It’s usually pretty easy to find temporary relief. We all know lots of strategies: distracting ourselves from the stressful thoughts, doing something pleasurable, conscious breathing, going for a walk in nature, listen to music, and so on.
And it is temporary. The underlying beliefs (velcro, identifications) creating the stress is still there, waiting to be triggered again.
So why not be more thorough about it? The main reason why we are not more thorough is that most of us don’t know how.
And when we do know how, we may still hesitate. We may not trust that we can find thorough relief. We may be afraid of how to live without our old (painful) patterns. We may sidetrack ourselves by doing something that’s more pleasurable in the short term, and with thoughts we can do the more thorough work in the future. In short, there is a lack of readiness.
With experience and clarity, we will more and more often chose the more thorough approach. We see more clearly and feel more strongly that it’s the most kind thing to do. After a while, it’s more often a no-brainer.
What are some of these more thorough approaches? For me right now, they are different forms of inquiry (The Work, Living Inquiries), natural rest, and therapeutic tremoring. There are of course many more.
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Initial notes…..
- temporary relief – relaxation, distraction, shifting attention, anything that helps us feel good
- thorough relief – seeing through, ongoing process