The Four Questions

 I have circled back several times to the work of Byron Katie. It's such a simple remedy she offers for the thoughts in our heads that often hold us back from experiencing satisfaction with our lives. Although I could see the value in it, my instincts told me to go to other places - more or less, to felt states. It seemed the right place for me since I was acutely aware that I wasn't in touch with my feelings. I printed out a few years ago a list of feelings, trying to get in touch with those states, to identify and be willing to feel them all. I credit yoga and particularly yin yoga with the great results achieved.

To explain, a few times in a typical day I ask myself the question, 'How are you feeling?'. I feel into my body for the answer and accept whatever comes up. For example, my mother is currently in palliative care. She almost passed away last week, but rallied again, and now she is offered her medication but doesn't necessarily take it, and she is offered food but doesn't necessarily eat it. She is made comfortable and left to sleep whenever she wants to. I sit beside her, and sometimes she wakes and we chat, or after a time I quietly leave her be. 

So, I ask myself 'how are you feeling about all this?' I feel that she would say, if she had the mental capacity to sum up her life on what will be her deathbed, 'I have had a great life, filled with love and fun; with dogs and plants and grandchildren. I regret nothing.' So, yes, I feel sad at saying a silent goodbye to her, but I also feel that there is so little life left, I hope that she can soon let go.

I feel some regret for her that even though she is suffering advanced dementia, she knows things. She knows my brother is gone and won't be back. She mumbles about how she can't understand that he is so far away. I feel sorry I can't change this situation for her. I feel aware of my limitations to make life sweet for those I love. I'm aware that she has been inclined to be self-centered and my brother finds that tough. I am aware that I prefer not to focus on the flaws and instead look to see the strengths. She's been remarkably strong, resilient and kind. She's a whole person. She will die as she lived, with an abundance of strengths and weaknesses. She's human.

In this waiting pattern, the never-ending journeys up and down the highway, the understanding I have that I must begin to think ahead to a funeral service, I call on patience and sit in that space of being in between - alive and noting moments of life more intensely. My mother is dying, her dog almost died at the same moment she did last week, and there is a poignancy to the details of a day. Is it the last time I bring in the dog to visit my mother? Is it the last time we exchange a smile? 

I feel particularly dismayed about the Bondi shootings, a place I have gone with my grandson, my son, my husband. How quickly life is expunged with a knife wielding person in the crowd. Our sense of safety as Australians is currently shattered. I acknowledge the sadness. The trick is to acknowledge it all, in order to allow it to move into something else.

This whole journal, at its core, has been about expressing a part of me that is not fully expressed, and can't be fully expressed in my life.  I have experienced a lot of emotions around this - frustration, sadness, anger, disappointment; maybe even some relief that I am being saved from myself. That's a thought that has sat there for decades. I know that if left to my own devices I would slide down the slippery slope of submission, further than it may be healthy to go. I strongly believe that we have a variety of selves inside us. So, there's the part that wants to glide, to not think, and there's the part that loves to think, to research, to ponder, to discuss, and to learn. It just could be that that part needs more expression, not less. I am open to inquiry, to the mystery; the unknown. 

Okay, so here's the thought on which to do The Work as devised by Byron Katie.

'My life is not complete because I cannot wholly express my submissive side.'

Q. 1 Is it true. 

Yes, I believe that to be true.

Q.2 Can you absolutely know it's true?

No. I can't absolutely know it's true. I may not like wholly expressing my submission. Maybe it would be giving up too much of other parts of myself. Maybe I can find completion in some other way. Maybe my life is already complete.

Q. 3 How do you react - what happens - when you believe that thought?

I feel self-pity. I feel stymied. I feel frustrated that I can't get cooperation. I feel closed down and sad.

Q. 4 Who would you be without that thought?

I would be free of unfulfilled expectation. I would be free of 'shoulds'. I would be open, and open to new possibilities. I would be healed. 

Turn the statement around...

My life is complete even though I cannot fully express my submissive side.

I can fully express my submissive side.

My life is complete because I can wholly express my submissive side.

For Byron Katie, the task is to get to the statement, 'I have everything I need here right now.'

Is it possible that making too much of this part of us - and it is just a part - be that submissive or dominant - is actually hiding from clear view...contentedness??