entire body, being, spirit, mind, soul and let it go.
And knowing that as we breathe in the love and we let it go through the breath
we can trust that that love always returns to us without having to grasp so
desperately. Take a deep breath in and let it go.
Breathe in love.
Exhale love.
Breathe in love. And exhale love.
Feel free to continue this practice for the next several moments allowing love
to freely flow in through your breath and flow out through your breath. Thank you
so much for practicing with me.