"Attaining pleasure is largely a matter of subtraction."
This brought to mind the satisfied feeling that arose after enlisting my friend Mary to help organize my closet. We gave away or threw away old clothes or clothes that didn't make me feel good. The next morning, even though there was less in my closet, I felt pleasure.
Later on Thursday, while continuing to mull the merits of subtraction, I listened to Daily Dharma Gathering speaker, Nick Kranz.**
His topic: "Chaos & Expansion: Our Pain Threshold Examined."
The idea he presented, as I understood it, was how managing pain by enlarging the area you focus on works. Expand your focus; include more he encouraged.
While falling asleep that night, I experienced "an itch that hurt" on my left big toe. I scratched offending toe, first on the on the top of it and then on the bottom. Nothing changed, it still itched and hurt.
Remembering Kranz's suggestion, I stopped focusing just on the left big toe and focused instead on all my toes, then on my whole foot, then my entire leg, finally my body. Then imagining my body cradled in a rocking boat, I fell asleep.
Thursday was a day of subtracting and expanding. Each direction needs further exploration. Which direction do you move towards naturally?
Please let me/us know by replying to this email or going to www.nickymendenhall.blogspot.com
*http://theancientwisdomproject.com/
**http://mindfulinthemidst.com
Photograph received in Portland, OR., illustrating how two households merge into one by following the principle of subtraction. Peregrine, (the cat) focuses on safety while hiding under the red covered table.
Hey, Nicky-
ReplyDeleteYes, I recognize that enlarging the focus exercise. I learned it through Les Fehmi's Open Focus program. Just listened to a podcast of him working with a woman with neuropathy. Her feet had hurt her for many years after an operation further up her leg.
She had been working with Fehmi's Open Focus tapes for dissolving pain on her own for some time and could get her pain to go away, but it kept coming back. Going through the process with Les she discovered that underneath the pain was tension. She'd never noticed that before. But Les had her work to dissolve that, too. Afterwards he said he expected the pain would stay away much longer since she'd gotten at the underlying tension.
Very interesting work.
In one of his books Les talks about a psychologist friend of his who got really good at Open Focus. This friend went to a sweat lodge run by a N/A medicine man and his apprentice. At the end of the lodge the medicine man took a hot rock out of the pit with his bare hands and leisurely passed it from his right hand to his left and back again several times. Then he handed it to the psychologist who was actually able to do the same using his Open Focus training.
When the psychologist handed the rock back to the medicine man, the medicine man handed it to his assistant, but apparently the fellow couldn't handle it and just put it back in the pit as fast as he could.
Every time I think of that story I am inspired to learn this process more deeply.
Thank you so much for your comment Linda. The Open Focus technique is fascinating to me though after listening to several of his programs, I stopped listening because of lack of time. You comment may encourage me to listen again! Oh for enough time to do everything I want to. The process you describe certainly deserves consideration!
DeleteThank you again,
Nicky